Done with the first week

So that's it!!! The first week is over and I'm kinda feeling like a normal teacher all of the sudden. I know that I have a ton to work on still, but I'm starting to really enjoy teaching. Especially to those classes that will actually listen to me, which is most of them at this point. I've had a few discipline problems, but nothing too serious, Carlos is no longer a problem, in fact we are getting along pretty well, after I gave him 2 demerits (3 = a detention) and gave him a punishment assignment.

It was interesting, the first few days, everytime I walked into the 11th and 10th grade classrooms, I immediately felt threatened and I put on my discipline/no messing around face and tried not to give in. Everytime I walked in, I felt like most kids were trying to get away with anything they could by messing with me, especially since I don't even know all the rules yet! I'm not going into defensive mode anymore when I enter the classroom.

My first lecture on the Bible introduced the importance and the power of the Bible. It was very good for the kids and I think very eye opening as well, I know it was a great reminder for myself. I was caught in a jam today in philosophy when I realized that I didn't know how to explain a hypothetical argument for explaining how logic works. Fortunately I took good notes that I had with me, and saved some notes from Moody on it. After about 5-10 minutes of scrambling and trying to find a good example of how to explain the concept, I finally just throughly read my notes again for about a minute and then the Lord opened my mind somehow and I explained 2 different examples.

I've been so challenged this week to not let how my students treat me or act towards me control my actions or my attitude in general and towards them. My value must not be in how they treat me, or if they respect me, but it must be in Jesus Christ, who he is, how he thinks of me, and what he had done for me. This is what should control my behavior. Anyways, I can tell that that will be a struggle for the rest of the year, but I look forward to the challenge.

Oh, and Drew Hunter would appreciate this... I listened to a Scott Hafemann sermon the other night on the armor of God in Ephesians 6 and it was absolutely amazing, I have to get some more of his sermons. After I listen to that sermon one more time cause it was so good.

Anyways, I don't think I'm doing the waterfall thing this weekend, but I might be going downtown which will be nice, I really don't go outside of my apartment and school that much. Right now I feel like what I'm doing is primarily a teaching position that just so happens to be in Honduras, heavy emphasis on the teaching part, (I never knew teachers could have so much homework, I thought I was done with that!) Haven't seen too many sites yet, but when we get days off of school, we will probably go to some sweet places. Thanks again for your prayers. Oh, and I think I'm going to help coach the soccer team which will be really cool, practices start in October and they are only on Saturdays, so that's not that big of a committment. Anyone who wants to get on skype so we can catch up would be awesome, my name is "millerjon."

First Real day of Class

Well, today was my first real day of class, friday was just an orientation and monday was a big protest that blocked roads and kept people from driving in the city. I never saw any though, just some guy coming down the street trying to sell brooms and mops. Today was a drastic improvement from Friday! Which was a huge relief for me, I was well prepared for all of my classes and was really enjoying teaching for the most part. I didn't get to any teaching in my Bible classes, but I got to introduce Sociology and Philosophy to the kids, which was fun.

Last summer when I was doing my internship at my church in Maryland, it was drawn to my attention...immediately.... that I move alot when I speak in front of people. After a whole summer of working on it, and threats from the pastoral staff to nail my feet to the ground (just kidding), I finally felt like I got it under control. But today I busted loose and moved around the whole day in every class. Which I think is very beneficial for a middle and high school teacher, because it keeps them on their tows.

Thanks so much for all of your prayers again. I know that this year is going to challenge me far more than I've ever been challenged before, but it is very encouraging to be able to rely on God's sovereignty and faithfulness.

I'm going to introduce all of my Bible classes with a lecture concerning the absolute authority, power, and sufficiency of Scripture. I'm very excited about it. I just wish that each class had more periods to teach Bible for each grade.

I'm actually teaching the most students out of any teacher in the whole school. Because Bible is only 2 days a week and not 3 or 5 days a week, I'm teaching Bible for 5 different grades, which makes things challenging as well, coming up with lesson plans for that many different class, plus adding Sociology and Philosophy into the mix, which are 3 day classes.
I'm going to try to write a few more posts to tell about about my normal life and events that go on here.

This weekend we might be going to a waterfall about 3 hours outside of the capital, I'm really excited about that, I'll definitely take some pictures, in the meantime, I'll show a few pictures of my classroom and some decorations I had to put up, (I'm not a good decorater at all). It was very time consuming and very hard!!

