Pugilistic Pupils

At some point Wednesday afternoon, I was beginning to think of careers other than teaching that interested me. I felt like Sonny Liston in that iconic photograph with Muhammad Ali. I was an enthusiastic teacher ready to take on the world but in the opening round of my fight I had been humiliated. The students were testing my patience and I had let them get to me. I was morphing into a negative teacher that had no control of the classroom. This transformation amazed me because I could see and hear myself growing more frustrated but I was helpless in trying to stop it. The end of the school day couldn't have come any faster.

I sat at home that night just reflecting on everything that went wrong during that day. I was determined to not let these students get under my skin. I prayed for a positive attitude knowing that my teaching career was destined to failure if I allowed negativity to overtake me. Thankfully, my frustrations started to peel away as the evening passed. By the time I was ready for bed, I was excited to get back into the ring.

With renewed energy and a positive attitude, I welcomed the students into my classroom. As I went through that day, I seemed to have an extra measure of patience that had been given to me. My whole outlook towards the students had even changed. No longer were they imps trying to torment me, they were children desperately in need of someone to help them. Returning to my classroom at the end of the day, I found myself wearing this goofy grin on my face that simply said, "Thank you God."

Kids Say the Darndest Things!

Alright, I have what I think is a funny little story to share with you. I know that I should probably share my 5th grade stories with you but when I saw this 1st grade story I just had to share it with you. I was cracking up. So here it goes.

Last night, Jon decided to come up with a really easy fill-in-the-blank little worksheet for his 1st graders to help them with their Bible verse for the week. We worked together to come up with the best and most easy little worksheet. The verse was this...(Psalm 119:11 "I have hidden your word in my heart so that I will not sin against you.") His fill-in-the-blank worksheet looked like this...(Psalm 119:11 "I have _________ your ______ in my ______ so that I will not _____ against ________.") Easy right? Well, this evening when Jon took the papers out to grade he started laughing. I asked him what he was laughing about and he said that the Bible fill-in-the-blank worksheet didn't go so well today. He overestimated the abilities of these 1st graders. We are both still getting use to the abilities of our grade levels.

Well, Jon handed out the worksheet to the students and told them the verse, told them exactly what to write in the blanks, and pointed them to the place on the board to see the answers as well. Well.....this is what, after much hard work, one of the little first graders Bible verse came out to be. Psalm 119:11 "I have love your hidden in my uno so that I will not he against word." Boy am I looking forward to what this kid writes on his Bible verse on Friday. Let's just hope that his parents do a little bit of studying with him.

Pictures From Afar

A picture is worth a thousand words. I don't have a picture for this story so a thousand words will have to do.

It was Monday morning and the trash was ready to be taken out. The responsibility for that job has been assigned to me ever since Becki took one glance at the apartment's dumpster. I decided that I would just bring the trash with me as I left for school and drop it off at the dumpster. I carefully walked towards the dumpster with its rotting food and dirty diapers that had not made it inside. Several feet away from the dumpster I took one last breath before I made it any closer. Not wanting to get my whole hand dirty, I grabbed the gate to the dumpster gingerly between my forefinger and my thumb. It caught on something so I rattled the latch back and forth. I finally forced open the gate. Immediately, I jumped back as an enormous rat ran out of the garbage. I quickly threw my trash into the dumpster and tried to close the gate. While I was trying to shut the door, another rat jumped from the other side and ran across the pavement. I had had enough of these rats so I left the door open and briskly walked to the end of our street so we could get back on our way to school. As I walked away I doused my hands in hand sanitizer solution sickened by all the trash and the rodents. With that episode still fresh in my mind, I waited at the corner for our bus to pick us up. As we waited, an elderly man came slowly riding by on his bicycle. He turned onto our street and came to a stop in front of the dumpster. Getting off his bike, he opened the gate and walked straight into the garbage. Every once in a while I would see his arm poke out with a glass beer bottle placing it in the basket on the front of his bicycle. It's like they say, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

First Day of School

Well, we have officially finished the first day of what some people would call the worst year of teaching--our first year. I think Jon and I would both agree that it was all just one big blur. Jon was surprised that he thought he seemed a little more strict than he thought he would be and I thought it seemed that I was a little more easy than I thought I would be. Who knows though? I wish that I could just call today's first day of school a practice run and try it all over again tomorrow, but I can't get another first day of school back until next school year. It's not that it was a bad day (far from that). It's just that I feel I could have done a little better job had I had a little more practice. I guess I will get that practice the longer I teach. All in all though, I felt that today was a pretty successful day. Some things went better than expected, but some didn't go as well. I felt pretty scatter-brained all day. (Sorry my writing isn't as eloquent as Jon's.) Jon said that one of his students cried at the sight of seeing that she would be having a male teacher. She actually ended up getting switched to the other "female" teacher. I had a student notice my many hand habits and ended up asking me if I was nervous or something. That really took me by surprise. I didn't think that I was acting nervous, but maybe I was. Hopefully she was the only one who noticed it. I just can't believe that I am sitting here tell you all about my first day of teaching. I truly thought that it would never come. I have been dreaming about this day since kindergarten. And three days I didn't even think that it was possible for me to pull this day off. I was having quite an emotional breakdown...feeling that I didn't have enough time to get everything done. There was just so much to do and not even close to enough time for me to get it done. I couldn't figure out what was important for me to do and what wasn't important. I finally just came begging to God to help me know what needed to be done to help me get through the first day of school. Yesterday, when I realized that there was nothing more for me to do, I realized that it was only by the help of God that I felt prepared for today. More evidence that nothing can be accomplished without the help of our Lord Jesus Christ. I guess that I will be taking it at a day by day basis and praying daily for God to get me through each day.

