Pictures of Purity

During worship today a picture was painted so clear in my mind and it had nothing to do with what we were singing about. I imagined the reaction of an owner of a 14 carat diamond would have if someone wrongly accused them of it being fake. This diamond was a very special thing to the owner, something they took time to save for, it was an investment, and they spent a great deal to get the real thing. With lots of emotion stirring inside of them, I imagine this owner would have adamant rebuttal to the accusation. This is the same with my purity that Jesus gave me. Satan cannot belittle what I have as not being real or enough to cover the dark parts of my life. NO. I have the most expensive, high-end purity/blamelessness/righteousness and it is mine and it is more than enough to cover me.

Olive Garden Blessings

Blessings bursted out yesterday at work. In the afternoon I had a 7 top table of manly, ornery police officers and between our sense of humors we were cracking up the whole time, teasing about looks, schools and farting. They even invited/made me sit down (picture me with my full blown Olive Garden uniform, not exactly camouflaged in my surroundings!) and eat a piece of cake with them while talking about life and the struggle to push against the overwhelming amount of crap in the world to try to do some good.

I loved this experience so much and it made up for the mean outbursts of the salad lady and being yelled at by my trainer for carrying a salad bowl out with my hands and not a tray... I'm sorry Olive Garden for not having 'excellence in my tray service'. Oh brother.

Then during my break before the dinner shift, I was sitting and chatting with 4-5 other servers when talk of faith came up and I honestly couldn't get a word in. It came out that several people had their own faith in Christ and they started telling me how real God was and how burdened they felt to tell others about Him. As I heard how God was working in people's lives I got teary eyed. What an encouragement. People bring this up and talk about it more often.

Longing.

Hispanic cooks pretend fighting over who's my 'novio', a phone number mysteriously left for me on a ticket, but today beats them both... a high school boy child waiter told me in all seriousness, "The strangest thing happens when I bump into you, it makes me feel like I can fly." This was the icing of the cake of gag reflexes for me, especially after last shift when I gave up counting how many times he tried to tie in cutesy compliments and pokes on my waist. Believe me, it is only the tiniest, minuscule amount of flattery, with a massive amount of annoyance and desire to ask him if his moms okay with him working this late.

It's all in good fun. I enjoy the people I work with a lot, my heart just aches.

I see cute couples out every night I work. I notice how they've dressed up and are just so jubilant to be out with their date, it's obvious its a special occasion to them. I ache for the time when I can be on the other side of the uniform.

This is and has been a daily normal occurrence on my mind. I absolutely cannot wait to meet "my man" for life. I am beyond excited and know this waiting has just built a huge reserve of how much I will treasure him and the time we get to share. I hope this will make me look beyond little flaws and respect just being able to have him, his manliness, his perspective, his company.

Sometimes I feel late- seeing a lot of my friends already married. Sometimes I feel early, knowing I've got most of my 20's in front of me. I'm great with "soon", I'll be great with "later" but right now I'm just filled with longing!

Back from Outerspace: God and Time

They say sometimes you don't experience culture shock until you come home. I think they might be on to something...

Another thing that stuck out to me when I got home from South Africa was the totally different view on time. In "Africa time" they schedule by the day and not the hour, and 'now' is not in their vocabulary (at least how we mean it). There's 'just now', which could be between 15 minutes to whenever I feel like it, or 'now now' which means in a little while, but there's no rush...ever. I spent a lot of time waiting in South Africa, taking awhile for my American promptness to wear off.

This opened my eyes to my American time frame in how I view my relationship with God. There were a few times in SA that I was hoping and planning on dramatic light bulb experiences. I was out by myself with high expectations, in breathtaking scenery, listening to powerful music and expecting to hear from God. I wanted to finally have my doubts settled, get direction and know without a doubt who God is and who I am, and what drive was going to be behind my life. Silence. Nothing. Over and over again.

On separate occasions I shared my complicated frustrations with two woman who ironically (?) told me the same thing, "Emily, maybe you just need to chill out." Ha- funny that's what I tell other people all the time when I myself needed to hear it. They told me, if you're pursuing God, He will show You who He is and direct you in His timing, just wait."

Another admirable man with his share of past downfalls told me, "Emily, life is just one huge journey to know God. God might take years just to show you one little lesson."

