Sunday Mornings

I’d like to start this blog out with a dedication to my friend Andy. He yelled at me, via my mom, saying it has been almost a month and a half since my last update. So this one’s for you buddy, thanks for caring so much, sorry it took me so long and thanks for getting my butt in gear!

Quite a lot has commenced ever since my last update. My struggle is where to begin.

I’ll try starting with my weekly routine. Every school day starts off with a different mixture of five of the six-6th and 7th grade classes that I teach (2 Readings, 2 Language Arts, U.S. History, and World History/Map Skills). Luckily they are all before lunch. Without a lot of extra staff people, we take turns for morning, lunch, and after school duty. After lunch until 5:00pm I grade papers and plan for the next day, unless it’s Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. On Monday I have Spanish tutoring for my Korean student who wants to learn Spanish on top of the Korean and English she is already fluent in, as well as the French class she has during the day. Tuesday is for our staff meeting and if you remember from last year’s blogging, about 30 of the neighborhood kids come over to our house for praise songs, activities, games, a vitamin, some cookies, and a bag of pure water.



Wednesday is when I’m able to visit the nearby orphanage and play soccer with the coolest under-ten year olds in Ghana. To de-stress, two of my housemates and I have dubbed Wednesday night as Bread Night. We take turns providing the bread, the cheese (very sacrificial), and the tomato paste. We sit together at the end of the day, make this fabulous bread in the oven, drink wine, and play a card game. We totally forget about school drama, being single, and being homesick. This is when we talk about our future dreams, the latest jokes (that’s usually me of course), and the movies we’ve recently watched. Thursday night is our women’s Bible study night. We alternate who leads and prepares a short activity/message for the week. It is a refreshing time of study, encouragement, prayer, and a little bit of raggin’ on Beth Moore, which turns into our comic relief. Friday I’ve decided after almost a year at AIS (American International School) is my day. I’ve abstained from making any plans to tutor, hold soccer practice, or develop a Spanish club. I usually stay until 5:00 because our lesson plans are due for the next week before we leave. Then, I only leave room for going out to dinner or watching a movie with friends. Otherwise, I stay home. I am always grateful, come Friday, that I have saved it for me.

The weekends are a whole other unpredictable story. Two weeks ago 5 other teachers and I left for Ada. Do you remember the place with the sandy floored-huts; the place that is so remote there is hardly any cell phone service and it takes a 45 minute canoe ride just to get there? Let me refresh your memory with a photo taken from last year, because it looks the same:



Although there are just holes in the ground for toilets, and a big bucket of water for the shower, not to mention the 5 hours of tro-tro-ing it took to get there, the seclusion and relaxation made it all worthwhile. I did pay for it the next weekend. I spent 10 hours on Saturday and 5 hours on Sunday grading book reports and papers in preparation for report cards that were due this previous week. An added little bit of fun was the fact that the power was out, so after 5:30 when the sun was going down, it was all done sweating by candlelight. It was quite romantic. If grading papers can be romantic.

However, I have to talk about my favorite part of the weekend, my Sunday mornings. If I am home on Sunday, (two or three times a month) I wake up early and make breakfast. While I put together granola and yogurt, cereal, toast and jam, or pancakes made from SCRATCH, Mick’s (my pastor from home’s) latest sermon is downloading at the kitchen table. I am able on Sunday mornings to eat a glorious breakfast and listen to a message I can relate to in a familiar voice. It is the comfort I expect Jesus wants us to feel on the Sabbath. This morning Pastor Mick prompted the congregation to make a list of all the great things God has done for us. Immediately, my current activity came to mind. Being this far away from home is HARD! I thought maybe that feeling would go away, after living here for over a year, but it hasn’t. It’s still hard being away from my family and church home, and familiar activities. But having the ability to enjoy this kind of morning is such a blessing. The only thing that might make it even sweeter, would be if mom and dad, you could maybe laugh really loud at one of Mick’s jokes? The benefits to this plan would be two-fold: Mick would feel good about the joke he just told, and I could hear your voices for free! So, I thought I would finish off this month’s blog with the rest of the list…

Great Things God Has Done For Me:

Brought me into an incredible family
Showed Northbrook to my parents
Brought soccer into my life
Led me to Spring Arbor University, to Latin America, to New Orleans, to Ghana, to A.I.S.
Provided funds for all these opportunities
Stayed with me through all my hard decisions and struggles
Blessed me with strong prayer warriors
Gave me 25 sisters when I became part of SAU Women’s Soccer Team
Blessed me with an effortless best-friendship
Gave me multiple moms to dote on and look out for me
Produced five VERY agreeable, godly housemates for me to share
Sooooooo much more

Thanks for that project Mick. I would encourage you all to try it. It makes you realize how incredibly blessed we all are.

Lately I’m in need of prayers for two major things. The first is to be proactive. I seem to be very good at procrastinating, which is cancer to good teaching. The second is for my students. I have a number of students with learning disabilities and over half of my students’ first languages are not English. Just prayers that I would be knowledgeable in how to properly aid them in their educations. Thank you all so much for your constant prayer and support. You're the reason I can be happy where I am.

With love,
Meg

P.S. I decided that if I don’t post a blog update at the end of every month, you all have permission to ridicule me. That will keep me on track with my updates. ☺