Over My Head

Our days have been filled with meetings both this week and last. There has been time the last few days for us to work in our classrooms. We were finally able to see and work in our classrooms on Friday. As I stepped in my classroom that afternoon, I was hit with this overwhelming feeling of fear and awe. Fear that I wouldn't be a good teacher and awe that it was my responsibility to teach a whole group of children how to read, write, and to do arithmetic. I had to get to work on my room but I wasn't sure where to begin. I started at the only place that seemed logical to me, music to put me at ease. I looked for any CD in the classroom that I could play on the the class CD player. The only one I found was WOW 30 which took me back to the times when I would know all the songs on those CD's. I pressed play on the CD player.

Two hours later, still sitting at my desk, I was still wallowing in that mixture of fear and awe. Almost nothing had been accomplished in that time either. Then out of nowhere I heard the CD still playing. It was playing a song where the singer was telling us that he was in over his head. I could relate to that so I continued to listen. There was something different about this song though. The singer was happy that he was in over his head because at this same time, he had found rest and peace in God.

Two weeks ago this evening Becki and I arrived in Santiago. During those two weeks, it seems that we have been constantly in over our heads. Whether it was in taxis, downtown grocery stores, crowded streets, or cluttered classrooms we continue to feel overwhelmed. All of these experiences have shaken us to some extent and made us more aware of how God is at work in each of these events. I'm beginning to agree with that singer, maybe being in over our heads isn't such a bad thing.

Back on the Horse

After last Tuesday's taxi ride, we kept a low profile on the taxi scene. I even avoided looking at the taxi drivers at the end of our street in the following days. I knew that the driver from our eventful trip was sitting there and I saw him as a harsh reminder of my inability to navigate this city with my limited Spanish. This impasse between myself and the taxis begin to fade by Friday. We ended up meeting one of the taxi drivers and spoke to him for a while (he could speak a little English). After that, the entire group of taxi drivers warmed up to us. They began to wave and say hi to us whenever we passed. Seeing there friendliness, I figured that they deserved another chance. We felt that we were ready once again to test that water. Armed with the same notecard of necessary phrases we ventured out into the streets Santiago. The difference this time was night and day. The driver understood me and even laughed at my feeble attempt at a joke. We are already looking at what our next baby step could be.

Here is a picture of us at the premiere country club in Santiago. You can see the city in the background. We met the parent association from the school but still found time to get a picture in. The second picture shows all the new teachers at the school. The last picture is us in front of a beautiful fountain at the country club.

Baby Steps

Becki and I have been slowly dipping our toes into the Dominican culture day by day. Over this first week, we have walked through our neighborhood, held brief conversations with strangers, and tasted some Dominican food. Today we felt like we were ready to take the next big step: a taxi ride, just the two of us and our limited Spanish vocabulary with the driver. I had all the necessary phrases written down on a notecard, a Spanish/English dictionary, and a map of the city to accompany me on this adventure. It started out well, agreeing to a price with the driver and choosing the location. We decided to visit a nice store we had been to already to look for a few items. I told the driver I would need change since I only had large bills and I thought he understood, so we set off. We slowly weaved our way through the city towards the center of town. As we got closer, the streets began to narrow and the pedestrians multiplied. I know little of the geography of Santiago but I knew for sure that wherever we were going was not the place I had in mind. He then jerked the car over to the side of the road in front of three men holding large wads of cash, both Dominican pesos and US dollars. I told them that all I needed was smaller bills for my large bill. They kept holding out $100 US bills and I knew there was a misunderstanding. Finally a man who spoke very little English intervened and gave me my small bills. I took a sigh of relief to get that completed when the car stopped once again. The driver told us our stop had come, now we could get out. I looked at the building incredulously because we had never been to this store or to this side of town. Sure enough, it was the same store but they apparently have two locations, one in the heart of the city and one in the "suburbs". Unsure of where we were and uncomfortable from the mass of people packed in this small store, we quickly got our necessary supplies and headed for the door. Wondering if we would have to walk all the way back home we found another taxi driver. He wasn't too sure of where we lived but we were just anxious to get out of our current situation so we drove off. He finally delivered us from the heart of the city and I was able to throw in a few lefts and rights to lead him to our apartment. With the door locked behind us and our safe apartment before us, we agreed that it might be awhile before we do that again, maybe even until tomorrow.

One of my goals in coming here was to learn Spanish. Becki was not as concerned with learning the language since she assumed that she could rely on me to do the speaking for us. She should have have known that she wouldn't want to rely on anyone else to do her talking. Since our arrival last week, her desire to learn Spanish has increased greatly. Combining our desire to learn the language and our training as elementary school teachers, we have plastered our apartment with 3x5 notecards labeling all sorts of items from the door to our carrots. Maybe we are unable to separate life from work with the outcome being an apartment that looks like a classroom.

We also went to our first Spanish speaking church service this morning. We enjoyed singing along with the songs. They sang Spanish versions of "Shine, Jesus, Shine" and "Indescribable" so we were able to sing along since we knew the tune. They also had the words on the overhead so we could figure out the meaning of many of the words. My bilingual Bible also helped us follow along in the sermon. From the verses, we knew that the sermon was on the topic of sin. Whenever the pastor spoke apart from the Bible, we were lost. The bright side is that our understanding of these sermons can only grow. I must say that the pastor of the church was an extremely nice man. I was truly impressed with him.