Life is still good...and still crazy!

It's been 2 WEEKS since I updated and it seems like I just posted yesterday! (sorry guys) Anyway, here is an update. I may get fired for not having a lesson planned for tomorrow...but by golly I have a blog post!

My first week went really well. (and the 2nd too) It has been crazy and stressful but I really don't have anything to complain about. Besides the fact that I have real job...everything has been great. Brief overview: We have four 90 min. blocks each day. All the blocks are split between 2 classes except mine (math). So basically, I only have 3 classes a day for 90 min. each and I have them all year long, every day. It freaked me out at first, but it flies by! And it gives me time to do more hands-on activities with their lessons! And I only have about 70 students to worry about. So it is wonderful. My planning period is 1st block so I don't have students until 9:25. Also, the school is divided into 6 houses. Each house has 2 teams. The houses are basically like mini-schools with our own assistant principal & social worker. So I know absolutely NOBODY in the entire school except my house of 12 teachers. I love it because it makes the HUGE school much smaller. My assistant principal is great. I haven't even met the principal. And my students mostly have small problems (like keeping their mouths shut & complaining). No major behavior or attitude problems. SOOOO I don't think my first year is going to be too bad as far as interacting with others. Me feeling knowledgable and having a clue about how to teach math is a different story. But I'm slowly working on it.

Kyle has been doing good. We haven't been able to hang out much. I'm ready to get caught up so I don't have to work so many hours! (and I can update more often) He is enjoying the youth stuff and this Sunday he is speaking with Bob on relating to teens. PLUS....his parents are coming to see us!! WOOHOO!

And last week...my parents were here to see us!! We had a wonderful time. It was good to see familiar faces. We took them to St. Louis to see some of the major sites and of course to eat at all the good places. Below are a couple of pics from riding in a horse & carriage.

Life is good...and crazy.

This past week has been exciting, eventful, crazy, fun, stressful, joyful, scary, and definitely praise-worthy. Two very significant events occurred:

1 – Kyle and I celebrated our 1st anniversary this past Sunday! woohoo…love you dude.
2 – I got a teaching job! hooray

Event #2 is why I am just now updating everyone. Here’s the rundown of the past week:

Friday: A wonderful lady from our church calls to tell me about a 7th grade math job on her floor available. Paperwork and connections = interview for Monday.

Saturday: Mike McDougal came from Lubbock to visit the Robbins’ & took us to the Cardinal’s game. I find a new favorite baseball player…Ankiel.

Sunday: Kyle and I went to St. Louis for our anniversary. We stayed at the Millenium and ate at The Melting Pot. (a cool fondue restaurant) We had a great time!

Monday: Straight from St. Louis to the interview. 4:41pm…I miss a call from the human resource guy and begin to freak out because there is no way to return his call.

Tuesday: 10:00am…I become a 7th grade math teacher at Alton Middle School. (about 25 min. away) WOOHOO

Wednesday: 8:00am…I start school. (inservice anyway)

And I have been there all day for the past two days. Frantically trying to put a room together. (Good: It’s huge, Bad: It’s cold and old looking.) Making many trips to Target, WalMart, and Big Lots. Kids come Monday.

BUT, God is so good. It wasn’t that long ago that I was struggling with this situation and allowing God to be in control. And look what happened when I gave it up. Amazing.

Random Thoughts 2

1 - So a couple of weeks ago I decided I would start running outside in the mornings. As I went along, I quickly was reminded that running anywhere out of West Texas is more difficult due to these things God created called hills. Needless to say, we have a membership at the local YMCA now.

2 - We have a super mom (& dad) at our church. They have 8 children. And 6 of them…she had at one time. That’s right…sextuplets. I don’t put them on here to make them some media attraction, I just think it is amazing that a woman can hold SIX babies in her belly…and control them after birth…plus two other children. I love to sit and watch them all interact. They are VERY obedient and full of life! Here they all are with their oldest sister eating their sugar cookies! woohoo! The 2nd pic is of the the 2nd oldest girl (on the right) and another girl from our church, London.

3 - So I think that the youth are really enjoying having Kyle around. He has already been banned from taking my car to go places. This past week he went to play golf with one of the HS guys and his HS sister decided to write on the windows and cover it in streamers...thinking it was his vehicle. Then, today we woke up to the wonderful artwork finally on HIS pickup. I'm not sure...but I'm gonna go with the JH girls. Only I would actually go out and take pictures to have something to put on our blog. :)

In case you wanted to know where we live.

Random Thoughts 1

So here are some random...mostly pointless thoughts/updates for your day.

1 - Kyle and I had our first visitors on Tuesday. Bryan, Holly, Brayden, and Kellee Bishop took us out to eat at PF Changs. Then we topped it off with ColdStone...the BEST ice cream ever. YUM.

