"Make some plans."
A lesson learned for sure.
Tomorrow, I take my third certification exam. Once I pass, (and I will) I will be able to sign my contract with the Irving Independent School District and officially be the new 4th grade English, Reading, and Social Studies Teacher for Otis Brown Elementary School.
4th grade was not my plan.
Taking three exams was not my plan.
Working with one of my best friends was not my plan.
Living with my parents for almost a year after graduation was not my plan.
Not having a cent to my name was not my plan.
Being a counselor at Camp of the Hills this summer was not my plan.
Trusting God has always been in my plan though... so maybe, in a round-about way, these were always my plans.
I'm excited to see what the rest of this year will bring.
By January I should:
Be somewhat solid in teachering (as Molly calls it)
Be MOVED OUT of my parent's house
Find a new church home
Have a NEPHEW
Be somewhat financially stable
Have my worrying problem improved
Understand what God has in store for me
Are you laughing?
Me too.
Planning is silly.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
God's Gifts
I just had one of the best weeks of my life. Seriously.
So, I just finished my one and only week EVER as a COUNSELOR at Camp of the Hills. It was amazing. I had never been able to be a counselor because I was needed in other areas at camp. I was a staff assistant for the summer of 05 and the "nurse" for the first half of last summer. I absolutely love every moment I am out at camp, no matter what I am doing. I can't explain it. It's not like any other place on earth. You have to experience it for yourself.
For a long time I was upset because I thought I would never get the chance to be out at Camp again, and I missed out on a really amazing thing. I gained peace, through Christ, about it and knew that I was used to do His will. Thinking about that made it all okay (as it always does.) Then I found out about the shortage of counselors this summer and literally jumped at the chance to be out here. Unfortunately, I was only able to be out here for one week because of a HUGE miscommunication about certification and stuff. So, here I am.
When I was on my way out here, I thought about what this week would bring. I always knew that God kept me from being a counselor in the past for a reason. I wasn't sure if the reason was because I was needed somewhere else or if I just wasn't cut out to be a counselor and He was protecting me from it.
I was extremely nervous Sunday and Monday because I wasn't sure what God was going to tell me this week. Either this week was a Gift from Him or it was a Lesson that He knows what He is doing.
It was both.
I am praising God for the amazing Gift that was being a Counselor at Camp of the Hills. Really, you don't know what it's like until you have been so close and not really getting there.
One week is enough. I am satisfied. I would LOVE to be out here for a whole summer, but I can't. I am at peace and I am blessed.
Praise God!
So, I just finished my one and only week EVER as a COUNSELOR at Camp of the Hills. It was amazing. I had never been able to be a counselor because I was needed in other areas at camp. I was a staff assistant for the summer of 05 and the "nurse" for the first half of last summer. I absolutely love every moment I am out at camp, no matter what I am doing. I can't explain it. It's not like any other place on earth. You have to experience it for yourself.
For a long time I was upset because I thought I would never get the chance to be out at Camp again, and I missed out on a really amazing thing. I gained peace, through Christ, about it and knew that I was used to do His will. Thinking about that made it all okay (as it always does.) Then I found out about the shortage of counselors this summer and literally jumped at the chance to be out here. Unfortunately, I was only able to be out here for one week because of a HUGE miscommunication about certification and stuff. So, here I am.
When I was on my way out here, I thought about what this week would bring. I always knew that God kept me from being a counselor in the past for a reason. I wasn't sure if the reason was because I was needed somewhere else or if I just wasn't cut out to be a counselor and He was protecting me from it.
I was extremely nervous Sunday and Monday because I wasn't sure what God was going to tell me this week. Either this week was a Gift from Him or it was a Lesson that He knows what He is doing.
It was both.
I am praising God for the amazing Gift that was being a Counselor at Camp of the Hills. Really, you don't know what it's like until you have been so close and not really getting there.
One week is enough. I am satisfied. I would LOVE to be out here for a whole summer, but I can't. I am at peace and I am blessed.
Praise God!
Friday, July 11, 2008
I’m a Regular Girl
I have been asked by an un-named source to share a certain happening in my life on my blog that I never update. I asked said source if it was too gross and too much information for my three blog readers and they said, "No. It's just funny. If they know you well enough to read your blog, then it shouldn't matter."
It took some convincing, but here it is. I wrote this as a personal narrative for one of my education classes at A&M. And yes, my prof made me read it to the whole class.
This story is true. This really happened. You can't make this stuff up. And now you know.
It took some convincing, but here it is. I wrote this as a personal narrative for one of my education classes at A&M. And yes, my prof made me read it to the whole class.
This story is true. This really happened. You can't make this stuff up. And now you know.
I'm a Regular Girl
I knew something wasn’t quite right. But when keeping 100 screaming children together and happy, there isn’t much else I was able to pay attention to. Now I know that it was my pride that kept me from realizing it. I was so proud of myself. It almost seemed as if I was invincible.
