Ready To Go!

So here I am at the end of my week of orientation and training. Wow, I never thought that I would like putting together a class and teaching it so much. I have learned so much this week about being a teacher anda communicator of information to students. I worked all week on a simple outline for my one 45 minutes lecture, and to think that teachers do this kind of stuff everyday. I have a completly new respect for teachers.

I have had a blast this week getting comfortable with my class and all the materials that I am going to us with the students. But most of all I had a crazy week with God. He is teaching me patience, when is He not teaching me about patience, in different situations. For example just the simple aspect of having to catch and pins insect for display. Catching insects is no easy job and takes a lot of patience. Even with roommates and trying to get use to living with people that aren't like me at all. My whole life God has blessed with amazing roommates. Not that these roommates aren't amazing but I have never lived with three other people and we are so different and do things different and having patience with them is something that God is pressing on my right now. I am so greatful for these lessons. It might sound like I am complaining, but these are some great lessons to learn. Is it frustrating sometimes, yeah, but it is needed. I won't be made stronger in my love and my walk and my pactince if there is no friction and no conflict. So I am honestly grateful for it.

Campers come Monday and I am so excited. I'm ready to be in there with them having fun, talking with students, teaching students, and sharing Jesus with them. I am finding more and more that heart are student in the Elementary age. They such open minds and hearts that are modalbe. I get super excited about it when I think about the ways that God can use me in the lives of these students if I allow Him. So if you think about me as the week goes on comes to an end and we start a new week I would love it if you would say a quick prayer for me, the staff and the students that are coming here. That God would prepare all our hearts and that as a staff we will be open to God's guiding when interacting with these students and looking for the teachable moments. I would really appreciate that! I promise to keep you updated on the week! Hopefully I will put up pictures to!


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Jackie

Philippians 2:1-3
¹If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ²then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. ³Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

OE Thus Far

It has been 4 short days since I arrived back at the beautiful Hume Lake to start my job for the fall as on Outdoor Education Instructor. I was given the class of Entomology. For those of you who do not know what that is it the the Study of Insects, basically. I meet my partner and his name is Chief. He majored in outdoor Education and so he knows alot about our topic. So I have been hitting the books and studying any and everything about insects and catching them for the past three days. Let me tell you that these past few days have been anything less than boring. We have been getting up early and working on putting our material together, putting our classrooms together, and becoming experts on our topics. I have 3 roommates! One of them is from Mississippi and has the neatest accent ever. Her name is Boots and she is the youngest on our staff at 17. Then there is Poppy who is a teacher and she has a heart to convey the information as correctly and uniquley to the students. Then my bunkmate would be Kove. She just ha sthis fun and crazy spirit which I just love and feed off of. So needless to say our room has been less then boring, dance parties, late night chats, and pictures galore! The staff in general has been pretty amazing. A lot of us came off of summer staff together and so we have previous relationships so it is nice to know people in this new and crazy environment. It has been extra neat fo rme to have Boone and Koda here with me, I work with both of them at Wagon Train over the summer. It's just nice to have people here who know me and that i can openly and honestly talk with and confide in with out having to rebuild that relationship with others. But I'm looking forward to building those types of relationship with the girls on this staff. Speaking of building relationships. We had a team building activity the other day. I will always and forever refer to it as the day of the hike! We woke up at 5 am, ok first off I went to bed with the stars and woke up with the stars, and left for our destination at around 5:45 am. Getting up early is something that I don't do to often nor do I do well with getting up early, just ask any one who knows me. After an hour drive we headed off on our hike at 7 am. Pk, my boss, was kind enought to explain each third of the hike to us so we wouldn't have any surprises. we started at 8,000 ft and ended at 10, 375 ft. This was by far one of the hardest hike that I had ever done. I was tired, out of breath, my legs burned, my hip and knee hurt ,but in the end when I reached the top and steped onto the peak and looked out I was stunned by God's beauty. This was the highest I had every been hiking. By this time it was 8:45am and the sun was in just the right place and the sun hit the surrounding mountains in such a way that they sparkled. As Pk read from Matthew 6 about worry, I was thinking about how God has created all this and knew all thsi was here. I had NO idea that any of this existed but my God did. These mountains were so tall and so large but God yet still cares enough to love me and know me. So why in the world would I worry that I am not going to learn all my information before the students come or little things like that. God's got it. Needless to say it was totally worth waking up at 5am to see my God in a completely different way and enjoy the things that he has given me.

We ended the hike with pancakes at the top of this peak and a group photo. We headed back down and we we reached the vans we all crawled inside and fell asleep! It was one of the best days ever. Even today I am still really sore and I feel like I am 95 years old but I would do it again!