It's finally Semana Santa ("Holy Week" = SPRING BREAK!!!), and as any good teacher I am more excited about it than the kids!! :) It has been a rough past few weeks in my classroom. Not exactly sure if it's lack of sleep on my part, change in the weather, the kids pushing the limits, or me being the worst teacher ever! Lots of waking up with high hopes and confidences, and going to bed frustrated and exhausted. It's all to teach me something though, and I capture the jewels when I can (a struggling student passing a test, one student [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone!! I'm still teaching 3rd grade and life has been FULL. A bit stressful at times with 15 students and good behavior is always an uphill battle in the classroom. I relish the good moments and try to learn through the challenges! Last weekend I went to my first soccer game with a group of teachers. We spent the afternoon at City Mall and then went to the futbol game in the evening. loved it and hope to catch a few more while I'm here. The dry season's started. Dust everyone. Semana Santa (holy week and Spring Break!!) is just [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone! Just a quick note to let you all know I'm ok...but life is really busy right now. Full...at times hard...but good. Please keep praying for me as I teach, that I can do it well and for the students. As always, God is becoming more and more of my everything! He is my life, my strength, my rest! I love you!! Sending sunshine! A [View Full Entry]

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Hey Everyone! Starting Monday I have a new position at Mayatan School...3rd grade teacher!! I'm really excited about being with a classroom again...even though I know how absolutely exhausting it is! I'll have 15 students, and 7 of them were my 2nd graders last year, so I'm looking forward to continuing with them and getting to know the others better. I know this is a change God wants me to make and that He'll give me the wisdom and strength needed, but will you please pray with me about this new challenge! For me pray for PATIENCE, GREAT TEACHING IDEAS, PERSEVERANCE, [View Full Entry]

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We had a going away / baby shower for one of our 2nd grade teachers, Ms. Chelsea!! We all decided that the baby shower party is quite a treat and the rest of us teachers are figuring out how we can have more of such fiestas...hmmmm (son bromas...just kidding). As to not weigh her down with even more luggage on her way back to the states, we all got her a beautiful hand-made honduran baby quilt. Gorgeous. We played some baby-shower word games in SPANISH...(I won one...but only because a Honduran teacher did most of it for me...we only got two [View Full Entry]

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A few friends sent down some fun head gear and my host family had a lot of laughs with it my first night back!! [View Full Entry]

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It's great to be back working with my students at Mayatan Bilingual School! I tutor students individually and in small groups during classes at the school, and then have started doing some English Read Alouds in town. Last Saturday we met at Colibrí, a new bookstore in town, and I read several books to the kids on the theme of SNOW!! I also brought some of the pictures I took while I was home at Christmas. They loved the snowman and couldn't imagine how COLD it must be! I'm hoping to continue with the read alouds...maybe twice during the week at [View Full Entry]

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Last Sunday afternoon I went to the birthday party of my friend's 1 year old son, Eliazer. Denia, his mom, works at the public library and is also our neighbor. A super sweet girl! Birthday parties are super-special here. The ones I've gone to tend to follow the same typical order. You hand out invitations the week before, or just verbally invite the people. The guests show up early, on time, or late...but usually end up sitting and waiting around a while anyway. You serve some sort of food...it could be tamales (not my favorite, but I've had some good ones), [View Full Entry]

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For the first 10 days of January a group from the states came down to the La Joya medical clinic. Part of the team worked on several construction projects while the others spent their days seeing patients from the area and going to a remote indigenous village of the Tulapani people. I was able to join the team about half way through their time in La Joya. I spent one morning translating (I was glad I didn't forget too much of my Spanish while in the States...but at times it's frustrating trying to have a discussion with completing foreign vocabulary...I mean [View Full Entry]

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I had an amazing 3 weeks in Michigan and flew back to San Pedro Sula, Honduras on January 5th...back to the HEAT and SUNSHINE!! I took a 4 hour bus ride from San Pedro to the capital Tegucigalpa where a Honduran pastor's wife met me, kept me for the night, and sent me on another bus to La Joya last Sunday morning. After nearly 3 more hours I arrived in beautiful LA JOYA where the medical/construction brigade was already in progress. I spent the next few days helping translate for the medic team, teaching 2 afternoons of Sunday School teacher seminars, [View Full Entry]

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