Swing into the Jungle of 5th Grade!

Update:

The time is flying by! Today we finished the 3rd week of school. First English test and first reading prizes were given out today. There's so much excitement in the classroom. I'm loving my students and teaching all together! I've truly been blessed with a good class, which I'm especially thankful for my first year teaching. While they're generally very well behaved, today they were bickering a lot, so we took a time out from science and had a really great learning moment! We talked about working as a team, and that we are a family because we are brothers & sisters in Christ! Then I read I John 4:7- 21. Then Sebastian prayed for our class, that God would help us to show each other grace and love each other with our words and actions. What a blessing it has been to work in a Christian school!

Pray for:

- Quality time with God daily

- Continued Love & Patience with my students

- Guidance as I visit churches and pick one

Thanks for your continued prayers & support!
~Love, natalie

Swing into the Jungle of 5th grade! These students were hard at work today!

"Bananas for Books!"
Ann's monkey was the first to the top!

Happy Birthday to Priscila! She brought ice cream treats to share :) 

Volleyball during recess... I think I might even enjoy recess more 
than the students! I start coaching volleyball in about 2 weeks :)

I'm also thankful for friends to 
hang out with on the weekends!!

School is here!!!

Update:

... and Yes, we did eat it!

Cuy is a Peruvian delicacy

The past week has flown by! Last week was filled with training sessions, planning, organizing and decorating classrooms! It was a good week and I'm getting pretty familiar with the school and all the wonderful people who work there! I've loved connecting with the fellow missionary teachers and many of the Peruvian staff. They love to help me practice "Castellano" (Spanish), and asking me about all the Peruvian food that I have tried :) Speaking of which, on Saturday, while the school was being fumigated, Kari & I pulled ourselves away from the class work and went to Lunahuana to go white water rafting, four wheeling, and even got to eat Cuy, pronounced "koo-ee," which is guinea pig!

Then with a little more than 12 hours till school started, our books and some desks got through customs and to the school, PRAISE the LORD! So Monday night was a little bit like Christmas... on a time crunch! We were unpacking hundreds of books, taking inventory, and putting them in the right classroom. Thankfully everything was in order for the first day of school yesterday! 

1st day of school for
Miss Shirk & Miss Carroll

Thank you all for your prayers for my very first day of teaching! I was surprisingly relaxed the majority of the day, granted I have much to learn and many areas to improve in, the first day went pretty well! It was GREAT meeting my students and putting faces with their names, I'm excited to see how all of us learn and grow this year!

Pray for:

- "Meet the Parents" night on Friday

- that I will see every student through God's eyes

- that I continue to LEARN & become a better teacher

~ Love, natalie