The Solid Rock Cafe

Well, I can officially say that the 5th graders at Santiago Christian School have successfully performed another musical under the direction of Mrs. Rebekah Fleetwood and my amazing coworker, Miss Emily Millard. It was a crazy amount of work for everyone involved, but it was so rewarding. The students truly enjoyed it and I am sure that they will never forget the wonderful songs and the message that was taught through the songs. The parents were fully impressed and thrilled at all the hard work that the students did. It was said to have been even better than last year, which I just might have to agree. I am sure that if we were to stay longer, the 5th grade musical would just get better and better. As you can tell from the title of this blog, the name of this musical was "The Solid Rock Cafe." It was about building your life on Jesus and having a life focused on Him. It had such a great message and I really hope that it goes with these 40 fifth grade blessings for the rest of their lives. I have attached two pictures. The first one is from the night of the performance while they are performing one of the musical numbers. The second one is a picture of the beautiful flowers and adorable homemade sign that the students gave me. I will really miss these kids. They have been a real blessing and joy to my life.

Widow's Peaks

Becki has always made fun of my hairline telling me that it is receding. I always tell her that something can't be receding if it was never there. I clarify her criticism reminding her that it is a widow's peak hairline, not a receding hairline.

During a Spelling Test today, a student drew a rather detailed picture of me on the back of his test. It had all of the details: the striped shirt that I was wearing, ears, mouth, eyes, eyebrows, my name, and even the widow's peak.

February Festivities and March Madness Memories

First of all, I am only writing this blog because my tyrant of a husband told me I had to. We haven't written in a long time because quite frankly we have been too busy catching up on our reading, watching too much TV, and working a little bit on the side. So here it goes. I am going to make this blog be in two parts. First I will tell you about what we did since the last time we wrote and then I will tell you what we are looking forward to in the next month.

During the month of February we had a lot of fabulous fun things happen. Our life was frantic and fun-filled during February. First of all, we made a grand appearance at two first grade birthday parties, both of which we were welcomed with great enthusiasm as 20 or more little 1st grade eyes came running toward us. Both were quite eventful and we were definitely appreciative of the free meals provided. Second, was the annual Santiago Christian School "Family Day" put on by the Parents Association. It was quite an event and we were shocked by the turnout. There were games, inflatable games, and bucking bull, a haunted house, and much more. It was a big "to do" but also a lot of fun. Next, was of course Valentine's Day. You have not had a Valentine's Day until you have had it in the Dominican Republic. Between Jon and I, we received enough candy to last us a month (if we eat about 5 pieces each a night). You wouldn't believe some of the things that were brought in and given to us and the other students. These are the times that it is great being a teacher, well that is if you aren't a teacher trying to lose a few pounds. Last and best of all, was the amazing Independence Day program put on by the Spanish department. Dominican Independence Day is February 27 and so to celebrate the students worked very hard to put together a program which celebrated the history of the island and their independence. It was an amazing program! They all did a fabulous job. Well, I think that is about all for the month of February. So I will move on to the next part of my blog.

As we come upon our last 3 1/2 months in the country that we currently call home, we have many things to look forward to. First of all, we will be visited by two groups of visitors, both of which we are anxiously awaiting. The first visit will be by Jon's parents and his sister and her fiance from France. We are going to have so much fun and we are so excited about that, but the thing we are most excited about is that we get to take off 3 days of school when they come. The next group of visitors will arrive 6 days later and will be my mom and dad. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to have all six of these people come here. It is almost too much excitement for me to hold in. I just think that I might burst if it doesn't come soon. Thankfully, God has taught me a lot about patience in the past 2 years here so I think that I can wait. The next thing that I have to look forward to in the next 3 months is the annual 5th grade musical. It is going to be amazing this year and I think we just might outdo ourselves this year. Emily (the other 5th grade teacher) and I make an amazing team and together, with a "little" help from our students, we are going to give the best 5th grade musical in Santiago Christian School history.

And the last, most exciting thing that we have to look forward to is COMING HOME! We are so excited to come home. At first we were still a little nervous and not completely confident in our decision to come home, but God has settled our hearts and confirmed out decision to come home in many amazing ways. All we need is two jobs and we will be set to go. So please pray for that. But whether we have a job or not we will be "Back Home Again in Indiana" soon and we are just absolutely pumped about it.

Prayer and B.F. Skinner

I learned so many different names and theories in Educational Psychology that it is difficult to keep them all straight. But I did remember one, B.F. Skinner. I think it was due to his quote that has always stayed in my mind: Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything. I was thinking of these things the past week because I have realized I succumb to many of Skinner's Behaviorist thoughts without knowing it. I wrongly assume that I am in control of my student's behaviors. I see a student misbehaving and rack my brain thinking of what action I can take so that the student has no choice but to start following my directions and acting in an appropriate behavior. I go on somewhat of a power trip thinking that I can somehow control my student's behaviors through the different reinforcements I give them. But sometimes, like last week, there is a student that in spite of my best efforts, still chooses to disobey. I had tried many things and they had all failed. So without giving it much thought, I mentioned this student as a prayer request to Becki. We prayed for the student that morning and I went on with my day. And unbelievably, it was one of the best days that this student has had this year. I don't expect this student to be a model student for the remainder of the year, but I was reminded that it is not my innovative disciplining strategies that mold students. Rather, it is God who works in the lives of these students and I have been given the opportunity to be one of the tools that God uses to help educate these children.

Decisions! Decisions!

Well, I know it has been a very long time since we have written and you are all probably very mad at us for not doing so, but today calls for a long awaited blog entry and decision. So here it goes!

If you remember, we asked a long time ago for you to pray for us as we made our decision for whether we should stay in the DR another year or go back to the United States. And we have been praying and pondering over this decision very hard over the past year. It is probably one of the biggest decisions we have ever had to make and we have definitely not taken it lightly.

Well, today was the day that we had to inform our school of our intentions for the next year and until Sunday we still had absolutely no clue what to do. But on Sunday we sat down and made our decision. So after all this prayer and discussion we write this blog to tell you about our decision for next year. With great excitement for what is to come and sadness for what we will be missing we write to you to tell you that.......

We are coming back home to our dear dear Indiana in the wonderful United States of America.

So, we thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts over the past year while we made our decision. It was a hard one.