Well, things have kicked off with Back to School! After 6 months of being out of the classroom I'm back in it on the other side of the table! Somebody had the strange idea that I can teach maths and so I've been taking the 6 most able children in Grade 5 (10 years old) for their, numbers to 1 000 000 lessons! This mainly involves a lot of number lines and counting on, which may not sound so hard but I did put a number line on the board yesterday that I couldn't answer! This elicited the question "Are you a teacher?" from one girl, the answer was "Sort of!" Apart from that we are now only 2 short of a full team, the first of which comes back tomorrow and then the second of which...I'm not sure! Feeling ready to take on the year and hit the ground running.
We've been doing 'birds' in class as well where, as Mike said, my extensive knowledge of birds really came in handy! I've learnt that Ostriches are the largest birds on earth and can run at up to 45 mph. Today we had 2 Love Birds and a Chicken in the classroom which was...interesting! The Love Birds wouldn't really shut up so it was a bit frustrating after a while! I really became a teacher when I sat down with 2 subjects worth of books and was like, AH now I have to do all this marking - although the best bit is getting to choose stickers to reward them with. I think that every year should get stickers, right up to Sixth Form. Everyone loves stickers, am I right, or am I right!?
14 Jan 2011
7 Jan 2011
Things to Do Without a TV: No.1
Make a scrabble board full of words associated with God, great for focussing on His character and increasing vocabulary at the same time!
3 Jan 2011
Arrival in Clarens and a Very Wet Safari
Well, I'm here. It seems like a lifetime ago that I started praying, planning and saving for this moment, so much so that its a bit unreal to think that the time has actually arrived - I keep half expecting to be told to go home again! We had a wonderful family holiday although the two days at the safari lodge were waterlogged to say the least, however, we still saw loads of animals including cheetahs and giraffes!
I started this post a week ago and have now had one week which has also been more of a holiday but also some adjustment time. Our team has not yet re-assembled after christmas and so things are on a go slow at a push! But it has been, in a way, quite good to just pick up the pace of life here and try and settle in to what is now my life. I think we underestimate moves like this, excited as we are, we forget that there is a lot involved and that actually behind the exciting things we're doing and the great things we're going to do and see and experience life doesn't just change at the click of a finger and we aren't able to just fit into a new place as immediately as hoped! I say 'we' because I think really that is one of the true lessons of leaving home for everyone who's done it. Now, don't quote me or use me as some expert on this because, seriously, I haven't consulted anybody else on this issue, its just a hunch. I think one of the biggest learning curves leaving home is that home doesn't happen overnight. You can make a place look like home and, yes I believe Clarens is my home [see previous blog posts to see just how much] but actually making a home in a new place, especially on your own is tough. (I hope this is making sense, I'm really just typing before my brain thinks this through). I suppose I'm just grateful that I am joining a church here that feels like a home, that the people will make sure I feel like part of a family, and that the Northcote family let me kip on their floor!
I started this post a week ago and have now had one week which has also been more of a holiday but also some adjustment time. Our team has not yet re-assembled after christmas and so things are on a go slow at a push! But it has been, in a way, quite good to just pick up the pace of life here and try and settle in to what is now my life. I think we underestimate moves like this, excited as we are, we forget that there is a lot involved and that actually behind the exciting things we're doing and the great things we're going to do and see and experience life doesn't just change at the click of a finger and we aren't able to just fit into a new place as immediately as hoped! I say 'we' because I think really that is one of the true lessons of leaving home for everyone who's done it. Now, don't quote me or use me as some expert on this because, seriously, I haven't consulted anybody else on this issue, its just a hunch. I think one of the biggest learning curves leaving home is that home doesn't happen overnight. You can make a place look like home and, yes I believe Clarens is my home [see previous blog posts to see just how much] but actually making a home in a new place, especially on your own is tough. (I hope this is making sense, I'm really just typing before my brain thinks this through). I suppose I'm just grateful that I am joining a church here that feels like a home, that the people will make sure I feel like part of a family, and that the Northcote family let me kip on their floor!
10 Dec 2010
'Almost There' or 'Three Sleeps to Go'
I'm looking around my room at all the photos and postcards and cuttings that have made it mine. This room has so much of me in it, the actors, the art, the photos. I'm trying to leave it as long as possible before I take them down because I know that once they're gone it really will feel like I'm leaving. I've cleared my room out. Well, I say cleared. The thing is that I've cleared the cupboards and drawers; all the out of sight stuff. I thought doing this would make it difficult to mess up my room in my last few weeks. How wrong I was. There is so much stuff on the floor, I really don't know where it all came from and certainly don't know where its all going to go!
