i love my life!

I love my life. It's as simple as that. If God calls you to be a missionary, you're going to love it. And if He calls you to be a teacher, you're going to love it. And if He calls you to be a vet, you're going to love it. And if He calls you to be a police officer, you're going to love it. And if He calls you to be a wife, you're going to love it. And if He calls you to be a mom, you're going to love it. You won't always love it, of course, because it is the times we do what we don't love to do that we really grow and become more like Jesus. But overall, I think you'll love it. Because when your Creator calls you to do something, He's calling you to do exactly what He created you for, so it will feel like you couldn't choose to do anything better than exactly what you're doing, because you were created to do it and it's wonderful, even when it's hard.

Today had both hard times and good times. But between 12 and 1 was my favorite hour of the day (well, skype chat's been pretty great, tonight, too; I can't tell a lie :) Between 12 and 1, I got to teach my 6th and 7th graders about God. All year, we've been memorizing Romans 8, together. It's one of the best chapters in the whole Bible. Each Monday, we write one or two new verses on the board and take some time to talk about them and work on memorizing them. I always have an actual lesson planned, too, but I give myself permission to not get to the lesson if we get into a good discussion, Mondays. So today we talked about Romans 8:24-25. OK. I talked about Romans 8:24-25. It was a very teacher centered day, I'll admit. But oh how I loved it. Verse 24 starts out "FOR in this hope, we were saved." and I always ask them what the "fors" are there for. So we looked back a few verses that let us talk about how the whole creation is spinning towards disaster. Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc. And even humans are out of control! Life isn't fair. We talked about injustice and oppression, AIDS, abuse, economic depressions, and lots of other stuff that's just not fair. So we talked about how bad it all seems, sometimes, but about this hope that God is going to restore creation and bring justice for those who have been treated badly. And that we're going to be freed from all of the stuff we hate about ourselves. Never again will we accidentally hurt people that we love by saying mean things. Someday, we'll be the people we dream of being, and the world will be beautiful and amazing and perfect. My kids asked a lot of questions and were pretty engaged. Granted, their psycho teacher was freaking out over the Bible and God and probably speaking faster English than she should have been for an entire hour and they are only 11 and 12, after all. But still, they were pretty engaged. Pray for my students. Oh, how I have come to love them. Pray for Adri, Diego, Carlos, Raul, Esteban, Giselle, Pauline, Loida, Rocio, Christopher, Laudes, and Mati. We're going to be finishing up with our books, this week, which means that I get the rest of the year to do whatever I want with them, as long as we do it in English!!! I think I'm going to do a unit on writing, and have them write about their hopes, dreams, etc. Pray that something clicks in their minds and hearts before I leave and they decide that they want to follow Jesus with everything that is in them.

OK. So that was the best part of my day (minus skype chat). But the other really good part was when my friend, Josephina, came over to visit! We talked for a really long time, and she promised to help me find a little girl who was taken to an orphanage a few weeks, ago. She used to come to the church, but none of the church people knew which orphanage she's at. But Josephina's a lawyer, so she's going to help me find her, so that I can go and visit her. Please pray for this little girl, too, that God would take good care of her when her mom can't, and that I'd be able to find her and play with her like Jesus would want to.