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!

March

I cannot believe it is already March 11th! In three months I will be back in the states! Time is flying by! We have one more week until Spring Break--yippee! This next week is Spiritual Emphasis Week. Rosslyn runs it much like a VBS, so all afternoon the kids will be out of class and doing VBS type things. I am helping run it this year, even though I have basically no idea what to do! I hope it goes well. It should be great. We are going to the beach during VBS! Well, the beach on the elementary campus that is :). Then on Sunday I get to go to the real beach! Yay! I am going with a family to help watch their four kids and to have fun with them. I have already been told I will be jumping in the waves with them :).

I am trying to think of any other exciting news. We are taking a break from having babies for at least the next 4 weeks. If you think about it, pray that we would have wisdom in this area. But Leo is doing really well! He still goes with the other family some and is at the orphanage some. He gained about 6 pounds in six weeks! And he is starting to walk with help! I am so happy with how well he has done. God is good.

My second graders are as busy as ever. We just finished learned about cultures. In a class with 12 different cultures represented this is a lot of fun! They gave little speeches about their heritage and then we had a cultural food celebration where they brought in food from their cultures. It was so yummy! I am so thankful for my 19 (18 present, 1 in the US right now) little blessings!

Leaping Leo!

Someone LOVES his johnny jump up. When we got him a month ago, he couldn't sit up very well, couldn't crawl, and could put no weight on his legs. Look at this boy go now! He can stand with us just holding his hands. Yay Leo!

What to call this?

So it has been almost two months since I last wrote on here. Since then I have gone to the states for three weeks, started my second semester here, had our first foster baby get adopted, and took home another sweet little boy. Yes, I have been busy, hence the no blog writing. I enjoyed being home for three weeks over Christmas. It was an unexpected trip but a great one. It was great to celebrate my 25th birthday with my sweet birthday buddy who turned nine :). Of course, I wanted to see snow. But did it snow? NO. Oh well. It was great seeing my friend's new little baby. I also enjoyed spending time with other friends' kids who are all getting so big!

The baby my roommates and I had been fostering was adopted right before Christmas! We found out the day before I left to go to the states so we were able to say goodbye to him. I am glad he is now with his forever family. We have another sweet little one who is a year old but barely 14 pounds. We are working to get him fatter and stronger. His name is Leo and he is the sweetest little boy! He smiles and laughs at everything and LOVES to go swimming. He has been so fun to be around!

We had Sports Day, or Field Day, last Friday. The kids loved it! All the teachers were exhausted afterwards but it was good. We have a long stretch without any breaks so we will see how that goes. I have enjoyed seeing how much my kids have grown in their faith and knowl

Here is little Leo swimming with my roommates.
You can't swim without a rubber ducky!
Yay! A surfing duck!
Bumbo seats also make great drums!
Look at how I can sit because I am so skinny! This was taken about two weeks ago and he is already fatter! YAY!

Moses, the weekend before he went with his family. He loved being upside down!
Moses and I on the last weekend that he was with us. Emily and I saying goodbye to Moses at the orphanage
Three and four babies in a bed! You can tell there was a fourth one next to them. It's crazy.

I hope to post more pictures soon!