Packing has been a bit of a nightmare as well, I seem to have way too many clothes. [do you think we added the 'e' into clothes because we didn't like sounding as if we were wearing 'cloths'?] Anyway. My whole point is that my leaving day is very close indeed and I don't really know what to do about it. This has been my focus for a very long time but now that it is almost upon me I don't know what to do with myself. To be honest I'm trusting God that it'll all just fall into place somehow! TTFN
16 Nov 2010
Testimony to the Greatness of Fellow Ordinary Persons!
I would like to offer public gratitude to a few members of staff at work today. Without them I would have come home shaken, traumatised, worried and scared but with whom I came home with a 'new' fleece and a renewed esteem for my fellow human beings!
At work today, I was scammed (as were 2 other members of staff) by men who got money from my till by messing with my head over their change and right now I have no clue how they did it or how much they got away with. This ordeal could have been exceptionally traumatic, and it was for about 20 minutes while I squirmed and fretted inside not knowing how to tell anyone what had happened. However, as soon as the supervisors were informed and knew about the event I was comforted and reassured like I have never known! While I tried unsuccessfully not to show how shaken up I was; I was offered tissues, a cup of sweet tea for my nerves, a warm fleece, and numerous stories of how however many years ago so-and-so was scammed in the same way or how such-and-such got done for £200. I felt very loved and very cared for, even if slightly silly for being so worked up. But believe me, it is not nice to know that you have been harassed and bamboozled into giving away money that is not yours.
I would like to say thankyou to those people, and say that my memory of working for Sainsbury's will never be tarnished because of their care and comfort.
Praise God! x
At work today, I was scammed (as were 2 other members of staff) by men who got money from my till by messing with my head over their change and right now I have no clue how they did it or how much they got away with. This ordeal could have been exceptionally traumatic, and it was for about 20 minutes while I squirmed and fretted inside not knowing how to tell anyone what had happened. However, as soon as the supervisors were informed and knew about the event I was comforted and reassured like I have never known! While I tried unsuccessfully not to show how shaken up I was; I was offered tissues, a cup of sweet tea for my nerves, a warm fleece, and numerous stories of how however many years ago so-and-so was scammed in the same way or how such-and-such got done for £200. I felt very loved and very cared for, even if slightly silly for being so worked up. But believe me, it is not nice to know that you have been harassed and bamboozled into giving away money that is not yours.
I would like to say thankyou to those people, and say that my memory of working for Sainsbury's will never be tarnished because of their care and comfort.
Praise God! x
1 Nov 2010
Home (Part 2)
I decided to do this in two parts as it sort of separated itself into such.
The first time I ever visited Clarens. We drove into town and something in my spirit both soared and relaxed simultaneously. Having left Scotland about 9 years previously I had forgotten what the feeling of 'coming home' was like, but that is the only way I can describe my attachment to Clarens. I had come home. So this is why I feel in a sense of such limbo right now. Heightened since visiting my 'homeland'. Don't get me wrong, I love my family and I love our house and I love our church so much more than I can sometimes express! (Jubilee I feel so proud to be part of you!) But this place has never felt home. I feel more that sense of relaxation and safety when the car pulls into Peebles that I do when it pulls into Ferring and that was what happened in my spirit when we pulled into Clarens.
So if you ever wonder why I chose to give a year of my life to a church in a small town in rural South Africa, thats why. God has given me a place to feel at home and I believe he has done so because he wants that place to impact me while I ask Him to help me impact it.
As an aside, God has also confirmed it as the place to be because the Church is awesome, the people are awesome and well, to be honest God is awesome and I want to serve him, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd asked me to serve Jubilee in Worthing for a year, if it was part of His plan for me I would have done it and trusted there was a reason, even if I couldn't see it.
This quote, from 'The Last Battle' by C S Lewis, somehow contains everything that I mean when I talk about our home not being on earth and yet longing for a home on earth. Hopefully it will make sense to you to: (apologies for the length)
"You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea...and in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking glass... And the sea in the mirror...were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different - deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked like is meant more... It was the unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling... "I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it til now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this."
I get goosebumps just typing that out, it releases me to know that my home is not on earth, that the place I belong, my 'real country' is in the new heavens and the new earth, but that I can feel safe in the knowledge that we can sometimes feel at home in places on this earth because they look a little like where we're going. I pray that in my life I can be an instrument for bringing the glory of God to all sorts of places and making them look a little like where we are headed.
