Scavenger Hunt

Last week was the first full week of school with students, so with that I had a lot of things for the kids to learn. I had to review the rules, expectations and consequences for my classroom. For the remainder of class I decided to play a game as a review for where the art supplies were located. Majority of my students have been coming to the art room since they were in first grade so I figured the game I had for them would be somewhat simple.

Each class had to do a scavenger hunt, I had a list of items and tasks for their team to complete in order to check the tasks off the list and ultimately win! It was things like “find a red marker”, “put on an apron, and then hang it up the correct way”, “write down classroom rule #3 on the back of this paper” and so on . . . . . NOW some kids were really into it, and searched really hard to find everything on their own. Some kids were extremely lazy and just wanted me to show them where everything was. And some went really fast because they remembered where most things were from the previous year. As I did this game with the kids some 26 times (I have a lot of students), I began relating it to my spiritual walk . . . . .
I know that God is not a God of confusion, but I think sometimes we are like little kids on a scavenger hunt. Some days we want to work so hard to see God’s blessings. Other days I wake up really lazy and exhausted, I don’t really want to search for blessings, I just want to wallow in my misery. Then there are times that I have to do my best to remember past blessings and draw from those to continue on in my walk. 




What I learned in all of this is that just like my art room is filled with lots of little blessing (all of my supplies), so are our lives.  The kids never would have fully embraced what is in the room if they had not been searching for it or remembering it. I have never seen kids get so excited to find a red marker, or put on an apron.  It’s the same in our lives, how are we going to fully embrace the blessings that our lives are filled with if were not willing to do the work to recognize them. Sometimes, like some of my students, we just get lazy and we expect other people to fill that void for us. I will be the first to admit, there are some days that I just want to be a lazy complainer, but when I waste my time complaining I’m letting multiple blessing go right by without being noticed. So take the challenge of going on a blessings scavenger hunt and see what you find, it might not be what, where or when you expect it but God desires to bless us and for that alone we have so much to be thankful for!  

New Car, New House, New Year

 Greetings from Honduras, sorry it has been soooo long since my last blog update. BUT we are now back in Honduras, refreshed and ready to be used by God in this upcoming school year. Stephen is still in his position as middle school and high school boy’s physical education teacher. He is doing what he loves, coaching, teaching and mentoring young men to be more like Christ, through the avenue of athletics. You can be praying for his basketball team as they start up practice at the beginning of next week. I am still teaching in the elementary art room . . . I am convinced that God has me there for another year, because I didn’t do a good job learning the lessons HE was trying to teach throughout all of last year! I literally found someone else to take my job in the art room so I wouldn’t have to do it again BUT God must have other plans because I am back at it again, by God’s grace with a fresh attitude and renewed perspective. I am so thankful that the Lord’s mercies are new every morning as I stumble and fall searching for direction recognizing that the God’s grace is sufficient for me each day. So please pray with me that God would grant victory in the struggles, joy in the successes, and peace in the confusion : )
Stephen and I have experienced so many blessing as we have returned to our Honduran home. We are so thankful for the Lord’s provision of a car, we were able to purchase it right before we came home for the summer. It has been so wonderful to have some freedom to get off the mountain for date nights and such a joy to use it as a ministry to others, from driving people down the mountain to get groceries or packing it full of people to head to church! We are overwhelmed by God’s provision! We also finally feel somewhat settled into our new apartment. We are now on the school’s campus, which is much safer and closer to the school. We feel very blessed to have such a beautiful new apartment surrounded by wonderful Godly people, our new dog neighbors across the street . . . . Well we’re not quite as fond of them haha! And the cockroach that was crawling on my head the other night, well we killed that haha!

                      The NEW Car!!!!! and NEW Apartment!!!!

Thank you everyone for your love, prayers, support and friendships. I will try a lot harder to write on our blog more consistently this year : ) Thanks for reading!