Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the FREEZING midwest! We have probably a foot of snow on the ground. It's beautiful though. I am hoping for a true white Christmas--snowing on Christmas day. It's great to be home. I am enjoying being with my family, reading books, taking long baths, and seeing friends. It's been great so far.

What's even better is remembering what Christmas is all about. Remembering that little baby who was born to die. To die for you, to die for a me. To take away our sins. All of them. I recently had the chance to share that good news with a parent, that free gift that is ours for the taking. If you have never accepted the gift of salvation, it's never too late. Jesus' arms are open wide. Email me or leave a comment if you have any questions. I love talking about my best friend Jesus!

Here is a snapshot of the past couple weeks. I am not even going to try to put them in order. It won't work!

Amanda and I at the staff banquet. I am SO thankful for her wonderful friendship!
Cuties! Waiting for the Christmas program to start.
Umm, yeah. Notice the tree behind us. It looks like it's dancing. So we wanted to dance too :).

We had WAY too much fun with the automatic timer on our cameras. Picture this: four girls, three cameras, a table, and too many Dominicans walking by. Oh yeah, add a LOT of giggling. Posing nicely before the goofiness started.
Lovely teachers I work with. I am SO thankful for all of them!
Some friends came over Thanksgiving. I don't remember if I've posted these pics yet. Sorry if I already have! This is Jordan and I at the beach.
LOVE this lady! She has been a blessing to me this year.
As I have written about earlier, my kids LOVE to sing! The chapel band, including the principal they LOVE, had a concert one night. FIVE of my kids came! Here I am with four of them. AND their moms were there too! I am praying some seeds were planted!

Merry Christmas! May you see Him this season. I love how much God loves me. I love that he showed that love by sending His Son down for me. What a wonderful gift!

Thanksgiving

I have so many things to be thankful for. So often I forget to sit back and count them. God is so good! So often I dwell on the things in my life I don't like, and as Beth Moore says, it turns into "faithless fretting." May I do much more faithful thanking! Yes, life is hard, but God is good. And bigger than my fears. And I do have so many things to be thankful for! I know I have used this set up before, but it fits well, so I am going to use it again. A list of A-Z on what I am thankful for.

A-a break from school! Thanksgiving break was much needed! And only three more weeks until Christmas Break!

B-beauty! This country is so beautiful. I spent the weekend at the beach enjoying the beauty of the coast and drove through the mountains to get there and enjoyed the beauty of the mountains. I love how creative God is!

C-chocolate. Yes, I am thankful for dark chocolate :). As my mom says, "Love God, hate sin, read your Bible, and eat chocolate!"

D-drinking hot drinks. The weather has been cool enough to do that. And by cool I mean 70s. Yes, I am getting tropical blood!

E-eating. We went to an all-inclusive resort over the weekend. Needless to say, I ate a lot! So grateful for more than enough food. I take that for granted so often!

F-friends! Some friends came over Thanksgiving. It was awesome! My friend Daniel was injured in a medical accident, so his mom also shared his story in chapel for the secondary. Very powerful! I had so much fun with them and hope they can come again. My kids loved them too!

G-growth. The Lord is stretching me so much. It's hard but so good!

H-heroes. My first graders and I have been going through a devotional book of Bible heroes. There are so many incredible people in the Bible who I can follow their example. And I love that they made mistakes, yet God still used them.

I-important decisions. Funny thing to be thankful for, but I can be thankful that God will direct me in my important decisions! The one on my mind is where He wants me next year. Please pray with me that I will follow His will for my life and not my own desires!

J-Jesus. I am so thankful that He died on the cross for me even when He could have called down legions of angels to rescue him.

K-kangaroos? I can't think of a k word!

L-languages. I love that God gave our brains the ability to learn another language. And I am glad we can talk to people with words!

M-medicine. I am glad we have doctors who can help us feel better!

N-naps. What more can I say?

