God knows how much we can handle, and yesterday, I believe that He knew I couldn't handle much. He blessed us with a bountiful breakfast table of fried plantains, toast, apples, and lime tea prepared by Darcia (thank you!). In my first class Miss Sonia (a prepa teacher) told me that she loved the way I teach. I felt so undeserving of her compliment and grateful to God. Just at a time when I felt clueless and wondered what I was doing, God sent me the reassurance I needed that He was helping me. Classes went well, my students are so sweet! When it comes to kids, there are bound to be a few problems here and there--someone not listening, someone bothering a classmate, someone complaining, etc--but I'm such a sucker for them. One little smile or hug, one successful moment in school, and it's worth it. I can be tired and worried, but when I step in front of my class, their energy is contagious. They are my brightest sunshine.

When I got home, I relaxed in my room and and enjoyed the fact that it didn't sound like someone was showering. Our shower had a major leak (think steady stream of water), but a man from the school had repaired it while we were at work. Then I got started on supper, and  Kadian came out after a while to help. We made vegetable fried rice with egg on the side and steamed broccoli (finally found something green at the grocery store!). Kadian and I really miss having Bragg's, but we are figuring out other ways to flavor rice and tofu and the like. Kadian is vegan, and we are all going to try to be mostly vegan (just at our house) this year. I am glad that I am getting to practice by culinary skills in a practice resourceful way. After we had all sat down to our wonderfully big supper and started eating, I noticed a cockroach on the wall. I have gotten somewhat used to dealing with all types of other icky bugs, but cockroaches still send me shrieking. After debating what to do and no one wanting to deal with it, I suddenly remembered our "little brother", Christian, next door. Kadian and I tried to seem half-way calm as we rushed over to Miss Myla's house (right next door) calling "Christian!! Little brother! Christiannnn!!!" He was home! He came over and killed the cockroach for us, thus rescuing us and our lovely supper. We fed him as a thank you :).

Our shower stream before it was fixed. I took the shower head off to clean out the mold. It is like a new shower now!

Banana bread baking :)

Right after supper, Kadian and I started making banana bread. We put Christian to work mashing bananas while we measured out other ingredients. Miss Myla came over and chatted with us for a while. The banana bread turned out super great! Kadian has this thing about not snacking or eating late, so somehow she resisted even tasting it. But I sampled a few slices :). Yum. We found a whole wheat vegan recipe, but honestly you wouldn't know the difference. I think it's going to become a regular around this house. It was such a nice evening, but it went by so quickly! Before I knew it my bedtime had passed and I had to rush to get seven hours of sleep in.

Today I had all six of my classes and assisted Miss Joline (the first grade teacher) for some classes. I would have helped her more, but I had to run home in the morning to get my passport for Pastor Trundle. I am starting to get an idea of how much I need to plan for each class to keep them busy. The language barrier isn't so bad when I am just teaching Bible class, but when they ask me questions, get in arguments, get hurt, or try to talk to me outside of class, and various other times--it is almost always in Spanish. The school says that we are not to speak Spanish to our students ever, but pre-k is an exception, and kindergarten and prepa are too to some extent since they are just learning. I ask them to try to say whatever they are saying in English, but they almost always don't know how and try to ask me how to say it in English, which is sad, because I don't know nearly enough Spanish to understand most of what they say. It's awful, I couldn't even understand some of my kids' names. The sounds just sounded like a whole lot of Spanish r's no matter how slow they said it for me lol. Luckily the assistants and other teachers can usually help me understand. Anyway, I hope to start Spanish lessons with a tutor after she comes back from her trip in October. I want to wait until things settle down, and I get used to school.

Shortly after school was over, I went to The Hogar (the orphanage) with my friend Emily Brewster for dance lesson Wednesdays. More about that tomorrow. Bed time. Thanks for reading, thanks for the prayers, leave me a comment to let me know you remember me!
Love,
Em