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.

ANTS

So I thought I could handle a few insects. I thought I could live even maybe in a jungle somewhere. But now after tonight I realize just how spoiled I am. We had giant black ants all over our dining room. And when I say all over I mean ALL OVER. We spent forever trying to kill them. The little ones we usually have you can kill just with your finger. I was squishing these ones with a napkin--they would roll into a ball and then pop back up a few seconds later. And I just went out there and there are still ants. Uggh. I realized that I truly am spoiled that I don't usually live with that many ants. And I don't think I am quite ready to go live in the jungle with things a lot worse than that. May God give me patience and may the ants go away! ALL the way away!

Sometimes it's obvious I live in another country :)

So a short post with two, maybe more, funny stories.

A group of 8 of us are going to the beach after school tomorrow because we have no school on Friday. We usually take the bus. We had heard that you can prebuy tickets, so Amanda and I went down to the bus station to find out. Since it's a holiday, the bus will fill up quickly. We get down there to find out that that bus you can't prebuy more than 2 hours ahead. So much for that plan. In the taxi on the way back, he suggested taking a mini-boo. We had heard that term before, and it basically means van taxi. I still think it might be the funniest word ever. And really it's not even a mini-bus, as it sounds. It's a normal mini-van that is now a taxi. We asked how many it would fit, and he said 9 or 10. This does NOT include a driver. Yes, you are thinking of a normal mini-van, and that's what it is. Yes, riding in a vehicle is a little different here. The guy telling us all this is not our normal taxi. He called the mini-boo driver and he said he would stop by our house in 30-45 minutes. I gave him my phone number and we went home to wait. More than two hours later I started to wonder if he would show up. So I called my normal taxi driver and explained all this. Within 10 minutes the mini-boo showed up. I love my taxi driver! He showed us how he can indeed fit 8 people and him. Let me just say we will be a bit squished tomorrow. Then he asked us if he could bring someone along to keep him company on the way back. He said this person could sit between the two front seats. We decided we did not want to be quite that squished! We will see how this whole mini-boo experience goes tomorrow. But it sure beats the hassle of trying to get on a bus or it taking 6 hours instead of 2. That has indeed happened to us here too!

Another cute first grade story: One of my boys LOVES to pray. When he prays, he more just talks. It's super cute. Today he was trying to say something about how some people don't do the right thing and God will punish them. He definitely said "Some people do bad things and God you will punch them!" Somehow I managed to not laugh. I love that kid!

God has been doing amazing things in my life. It's so hard but good to work through things with Him. I am excited to get away and just spend time with Him this weekend. I am not bringing ANY work! It should be great.

My kids LOVE a song I have that says "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." Of course, many of you know that that's a verse as well--it's a straight up scripture song :). My goal is that I would be a righteous woman of prayer. May I continue to pray for my taxi driver, my crazy and wonderful first graders, and so much more.

I have more funny stories from today but it is getting late. I will have to write about them later. Let's just say we took a field trip to the main offices on campus today and my kids LOVED it! Haha. It's amazing what can make kids laugh. I am grateful for a patient and kind director and a high school principal who loves first graders and will let them distract him for a bit :). It was pretty cute!

First graders might be the funniest people in the world

My first graders make me laugh every day. A few good ones from the past few days?

We were talking about the word "until" as one of our new vocabulary words. The ESL teacher was in my room and we were trying to get them to finish sentences. She said "I am hungry, but I can't eat until..." hoping they would be able to finish it. One little girl raised her hand and said "until December!" I sure hope we can eat before December!

That same day we were talking about our book which has to do with a pumpkin. We were saying that we had talked about a farmer and the book would be connected to him. We were trying to get them to say "Farmer McDonald," who we had talked about. We told them he was a farmer. One little boy raised his hand and instead of saying Farmer McDonald, he said the PE teacher's name! I guess he's a farmer in his spare time!

Today we were out playing on the playground. I was playing on the jungle gym with them. They wanted me to go on the monkey bars. I unfortunately cannot just shimmy across like I used to. I did it, but not the normal way. I was kinda sideways. The kids were like "You are doing it wrong! I guess you are too old!" Haha. I am now officially too old for the monkey bars :)

They truly are like little mice following me every where. If I was playing tag and left and went to the monkey bars, they all left and went to the monkey bars. And of course all I hear when I play with them is "Miss Seeman LOOK!"

God has been teaching me a lot lately. I will try to post something more soon, but I wanted to at least write a little bit. I am praying for another good and of course funny day with my little mice tomorrow!

Life with first graders

So I can't get these pictures to move. You might want to read the text first and then look at the pictures :)
These boys think you have to wear your soccer socks up as high as they go. Notice you can see no legs :)
They LOVE to read the Beginner's Bible :)
He is one of my American missionary boys. LOVE him and LOVE the half smile. Anyone reminded of my brother? :)

Us being crazy

Trying to get a good class picture. It didn't work.

We have had 16 days of school. 164 to go. Haha. No, it's not that bad :). I am enjoying them, most days at least. It's definitely been a switch from third grade. I am slowly figuring out how to get and keep their attention. I still lose them at times, but we are getting there. I love the things that make them laugh! I love being goofy with them!

Please pray with me that I would really shine bright for Christ to them. I want to show them Christ's love. May none of me and all of Him shine through. I love working at a place where I can share my faith as much as I want. I don't always take advantage of that though.

Please pray as well that I would know how to reach each and every one of them. They are all so different, but I want to be able to challenge each and every one of them.

Amanda and I along with some others started going back to the girls home. The older ones were AMAZING last Thursday. I was speaking more English than I ever have and they got it! Now we just have to get them saying it :)

This year has been very different in terms of hanging out with people. The teachers do a lot more together, which has been super fun. Tonight we sang worship songs for 2 hours! It reminded me of my days at Emmaus. I love singing with people, and most of the teachers have AMAZING voices.

It's amazing how God provides and takes care of us. So often it's in little ways that we miss if we are not looking. I want to make it my goal to keep my eyes open this year, so to speak. I want to be aware of the ways God provides for me, encourages me, and shows me that He loves me. Some things I have noticed the last couple days? I love the people He has put in my life. The one He brought to mind is my taxi driver. Yes, I said taxi driver. Luis has become like an uncle to me. He watches out for me and always tells us that if we need anything he will help us. We invited him to a concert Amanda is singing in and he is coming! I am just amazed at how God cares about the little things, like great taxi drivers. He has also been teaching me a lot about how I need to fear Him and not people. There have been a lot of opportunities to learn that the past couple weeks. Hard lessons but good lessons :).