I had made it halfway through the seven-week mission trip to Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia without getting sick. Aggies For Christ in the Orient (AFCO) is known to be one of the most amazing mission trips the Aggies For Christ take every other summer, but it is also one that has a history of minor illnesses for its travelers. The summer of 2006 was no different.
Most of the other twenty-eight people on the trip had gotten “Bangkok-belly” or some other form of stomach malady due to the abrupt change in cuisine. Not me. I had made it all the way up and down a mountain, one week eating off street vendors in Bangkok, countless numbers of bus rides to and from different cities in Thailand, and most of the way through a five-day vacation bible school in Singapore without getting some sort of illness. Our last night in Singapore was when I finally acknowledged something was really wrong. It was in the Hard Rock Café that I realized that the normal passage of food through my body had stopped somewhere along the way. I hadn’t seen the ending result of my digestive system’s function for the past seven days and it was causing some discomfort (for lack of a better word.) Still, the three words that proved to be the motto of all AFCO trips in the past, “be tough, flexible, and optimistic,” rang through my head and I pressed on.
The next day we left for Malaysia where Jason and I were to head up “Camp Shine,” a youth camp for both Malaysian and Singaporean youth. We had our work cut out for us and it was no time for one of the leaders to be preoccupied in the bathroom. However, I did express my concerns to Sara Davidson who acted the mother figure on the trip. Seeing as she was a veteran AFCOer, a resident of Bangkok, Thailand for eighteen years, and the wife of the leader of our trip, it was safe to assume she may know what to do in a situation like mine. She informed me that we would be going into town the next day with all of the campers for a nice sea-food dinner and if my condition hadn’t improved she would seek out some medicine from the local drugstore. As day nine went on with no improvement, I started finding it hard to stay standing very long due to the ache in my lower back. As we loaded the buses to go into town, I sought out Sara and informed her of the pain in my back and how my condition had worsened.
Around 10:30 that night, Sara presented me with a glass of orange flavored goop and two tiny yellow pills. After reluctantly choking down the goop and swallowing the pills, I was sent to bed with the happy thought that my little situation would be all better in the morning. I was forewarned that I might have a long night ahead of me, but I didn’t mind. What’s a little while spent in a bathroom and a little less sleep when I will feel one-hundred percent better in the morning, right? If only it were that simple.
2:00 am, I awoke with the most horrible cramp in my stomach that didn't even allow me to stand up and walk to the bathroom; I had to crawl. I knew this was it; I wasn’t expecting the pain, but I was somewhat glad to get the process of getting well started. At approximately 6:00 am I was still perched on my throne of misery. The past four hours were a blur of sweat, tears, exhaustion, pains that make me think of the words: child-birth, and lying on the cold bathroom floor next to a dead cock-roach praying that God would let me die. The most disappointing part was that all I had to show of those four hours were three flushes, one of which was for the dead cock-roach I decided to have a funeral for since not much else was happening.
Around 7:00 am I knocked on the door of a friend who was having the same problems as myself. The pains had lessened and seeing as she was in the very next hotel room, I figured I would be fine to walk over there for a quick visit to see if her night was more successful than mine. Just as I stepped in to the room, my friend emerged from the bathroom having the same downtrodden and unsuccessful look on her face that I knew I was displaying as well. The first words out of her mouth were, “If labor pains are anything close to my night last night, I am never having kids.” I replied with a hearty, “Amen,” laid down on her couch and started to doze. I woke up about 20 minutes later to knocking and a kind voice cooing, “Good morning sweet girls,” entering the hotel room. Sara Davidson to the rescue complete with toast, some fruit from breakfast, juice, eight bottles of water, and a thermometer. She managed to talk us in to sitting at the table; however, her efforts were wasted when trying to get us to eat something. Both of our temperatures were over 101 degrees and we still didn’t have much to show for our awful night before. We were given two more tiny pills and told to stay together in one room for “moral support” while we awaited the relief that seemed so far away. After instructing us to each have three bottles of water finished by lunch time, Sara left us to wait.
Around 10:00 am I awoke to my friend rising quickly from the bed and shutting the bathroom door. I never thought the bodily noises that sounded through the door would ever make jealousy rise within me, but they did. As tears of envy, pain, and exhaustion filled my eyes, it happened. I had that feeling. As I bolted to the second bathroom I prayed that it wasn’t another false alarm, that I wouldn’t have another episode equivalent to the night before, and God heard me! Sweet relief came over me and I could hear my friend yell, “Congratulations!!” The rest of the day included a lot of sleep, successful trips to the bathroom, and two friends bonding over a strange, embarrassing, and silly situation. No longer do we laugh at Metamucil ads, nor do we ignore the “good source of fiber” notices on cereal boxes.
