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.

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!