On a side note, Psalm 100:3 was a great reminder to me today, to know the the Lord is God, and that He is the one who made me, I did not make myself, as much as I want to think that, and as much as I forget God, and I'm His possession for his use, because of his free choice and for his glory, I have the privilege of living in relationship with Jesus, and he will watch over me just like a shepherd does his flock.

The First Day of Class!!!

Wow.....what a first day, today was truly a roller coaster ride in every sense of the term. Before I explain what went on today, it would be appropriate to talk about the dynamic of the day. Today was just a half day, students came in from 8-12 and they were suppose to be in classes from 9 until 12 with a short break for recess (which high schoolers get here). The other thing I should mention is that all of these kids have been in the same grade and in the same classes since at least 5th grade, if not going back all the way to kindergarten. There are two classes in each grade and most stay together year after year, so they are extremely comfortable with each other. I was supposed to have 20 minutes to cover basic rules, materials they need for class, and anything else that I felt was necessary. Usually I would have 40 minutes. And I would only teach 4 classes, usually I would teach 6 to 7.

Now...the day started at 8 and Ms. Godoy, the principal went 20 minutes over the chapel time with introductory rules and cut into 20 minutes of our 1st period time. Since we only had a 30 min. class 1st period that left me with 10 minutes to introduce philosophy, Bible, and all the rules that they need to know in the school. The 11th grade A class was pretty good, the principal told me to be really firm all week, so I that's what I really tried to do, the other thing I heard all week was people apologizing to me for how bad the kids were going to be, but the first class was not too bad, just really talkative, I had to repeatedly tell them to stop talking.

Next class was 10th B, was my beloved friend Carlos, yes, I know his name already because he was the worst kid by far. He made it a point to make sure that I knew his name because he was such a problem. Everytime I or someone else said something, he would try to divert all the attention to himself, he would get up out of his seat. He was also talking in spanish to his friends, I thought he might be talking about me, and since they are only allowed to talk in English (bilingual school) he translated what he said, "I'm a Pimp." I will probably not ask him to translate any more. The whole class was reacting to him big time, and I felt like I was laying into them pretty hard too. That was by far the hardest class. I had 10A next, they were pretty talkative as well, I had them all say their names, age, favorite subject, and favorite superhero, they enjoyed that. And they were quiet enough to hear everyone's answers too, which was nice. Finally I went into 11B, where they were a semi-decent class, there was one wise crack in the back of the class who kept mumbling things in Spanish and talking, so I just held what I was saying until he finished, I only had to do that 2 to 3 times before he realized that I was serious and would not talk until he stopped talking, but that class was extremely talkative as well. I felt like my voice was almost shot already after only 4 classes of 20 minutes each!!!

My unrealistic expectations for teaching was completely shattered. I'm used to teaching in an environment where people generally want to learn. But this is certainly not the feel in any of my classes. Not only am I going to have to plan a curriculum for almost everything I teach, but I have to do it in a very creative way, so the students are more interested and really are interested. I'm so excited about doing that in Bible, but it will certainly be a tougher challenge with Philosophy and Sociology. But most importantly I need to be spending alot more time in prayer about this tremendous responsibility and challenge. Please keep praying for me, I need your prayers so much!!!

However the day was not over, we actually had open house that night with the parents of the children, I talked to 5 classrooms of parents and everything went really well and really smooth. I must have explained things pretty well, because nobody had any questions really after any of my announcements about myself and the class. I had a good conversation with one of the parents about missions, he definitely had heard of Moody, which was cool, and he knew of Moody Press as well. I was talking to him about possibly one day going to seminary and becoming a pastor and then going overseas to train other pastors in 3rd world countries, and how that seems to be such a huge need in the world.

Wow, what a day, and if that wasn't enough (sorry for this long post) the first real and full day of school is on Monday, which interestingly enough will probably not happen at all. There is a planned countrywide protest in Honduras, teachers and supporters of public school teachers are coming to Tegucigalpa and marching on the main roads to block all traffic. Apparently the gov't in not paying what they promised the teachers, and some are not even getting paid. In the past there have been a few violent incidents, and when people really want to be heard, they usually invoke some kind of force. They might be protesting against our private school too, so we are supposed to stay off the main roads and stay inside for the most part, be we also symbolize everything that the Honduran protesters don't have and could take it out on us. The protest was being broadcast on the radio and is supposed to occur on monday and tuesday, possibly running into wednesday, so we'll see what happens. Thanks for reading and please know that I really appreciate your prayers. Grace and Peace

Planning for classes

Well this upcoming week marks the laborious process of planning what I'm going to do for the next year, and the next two weeks. It's one of those things where I don't even know where to start? So I'm just chipping away at my classes little by little. Today I planned out what I'm going to say for open house to the parents. It shouldn't be too hard, I just have to talk for about 5 minutes to each class of parents about my expectations of the students in the class. I need to be thinking about special projects and papers that would be useful in my classes as well, not exactly sure what I'm gonna do there either. It's tough with Bible as well because I only teach the same class 2 days a week in Bible. And my Philosophy and Sociology classes are 3 days a week.