These instances opened my overplaning/anylising/detail oriented mind to seeing more of the big picture of my life, and to just "sit back and enjoy the ride." It's not always that complicated after all.

And it's not until now that those pieces are finally starting to come together.

Back from Outerspace: Obesity

I've been home now for a month and already in the swing of things, so much so it sometimes feels like it was all a dream.

First thing that stuck out to me when I got back was the outrageous amount of people here that are ridiculously overweight. I know, not nececiarrily a shocker, but it's such a shame. You strained to find a 1st world fat person in South Africa, young or old, it is just not culturally acceptable. This shows that getting old, being too busy ect. are really not excuses, and it can be done reasonably. We have such a spoiled culture where it is extreemly uncomfortable and rare to have to resist ourselves from anything we want. This comes from someone, who at the ripe age of 23, was just told by her doctor that she has high cholesteral and needs to lose 15 pounds. Don't worry, I'm on it.

Reminds me of a talk show on recently where they were discussing how American's were concerned that Barbie would increase rates of anerexia among children, when, ironicaly, we have the highest rate of childhood obesity. Makes me sick.

On the other hand, it's interesting that it's a compliment to 3rd world Africans to call them fat, because it means to them that they are prosperous and they don't have "the disease".

So, it could be worse- we could be in a culture that is just happy if they're able to eat everyday, but I do hope my culture and myself experience how good a little more will power feels.

Extra Curricular Activities

Teachers here at Kingswood have a full plate. The other Grade 5 teacher I work with teaches his regular Grade 5 class, art classes, coaches whatever sport is in season, and you can find him mowing the school's grass in whatever free time he has left. My teacher teaches, coaches, is in charge of a current school play, and his Head Matron over one of the boarding houses. Wow. This Student Teacher has been no exception. Swimming- they have me coaching swimming- (enter laughter here). Not only have I never coached swimming, but they gave me the beginner group. Please try to picture this-- an odd ball mix of extra big to tiny as a stick swimmers, that if by the end of the practice no one has drowned, I consider it a huge success. It's so funny (chaotic, nerve wracking, makes you just have to make a big sigh) when the big swimmers try to stay above water ("swim") and create such a tidal wave that the littles ones are washed away. Arms flaling, zig zag lines and doggy paddling are normal sights to see. I've given it my best shot, taught them some things, and no one's died, so overall I think it was a good experience. One of my favorite memories is as a last resort (and because I really thought it would be a lot of fun) I lead them in some supurb water arobics.

We also just finished up with "Cafe Cabaret" which was a huge production put on by the school staff (everyone from the Stooges to the Headmasters in the Junior & Senior Schools) for them to bond and raise money for charity. We performed to pretty packed audiences for 4 nights- it was such a blast! I performed in a routine with the teachers to "Dancing Queen" as well as with the Stooge Girls in the "Can Can!" We were a hit, it might have helped that we did a lot of ruffling of our skirts and even flashed our undies at the end!

Here's a tour of the school via the back of my friends Motor Bike. You might want to mute the volume-- the wind sounds pretty hectic!

Being the Famous American Student Teacher

I understand why famous people hide behind hoods and big sunglasses- I've experienced the same feeling. Don't get me wrong- it's incredible- but after you've returned a big smile and excited 'hallo' to a never ending supply of kids in the hallway, every passing period, every school day for going on 3 months now- you start looking for alternative routes.

When I look at the kids, the classroom and even the school building I can picture them fitting in the US-I almost forget I'm in another country until they start asking me questions with metric measurements- any questions on in./ft./yrds? No?

Me attempting to grade English assignments is also puzzling due to them spelling so many words differently. Spelling is already not my strong suit- then to see words like realise, mum, colour, and practise on papers- oh my! I always have to have a dictionary in arms reach!

I've had a lot of fun with the units I've gotten to teach. One was a detective mystery over "The Mysterious Case of Specimen-X". They got clues everyday to solve what this strange creature was meanwhile learning all about frogs. We also had a Bird Safari where they were trained all about birds to become well educated safari guides. They then researched their own birds and taught the class about them during our pretend Bird Safari excursion.

Below is a clip of a staged- but close to real- classroom greeting when a teacher walks in the room. The one below that is just a survey of my scene.