2 - Did you know that it is fairly common in Illinois to hear the word "sundae" pronounced like sun-duh. It's sun-dAY people. (very significant culture differences...ha)

3 - "Hazy, hot, and humid" is the common phrase heard on the weather lately. We have been in a heat advisory....and guess what we did?? We took the youth to Six Flags yesterday. It was over 100. And the humidity was like 99.999999%. No lie. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be....you wanna know why?? They have these cool things called trees that create a little shade. (this past week...at 9:00...it has still been in the mid-90s. Ridiculous)

4 - Here in the St. Louis suburbs you may get put on a mandatory water conservation. During such times a lady reminds everyone...very slowly...over the tornado siren speakers that they should not be using any water outside. I broke the law and washed our dog.

5 - Kyle cooked his grandmother's famous chocolate gravy this past Saturday. It is yummy. Everyone enjoyed it. Bob decided it would be better with dessert than breakfast...so tonight he poured it all over his ice cream. He claims it was awesome. So to all those Parkers' out there...I suppose we are going to start having to make chocolate gravy twice a day.

Cooling off.

Riding the Tony Hawk.

Twisted

My apologies to my husband, who encourages me to not make my posts too long. I promise I am trying.

LifePoint has begun a series called Twisted. It's how satan slightly twists the truth to mess with our head and ultimately lead us to sin. Let me clearly state my belief that as Christians we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and the enemy can't MAKE us do anything, so don't give him too much credit. He only leads us to do things. And there is a greater power, God, who leads us to do good things. It's our choice which lead we follow.

Anyway...last Sunday I begin to pray for God to reveal to me where the truth was being twisted in my life. So this post is to simply tell you about my own personal struggle and give an example of how the enemy can take something and slightly twist it so we hardly even notice that it is leading us to destruction.

I have been stressing out about a job and a house. We by no means are close to living on the street nor have I been shut out from all money-making opportunities. But my desire for a real teaching job and the opportunity to purchase a house has slowly been increasing.

This desire slowly started making me think things like, "I know God knows our needs, and He has totally been providing for those needs. And I know that I need to focus on Him and what He has brought us here for. But, shouldn't He be providing a middle school teaching job for me? Shouldn't He allow us to have that financial stability so we can buy a house?"

Then I made that prayer about twisted truths...

I started to think about being called to walk down the narrow road. The one that isn't always full of "comfort" but does contain peace and joy. God reminded me that when we left Plainview we knew we were giving up "ideal" jobs and immediate house-purchasing. And we were ok with that because we knew that God had a different, better plan for us. And it would be worth the sacrifice.

I started to evaluate our REAL needs. And the truth came pouring out. We have a roof over our head. We have an incredible family that has opened up their home so we can save money and give me an opportunity to make the best choices for my teaching future. We have meals cooked for us. We have people willing to put up with our dog. We have a church full of supportive people that are extremely excited we are here. People that have welcomed us and offered their services to us. That constantly ask & encourage & offer their prayers for my job situation and our settling in process. We have a youth group that already thinks we are cool and fun. (sort of) We live in a place where I do not have to question safety. That's providing.

That doesn't change the fact that we need to be responsible and do our part with our finances and my job search. But it doesn't need to consume my focus.

I am glad we don't have it all. I am content. The plans He has for our life are much bigger and better than we could ever dream up. He wants to bless us more than we can ever know. He is up to something. So we can let Him take care of that. We can change our focus to the here and now and how He wants to use us for His Kingdom.

1 Timothy 6:6
Yet true religion with contentment is great wealth.

The commentary with it: (because that is a deep statement for me!)
We should honor God and center our desires on Him and we should be content with what God is doing in our life.

(v 8,9)
So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content. But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin & destruction.

I pray you are blessed with the truth today.

Driven

2 Corinthians 10:3-5
We are human, but we don't wage war with human plans and methods. We use God's mighty weapons, not mere worldly weapons to knock down the devil's strongholds. With those weapons we break down every proud argument that keeps people from knowing God. With those weapons we conquer their rebellious ideas, and we teach them to obey Christ.

Today this verse reminded me that God brought us here to fight for the youth in this area. We are just your average people, but we have God’s weapons to bring us success. His weapons give us the power to break through to these youth and straighten up the twisted truths in their lives. (and in our own)

I have discovered over time that most of the twisted truths I have chosen to believe in end up creating a stronghold in my life. And we can’t swat at strongholds like measly flies because they are more like huge concrete walls built slowly over time. My guess is that most of the students have their own strongholds holding them back as well. Human effort is useless in demolishing strongholds.

We can be disciplined and determined. We can plan great games and great lessons. We can hang out with them and build awesome relationships. Yet, without God’s weapons we will never be able to break these strongholds and help these students become fully driven for Christ. The list above is a great help to begin chipping at the wall, but ultimately strongholds require divine demolition.

So, if you are wondering how you can pray for us this is my suggestion. Pray that we wouldn’t just be here planning and hanging out. Instead, that we would be calling on God for direction, power, and love in dealing with the youth. That we would be using His weapons instead of our own.

Here are some pics of the youth...mostly JH: (I'm working on my photography)


And Kyle getting attacked by two of the cutest boys ever:

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