I hope this makes sense like it does in my head! God Bless x
The first time I ever visited Clarens. We drove into town and something in my spirit both soared and relaxed simultaneously. Having left Scotland about 9 years previously I had forgotten what the feeling of 'coming home' was like, but that is the only way I can describe my attachment to Clarens. I had come home. So this is why I feel in a sense of such limbo right now. Heightened since visiting my 'homeland'. Don't get me wrong, I love my family and I love our house and I love our church so much more than I can sometimes express! (Jubilee I feel so proud to be part of you!) But this place has never felt home. I feel more that sense of relaxation and safety when the car pulls into Peebles that I do when it pulls into Ferring and that was what happened in my spirit when we pulled into Clarens.
So if you ever wonder why I chose to give a year of my life to a church in a small town in rural South Africa, thats why. God has given me a place to feel at home and I believe he has done so because he wants that place to impact me while I ask Him to help me impact it.
As an aside, God has also confirmed it as the place to be because the Church is awesome, the people are awesome and well, to be honest God is awesome and I want to serve him, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd asked me to serve Jubilee in Worthing for a year, if it was part of His plan for me I would have done it and trusted there was a reason, even if I couldn't see it.
This quote, from 'The Last Battle' by C S Lewis, somehow contains everything that I mean when I talk about our home not being on earth and yet longing for a home on earth. Hopefully it will make sense to you to: (apologies for the length)
"You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea...and in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking glass... And the sea in the mirror...were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different - deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked like is meant more... It was the unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling... "I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it til now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this."
I get goosebumps just typing that out, it releases me to know that my home is not on earth, that the place I belong, my 'real country' is in the new heavens and the new earth, but that I can feel safe in the knowledge that we can sometimes feel at home in places on this earth because they look a little like where we're going. I pray that in my life I can be an instrument for bringing the glory of God to all sorts of places and making them look a little like where we are headed.
I hope this makes sense like it does in my head! God Bless x
Home (Part 1)
Those of you who know me very closely, will probably know what kind of a subject 'home' is to me, and to those of you who don't, you're probably (if I get the words down right) about to find out. Of course, a trip to Scotland is bound to stir up feelings and ponderings about home and the ultimate question, where is home?
I was struck again by the unbearable beauty of the Borders and then taking the train from Edinburgh to Leuchars/ St Andrews) blew me away. As the train sped along the view out of the window was constantly changing from a stunning painting of a beach, to one of rolling green fields and hills. The bleak, raw beauty of Scotland never ceases to capture my heart, from the mottled hills to the grey stone of Edinburgh's buildings and cobbled streets. I love it all, yes, even in the rain! I only wish I could paint it, but will have to be content to 'paint with words'. I only hope this short paragraph has done it justice, the only thing I can say is visit, visit, visit!
So returning 'home' from where really feels like home is always a slight anti-climax. I am always reminded that really we are not meant to feel at home on earth because our real home is with God, but I think it is part of our humanity that we long for somewhere to feel like home. Its not sinful to wish that the place we live would feel like home, or to long for a place we have left - because it was home. I pray that God transforms that emotion and transfers it to His dwelling place. To slightly misquote a tweet from PJ Smyth: We must live is state of homesickness for the Kingdom of God. I only wish I found it easier to transfer my longing for an earthly home to a longing for a heavenly one.
I was struck again by the unbearable beauty of the Borders and then taking the train from Edinburgh to Leuchars/ St Andrews) blew me away. As the train sped along the view out of the window was constantly changing from a stunning painting of a beach, to one of rolling green fields and hills. The bleak, raw beauty of Scotland never ceases to capture my heart, from the mottled hills to the grey stone of Edinburgh's buildings and cobbled streets. I love it all, yes, even in the rain! I only wish I could paint it, but will have to be content to 'paint with words'. I only hope this short paragraph has done it justice, the only thing I can say is visit, visit, visit!
So returning 'home' from where really feels like home is always a slight anti-climax. I am always reminded that really we are not meant to feel at home on earth because our real home is with God, but I think it is part of our humanity that we long for somewhere to feel like home. Its not sinful to wish that the place we live would feel like home, or to long for a place we have left - because it was home. I pray that God transforms that emotion and transfers it to His dwelling place. To slightly misquote a tweet from PJ Smyth: We must live is state of homesickness for the Kingdom of God. I only wish I found it easier to transfer my longing for an earthly home to a longing for a heavenly one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)