I'm thinking about doing what Dr. Zuber did in some classes (my favorite theology teacher at Moody), coming in one day and preaching to them and then adding that material in with the rest of the material covered in class that would possibly be on a big test or exam. It will certainly take alot of preparation and work, but with the Lord's help, and a continous desire to be hungry for learning and teaching His Word, I am excited about preaching. I also get a chance to preach 3 different times during the year in chapel. Chapel is once a week, and they assign me topics for the first 2. I'm preaching on courage, and responsibility and the 3rd one is free, I get to choose.

The church that the school is affiliated with (Assemblies of God) is not as charasmatic as I thought they were going to be. Nobody has even been speaking in tongues in the service, which kind of surprised me. Although worship is always very lively, and passionate, Hondurans at this church definitely know how to groove, and worship. One of the pastors at the church said that they were in the middle of a revival. 5000 people go to the church now and it's only 10 years old. The pastor said that they have to find a way to baptize 800 people at their next service for baptisms, which is amazing! They also had the countrywide missions conference for Honduras last weekend. Apparently not many showed up, I wasn't there but I guess the rest of the country either couldn't afford to come, didn't hear about it, or it wasn't a priority to them. Regardless I was looking through the books at the Book sale and I thought it was definitely funny and sad to see John MaCarther's book on leadership being sold, with a couple other books by Charles Stanley, and the Holy Spirit by Charles Ryrie? Next to those books was Benny Hinn's book "Good Morning Holy Spirit" an interesting selection.

I hoping to really get alot done these next 3 days and to be really well prepared for class to start. Thanks for reading and praying for me.

Clouds

The clouds here are so amazing, every single day they are in the most amazing shapes I've ever seen. There are alot of them here as well considering that it is rainy season here.

It's hard to believe that I've been here for a week already, time flies when your preparing to be a school teacher. Last night we all went out to eat at one of the most famous restaurantes in all of Honduras, "El Patio" We had the most amazing orderves I have ever had, and the steak was amazing too. If anyone comes to visit on a mission trip, I definitely know where to take them on the first night!! They even had a mariachi band of 5 guys that walked around playing for anyone who would pay 100 lempiras for a song, (5 bucks). Today we went to a country club that one of the pastor's of the church is a member of. We all got to go in for free and played tennis, they had a pool, soccer, and basketball courts. It was nice to get a little tennis and physical activity in, it's very hard to do any physical activity in the city. Which is why my worst nightmare has come true, I might have to take up running! To have some kind of physical activity every week.

I'm beginning to see alot more of the poverty as we got out of the city a little bit today. And I know one of the public school teachers who was telling me about the really harsh conditions of the public schools, as well as the students. I think we are going to take some trips and do service projects with the school to help the poor. That will be really nice, I was hoping to do alot more of that when I came down here, we will see though. It's very difficult to do anything by ourselves here, since alot of muggings and robberies happen in the city, some of the teachers were robbed once last year. But in general we live in a pretty safe part of the city (so don't worry mom, I'll get a gun) just kidding. North American Teachers are very valuable teachers apparently since we know english so well. Everyone here wants there kids to speak English, so when a private school has a school with American teachers, it automatically becomes one of the premier schools, since we can speak in english without a latin accent. That's all I have time for tonight, I have church in the morning. Please pray for me as I have a very busy week ahead of me, with planning all of my lessons for the next two weeks, and school starts on Friday, along with open house for all the parents. Thank you so much for your prayers.

And anyone who is reading this, if you want to talk to me at anytime, download skype on skype.com, my screen name is "millerjon" and we can talk if you have a microphone on your computer, and if we are both online at the same time.