O-open doors. I have been able to talk to one of my student's moms about the Lord a little. Please pray that God keeps opening the doors!

P-parties. We had a Thanksgiving party at school. All my kids dressed up like little pilgrims. They were so cute!

Q-quiet time with God. I don't do this enough. May I really hunger for it!

R-renewing. I love that God renews our minds to make us more like Him!

S-salvation. Praise the Lord that I can be part of His family!

T-truffles. I haven't had any in a while, but am looking forward to one when I get home!

U-umbrellas. It has been raining a lot here. When I use my umbrella, it's great :).

V-victories. The Lord has given me many personal victories and victories with my students. Praise Him for that!

W-water. It really is a blessing to have water in my house. I need to remember that when I am not happy about the hot water only lasting about 3 minutes!

X-x-ray. But not the kind the doctors do. I am thankful that God knows my heart, that his x-ray is so much more accurate. I love that He sees the dirt inside me yet still loves me.

Y-youngsters. I am thankful for my 19 little blessings. They have taught me so much! And they did SO well with my friend Daniel who is in a wheelchair. LOVE them!

Z-zzzz's. I am thankful for sleep! I am hoping to get plenty of it tonight!

Making that list really helped me be thankful so much. Instead of focusing on the hard things, may I really focus on what the Lord has done for me and even more than that who He is. He is amazing! May you also count your blessings!

Lessons

Once again I can't get my pictures to move, so scroll down for the text :)

Amanda and I were counting sheep for the fall party with the teachers :)

We had a spaghetti party when we read "On Top of Spaghetti, as you can see in the following picture. One of the girls also brought cupcakes. I had to leave for chapel, but the guy who watches my kids used my camera to take a couple cool shots. This little girl is VERY silly :)

Our Joseph books. See below for an explanation :). I made these in Kenya too :)

Isn't it amazing how God teaches us? I feel like when we need to learn something, He teaches us in so many ways. He knows that I need to hear it more than once! I struggle a lot with people pleasing. Anyone who knows me will not be surprised by this statement :). In the past 8 months or so, I have been learning lesson after lesson about this. I have been learning how to fear God instead of fearing people. It's not easy, let me tell you! It always seems like when you are working through something like that, more and more situations come up where you have to practice what you are learning! It is amazing though how God has been using them to teach me. As I surrender a situation to Him, he shows me, sometimes within minutes and sometimes much later, that He is indeed in control and indeed does have a plan. One phrase from an amazing book, "When People are Big and God is Small, says we need to learn to "love people more but need them less." All my life, I have been so tied to what people think of me, needing them. But I am learning that that is not how God wants me to live my life. HE alone can meet my needs. Yes, we need the body of Christ, but when I don't get invited to something, it doesn't mean that I am worthless. God is good.

In other news, life here is definitely hard at times, but so worth it. When I woke up on Monday, there was a huge trail of ants from the doorway through my living room, into my room, up my desk, and into my computer. I am not kidding! I came to realize that it was because there were also baby spiders living in my computer that attracted the ants. And unfortunately, ants can destroy your computer. I was more upset about it than I should have been. God convicted me that He was still in control and that even losing my computer for His name's sake is worth it. Yes, I know in the scheme of things a computer is a little thing. It's amazing how dependent we are with our things! Thankfully, at least for now, my computer is fine. I froze it for a couple of hours, without the battery, and then one of the guys at school cleaned it out. I am praying for no more bugs in it!

My kids are adorable. One of my girls said probably the best quote ever. My kids were complaining, which is not unusual, and she said, "Stop complaining! Miss Seeman is NOT Moses and we are NOT the Israelites!" LOVE them and love that what we are studying is sticking! I have such a huge responsibility in teaching these precious children. So many days I take it for granted. May I see it for the huge blessing it really is!

