Fighting Spiders

It has become the recent fad in my class to "fight spiders". I can almost here all of my Seattle hippie friends groan thinking, "What about animals' rights?"...well relax, its just a spider.

But recently my boys have gotten into this thing where they fight their spiders to the death, and it sounds all climatic and exciting, but really the kids just put the spiders into a container and watch them raise their legs and may take a quick bite at each other.  Really its an anti-climatic event, but the boys love it, THE FIGHT OF THEIR LIVES!!!

Then I found out that one of the boys in my class was the one supplying the spiders.  He would bring them to school in a container with little sections marked off for each individual spider.  Then he would sell them for 5 pesos each (roughly .001 of a dollar, so basically he's making bank).  So I'm walking around at recess and I'm like whatever, you can do it as long as I never see a spider in my class.

As I send my kids out packing there is always this one little guy who takes forever to pack up his stuff and I'm trying to hurry him along so I can be on my way and getting all my work done.  As he leaves for his cubby outside our classroom I notice there is a little paperclip box on top of the cubbies that looks suspiciously like mine....so I pick it up to examine it and ask him, "Hey buddy, where did you get this little box, is this mine?"
As he is bent into his backpack, without even looking up, he casually says, "No that's my spider."
A short gasp and a moment of freak out and little spidy went flying down the flight of stairs right outside our classroom.
My little kiddo hears my gasp and looks up in surprise and with a pinch of panic in his voice he shouts, "MY SPIDER!!" and darts down the stairs yelling at people to watch out for his spider.  As he's running after his prized fighter I'm yelling after him, "I'm sorry buddy! I'm so so sorry!"
No worries though the little guy was ok and my little 4th grader was all smiles.  He now knows he can scare me with any of his fighting spiders.

Oh boy.

Unity among us

I feel like since I've gotten back to the Philippines its been not stop going.  Driving here, driving there, getting together with people, meetings, classroom prep, and kids kids kids.  It's been good, but man by every weekend I feel worn out!

This week though, thankfully, we have a three day weekend and I'm enjoying the quiet peace of my home and spending time with good friends.  The Lord has truly blessed me this year.  When I was preparing for my return to the Phils this year I wasn't sure what it would look like with a loss of some of my really good friends, my senior girls bible study gone and graduated and a new tough class to whip into shape. And to be perfectly honest I was feeling quite dry in my daily walk with the Lord.  I didn't feel like I was learning anything or being challenged.  I've been praying that God would work in my life that  I would seek the motivation that I lack in my quiet times and that I would see Him work in my life somehow somewhere. I knew that God would answer these prayers, but I just find it really hard to blog or write when I'm feeling like this.  Everything seems shallow.

So as I was on our all staff retreat earlier this year one of our senior staff members, who has been here for over 50 years, reminded us that God has granted us a huge blessing of unity at our school.  We have over 20 countries represented in our school and most of us coming from different denominational backgrounds and yet there is a huge sense of unity on our campus. The fact that we can come together and work together for the greater purpose is a beautiful picture.  God's kingdom is so much greater than denomination!

Then I went to my monday night Bible study and as we began studying 1 Peter 1 I was again encouraged with the differences in my own Bible study and yet how we can still come together and talk about our beliefs and what is fundamentally true.  That Christ loves us and has died for those who have sinned.  Our unity comes in that we all fall into that category and we have all been called to worship Him with our lives here in the Phils.

Love our God and all that He has in store for us. Please pray that God continues to work in my life and the lives of these missionaries here in the Philippines. They are a beautiful picture of the body of Christ! 

Rain rain rain...

I feel like I understand Noah a little it more...its been raining here everyday since I've arrived three weeks ago. But tonight was a first for me.

I was on my way to bible study when I came up to a GIGANTIC puddle (actually it was a overflowing creek), but I thought my car would be able to make it...unfortunately I know nothing about cars.  Luckily or merely by the Lord's graciousness I made it through the puddle and made it to my friends house, but by the time I got there it was barely moving and found out my study was canceled.  

Luckily though in the Philippines my mechanic is on speed dial and is able to come out tomorrow to check it out.  And my lovely friend was able to take me home. so boo rain for flooding my car and for canceling bible study...at least I know that the Lord has promised to never destroy the earth, but no such promise was made towards my little Lance (my car).  

Heaven is for real...thank goodness

Please forgive my absence from blogging!  This summer has been a whirlwind traveling to four different countries, visiting family all along the west coast and spending time with my lovely church family!  I was only home for a few short weeks, but I think I have successfully packed in as much as I could have.

But with every great trip home there comes an end, and with endings we must say goodbye.  And oh how I have grown to loath the word "goodbye".  I feel like no matter where I am going and whatever I am doing I am always having to say goodbye to someone, and for someone who opens her heart fully it can be painful.

