Some Good News

Well, there are still a lot of unanswered questions here as training begins to wind down, but I have had some good news come my way lately. We had to turn in all of our lesson plans yesterday. Thank goodness that is done! Well, at least for now. They will need to be tweaked in country, but I finished the full year's worth of classes. As an added bonus, my instructors told me they were very pleased with my lesson plans and thought they would serve me well.

My other piece of good news is that it seems God has already been faithful in transforming me into the teacher I need to be. Just recently we had another practice teaching session, and it seems I've come a long way since our first practice teaching session. My nerves calmed down a good bit, my examples were relevant, easy to understand, and were conducive to discussion among the students. I still need to slow down my speech pattern a bit, and I will need to be diligent about repeating information several times over to make sure the students know all the words I'm using and understand the concepts I'm talking about before I go onto the next idea. But, according to my instructors, I'm really quite ready to go teach abroad! Thank you, Lord, for being so swift in revealing your goodness in me!

We are beginning to wind things down here, and the thought of going abroad is just now starting to sink in. Wow! It's a little intimidating, honestly. Comfort zone, get ready to be blasted away. But, man, God's faithfulness to me has been so abundantly present to me during this time of training, there's no way I can be fearful about what's ahead. Obviously He has already had His hand on me, blessing my steps and me with constant outpourings of His goodness and glory. And for those of you who know me well, you know that I am not the most optimistic, happy-go-lucky person in my times of reflection - so for me to be this pleased with my circumstances is a true testament to the fact that God has gone over and above to meet me in this time.

Alas, training isn't over yet, and I have another class to attend RIGHT NOW. Ah! Hope you're all doing well. Write me when you can. I'll do my best to return the courtesy :)