La Palma Girl

Living Water.

Water has been on my mind a lot lately for several reasons. I'm fairly certain that I haven't been drinking enough of it and have been borderlined dehydrated for several days. Tonight I poured myself a giant glass of water and it was so refreshing. Much better than a bag of soda.


Last week, our water stopped working on Wednesday. Thursday it came back long enough for a quick shower, and then stopped again. It returned Saturday and has stayed on until tonight, when it shut off again. We aren't exactly sure what is causing the water issue but we are hoping to get it fixed quickly.

Friday, in the middle of our water crisis, I kept thinking of the Accapella song, "Living Water." Specifically the part where the child sings, "Give me water from the well that never runs dry and I will thirst no more." I started studying the story of the women at the well. She asks Jesus to give her this "living water." so that she will never again be thirsty again. I can relate to being thirsty and I can relate to the woman at the well. What concerns me much more than my physical dehydration is my spiritual dehydration. Friday evenings we have a womans class. Typically, we study one woman a week from the Bible and discuss her story. When we were told to open our Bibles to Juan 4, I knew exactly what women we were going to be looking at. The woman at the well.

Tonight, I'm studying a Beth Moore book, trying to work on this spiritual dehydration, when I get the call about the water being off again. After realizing theres nothing we can do tonight, I came back to the study. Beth Moore takes me to Psalm 63. The first verse of this psalm says, "Oh God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water."

Here in La Palma, we meet as a church every day but Saturday. We are always coming together and encouraging one another. Sometimes though its easy to get caught up in the work and miss out on the relationship with God. It would be easy to focus on the differences in culture, what I do or don't have here, and the other insignificant details. I don't want to spend a year here and leave feeling like I majored in Bible with going to classes night after night. I want to build a genuine relationship with my God. A thirst for His word and for a relationship with Him.

Please pray for me as I try not to drown in the details but to instead drink in the richness of God.

Todays blog is all about super heros.
A few weeks ago, one of my second grade students ran off of the playground. If you know anything about second graders, you know this is highly unusual. So I went to the classroom to check on him. He was starting to cry, so I asked if he was hurt. He said he wasnt. I asked if everything was ok and what had happened. He started sobbing and saying something very fast in Spanish. I have no idea what happened that day on the play ground, but I held him until he stopped crying. Afterwards he was so thankful that someone had payed attention to him and noticed him on his bad day that he gave me this:

It is handmade of construction paper and appears to be wearing a cape. When he ran up to me with a huge grin on his face and delievered me a handmade super hero? Thats exactly how I felt. Like a super hero.

This week in my other English classes, we've been talking about what special powers we would have if we were super heros. I had them write "If I was a super hero, I would...." My class yesterday participated and were a little creative. My class today was not creative at all. Out of five students, only one person even wrote anything. So we had to use my super hero as an example. If I was a super hero, I would make it rain cake. I would have a Patience Wand that could bless people with more patience and I would have a peace gun that would shoot peace at people. My class thought I was crazy. Heres the picture of Super Teresa and all of her cake:

Ok, so maybe my students are right. Im a little crazy and lacking in artistic ability. I asked if they had ever heard of the movie or book "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs." I would really like to have both. If I had the book, we could read it a page at a time, discuss sentence struture, and vocabulary. It doesn't matter to me whether its the new edition or the classic edition. Also, I would really like to get all of my students together and have an English movie night. This movie would be perfect. The characters dont have thick accents making it fairly easy to understand. Also, it has so many different types of food, I think seeing gigantic pancakes landing on schools will help them remember their vocabulary. Also, it might help to spark some of their imagination. Because, really, whats the point of being a kid without imagination?

If anyone coming on the September trip has room to pack a DVD and a childrens book, I'd GREATLY appreciate it and even reimburse you for the costs. (not the cost of flying, just the cost of the movie and book) :)

This is a quote my brother found for me. I feel its appropriate for this blog:

"I am fairly certain that given a cape and a tiara, I could save the world."

