Yes, It's Been a While

Wow. Who knows if anyone's going to read this since I haven't written in so long? (Well, I've actually thought about sending out an email to everyone to let them know this way what's going on, so if you're one of those people, disregard the first portion of this.) Where to even begin? School.

The school year has been great so far. I'm teaching biology, chemistry, and a course called faith and discipleship. (This is as opposed to the apologetics course I taught last year as my Bible class.) It's been wonderful for the entire high school department to NOT be new! Last year there was only one returning teacher, and the rest of us were new. (And he didn't even have a full year that year before.) So things have run much more smoothly. Our administrators also have a year under their belts, which has really helped with the way the school functions not just in the large things but in the small things as well. I feel like we're much "tighter" this year, which is great because it's something that is definitely needed in education.

I'm enjoying chemistry and biology so far. We got a number of items to equip our lab, but we haven't yet gotten the chemicals yet, so we can't run "real" labs until we get those. Trying to ship these is one big nightmare apparently, and we don't yet know how it's going to be resolved. I don't feel as much like I'm just scraping by with my understanding; this is a great feeling, because physics was really hard for me last year. Strangely enough, though, I feel like I've been working more this year than last year. I've had to put some more time into certain things, but maybe this is good because it means I'm trying to be a better teacher and do things that will work for a wide variety of kids. I've been tired a lot, but in a satisfying way.

I'm also helping to teach publications. Right now, my main responsibilities involve newspaper, but next semester is going to involve yearbook, which I (quite honsetly) have no clue how to do. But this is what you do at a small, Christian school; you jump in without totally realizing what you're getting yourself into, and you figure it out. Challenging, but good. And while I miss teachign apologetics because I like the philisophical, logical exploration of Christianity, I like teaching faith and discipleship as well. It's a little less academic, and I can do some neat things with my kids. For example, they all have to have a mentor that they meet with once every few weeks and talk about specific questions. It gives the girls a woman in their lives of faith who they can talk about things with. It's pretty cool, and I hope they learn a lot.

Nicaragua is still Nicaragua, but ever since my parents were here and I saw how they handled the worst side of Nicaragua (the robbery), I've experienced a lot more patience, and this is something, as hackneyed as it may sound, that only God could give. I would get so upset about the drivers and the policemen and the systems that don't work and tell you 14 different things. And now, while it's still hard sometimes, it doesn't get inside of me in a way that eats me up. I'm sure that I will cycle through that again like everyone does, but right now I'm enjoying being able to let it go. But the rainy season is here again after a brief pause, and it's rained quite a bit in the last five days. When it rains hard, streets flood immediately and trash is left all over the place from where it washed out of drains. It happens every year - flooding because of trash - but people still continue to throw the majority of their trash out the window and onto the ground. Today walking to school there was a busted pipe of some sort, which created a two foot wide stream along the side of the road on my way to work. If you know me, I'm not exactly a jumper, so finding a place where I could cross was a challenge, and there was no way I was setting foot into the water, which probably wasn't so much water as a bunch of other stuff I don't want to think about. I'm so happy we have Mr. The Beast; if we didn't, getting around would be really, really hard. There is a major energy crisis yet again, although this one is pretty extreme right now. We're hoping things have been partially fixed, but last week we were without power for eight hours a day. (And even though they publish a schedule, they alwasy change it, making planning a very difficult thing.) We had power all day Monday - WOO HOO - but yesterday it went out around 800 and didn't come back on until after midnight. Our bedroom does not have a window that faces out to air or a breeze of any kind, so sleeping without a fan is really hard most nights. But that's a developing country. I find myself asking sometimes how it's going to feel to live in the states again one day and realize that it's been an entire week with having power AND water. What a thought. It's so bad that we're having to make allowances for kids not showing up in dress code, because a lot of places simply water to do laundry. And this is in the nice areas.

Speaking of the states, no, we still don't know what to do about staying or going. We go back and forth a lot about it, and we're praying a lot about it. At the latest, I think we'll probably know by December. You know, sometimes it can be fairly easy to figure out God's will: "Should I slap my students across the back of their heads with my hand, or should I not? hmmmm" But at other times, how do we discern God's will between two things that equally look good and pleasing to God? How do we know when doors are opening for opportunities or doors are open that we're not suppsoed to walk through? I really don't know yet. Jason and I dialogue about this a lot. We've committed to two years, but how do we know when that is supposed to be more?

ANyway, that's my life right now. And I read a lot and play some tennis, I've started playing ultimate frisbee some Sundays now, and we're playing a ton of Settlers of Cattan. I'm looking forward to being able to see people again in December. I miss you all!