As this summer came to an end I began thinking about the daunting task of saying goodbye to friends, family, pets, even places and then thinking about the goodbyes I'll have to say in the future and I found myself overwhelmed and in tears.  Every time I find myself fighting the goodbyes my lovely mother reminds me that "just think that one day we will never have to say goodbye again".  As sweet as she may be when she says this trying to comfort me, it never seems to bring any comfort.  All I think is, "but I have to say goodbye NOW!"  But on my plane ride back to the Phils I read the book Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo and it challenged me to think more deeply on what Heaven will really be like. It's a story about this young boy's experience, where he actually dies and has gone to heaven and then came back.  This story may or may not be real, but it definitely got me thinking about the beauty of our eternal life with Christ.  He loved me so much that He created a place where I can see both my birth family and Philippines family in the same place!  I also long for the day when I will be able to be in one place with all my loved ones from both past and present.  

A Glimpse of My Year

It has been an amazing year and its hard to imagine that we are done and already well into our summer!  I wanted to make sure that I posted this little video I made for my class.  It's a compilation of pictures and short clips of our school year!  You can see how much fun we had!




Although this year has been a blast, it has also had its challenges.  I was so blessed to have been able to work with these kids, and I believe that God taught me quite a bit through these kiddos.  I can't wait to see what happens next year.

Love,
M

Poetry

In 4th grade our last writing unit is Poetry, and while most of the kids cringe at the thought of writing poetry they all end up loving it!  Being able to express yourself in creatively choosing your words is an amazing ability.  I love how some of them describe things.

Here are a few that they wrote about yours truly... I would have never described myself this way, but it sure makes me smile:

Miss Cosper's delicate fingers remind me of the petals on a flower, and her long fragile legs are like the stems on the flower.
*I laughed out loud when I read that my legs were "long and fragile"

Miss Cosper's braveness reminds me of a police woman.  Running downhill to catch a robber.  Now Miss Cosper needs to catch 500 more robbers.

When I see Miss Cosper I see the bright big smile.  I smell the coffee that Miss Cosper drinks, it makes me smile all through the day.  they peaceful music touches my heart then I ask Miss Cosper whats the song, then I see her smile at me.

I love these kids.  Its going to be hard to say good bye!  God has done some great things in these kids hearts, and I pray that He continues to work in their lives in 5th grade.

Teaching outside the classroom

Sometimes as a teacher I have to decide what's more important...to finish reading and answering questions about chapter 6 or confronting a student about their sin.... this week I was faced with one of those decisions.
Kids coming back from their morning recess there are usually a few little arguments or conflicts that I have to help mediate, and most of the time I can figure it out in a minute or two (yea, I'm just that good).  But today a student came in and she told me that a boy in our class had yelled at her and pushed her.
This is where I need to stop and tell you that, now that I am the teacher I can tell exactly when a student is not telling me the entire story... I don't know how it is or where it comes from, but its true.  I remember when i was a student and thinking, "How in the world does my teacher know that?"... but this was one of those moments and I knew there was more to the story than what was being told.
So I sat her down and said you need to make sure that your telling me the entire truth, because if your not its going to be much worse.  I need to know if you're lying to me at all and not leaving anything out.  She assured me she wasn't, so I went to go grab the boys... this is when I am faced with the decision 1.)do I forget about it and come back later so we can finish reading the next chapter in our book and I can get some good discussions going in my reading groups, or 2.) do I confront this student and get to the bottom of this whole thing and use this out of the classroom opportunity to teach my student a lesson...something much greater than reading comprehension.
After talking to both kids and 5 witnesses, giving her more than enough opportunities to tell me the truth she continued to lie. The whole time I am praying, "God this girl's heart needs to break..it's so hard right now, please soften her heart so that she may see her sin."
After the boys left and I was talking to her privately I told her I wanted to believe her, but there was nothing that was proving her story to be true, and that's where God worked his power...she cried.
"Why are you crying?" I asked.
"I don't want to get in trouble!"
I told her I already saw a change in her, she came out an angry little girl who wouldn't look me in the eyes and tightly crossed arms...and now here she was crying struggling to find a way out.  She told me she was embarrassed to be crying and I told her I was the last person she needs to be embarrassed in front of... I cry ALL the time.  I told her I'd give her time to think about what she needs to do, and after probably another 15 minutes and two or three visits she was finally ready to tell the truth.
She felt soo much better after she had admitted she lied, she told me its just so hard when she knows she's done wrong, she just wants to take everyone down with her.  She said the temptations were too great.  Thats when I asked her, "when I asked you at the start, if there was any chance you weren't telling me the truth was there any part of you that said you just need to tell the truth?" She nodded yes and when I asked who that was she responded by saying, ".....me?"
"Nope, it wasn't you, cause you were the one who decided to lie...remember?"
"Oh yea...."
"Who lives in your heart and helps you to make right decisions?"
"...Jesus?"

Our God is greater and all powerful and yet he lives inside of us giving us the power to let go of the root of so many sins...pride.  To see my student let go of her pride was triumphant and a greater success than any reading grade or Math test.  We then talked about how the Spirit has been sent down to help us in those times of temptation to remind us of what we are supposed to do, to give us the power to die to ourselves and live a righteous life.

So yea... I may have not been able to help my students practice our reading comprehension today, but we learned about the Holy spirit and the sacrifice it takes for us to let our pride down and admit when we have done wrong.  I think it was a lesson worth learning.