A Day at Training

Here is a typical day's schedule while I am at training:

Annie, me, Sharon, & Sarah all wore coordinating clothes.

6:00-6:30ish get up and get ready

6:30-7:00 make phone calls, have quiet time

7:00-7:45 breakfast

8:00-8:50 Discovery Group/Worship/Devotions

9:00-10:20 Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) class

10:30-12:00 Country or Region specific TEFL class

12:00-1:00 lunch

1:30-3:30 life overseas training - topic varies by day

3:45-5:30 Practicum Prep - see description below

5:30-6:15 dinner

6:15-7:00 drive to Practicum site

7:00-8:30 teaching ESL classes

8:30-9:15 drive back to campus

9:15-9:45 de-brief the day with same group from the morning

9:45-10:15 get ready for bed!

We do get short breaks after nearly every session, but it's only 10 or 15 minutes. However, the material is exceptional and I might even say it's better than my "regular" teacher workshops. They have a different way of saying things that is going to help me be an exceptional teacher (I hope) and I can't imagine how much better I will be when I get back to the states.

Practicum Prep

Erin & I wore matching clothes on accident!

We are actually teaching ESL classes this month. ESI has partnered with local churches to provide free English classes to the communities. And we are providing the teaching! Scary, but extremely beneficial. Most of the people here have never been teachers before, so they are getting their feet wet, and those of us that were are getting a chance to re-program our "teacher-brains" to what appears to be a better lesson planning strategy (at least for teaching people to speak English...I'll evaluate it more after I've taught for a few months.) Since I have experience, I got the wonderful privilege of going first on the first night. Unfortunately, the classes are very small, and no one came to mine. But we will do teach almost every other night, so Thursday I did actually have two students. It went pretty well overall, but of course I made a few bloopers. I'm excited about watching my progress over the next 3 weeks.

Prayer Requests for this week:

- for continued excitement

- for plenty of rest

- for my roommate - she should be here this week!

California Breakfast

This is a "You-know-you-are-in-California-when" story.

Sunday morning we had a continental breakfast. I saw some cereal boxes on the table, but no milk, so I made a comment about it. Somebody answered, it's probably for the yogurt. aaaahhhhh....

The cereal boxes turned out to be 3 different varieties of Kashi granola. Who knew there were that many different kinds of granola! I thought all granola was the same kind of granola, but the one I actually ate had strawberries, some other berries, and kiwi! It was actually very good and tasty.  Maybe I'll eat more granola this way :)

Training Begins

Leavin’ on a jet plane...don’t know when I’ll be back again!

me and all my posessions for the next year

Michelle, me, Brance & Wren

Saturday morning I packed up all my things and went to the airport. My parents, my sister’s family, and my best friend’s family came to see me off. Everything had gone so smoothly until we boarded the plane. Everyone was in their seat, the flight attendants had done their thing, then the captain comes on and says that there is no air conditioning and the plane won’t start. So several people chose to deplane and wait inside, but I just stayed in my seat. I did not want to take all my carry-on items off again. It only took about 30 minutes for them to fix it, and another 30 minutes to reboard those who left. So we were off, but about an hour late.

I sat next to two little boys, about 9 and 4. They were travelling with their dad and sister (in the row behind us) to see their grandparents in California. Spencer was so talkative and told me all about California and what I should do while I am here. His brother (William, I think) drew me two pictures with stars and shooting stars. They were so cute and great travel companions.

me, Amy, Guinevere, Floyd

Once we landed, I had planned on getting lunch at the airport. I couldn’t see anything in the waiting area, so I figured there would be something outside by baggage claim…nope. The Burbank airport was very small…a little larger than San Angelo, but not much…and no Chinese restaurant. So I found a Hudson News and got a granola bar and a Butterfinger. I ate the granola bar while waiting for my luggage and was saving the Butterfinger for the trip on the van/shuttle. However, it was so hot (and humid) here that my Butterfinger melted before I could eat it.

I met two other girls going with TeachOverseas at the shuttle stop and we all rode together to William Carey International University. It is very green here and I’ll try to get some pictures posted later this week. We went through Registration and got our room keys and then some nice staff & volunteers helped us get our luggage up the stairs. That’s when we discovered that we did not have air conditioning in the dorm (which really looks more like a 2-story motel.) This is quite an adjustment for me. I’ve never not had A/C. Last night when we went to bed it was 93 degrees in our room. We have a fan and left the windows open and all the doors open and it has cooled off considerably this morning. It is now 77 degrees inside. And very nice outside. We are hoping that it will not be as hot today. I have 2 roommates and there are 4 rooms in our suite. So 12 girls altogether – we all share 2 showers and 2 stalls and 2 sinks. Each room has a small mirror. So far it’s working out ok, but we didn’t have to be anywhere until 8:30 today.

Dad, me, Mom

There are more than 50 people here for training and a few more will come and go at different times during the next 4 weeks. I did find out that I will be leaving the States on August 16th.

This is long now, and it is nearly time for breakfast so I’ll continue my stories about training in upcoming blogs.

Please pray for cooler weather!

Farewell Fiesta

This past weekend began the farewell phase of my preparations.

I said good-bye to my many friends in Ozona this weekend. My Sunday School class hosted a Farewell Fiesta for me at a ranch. All the rain recently has made everything green, the temperature was down (in the high 80s/low 90s) and it almost felt like spring again. It smelled so good out there - all the greenness, wet earth, and a few blooming plants made for a spectacular scent. We had fajitas, chips and dips - guacamole, salsa, 7-layer dip, and a fantastic dessert called sopapilla cheesecake - cheesecake in the middle, sopapilla on the outside. I had a gigantic piece and it was delicious.

Sunday was a comissioning service at church. The ladies of the church all gathered around to pray for me as I take this step of faith and begin to serve the Lord in a new capacity. We also had a potluck lunch. I love potluck lunches! It might be one of my favorite things about small churches. Everyone pitches in a dish and voila! instant feast for 100 (or more). Some of the ladies even made Slovak recipes for the event. One in particular was very good - kind of like a ham & pea salad combination.

I will leave my parents' house tomorrow and make my way to my sister's house, stopping to see a few friends along the way. My flight leaves DFW for California on Saturday morning.

My goal going forward is to update the blog once a week. I will do my best to make it happen, but no promises! Please pray for safe travels this week as I galavant around the state.

Funds Raised!

My funding has been completely raised!

Thanks to everyone who contributed financially, with items for garage sales, or with prayers. It was a very humbling experience, but I have learned to be a gracious receiver. In our American culture, being receivers is much harder than being givers.

Why is this? I think it has to do with the American Dream - where you build everything you have all by yourself, from the ground up. It's easy to become prideful if you did it all. It's harder to be prideful if you have to say that someone helped you. It's impossible to be prideful if God did it for you. I say impossible, but I mean impossible for personal pride. I have pride in my great big God that he did this for me, because I surely didn't raise all these funds on my own. The Lord pricked hearts and put numbers in heads for this to be the success it was. I think this kind of pride is OK. Just like having pride in a friend or relative when they have accomplished or done something great is OK. So long as it doesn't come between you and your relationship with God.

Thank you Lord for teaching me to become a gracious receiver!