End of Year Four

I can't believe I am almost done with my fourth year of teaching! It seems like not that long ago yet forever ago that I was a student at Emmaus. Wow. I love that God has walked every step of the way with me. Some have not been easy, but He is so good! I love that He never gives up on us. What a good God I serve!

I will miss my little guys. They have been such a blessing to me. I love the hugs, smiles, and laughs they provide me during the day. Our current joke is still about my future husband. Any time that word is mentioned, they go crazy. It's pretty cute :). One of the boys today prayed that I wouldn't talk about my future husband any more! Don't worry, I don't talk about it all the time. But between the kids and I, it gets brought up just enough to be super funny EVERY time.

I love that God knows just what we need just when we need it. Last week I was able to babysit 4 great kids and we were all laughing so hard. That was just what I needed. I was able to go out to lunch with the same family a few days later. I love that God provides family for me as well.

In THREE days my roommate and I leave for Europe. I hope I can eventually post a bunch of pictures. We are meeting up with another friend which should be fun too. I am excited!

Tomorrow I am moving my classroom with 18 second grade "helpers." We will see how that goes :). I am excited about my new classroom though! Pictures to come next fall :)

Silly Second Graders

So a few weeks ago during a spelling pretest, I started talking about my future husband in all the sentences. (No, I do NOT have a boyfriend, no I do NOT have an interest, no there are NO single guys on staff here :)). The kids freaked out and loved it at the same time. It's become our little joke :). So last week when they had to write sentences, a lot of them wrote about my future husband. Here are some of the sentences, with the spelling words underlined. And I will keep their original spelling :).

-Miss Seeman's husbent was hiding from her.
-I am hoping Miss Seeman will gets a husbent.
-I surprised Miss Seeman with a husbent.
-I saw Miss Seeman hiding from her husben.
-I saw that Miss Seeman was surprised when she herd that her husben was a movie star.
-Miss Seeman baked her husbin in a fire.
-Miss Seeman was teasing her husbin cos he was 50,679,107 paonds (pounds).
-Miss Seeman was riding on her husbin he was being a cow!
-I was not pleased when Miss Seeman got married.
-Miss Seeman was finding her husband because her husband was to scared.
-I voted that Miss Seeman would not get a husband.
-Miss Seeman was surprised her husband liked her.


I LOVE these kids! SO SO funny!

New Old Things

Today in class we were talking about how the Holy Spirit helps you have self-control. He is a little talked about part of life so often, and it was great to talk with my kids about how much He guides us. We looked up many verses, and one of the ones we looked at was Romans 8:26: "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." We talked about how the Holy Spirit prays for us. How amazing is that? I was getting chills talking about it and told the kids how amazing I thought that verse was. One of them asked me if I had ever heard it before. I told them I had but it's good to be reminded because I often forget. That is so true in my spiritual walk. I know something about God, but then I forget it. I need to be in His word, studying more about Him, to remember how great He is. I am SO thankful that the Holy Spirit intercedes for me. There are so many times when I just cry out to God, not knowing what to say or do, but the Holy Spirit does. Thank you God for knowing exactly what I would need and sending it in the form of your Holy Spirit!

Middle of May?!?!

That means school is almost over. That means my first year teaching in Africa is almost done. Craziness! 13 more school days, and two of those are half days. It's crazy! I will miss my now 20 crazy little monkeys. They have taught me a lot about life, love, and having fun. Some lessons I have learned from them this year:
-It's ok to laugh at yourself. Some mistakes are just funny!
-Seeing your teacher get handcuffed is pretty awesome. (Don't worry, it was just for fun, and I got out about two minutes later!)
-Jesus loves everyone, and we need to love everyone too.
-Spend time getting to know someone else's culture. You will learn some cool things along the way.
-Try new things. Enjoy them!
-Patience is hard. But I need to have it anyways, and it is worth it when I do!

I am so thankful for my little monkeys. It might not always be easy, but they are worth it.

This summer I get to go to Amsterdam, Germany, Seattle, the Dominican Republic, and Iowa. I am excited to catch up with people! If you live in one of those places, I would love to see you! I am excited to see what God does this summer too. He is pretty amazing. I love that even when we struggle, He cares about us. He wants to make me more like Him, which blows my mind. When I am ready to give up on myself, He is still there and still working in me. What a mighty God I serve!

I love how God uses what I teach my kids in my own life. So often the stuff I teach them about Him I don't always believe in my own heart. He is using these precious little ones who believe His promises without doubting to show me that He cares. He loves me, just as He loves everyone in this world. How different would I be if I believed that with my whole heart?

Chickens and Children

I haven't posted much lately. Part of that is business. Part of that is laziness. Part of that is feeling like I don't have much to write. Life has been the same in many ways. School, life in Africa, taking care of babies on the weekend when I can. I forget that that's not what everyone else does, so maybe they want to hear about life here. Right  now I am listening to the rain pour down. It's 7:25 pm and pitch black outside. Rainy season is here. I love the rain, unless it is during school hours. Then it's not so fun. I told my kids today to not get wet on purpose because they will get plenty wet on accident. That basically characterizes rainy season. 

We only have about 20 school days left. A month from now I will be exploring Europe with my roommate! I can't believe my first year living in Africa is almost over. It has had it's challenges, but God is good and I love life here. I will miss my crazy kids, that's for sure. 

I am now on my third foster baby here in Kenya. Moses and Leo were both adopted. This semester has been crazy, so I haven't been able to take a baby as much as I would like. I have had a little girl, Irene, for two weekends so far. She is almost 3 months or so and is as cute as can be! I hope I can take her a little bit more before I go home for the summer. It's so fun to put her in cute little clothes!

I am excited to go pick her up hopefully tomorrow. I haven't been able to take her for the last two weekends. I was babysitting for one and the other one I went to Makutano, a village about 7 hours from here where my roommate Jennifer's aunt has a ministry. I had been wanting to go up there for a long time but hadn't made it yet.

It was so interesting and heartbreaking to be out in rural Kenya. Most of these people have rarely seen a light skinned person, never seen a paved road, let alone a city, and live in poverty. It was amazing to see what the ministry, Village Project Africa, is doing. God is working through them! We went to church, did home visits, hung out with some of the kids at the school, drove around, and painted a little. They have a school, dorms, clinic, greenhouse, and many other things. The thing that amazes me is that this ministry just started up about 5 years ago. It's incredible! I loved driving around and meeting the people. As we drove, people were excited to see a car, and even more excited to see light skinned people in it! One little boy started clapping and spinning in circles and cheering when he saw a car go by. I want to be that amazed by the little things!

 Greenhouse tomatoes. They are huge! They will provide food for the kids and also a profit when they sell the extra ones.

 Two cuties peeking in at the guests during one of the home visits.

 Kids at the school walking home with their balloon animals and hats. I am so thankful I learned how to make these on my first mission trip to Mexico 11 years ago. Where has the time gone?

 Balloons!

 Out in the surrounding villages. If you look carefully you will notice a "sweetie" candy in her hand. I am glad I brought those along!

 These kids LOVED having their picture taken. They would look at it and start cracking up. Even the adults wanted them taken too!

 By the end, we were encircled with people who wanted a "sweetie" and to get their picture taken. And of course to see the light skinned visitors!


In case you are wondering why the title had the word chicken...

At one of the houses we visited, they wanted to say thank you to Emily, so they gave her a LIVE CHICKEN! And to make matters even more funny, it was in the middle of a HUGE rainstorm. So we were driving through the rain on flooded roads with a chicken! My voice sounds funny in the video, but it's too funny not to post. 

Well, that's my life lately. And hopefully there will be more to come soon!