Friday, March 16, 2012

March Madness

Hey everyone. Just wanted to give you a quick update on everything I mentioned in my last post.

The weather has finally improved, thank goodness! There's still been plenty of rain and cooler days, but I think we're finally going to start seeing some sun and warmer weather. It probably doesn't sound like too big of a deal, but the bad weather was really starting to wear on me!

All of the opportunities we had to talk about the Father went pretty well over the last few weeks. Peggy was reading some from the book of Romans, so we talked about that. She continues to seem very interested in the Book.

I was also able to meet with two of my former students who became sisters last year. They're seniors, so they're REALLY busy getting ready for the University Entrance Exam. I've mentioned it before, but there's a ton of pressure on students for this exam. It is basically the ONLY thing that colleges consider when accepting students. The best student in a school could bomb it, and his previous three years of success wouldn't matter.

The extra class that I mentioned in my last post has been going well. We finished the Book lessons last week. Last week we talked a lot about the life of JC. I talked about his birth, Nathan his life, and Kirk his death and resurrection. We also taught them a few famous chrch songs. It was cool to see all the students closely watching Nathan and Kirk while they were sharing. There's a lot of misconceptions about C-ianity here, and I hope we cleared up some things with these students.

Lastly, I hope everyone's rooting on IU in the NCAA Tourney! Have a good weekend!

Philippians 4:6-7

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Back to the grind

Hey everyone! Once again, sorry for the long time between updates!

Our second semester started about three and a half weeks ago, and it'll probably be my busiest semester ever here, but mostly for good reasons. Besides my normal set of 13 classes, our group is teaching two selective classes. Once a week from 4-5pm, our students can take an elective class (basically, a more relaxing class that doesn't stress them out like most of their classes!). Our boss Peggy asked the foreign teachers to turn in some proposals of classes we'd be interested in teaching. We turned in an American cooking class and a "Book" class. The cooking class was accepted, and now there's about 70 Senior One students learning how to make western dishes. Mandi and Rebecca are heading that up. I have zero cooking ability, but I try to help them every week with crowd control. It's crazy, but a lot of fun.

Our "Book" class was sort of accepted. They said we needed to change the name of the class to American Culture. Also, we could teach some on that subject, but we needed to talk about other areas as well. It was a little annoying because teaching about American culture is a big part of our regular classes anyways! However, it will still be fun to go into more depth with students who really want to be there. Last week, we had students act out famous Old Testament stories and this week we'll talk about JC and teach them some famous C songs. You can be thinking of students in this class as well as what we say to them.

Besides that, I am also going to try to meet with Peggy on a weekly basis to talk about the Book. Many of our teachers over the years have given her books to read and talked with her. She's very interested in this subject, and she said she'd like to meet with us to discuss it more. I'm excited about it!

My first week returning to teach was pretty fun as well. This year, I am teaching many of Mandi's old students. We knew that our relationship would get out sooner or later around the school, so we just decided to tell them right off the bat. Most of my students (especially those that know Mandi) went crazy when I told them. Quite a few yells and claps!

This semester, I've also joined a small group with Kirk, Mandi, and some other people from our fellowship. I'm looking forward to getting to know them better over the next few months.

Lastly, the weather has been pretty crappy since I've returned from my Spring Festival trips. I think we've only had about 4 or 5 sunny days over the past month. This winter hasn't been too cold, but extremely long. I'm ready for the 40-50 degree (inside and out) days to end! I hate being cold all the time!

Sorry for such a short update with no pictures, but I'll try to do better next time!

Ephesians 6:18