Classes

Well, I apologize, it’s been a little while since I’ve written last, I’m teaching Bible from 7th through 11th grades, sociology for 10th grade, and philosophy for 11th grade. I just got all my curriculum for the year, the librarian just handed me a sociology book that looks like its about 20 to 30 years old and then a smaller philosophy book written by Norman Geisler and Paul Feinburg. The Philosophy book looks like a decent book, but I have to plan everything on my own and write my own tests and stuff, which is not going to be easy (not that I expected it to be). I just got my curriculum for Bible today. For 7th and 8th grade I have a really basic curriculum that talks about basic Christianity, but she said I could pick and choose whatever I wanted to teach out of there. And for 9th and 10th grade I’m gonna be teaching on the book of Proverbs, which should be very cool, and for some reason the only commentary I brought was on the book of Proverbs by Derek Kidner (recommended by Tim Keller). For 11th grade, I’m teaching a class called “Understanding the Times” a basic apologetics and worldviews class. There is also other issues in there though from a Christian point of view (pornography, and homosexuality), everything in there is meant to develop Christian leaders, but there is no Biblical exposition at all which is a bit frustrating, there's a lot of prooftexting.

Anyways, I’m getting to meet a lot of the Honduran teachers, which is pretty cool. I talked to one guy today who went to a seminary in Honduras and was talking about how he was reading Berkhof and Francis Schaffer, he was talking to me about how he wanted to go to dallas theological seminary, and I was talking to him about Moody as well. We had a really good talk. Learning to cook has been a fun but challenging experience as well. And I’m gonna try to help with coaching the soccer team, so pray for me, that God would prepare me well for becoming a teaching that makes much of Him!

1st Day of Orientation

Not much time, but today was the 1st day of orientation, there was about 40 or 50 native Honduran teachers and about 9 American teachers at this bilingual Christian school. It was pretty crazy, I wasn't expecting to see that many teachers. It was pretty long with basic general rules as well as an hour and a half discussion about how we should do detentions for the kids who misbehave. After that we went grocery shopping, and me and my 2 roomates cooked spaghetti, and garlic bread. It took us a little while and we gave up on the salad, because we found out that we had to bleach all the vegetables first. Also the school cannot find my Philosophy of Sociology curriculum or textbooks, which is not good at all, but I know God will provide for me. And I found out that I get to preach 3 different times this year in chapel, which we have once a week, they assign themes for the first 2 and the last chapel I can choose whatever I want to preach on. Please keep praying for me, school start next friday, and we have our first open house for the parents then too.

A few pics

the picture below is the view from my balcony




The picture up top is the picture out my front window

I'm here!!

Well, nothing calms your nerves like being able to laugh at yourself and lets just say that I really get to do that alot today. And my spanish obviously needs some drastic improvement. Let me tell the full story, knowing that there is much more to come. I showed up a little late to the airport, but got checked in at about 1:20, the lady said I needed to be at the gate by 1:45, so I was waiting in line to put my bags through the x-ray machine which ran up to about 1:40. Then I waited in what I thought was the airport security line for the next 10 minutes and then I realized that it was just another bag x-ray line. So I rushed upstairs, to the airport security line, got through in about 15 minutes, it was not 2:05 and my flight left at 2:45. I ran to the gate and there was alot of people but no activity on the airline workers part. They didn't even board for another 30 minutes. God was in control the whole time even though it was easy to forget that. I got on the plane and I was kinda confused with the time zone change, and from what I understood on my ticket, I was to be on a one way flight to Tegucigalpa. However, this was not the case. I thought the flight seemed very short, but I was asleep some of the time and when I got up, we were landing already. So I got up like most other people, went through immigration, and started to get my bags, and I realized that this wasn't the Tegucigalpa airport, it was actually the San Pedro Sula aiport, but as soon as I walked in the airport, some guy said something in spanish about Tegucigalpa, so I figured he was wecoming me. So, I ended up missing my first flight to Tegucigalpa, but they were able to book me another one 2 hours later, so that where I am, writing this blog right now. In the San Pedro Sula airport. It makes for a long day but a very interesting story. The other good thing is that my ride, the woman (principal of the school) that was supposed to pick me up. I was able to get her cell phone number just before I left Florida, and I was able to call her and tell her about what happened. All that to say that God still provides, and I'm having a pretty chill time checking my mail on the internet. He provides good stories too, maybe I'll tell my kids about this one day, (or maybe not).

However, I am here now and my apartment is amazing, with a great view on a balcony of the whole city of Teguicigalpa. I was not expecting everything to be so modernized here, it's so crazy. My first night we ate at Pizza Hut, and we ate at Church's chicken today after church. I'll have to blog about my team of teachers and the church service this morning later, with some pictures of course.