God is Faithful!

Hello all. My brain is full, so I won't be writing too much or too intelligently this post, but I wanted to let you know a little bit about life here lately. The one thing I have been most overwhelmed by is God's faithfulness. He is continually with me and providing for me and showing me that He cares. He will never leave me. I am learning to let go. I am learning to trust. I am learning that I can't be such a people pleaser. I am learning that He gives me good days in the midst of the hard ones to remind me that He is there and that He cares. I have both good days and bad days with my students. The last two days have been amazing, and it totally has made me realize that God is in control and He knows what I need. He has blessed me with two great days with my students. They are really chatty, so that's always a problem, but the last two days have been better. I started to lose my voice two and a half weeks ago and it is still bad. I can talk, but I can't really sing and by the end of the day it's pretty scratchy sounding. I think it's partly from having to talk above 21 super chatty third graders. Hopefully we will continue to have more good days with less chatter so my voice can come back!

I definitely feel like I am learning more than my students. I love being able to tell them in the morning, "Miss Seeman is having a great day today. Who can tell me why?" I love their answer back to me. They now tell me "Because you spent time talking with God this morning!" I love it! It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. It is so true. I can be having a lousy day but have a good attitude because the Lord has helped me to get my heart right. I have been learning a lot about surrender and giving Him all of me. I have been learning a lot about trusting Him that when I surrender, He will honor that. It has been so good.

One day I will try to post some of the funny adventures of living here in the DR, like trying to cross the street without being killed when you walk for forever to pay your electricity bill only to find out you could have paid it at a location much closer. Or when I asked my students what a synonym is and one little boy raised his hand and said, "It's the stuff you put in your coffee that makes it taste really good!" I do have to say that cinnamon sounds a lot like synonym. I love being able to work with students with a different language as their first language even though it brings challenges. It is cute to see "tree hundred" on their math sheets and "a baby sheep is called a land." I love them a lot! Here are some pictures from math centers on Monday. They love to work together in groups, though it gets a little crazy at times!
Thinking hard about place value. They love whiteboards!
Let's see, did we get it right? :)

God has given me many moments where all I can say is "Wow!" Here are some pictures I took from my apartment recently of both the sunset and the sunrise. He gives us beautiful pictures everyday to remind us of His faithfulness and that He cares for us. My prayer is that you would see Him in these incredible reminders of the great God we serve!
The view of the sunrise on Monday out my bedroom window. I love the views God gives me in the morning!
Sunset from our roof. These colors just blow my mind! I would have never thought to put pink in the sky!
A broader view of the same sunset.

Thank you to all who are praying for me. Please pray that I would be a light to my students. Pray too that I would learn to balance school and having a life outside of school. Those who know me know I'm a bit of an overachiever :), but I don't want to burn myself out. I am excited to see how God will use me here in the next few days and weeks. Thanks for being interested in what is happening here!