Los Gritos de Estudiantes...

Que bonitos los gritos de los estudiantes para la feria de ciencias!

The most wonderful teaching moment since Christmas was hearing the screams of excited students when I announced which science projects would be going to the school science fair.  Especially the fifth graders were really excited and it warmed my heart so much!  They were so proud of their projects and I am still beating myself up for forgetting my camera today, but I'll get pictures of the actual science fair anyway.

And just in case anyone was curious, no!  They are hardly like the ones in the States, at least as far as I can remember them.  The last one I saw was the one I did in fourth grade :-)

Fruit loops? Jewelry? Lights!

This is what happens when you're in the middle of Science Fair week and just need a little something fun in your life, courtesy of one of the best mom's in the world :-)

 I hope I have this much fun in the middle of exam weeks in med school...

Fresh air

My mom's facebook status today was about being able to have the windows open and fresh air in the house.  I'd forgotten how exciting of a thing that could be when you don't always have your windows open no matter the temperature outside, lol.  There are a lot of things I'm going to miss when I leave...

Not much exciting has happened in the past two weeks, at least not that I can remember.  What is going to be exciting is the Science Fair this coming Friday.  Or maybe a better word would be interesting, since no one seems to no what's going on except the one returning science teacher and we're all just pulling at straws to pull this thing together.  I'm praying that I have plenty of time during the afternoons this week to just be still with God cause I know I'm gonna need it after all of this craziness.  My biggest fear is that when I get to school tomorrow most of my students won't have done anything and I'll have to start holding their hands step by step, which I don't really have time for.  I'm also curious to know if the groups who said they were making electric generators, robots, and earthquake simulators are really going to do it...

Anyway, in my last blog I mentioned that my God-given goal for the next four months here is to cultivate the spiritual discipline of daily meditation and prayer.  I confess to you now, it hasn't been going so well.  The first week was exciting as I felt like God was giving me a new vision and direction to pursue, but this past week was just a little too chaotic.  Not trying to make excuses.  I'm just saying.  And I know that as far as chaos goes, this week will just be worse.  That being said, I was in a bit of a funk the last few days because I felt like I was failing at the one simple task God had actually given me to do.  And in the midst of my prayers struggling with finding my footing again I was reminded in my soul of this simple truth that I want to share with you:

My relationship with God does not work because of my faithfulness to daily quiet times.  It does not work because of my ambition for the gospel of Christ.  Its success does not rest on my ability to manufacture passion for a vision or a ministry.  It does not depend on being liked by people or never hurting anyone else.  And when I let myself think those things, I reveal my own stubbornness and pride.  My relationship with God works because of his faithfulness.  In all of the areas I come up short, he fills in the gaps.  In all of the ways that I am weak, he promises to be strong.  My position with God is not based on my faulty choices, but on his calling on my life.  It is still a mystery to me how the responsibility of man and the sovereignty of God walk side by side in our lives.  But what I do know is that I often get confused about which part is my responsibility and which is God's.  I am stuck in a manner of thinking that says my relationship with God is totally my responsibility.  What a joke that is when I consider that my relationship with him would not exist if he hadn't gone so far as to sacrifice his Son to establish it.  My relationship with God his based on his action, his faithfulness, his grace, his mercy.  Not my own.  And in light of my weak will, that's a comforting thought and a bit of fresh air for a stuffy heart.

It's Official

Oh, where to start?...

The week began with the "abstinence" talk first thing Monday morning, which went surprisingly well.  It took me a LONG time to fall asleep the night before, but I wasn't really nervous by the time the talk came around.  Although I think most of them were probably too intimidated to have said anything to me, one 7th grade girl made this comment, "Miss, you're really brave.  Most adults think that it's wrong, but you actually TOLD them it is wrong."  I laughed, but it lifted my spirits in an unspeakable way to think that she saw me as brave.  Since I got here I've felt anything but brave.  Insufficient, small, weak, lonely, defeated, scared, depending on the hour, but definitely not brave.  Let's just hope God used it to touch someone's heart.

In other news, this week there was a mouse in the teacher room that kept coming in and out of hiding.  The science fair is coming up in two weeks and I'm excited to see the students' projects!  I will NOT miss smashing ants with my finger every time I sit down at my desk.  Today I got to watch Return of the King and cook omelets and cinnamon toast with Francisco.  Tons of fun!  That was after cleaning the house, of course, which was disgusting.  Especially cleaning the screens which we've never done.  One wipe and the towel was black!  I wish I'd taken a picture... Went to dinner with the Brewster's tonight and parked ON TOP of drying coffee beans that were covering the parking lot (be careful buying coffee in Honduras, it might taste slightly of car oil, I don't know).  And finally, we lost our card game to the Brewster's again.  So far the running score for the year, Brewster's: 4  Emily and Ashley: 1.  Saturday nights are just not our lucky night...

