First week of teaching!

This week has been full of emotional ups and downs. I started teaching last Wednesday and found that many of my students did not understand me. It was frustrating and I felt unprepared. However, many people encouraged me by reminding me that my students had been on vacation and had not heard English for 2 months. In addition, I am brand new to them and they probably have to get accustomed to my accent. Now that I have taught them for three days and have started getting to know them, I am more comfortable with the situation. I speak much more slowly and I try to take everything in stride.

As I began working on lesson plans, I felt very unsure of myself because I have limited training and experience as a teacher. I started asking my fellow teachers lots more questions than I had been. I also decided that I have to keep moving forward instead of letting my fears keep from doing anything. As I have been stepping out, the Lord has been meeting me. He has been giving me ideas and providing resources from other teachers to help me with my lessons. God is so good! I love the verse that says that even we are faithless, God is faithful because He cannot deny Himself!

The really crazy part of teaching is learning my students' names. Their names are things like Teerapat and Warinthorn. They have shorter nicknames too, but I was told by one teacher that it is better to call them by their full names. Since then, other teachers have said it is better to use their nicknames. I think it is more a matter of preference, so I am using their full names just to keep continuity with how I started.

On my second day, I told my students that we were going to pray and I folded my hands together to help them understand. They really did not understand and it took me a long time to get them to close their eyes. I prayed a very simple prayer.
After I said "Amen," they still had their eyes closed. I had to explain that "Amen" means it is the end of the prayer. I am now asking them to say Amen after me so that we will have less confusion. Overall, I realize that the Lord is allowing me to teach them about Him from the ground up. What an opportunity! Please pray for me to have wisdom and insight about how to do this. Please pray that I will choose to believe the best and not get discouraged as I live out and share my faith with my students and fellow teachers.

On a lighter note, I thought some people might find it humorous that Starbucks sells sausage and mayonnaise buns here, along with brownies, cheesecake, and other pastries.

I am continuing to seek the Lord about where and how to be involved in ministry outside of my job. I am blessed to have many Christian friends at two churches.