One month down

Hello everyone! Wow, I feel like there are so many stories that we could tell you about, but I will just mention some highlights!

First of all Debbie and I FINALLY learned how to drive stick shift! Whoo Hoo! It only took us a few weeks and a few embarrassing moments. Last week we took the car out by ourselves for the first time and we had only been driving a few minutes when we stalled out in the middle of a big intersection at rush hour. Everyone was going crazy honking at us! We were pulled over by the local police who told us that we couldn’t drive the rest of the way home because we didn’t know how to drive! (How rude!!) Lorri had to come and save us and she took us back home. J

We had a Valentines party for a bunch of our girl students! We had 14 girls come and we made them dinner and watched a chick flick together! We put up a big sheet up in the garage and set up the movie on the projector; it was a really fun event.

Our Bible Study started on Sunday. We are going to go through the book Purpose Driven Life with them. We gave them each a copy and a Bible if they didn’t have one. All of the students that came are non-believers and seem to be really interested. Lorri, our supervisor, is an amazing teacher. God has definitely gifted her in this area, and the students respond so well to her! Debbie and I are learning a lot.

As I mentioned in the e-mail, I joined a volleyball team. The park is really close to my house and I really enjoy the team! It was funny; at first they were really kind of rude. I introduced myself to all of them, but they refused to call me by my name, they just referred to me as “flaca,” which means skinny, white girl! I think they were hesitant on letting me play because I thought it was just a casual, pick-up kind of team; I soon realized that they had two coaches training them and that they did hard drills for the first hour and a half of practice. They are actually really good and it is so much fun to play with such good competition; we play with both guys and girls. Anyway, after the first two days of practice they began to “let me in” their little circle. They invited me to travel to tournaments with them on Sundays, but I won’t be able to compete with them because our Bible study is on Sundays. I am going to continue to practice three times a week with them and hopefully develop some really great friendships! God is so faithful!

After I spoke at the Unviersity of Carabobo I had one of the students call me and ask me to go to the beach with her and her friends. I went and had a great time; the beaches here are BEAUTIFUL! Since then, we have been hanging out a lot and she is a really sweet friend. I am hoping to invest a lot of time in her. She is an English teacher at an elementary school, and I went and spoke to her class last week. She travels around to each classroom to teach, so she has about 100 students. They each made me a sweet card so I have like a stack of 100 pieces of paper on my desk. It was so funny, they thought it was so cool that I spoke in English, but all they understood was “hello and how are you?” So it was pretty hard to talk for very long. After a few minutes they were like, “NO stop. No more English…speak in Spanish!! We don’t understand you!” They were sooo cute!

I love teaching with Lorri at Arturo Michelena! We are teaching American Civilization and History together. Right now I am her teacher’s assistant because I do not have a work permit that would enable me to have my own classroom. It has been such a blessing to teach with her because I am learning a lot from watching her. She lets me pick which topics I want to present and then we team teach. Last week I taught about the United States government, the three branches of our government and checks and balances. I can see all of your faces right now…yes, you heard right…I am teaching history at the University level! Ha! I can’t believe it either, but because I feel so ill-equipped, it is a real incentive to study before I present. I am learning a lot! J

As usual, Morgan has done a great job explaining everything. We kinda have a deal on this blog, she writes and I do the technical posting stuff. I am very excited about everything going on with Morgan. We are both now settled into our schedule and routine here. My English classes have been going well. My students have started to invite me to do stuff. I haven't been able to do anything with them yet, but I'm supposed to do lunch on Tuesday. I'm pretty excited about that. One thing I really like about where I work is the view I have while I teach. The office I work at is on the 11th floor, so the view is amazing. I'm posting a picture so you can see for yourself.

These last two weeks have been a bit crazy for me for several reasons. I moved to the apartment I will be staying at for the next 8 weeks. Also, one of the cars we have has been broken for awhile (it was finally fixed Wednesday) so I've been getting around on the bus. I have become quite the bus girl, taking buses I've never taken before =) But the car is now fixed and I'm settled into my new apartment. YAY! The lady I live with works with missions mobilization which is something I'm really interested in and she says that I can probably help her some. So all is good, I hope you enjoy the post!