We serve an awesome God!!

My Fourth Grade Class :)

Its been a really long time since I last updated my blog!! So much has been happening that it gets really hard at times to just stop and write about my experiences and thoughts. 4th week of school has come so quickly! This has been crazy.

Teaching is going as good as it could be. With the help of God and of my co-workers I think I am getting the hang of teaching a little bit better. My kids are quite the interesting bunch. They come from a variety of homes and their attitudes and personalities are very different from each other. Need less to say they all have their unique personalities which is great. The past couple of weeks have been rough and exciting.

The second week into school I started to get phone calls from parents saying that I was leaving too much homework. Funny part is that the homework consisted of me assigning 5 problems out of our math book. That was it. Then I got a phone call from a parent saying that someone stole her daughters sharpener therefore I needed to go through every kids backpack to find this sharpener which I didn't end up doing that so, then the mother decided to come to school the next day to talk to me. Our director talked to her and then this led to the director coming to my classroom and digging through every ones back pack. In the end one of my girls did steal the sharpener and she got silent detention. Then after school one of my girls that same day decided to drop the F bomb and cues the girl who stole her sharpener out which meant now 2 of my girls were in silent detention. So it was a good 2nd week. Note to self don't buy your kids expensive sharpeners for school! :)

After all the fun stuff that happened the second week and after talking about forgiveness the kids have had a little change of attitude on things. I am not saying that they are angels at this moment but they were able to keep their cards on green for 3 days which means that I will be getting a soccer ball for the entire class. It has been really exciting to see the kids take baby steps to behaving and respecting one another.

One of the greatest things that has happened since I got here is the fact that the ministry that I worked with in Indiana is also down here in Dominican Republic. Its called YoungLife I was introduced to this ministry my Senior year of high school in Grand Rapids, MI and fell in love with it. One of the YoungLife camps is actually only 10 min away from my house and Younglife started just last year at the school that I am teaching at so this past Tuesday I was able to participate and talk with High schoolers from my school and able to just hang out and have fun. This coming tuesday I will be helping with the middle school group called WyldLife and will be doing the music for me. I will be playing guitar and leading them in a time of singing songs a long with their leaders. I am super excited to be able to play the guitar in a setting like this! I taught myself how to play a little over a year ago and have really enjoyed playing for our chapels at school and now will be helping out with Wyldlife as well!! There is a lot more that I would like to write about but I will save some for later this week!!

Thanks so much guys for the prayers and support!! The ministry and work that is happening here in Dominican Republic would not be possible without your prayers and your support!!

Love you guys!!