Now!  For the most exciting news of the week!  I GOT MY OFFICIAL RETURN DATE APPROVED!  I'll be home 2 days earlier than originally thought: June 15th!  All that's left to do is buy the plane ticket.

For now I've got four months to take advantage of being here and not having the worries of... life hanging over my head, lol.  And actually, my God-given goal for the remaining time is to work on some spiritual discipline.  Could get exciting :-)

P.S.  I just read today's My Utmost devo, check it out, but be very wary of what it says to do... it'll hurt.

Are you ready to be poured out?

3rd Quarter

Tomorrow begins the 3rd quarter of my school year at Maranatha.  What a journey it's been so far :-)  And the first thing I get to do when I get to school tomorrow morning?  Give the 7th-11th graders a short talk on why it is honorable to wait to get involved physically with someone before marriage, oh boy!  I'm partially nervous, partially excited because I know that these kids really need to hear (more than once) some of the things I am gonna say.  My prayer is that there will be at least one or two in the crowd that need to hear it.

Taking a step back.  Last week was exam week and all in all it went well, except for the 20 or so students that failed my classes and the irritated eye I had on Thursday from scratching my cornea while taking out my contacts.  The eye is all better, but the students are still going to fail.  Then on Friday, Emily, Mama Brewster, and I went to Tegucigalpa for a 24 hour women's retreat.  It was especially a retreat for English-speaking, women missionaries serving in Honduras.  I NEVER realized what a huge need there was for a ministry like that one.  Yes I was blessed by it, but there were many more missionary women there that have been on the field for a long time without any sort of support like what this weekend was.  Being a missionary is HARD.  And it never occurred to me how much harder it would be without any sort of place to occasionally retreat to and receive love and encouragement from like-minded women.  It was amazing to see how desperately some of them needed, even for just 24 hours, to sit quietly and pray or talk about their struggles or just nap guilt free.  I almost felt ashamed to be there knowing I only have four and a half months left, compared to some of these women who have been in Honduras for years.

Anyhow, if anyone is interested in starting a ministry for missionary women, let me tell you there is plenty of need for it.

God revealed several things to me while I was there.  My favorite of which was just a simple reminder that I need to delight myself in him.  Through the difficulty of the past several months I have been in survival mode, always asking for strength, guidance, and perseverance.  I'd forgotten how to simply delight in my Lord.  To sit in quiet and let him tell me how much he loves me.  During worship Saturday, I saw these women singing to their God and delighting themselves in him and without realizing it I had been thinking to myself that such delight was not for me.  It was meant for me and it wasn't mine.  But in that moment I realized that just because I was in the midst of difficult circumstances, didn't mean that delight in the Lord couldn't be mine.  Delight with my Lord was mine as long as I chose it, took time for it, and allowed it to come.  In dark places it can be difficult, but it isn't impossible unless you haven't been sitting still long enough to seek it.  This weekend I got to sit still.  And it was wonderful to be renewed and reassured.  The Lord is indeed delighting.

And now it's off to pizza hut to enjoy the second half of the superbowl, go Packers!

Just because it's Wednesday...

We are in the middle of Partial Exam Week II.  After this week we have an 8 week quarter with no vacation days (and the science fair!).  Then a five week quarter with spring break thrown in.  I feel like I'm living in a weird limbo, where I'm just waiting for June to get here cause it'll be time to leave.  Honduran life has become familiar and somewhat comfortable especially since I first arrived, but I don't feel settled knowing I'm leaving again in four months.  So, the temptation is to just let myself mentally and emotionally jump ahead to June instead of hanging out in this strange middle-ground.  But I was talking to the computer teacher today...  He said that he had his students do a project where they wrote a resume for someone they admire.  One of the 7th graders who is failing my class, is absent half the time, and hardly talks in class picked me.  What she wrote I don't know.  Why she chose me, I don't know.  But here's what I heard:  They are still watching you.  Even though I feel like I'm just waiting to go home at times, they are still watching me.  Even though I have less time left than I have already been here, they are still watching me.  It was just the kick in the butt I needed to remember that I can't become complacent now.

Other than that, two quick highlights of the week:
1. Getting called into Counselor Janet's office by the name "nina" (little girl) and then being asked in Spanish to show her how to log on to Facebook, LOL!
2. Getting to tell one of my 7th graders, Orlando, that after failing the first quarter and struggling through the second he passed my class this partial with a 71.  The look of relief on his face: priceless.

God, help me to be a good steward of the time I have left.  Continue molding my heart and sinking the lessons of this experience deep into my heart.  Make me a usable instrument for declaring your gospel to the nations and may it be our one and only passion.