ABP Spring Break day #4

Today was the first day of teaching.

Everything about this trip reminds me of Taiwan. There's the classroom stories, late night prep, chill meals together, hanging out. Well, it's not totally everything. But I am constantly reminded by the blessings I have been given, and how much I love to serve.

We started this morning in prep, and then traveled to an elementary school about 30 minutes away to teach 2nd grade 'Our Community' in the Junior Achievement program. Normally the 5 lessons are taught over the course of a five-week period, a 45 minute lesson each week. But in order to save time, a lot of schools condense it all into a 2.5 hour long time block (!!). It's very structured, so we must spend a good deal of time preparing before teaching just so we can get through all the material.

We ate PB&J sandwiches before teaching, and then grabbed good ol Mickey D's and talked classroom stories before heading back to the headquarters to do more prep with the materials for the next day. We're teaching 3rd grade, 'Our City'. It took about 2 hours tonight to prep for that lesson.

But we headed for the beach afterwards, and boy was it the best reward for the work we did.

photo by Brigitte Hackler

There's nothing quite like the ocean. No picture ever fully shows just how wonderful it is to be on the beach.
The warm sun on your skin,
the calming sound of waves against the shore,
the feel of the cold water against your skin,
the soft grains of sands in your hand.
The blue blue skies,
the teal blue foamy waters,
the light reflection on the waves,
the warm sandy beach.
It was just the best sensation ever.

But at night we reheated leftovers from dinners that the JA president and head coordinator took us to earlier in the weekend/week and chatted. Then we did our 2 hour prep and then made assembly line PB&J sandwiches for tomorrow.

God, I love my team. I can't believe how lucky I am to not only be in such a beautiful rental home and city over Spring Break, but to be with such amazingly sweet, awesome people. We've taken WAY too many selfies to count and we share them all on a groupme. It's adorable. 
I hope everything I'm doing really all goes to the glory of the Lord. God you are so so good to me and though this isn't a mission trip, I hope your light and love is still shining through me.
Praise the Lord.

the end.
03.17.2015