It's been a while

Well I just looked, and it’s been quite a while since I’ve updated my blog.  I’m sorry about that; I’ve been kind of busy.  There has been a lot going on and I haven’t been able to keep up with everything very well.  This last week was the beginning of second quarter, which meant that grades were due, most of my collogues had a hard time with it, I had been keeping up with it pretty well, so I didn’t have much trouble with it.

 

As I’ve been able to look back on the last quarter, I’ve seen myself grow a bit.  The following is a list of the things I’ve learned both from teaching and from just being over here in Majuro. 

 

1. Job descriptions are only good as long as you are doing said job, description can change as soon as you are done with that job. 
2. For every student that says that they don’t understand, there is one that doesn’t say anything that really doesn’t understand.
3. All it takes is one funny comment for the whole class to crack up in a serious moment.
4. When a teacher says that they have to wake up early to grade, they are probably telling the truth. 
5. When you want to, you can come up with one thing worse than you just went through.
6. A package from home can make the worst day seem like it was nothing.
7. Expecting a package from home and not getting it can make the best day turn into a bad day.
8. Anything that you want to come faster will arrive about the time you forget about it coming. 
9. Waves look a lot smaller and tame when you are on the beach than when you are in the water. 
10. With God you can come up with a worship talk in less than 5 minutes.
11. You need to have 3 things to look forward to, one in the near future, one a bit further off, and one a long way off.  The challenge is keeping the 3 in balance.
12. The only thing keeping you from spending more time with God is: YOU.
13. The berries are always sweeter on the other side of the mountain, but it has nothing to do with the taste.
14. When you think you have your students figured out they throw you a curve ball that you either have to adjust and hit or strike out on.  
15. One way to help keep students occupied is to throw them curve balls; you’ll find out fast what they know by doing so. 
16. Going to be early and waking up early, might not make you healthy, wealthy, or wise, but it does have other things going for it.
17. If you can’t learn from other people’s mistakes and you can’t learn from your own mistakes, you’ll probably make the mistake again.
18. In a classroom you will have a huge dichotomy, you will have the loud student that gets everything done correctly and you will have the quite student that does the same.
19. Asking yourself what your students would do might be a bit scary, but asking how Jesus would teach something gives immense amounts of insight.
20. God uses quite times to re-teach you lessons that you were to busy to hear the first time. 
21. Sermons don’t always come from a pastor or a pulpit; they can come from where ever God thinks is the right time and place.
22. Alone time is worth its weight in gold.
23. There is a difference between surviving and thriving even though they are only 2 letters different.
24. You are never to busy to pray.
25. And one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn; “This is the Marshall Islands, it doesn’t matter how I would do it in the States, I’m not in the states.”

 

These are just a short sample of the things I’ve learned while I’ve been over here, as time goes by, I’ll continue adding to the list, and see what I have by the time my time is done here.

 

A week ago I was running and I slipped on a little puddle of water and went down.  When it was all said and done, I had a pretty badly scraped knee and a bruise about 8x5in on my left thigh.  It took about 3 days, but I finally got back the ability to move both more than about 6 inches.  Now they are doing much better.  You know how hard it is for things to scab over when they never dry out?   Here nothing dries out, it took 3.5 days for my knee to scab over, it was kind of frustrating, but hey, its life. 

 

You have to chuckle at your students occasionally.  I have one student that asks to pray every other class period.  His prayer is always; “GOD IS GREAT AND GOD IS GOOD, NOW I THANK YOU FOR THIS DAY……..AMEN.”  He nearly screams it at the top of his lungs, not exactly the way I’d like him to pray sometimes, but God is the one who is receiving the prayer not me, and I’m sure he likes it just as good as the prayers I pray. 

 

I’m sorry this has taken so long to get updated.  I’ll try and do a better job at updating it now.  I have been keeping on updating my pictures too.  Check them out too.  Have a great week and weekend.

 

Stephen Baker