So after a full month of training and over a full day of travel, we are here in OSTRAVA, Czech Republic! We left for LAX at 10:30 am Pacific time on Thursday the 20th. It took an hour and half of rearranging and reorganizing, but we got all of our luggage and ourselves checked in. We left on time and flew over 10 hours to Frankfurt, Germany. I sat by a sweet girl and her boyfriend on their way home from their first trip to the US. She wanted to practice her English and let me tell you she was much better than I will ever be at my German.
Then, we got stuck in customs for a few minutes. We literally had to sprint through the entire airport and ask them to hold the plane so that we could all make it for the flight. Thankfully, they would! Then, we had a short hour flight to Prague. We picked up our baggage. Every single piece made it! YAY! For every teacher on the Czech team which is a major blessing!
After we picked up our luggage, we met Eva (our boss's sister-in-law) and she took on a bus and two subways with all our luggage so that we could catch the train to Ostrava. The train took about 4 hours to get here. It was a beautiful trip with lots of the countryside, although I'm not gonna lie, I did sleep for most of it. :-)
Then we arrived and were met by the best welcoming committee you could ask for. While the five of us were concerned with getting our 20 pieces of luggage off the train before it started moving again, 4 people came dashing up to us asking if we were with Fishnet and began grabbing our stuff and helping pull it off the train. They gave us phones, keys, took us to our flats, showed us how to get to our teammates flats, made sure we could get on the internet, directions to church, and they gave us information for the week. It was great! We felt really blessed!
Well, we are here. Our flat is great! Tomorrow, we are going to a little bit more exploring. We are also going to be going to our first Czech church. It will be translated for us into English. I ask that you would pray with us that we would begin to mold into the community that we will be a part of.
"Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." Romans 12:10-12"
Also, this is a video of my new flat so click on the link and you can watch. Hope you are having a great evening! My new flat!
In life, there are a few things that I feel I am talented at. 1) Talking—I can talk your ear off if I’m in the mood too and for those of you that have ever met me that is pretty much all the time. 2) Being independent—I am extremely confident in my ability to do things on my own. I’m ready for whatever it is that God has called me to in life as long as He is with me. And 3) Teaching—I have always been given great reviews on my teaching abilities in college and even as a high school student it was always where I felt the Lord had called me to be, mostly because I was good at it.
Nothing like setting yourself up for a fall, right?
Here at training we spend endless hours (or so it seems) in classes that teach those of us going with TeachOverseas how to teach English as a Foreign Language. I thought, “Not a problem” (or as I have since learned to say in Czech “Neni zac”). However, the Lord sometimes has other plans for us. Or should I say lessons for us to learn. The first night I went out with confidence. I was teaching a lesson to a beginner class on classroom objects. (Words like board, eraser, pencil, pen, notebook, and marker) Before it began, I was thinking that “this would be a great lesson!” No, I had never taught ESL, but I am a certified English teacher. How hard can it be?
Oh how the mighty do fall!
That night and the night that followed were some of the most humbling experiences I have ever had. Not only was I unable to communicate the definitions of the vocabulary to my students, but I did not even complete the tasks that I needed to in order to have a comprehensive lesson! For the first time as a student and as a teacher, I had utterly flopped. For those of you who have ever been in school with me, you know that does not bode well. My pride definitely began to show that week. In fact, God had to do a major humbling in me. I have had to entirely reevaluate the way that I teach. I have had to learn that teaching ESL is in fact nothing like teaching English. It is in fact more like teaching Spanish or French in an American high school and that is exactly what I will be doing. For some reason though, this had not clicked in my pea sized brain before. I needed to realize that, unlike me, my future students were going to mean business and I needed to figure it out.
This was a really hard thing for me to handle, but the Lord gave me a verse this week. It’s one of my favorites. “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” Romans 5:3-4 I love that God tells us that no matter what we are going through when we rejoice in the bad times He is going to help us endure and it is going to be a cycle that will produce a well spring of hope and character. We tell our students and our children to persevere in all things, why shouldn’t we?
Next step of humbling—shutting UP! That’s right, I need to learn how to shut my mouth and let others do the talking. Not only in my classroom (GOAL—teacher talks 20%; student 80%), but also in life. I want to learn more about those that are around me and if I want to do that I need to close my mouth first—listen more and talk less. Doing this, I can find out more about what they want and need. I am also learning I do not say as many of those smart comments that I so often regret when I just hold my tongue a little while longer. Also, God can also speak to me through what others are saying if I just take the time to listen.
So I challenge you to memorize my scripture of the week with me. This week it is on asking the Lord’s help in keeping your mouth guarded.
“Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.” Psalms 141:3
I ask that you would pray for me in these areas that I have been struggling with and that you would let me know if I can pray for you in any similar circumstances. I would love to hear from you! I miss you all!!
