I have noticed something very frustrating; it's been a long time since I’ve been able to update my blog. This isn’t for lack of trying to, but the internet connection here isn’t the greatest and it just makes it very hard. I’ve been sending emails to some of the people I have time to do, so I think I’ll just take excerpts from them and post here. I hope all of you are doing well.
So I had just about the coolest experience that I’ve had since I got here. It happened on Friday. Every Friday there is a bake sale for one of the graduating classes. This past week it was the kindergarten class, they have to “pay” for their graduation. I let my class out a bit early so that they could go and buy; mostly it was just sugary stuff so I of course didn’t buy anything. I cam back to the appt. to change after school so that I could go run so errands before Sabbath, when I went back by one of the teachers was like come over here and buy something. I had already eaten lunch, so really wasn’t hungry, but those little kindergartners are so cute, so I was like ok, fine. They had some banana bread so I was like how much is it? They said it was $1.50 so I walked back to the appt., and I grabbed a $10 bill. I had fully intended on just buying one, but they were like if you buy 3 then you get a free drink, I don’t know why I did, I wasn’t thirsty, but I did it, I also said something else that kind of surprised me, I said keep the change, I paid with $10 and my stuff didn’t cost more than $4.50. They were stunned and I walked off. I then started to wonder what I was going to do with 3 loaves of fresh banana bread. I saw one of my fellow teachers that I don’t get along with very well and threw one to him. I then saw 3 of my students sitting in the grass and they didn’t have food, so I went over and I gave them 2 loaves to share. I left feeling really good, I walked back toward my classroom and they stopped me again and said that since I’d paid “so” much they wanted to give me one more loaf. I then told them that I hadn’t bought them to eat, I bought them because it was a good cause, I’d just given all 3 loaves away and if I was given another one I’d do the same thing again. I left them stunned again. It was pretty much the coolest thing I know.
I hope this experience blesses you as much as it blessed me when it happened to me. I know that it was God working through my actions. I didn’t want to buy, I didn’t need to buy, for sure didn’t need to leave them the change, but I did all of that, I can only say it was because of God. I don’t know of any way other than that to describe it.
So we heard someone speak from the Diabetes center here, the statistics were alarming. 35% of those that are 15 have diabetes, and once you get to 35, you have a greater chance of having diabetes than you don’t. It's pretty sad, most all the diabetes here is type 2, so as you know it's preventable, but no one cares. That’s the even sadder thing.
Yesterday I had someone from the accreditation team sit in on one of my classes, it was kind of odd, we were just working on homework, so he sat and watched us work on it, at the end he had a couple questions then he left. This, so far, is the easiest accreditation I’ve been through. They are so laid back it's not even funny, they didn’t even ask to see my lesson plans or my grade book. That is usually SOP, but hey I’m not complaining, if they would have asked, they wouldn’t have found anything to exciting, just that I’m exactly where I should be and everything is up to date and entered.
The above has been kind of an excerpt from what I’ve been doing for the last little bit. Now I’m going to add what I’ve been doing recently. Things have been going really good, I have absolutely no complaints. I was asked by one of my friends back at school if I at all regret coming here, and I have to say no I really don’t. As hard as it is being away from family and friends, I know that God has blessed me far beyond my imagination could ever say.
I was saddened as most of you were by the news that 4 young men died in a car accident. They were all students of PUC. As you know, I don’t attend PUC, but it hits us all that they died. One of the teachers here was good friends with all of them, so she is taking it pretty hard. I looked at the comments that have been left on the PUC website and it was amazing the support that everyone, not just PUC students are giving them. There were students, faculty, and divisions that were all stopping by to give condolences. It was really touching. Even though we are “rival” colleges, it's nice to know that in everyone’s time of need that the other colleges are there to give support.
Well, I should probably wrap this up; I’ll update this when I can. I hope you guys are all doing well, and I really apologize to my loyal readers for not getting this updated any sooner.