About a month ago we studied the life of Joseph, as in the son of Jacob. We talked a lot about how God had a plan for Joseph and how He also has a plan for us. I need to remember that! God's plan for my life might look very different than I thought it would, but He is in control. His plans for me are so much better than my plans for myself.

Speaking of plans, I have no idea at this point where God wants me next year. Would you pray with me? Please pray that God would guide and direct me as to where He wants me this next year. I am open to staying or going somewhere else. We will see. I don't want to make my decision out of the fear of man. May it be God's will and His alone! His plan is always best!

Singing While We Work

I will never get tired of hearing them sing their hearts out to the Lord while working. Oh, the faith of a child. God, give me a heart like this!

Life in pictures

I haven't taken as many as I would like. Unfortunately, my camera has been going crazy. And we will see if blogger likes me today :)

One of my boys had both a party at his house and a pizza party for lunch. Here is the pizza party, complete with pizza in his mouth!

His actual birthday. It was beyond extravagant. This is the one I mentioned in the post before where he carried my present around. If you haven't read the story, please do. God is amazing!

Another birthday party. This one was for a little girl in my class and it was at the movies!

The birthday girl is on the left. Aren't they SO cute?

This was at our food pyramid party. Of course, if you learn about the food pyramid, you have to have a party with all the different food groups :)

We LOVE doing our spelling words in shaving cream!

The other half of them.

L00k at me with shaving cream ALL over!

Amanda, Sarah, Linda, Megan, and others from the school were in a concert for the church they all attend. Amanda and Sarah sang two duets. We invited the girls from the girl's home and our taxi driver and his wife. He is not a believer. Pray that he would come to know the Lord!

Singing

They LOVE to sing! They also LOVE the high school principal. So singing with the principal? There's not much better than that, at least to a first grader :). l

I love their sincere hearts and their love to sing to Jesus. I pray that they would make Him a real part of their lives!

And thanks Mr. Miller for coming in!

Our GOD is GREATER

So God floored me today. I mean absolutely made me want to fall down in worship in the midst of a giant crowd of people. Today, one of my boys was really driving me crazy today. I was having a hard time being patient with him. And tonight was his birthday party. I didn't want to go because I was tired and SO frustrated by him. But I knew he wanted me to go so I went anyways. Now you have to understand these parties. They are BEYOND extravagant. I will try to post pictures soon. As a teacher making very little and having 19 students, I can't afford to get them anything amazing for their birthdays. So I got together a few things, put it in a white lunch sack, and decorated the sack a bit. All in all, the things in there cost like maybe 7 dollars total. I was in a rush too and really didn't want to put in a lot of time into it because I was having a bad attitude. I always feel a bit embarrassed bringing this little gift and setting it next to all the huge expensive ones. Well, partway through the party I see the birthday boy come up to me proudly holding my present. He was like "Is this one from you?!?!" He was so excited. I told him it was. He carried it around with him for a LONG time after that. Then the mom that I came with told me he spent like TEN MINUTES looking through all the other presents to find mine. Everyone around him tried to get him to do something else, but he wanted to find my present. He didn't even open it. He just carried it around. Wow. So much for my bad attitude. Here is this rich boy whose birthday probably cost almost as much as my wedding will and whose prize bags for the other kids are better than my present, proudly carrying around a white paper sack with ribbon and green marker on it. It made me realize why I am here. Even in the bad days, God has a plan. I was and still am so humbled by that. God, you blow my mind. I am so glad He teaches me despite my hardheadedness. He doesn't let our bad attitudes throw Him off either. Thank you God for using a seven year old boy to teach me more about you. I pray He will use this cracked vessel to impact these precious lives. He is amazing!

After I wrote this, I realized something. This is exactly what God does for us. I might not be the prettiest or the best, but God searches for me and searches for me until I come to Him, and then He never lets me go. I don't have to be big or fancy or perfect. He sees me and smiles and never lets go. I pray that all you out there have let God seek you out. Let Him hold onto you. It will rock your world.