Alright, a random title but it makes sense once I tell you a little glimpse into life as a teacher. Of course we are always working hard and fulfilling our duties to love on the kids but sometimes you just have to have a little fun yourself. As I might stress at least once a month, my theme in life is Having the Joy of the Lord and I try to remind myself of this along with other good friends at school which sometimes they don't appreciate! The business manager, sometimes doesn't want to be reminded of this and he told me this on Monday which kind of hurt my feelings even though I knew he was kidding. The kindergarten teacher and I thought we should not allow him to forget JOY so we wrote JOY on tons of small pieces of paper and threw them all over his office, in his desk drawers, and in folders while he was out of the room. We then waiting impatiently for him to discover the JOY which didn't take too long. At first he was mad at the cleaner and though she had thrown paper all over the place until he started seeing the word JOY and somehow he automatically knew who it was. When he walked in, we were trying to cover up our laughter but we were having a hard time with this! Yes, we teachers are working hard, but when a fellow colleague needs a little help with JOY, you have to help them out.
Sorry, that took a long time to write that but it was quite hilarious. God has proven himself many gracious and loving many times this week as he always does. I was struggling with something in my head and a friend reminded me of the importance of loving all and showing that love to all even in difficult times. This woken me up to my own sin and weaknesses and gave me the strength to pray for all people in my life. God is not a far distant God but one right here who hears our cries and wants to wrap us in his arm. I am learning how to go to Christ first with difficulties even when they seem small. God is better than we can imagine!
A special time of the week that I love with my kids is chapel where we just sing praises to the Lord! We can be undignified before him and just jump up and down with thanksgiving. My kids are definitely showing me how to love the Lord more each day as they really do have child like Fath. What a tremendous blessing they are in my life! One of the girls said, "I love Christmas time because it is all about Jesus!" Wow, usually kids talk about the presents! Another kid started his prayer with, "In Jesus' Name Amen, Dear God." It was hilarious and we were trying not to laugh but he really was sincere about it. My kids love Bible and soaking up God's word and I am so thankful to take this time to share how much Christ loves them and how he died for their sins. On Friday, their journal topic was to answer the question if they would rather be rich and lonely or poor and happy. I got some interesting answers but one girl nailed it on the head that it is better to be poor and have God than to be rich. She didn't quite understand all of it but knew she had learned this in church. We then had the opportunity to talk as a class about how it isn't bad to have money but we have to use it for the glory of God who blessed us. Anything of ours, is all from him!
This happened a week ago Friday but well worth blogging about! A week ago Friday, we had a day off so we thought the perfect way to spend that time was to go to Togo! Yes, Togo is a skinny county to the east of us and we have never been so thought it was worth the stamp in our passport. We are still asking ourselves if it was worth going but it was fun being with friends and going on a new adventure! Ghana is definitely good for adventures! We arrived at the trotro station quite early and an hour later at 7:30 we finally left the station since we have to wait for it to fill up. This is always a fun game to see who will get in the trotro and how long it will take. Actually an hour, isn't horrible! We set off going east and waiting four hours to see the bright blue ocean just beyond the goldish sand. The road at this point rocked us back and forth in the roomy back bench but we eventually made it to the small town just by the border. At this point, we set out on a waiting adventure as we had to wait to renew our visa which had expired a week ago. We finally cross the border which required us walking through this delapidated building, such a funny border crossing! Right inside togo we stepped up to this veranda where two guys were sitting behind a bench. They asked to see our visa and we said we wanted to get it there. They said we would have to go back to Accra to get one which we obviously couldn't do. I talked in the little French that I remembered and finally got it straightened out for us to pay. There were so many miscommunications and he almost kicked us out several times or wouldn't talk to us but finally he did the paperwork slowly and then walked our applications across the street and then back again. The name of the game this day was patience, lots of patience. Finally, inside Togo, we realized we didn't have too much time before we had to head back. We wandered the streets by the beach and noticed some changes right away. The main road on this side was paved and more motorcycles inhabited the roads as these are taxis. My mother would be bummed to know I didn't ride on a motorcylce taxi but we definitely had offers. It was fun using my French to get around and things started coming back to me as I needed them. One peculiar thing we saw was small minnows on the sidewalks. I am not sure why they were there, but there was large groups sporadically on the walkway which made tiptoeing so much fun! We finally decided to go down by the beach which was gorgeous and pretty clean. After Josiah went in, we were convinced to go in as well and even changed in a pretty clean bathroom! We must be magnetic because as soon as the locals saw three white people, they came to the attraction and had to swim right next to us even though there was a huge stretch of open beach. The smart college graduates that we are, moved our bags so they were closer to us but then a large wave came up and got our bags soaked. I was the only one that saw them and tried to stop it but unfortunately the ocean is much more powerful than I am which reminds me so much of God. While we were assessing the damage and our wet, sandy clothes, locals came by and somehow during the conversation with them, they took Kim's camera. If that wasn't bad enough, somehow after that, they took her phone but she was watching it the whole time. It was the most bizzare thing! We decided at that point to head back to our beloved Ghana and had no problems getting back across where things are computerized and don't take all day. Josiah was grabbed by a trotro driver to get on their trotro to Accra and away we went. Four hours later, we arrived back in the city after watching the sun set across the flat, African plain full of tall ant hills and green foliage, and picking out constellations in the bright starlit sky. Overall, it was worth it although I probably won't do it again for awhile at least.
Saturday proved to be a beautiful day in many ways. I began the day by touching up the lined soccer field with lime powder and cut in half water bottle. I found it quite relaxing and might have to make it a regular activity. Anyways, our soccer boys showed up fairly on time for our soccer match against Jack and Jill which we have tied once and lost twice to last year. It definitely proved to be an interesting as we started with a goal right off the bat. One of my midfielders chipped it up to the forward which beautifully headed into the goal. You can't get much better than that. Sorry, for those non-soccer fans out there who might find this boring but details are important! Anyways, the other team came back and scored but we kept up a nice pattern of scoring and then having them score until we reached 6-5 us and finally held it until the end. We kept telling them to stop allowing them to score but guess that advice didn't work. I was really proud of the boys though because one of my backs scored a beautiful goal and some of the newer players played pretty well. They are learning and starting to play more as a team. We still have room to improve but we will get there slow but surely!
Overall, God is continually showing me patience and falling on my face waiting for an answer. We must be ready to hear the Lord call us instead of running away from his feet. I pray that you will find comfort in the Lord and have an opportunity to share Joy to all you pass!
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