I had made it halfway through the seven-week mission trip to Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia without getting sick. Aggies For Christ in the Orient (AFCO) is known to be one of the most amazing mission trips the Aggies For Christ take every other summer, but it is also one that has a history of minor illnesses for its travelers. The summer of 2006 was no different.
Most of the other twenty-eight people on the trip had gotten “Bangkok-belly” or some other form of stomach malady due to the abrupt change in cuisine. Not me. I had made it all the way up and down a mountain, one week eating off street vendors in Bangkok, countless numbers of bus rides to and from different cities in Thailand, and most of the way through a five-day vacation bible school in Singapore without getting some sort of illness. Our last night in Singapore was when I finally acknowledged something was really wrong. It was in the Hard Rock Café that I realized that the normal passage of food through my body had stopped somewhere along the way. I hadn’t seen the ending result of my digestive system’s function for the past seven days and it was causing some discomfort (for lack of a better word.) Still, the three words that proved to be the motto of all AFCO trips in the past, “be tough, flexible, and optimistic,” rang through my head and I pressed on.
The next day we left for Malaysia where Jason and I were to head up “Camp Shine,” a youth camp for both Malaysian and Singaporean youth. We had our work cut out for us and it was no time for one of the leaders to be preoccupied in the bathroom. However, I did express my concerns to Sara Davidson who acted the mother figure on the trip. Seeing as she was a veteran AFCOer, a resident of Bangkok, Thailand for eighteen years, and the wife of the leader of our trip, it was safe to assume she may know what to do in a situation like mine. She informed me that we would be going into town the next day with all of the campers for a nice sea-food dinner and if my condition hadn’t improved she would seek out some medicine from the local drugstore. As day nine went on with no improvement, I started finding it hard to stay standing very long due to the ache in my lower back. As we loaded the buses to go into town, I sought out Sara and informed her of the pain in my back and how my condition had worsened.
Around 10:30 that night, Sara presented me with a glass of orange flavored goop and two tiny yellow pills. After reluctantly choking down the goop and swallowing the pills, I was sent to bed with the happy thought that my little situation would be all better in the morning. I was forewarned that I might have a long night ahead of me, but I didn’t mind. What’s a little while spent in a bathroom and a little less sleep when I will feel one-hundred percent better in the morning, right? If only it were that simple.
2:00 am, I awoke with the most horrible cramp in my stomach that didn't even allow me to stand up and walk to the bathroom; I had to crawl. I knew this was it; I wasn’t expecting the pain, but I was somewhat glad to get the process of getting well started. At approximately 6:00 am I was still perched on my throne of misery. The past four hours were a blur of sweat, tears, exhaustion, pains that make me think of the words: child-birth, and lying on the cold bathroom floor next to a dead cock-roach praying that God would let me die. The most disappointing part was that all I had to show of those four hours were three flushes, one of which was for the dead cock-roach I decided to have a funeral for since not much else was happening.
Around 7:00 am I knocked on the door of a friend who was having the same problems as myself. The pains had lessened and seeing as she was in the very next hotel room, I figured I would be fine to walk over there for a quick visit to see if her night was more successful than mine. Just as I stepped in to the room, my friend emerged from the bathroom having the same downtrodden and unsuccessful look on her face that I knew I was displaying as well. The first words out of her mouth were, “If labor pains are anything close to my night last night, I am never having kids.” I replied with a hearty, “Amen,” laid down on her couch and started to doze. I woke up about 20 minutes later to knocking and a kind voice cooing, “Good morning sweet girls,” entering the hotel room. Sara Davidson to the rescue complete with toast, some fruit from breakfast, juice, eight bottles of water, and a thermometer. She managed to talk us in to sitting at the table; however, her efforts were wasted when trying to get us to eat something. Both of our temperatures were over 101 degrees and we still didn’t have much to show for our awful night before. We were given two more tiny pills and told to stay together in one room for “moral support” while we awaited the relief that seemed so far away. After instructing us to each have three bottles of water finished by lunch time, Sara left us to wait.
Around 10:00 am I awoke to my friend rising quickly from the bed and shutting the bathroom door. I never thought the bodily noises that sounded through the door would ever make jealousy rise within me, but they did. As tears of envy, pain, and exhaustion filled my eyes, it happened. I had that feeling. As I bolted to the second bathroom I prayed that it wasn’t another false alarm, that I wouldn’t have another episode equivalent to the night before, and God heard me! Sweet relief came over me and I could hear my friend yell, “Congratulations!!” The rest of the day included a lot of sleep, successful trips to the bathroom, and two friends bonding over a strange, embarrassing, and silly situation. No longer do we laugh at Metamucil ads, nor do we ignore the “good source of fiber” notices on cereal boxes.
My pride received a swift kick to the gut in Malaysia. It was one of the many lessons I learned on AFCO. Just remember, if you put yourself up on your throne of pride, you may end up on your throne of porcelain. I can’t say that this memory is a fond one; however, it is a lesson learned and makes for a really funny story.
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