And an even more relevant quotes:

"I can do all things through Him who stregthens me." Philippians 4:13

"...if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:20

Miss you all and God Bless,

Teresa

This week has been fairly unproductive.
Monday I woke up very very sick. It was miserable. Everyone was very helpful though and brought me gatoraides, saltines, and medicine. A group from church even came and prayed for a speedy recovery. Tuesday I was better, but still had to take it easy. I was very dehydrated and exhausted. No classes Monday or Tuesday of this week.
Today, I have my first classes of the week. So far so good, Im still trying to rest in between classes and drink lots of fluids.
Also, apparently, whatever I had, my computer caught because it is not working. At all. Thankfully, theres an extra computer I can use till I figure out what my game plan is.
Today is Normas 25th birthday! We are throwing her a surprise party in her house complete with friends and cake. As of right now, she assumes we have all forgotten her birthday! I cant wait for it and will hopefully be able to post pictures soon! But no guarantee since I do not have a personal computer.
Love to you all
Teresa

A serious picture with me teaching, and a not so serious picture with me drinking soda out of a bag. Or as my preacher back home likes to call it, "coke in a bag."

I have been very busy this week. Last week I had 80 students. This week I have more than 90. This week was definitely tiring, but good. Sometimes I really miss home. Everything about home. OK, mostly the people and the food. But then I have an amazing day here or something small happens that just reminds me that I'm where I want to be and I love it.

For example, in my class this morning we had only two people come today. The other students had other obligations today. Since it was a small class, I thought we'd try something different and fun. I taught them the song, "Here I am to worship." I love this song. Its really great to teach them too because its repetitive and slow. We worked on the lyrics and sang it a few times. (With the help of itunes.) Other students came and joined the class or stood at the door just to hear the song. They asked if we could learn this song in their next class too. It's so exciting to watch them learn and to see them get excited about what they are learning. Most of my classes last about 45 minutes. This one lasted 90 minutes. It was great.

The Other Americans

The other Americans are here! They have arrived safely and are trying to get settled into their new environment. I know it was very hard for me to back up all of my things and figure out what to take and what to leave. Putting it all in a few suitcases was difficult, I can't even imagine the preparation they have had to do to bring a whole family. I'm excited to get to know them better and work with them over the next several months.

Thats all for today, Much love to all of you and a special birthday shout out to my brother! Happy Birthday Tim, You will be home sooner than you know it! :)

Prayer Request:

This week has been a tough one. Its hard to hear that your friends and familiy are going through a really difficult time and you can't be there for them. It breaks my heart. Please remember to pray for the families of fallen soliders and thank them for their sacrifice. Also, pray for the families that have lost a child. That is a heartache that no mother should have to experience.
I've been thinking a lot this week about Crowe, Holmes, and baby Elliot.

Updates:

As for the English classes, this was the first full week. I had almost 80 students this week, not including the students from the La Palma Christian School. Out of those 80, 46 of them were on Saturday. I'm really excited about the classes and hope that the students stay with it. I will be starting another class this week also. The women that work in the Hotel La Palma want to have an English class but because of their work, they cant go. Therefore, twice a week, I will be going to the Hotel to teach a class there. These women are such hardworkers and are always so welcoming when we have teams staying at the Hotel. I know they are eager to learn.

Also, I'm waiting to hear back about a possible Let Start Talking team coming to La Palma. I think that this is just what the church needs to get things going.

The church in La Palma is hosting a Ladies Day on December 4th. We are super excited as this is the first activity like this that we have done. I have volunteered to cook for about 60 people. They have obviously laughed at the notion of me cooking. I told them I CAN cook for that many people, as long as we are having hamburgers. Alas, I think they will sign me a different job.

My Spanish is getting much better! But I wish it was even better. I can say a lot more than I could before, but I still struggle with comprehending. If they speak slowly and use simpler words, I can follow along pretty well. I know that as time goes on, it will get easier.

That is my update for this Sunday afternoon. Love you and I will talk to you soon.

Today is a sad day for me for many reasons. All of which I find too personal to post on a blog. Today was my first day of teaching classes to the grade school children by myself. The professor before me outlined which lessons should come next. Only problem is he told me to teach lessons they learned weeks ago, thus making me look incomptent and having to improv all of my classes today. I'm giving this man the benefit of a doubt and hoping it was an accident or miscommunication and not some intentional retaliation to my teaching. That added with the personal sadness? Not the best day for me.
My favorite new comfort items: Rapiditas: pre-made tortillas, chips, and my St. Louis Cardinals hoodie.
I'll write more soon.
God Bless.