why I listen to Corelli

Lately I have been listening to a lot of early, Baroque, and early Classical music. Mozart, Corelli, Byrd, Bach... I have avoided Brahms and his Romantic contemporaries. So I thought I would share with you all (whoever that is that reads my blog!) a quote by Madeleine L'Engle from her book Walking on Water:

"Wagner is fine if the world around one is stable. But when the world is, indeed, in chaos, then an affirmation of cosmos becomes essential."

I find that often in this country, in this life, the world is in chaos. So I listen to music that seems to put the pieces back together. I know (pardon my music-nerdness) that at the end of every four bars, Mozart will give me a nice cadence. I can predict where a Bach piece will go next. There are few surprises; there is a lot of stability and familiarity. There's something comfortable and soothing about listening to a Corelli trio concerto after a long day of feeling incompetent in this culture and language. I know the language of the music. So maybe, in a way, this "affirmation of cosmos" music has become a safe place from which I adventure out into the Wagnerian, Brahmsian, and sometimes even Glass-ian world in which I live.

Food for thought.

Teaching First Grade

(Warning: this is a long post. But read it - it's worth it! And there's a picture if you can make it to the end...)

This year I became a first grade teacher. Funny, right? That's what I thought, too, when my boss first told me. I have 8 six-year-olds; they are the students the normal first grade teacher labeled as stupid or badly behaved, so they gave them to me! Also funny, right? These kids are at a kindergarten level, but they are NOT stupid. Most of them learn quickly and LOVE school - they're just the kids that couldn't learn by the Dominican system, which is copying words off the blackboard into your notebook all day. I'm pretty sure my kids got the better end of the deal: in my class, we have circle time, read-alouds, centers, crafts, and LOTS of fun! Thanks to wonderful friends and family members with years of experience and lots of resources, I have an amazing "classroom" in a corner of the cafeteria. We play with magnetic letters, tangrams, lacing cards, puzzles, pocket charts, sorting games, watercolors, playdough, and LOTS of books! We are learning phonemic awareness, letter recognition, handwriting, about the calendar and the weather, and counting.

Has it been easy? Absolutely not. Has it been a source of joy? Absolutely. I'm pretty sure I learn more than my students every day. I got a lot of supplies, books, and advice in Chicago in October, and jumped in with both feet when I got back to the DR. It has been a crazy fall, but I am so grateful for the chance to teach these kids and show them that learning is fun and that they can be successful in school. I love that every morning I get greeted with hugs and "Buenos dias, profe!" I love that my students are friends! Here are some great successes, things my students have learned in the past 6 weeks:

• to recognize their names and their classmates' names
• to read a book by looking at the pictures
• to read, write, and hear the five vowels
• to track words (put a finger on each word as they read it) as they read repetitive sentences
  
• Green Eggs and Ham. They have literally learned it - memorized most of it!
• what rhyming words are (they also learned this one through Green Eggs and Ham!)
  
• to think creatively and logically (still working on this one) with puzzles and tangrams
  
• to work quietly in pairs during center time, and clean up after themselves

I am beyond proud of my students, and I will be the first to say that what they have learned, they have learned by God's grace. I am learning every minute of every day, and I am amazed at how God has provided wisdom, creativity, energy, and patience for me.

Ok, time for "funny, right?" moment #3:

The first day I taught first grade, I had no resources, no schedule/structure, and no idea what I was doing. After class, I sat in the office with my journal, and God said, "Hey Emily, I think you're supposed to teach elementary school." To which I promptly replied, "Hey God, actually, I'm going to be a high school choir teacher, but thanks." End of conversation. The next day, God said, "Emily, seriously, you're going to be an elementary school teacher," and I said, "Um, no. Remember how I was a music major and love choir and am going to be a high school choir teacher? Yep, me too. Still what I'm going to do with my life." After about two weeks of this, I said to myself, "Maybe I really AM supposed to be an elementary school teacher... that's terrifying!" And I'm pretty sure God laughed a little.

So now I find myself in this position of being called to teach elementary school. I have discovered that I have a passion for making sure kids learn the essential skills they are supposed to learn in the first few years of school - basic literacy skills, math skills, behavioral and relational skills. I actually enjoy lesson planning, and I love reading books on teaching literacy - weird, right? And here's the kicker: I know without a doubt that there are kids in the United States who are missing out on these skills. It's not just kids in the 3rd world who don't learn to read. It's kids in North Philly, kids in DC, kids in inner cities across America. And it's kids whose parents can't read them stories before they go to bed, kids who use all their energy to survive, kids who fall asleep hungry. These kids live in the United States, not just the Dominican Republic, and they need teachers who will fight for them, teachers who will teach them to love learning.

Please be in prayer for me as I continue teaching these little guys. Pray for wisdom, creativity, patience, joy, love, and more wisdom! Also pray as I continue trying to figure out what God has for me and what my calling looks like.

So that's my story. If you've made it this far, you're a trooper! I wanted to tell it all at once so that from now on I can just talk about my class without having to give the backstory. To reward you for reading this far, here is the promised photo, plus some bonus! We did a class photo shoot the other day - have you ever tried to control 8 6-year-olds on top of a jungle gym?

In the "lineup" photo, L-R: Nairoby, Alicia, Monica, Wander, Keila, Ambiorix, Alidia, Cristina

Here's my "classroom": in the corner of the cafeteria (hence the plates of food on the table) with a tape square for them to sit on during circle time. That windowsill is my storage place during class where I keep all the stuff the kids aren't allowed to touch. The kids drew those self-portraits when we were learning our names - I think they're pretty cute.

Welcome, Brianna!

Since we found out that Jessi, the school nurse, was going to return to the US mid-September, I have been asking the Kids Alive directors to try to find a new missionary to come work at the Care Center. And they found someone! This is Brianna:

She has jumped right in and worked hard this week! We have been prepping our Christmas sponsorship project (that's what she's doing here - shaving crayons), and she weighed, measured, and de-wormed all the kids this week! She is wonderful. So much fun to be around, sweet, and a great coworker - I have really enjoyed showing her around and talking with her and watching her love the kids. She will be here until just before Christmas. Please pray that God will bless her time here. Pray that our friendship will continue to be encouraging and a blessing. Praise him for providing perfectly, as he always does, a new friend and coworker for me. God is good!

America

I went to America. Shocking, I know... it was hard to explain to my coworkers that I was going to America but not to my house! I managed to get lost 3 times in the Miami airport, stare at skyscrapers like I had never seen anything that tall, sleep on 5 different couches, FREEZE on a Chicago architecture boat tour, step on lots of crunchy fall leaves, go to Concert Choir rehearsals, and spend wonderful time with my family, Aubrey & Jeff, Erica, summer interns, and Wheaton friends and professors. It was definitely refreshing and relaxing, and it was also confirming that I am where I am supposed to be. As I walked around campus, I didn't wish I were still a student, and I didn't feel nearly as nostalgic as I anticipated. Yes, I have wonderful memories from my time at Wheaton, but I don't belong there anymore. The thing that struck me most about America is how easy it seems to live there. I can't describe it, and I know that some Americans live incredibly hard lives, but my life in America seems really easy and comfortable compared to my life in the DR. I am still sorting through that observation and praying that God would reveal ways for me to live in America with the consciousness and faith that I live with here. Another incredible part of my trip was being blessed with teaching manuals/idea books/resources and lots of games, supplies, etc for my new first grade class! See the next blog for more on that... I came back to the DR feeling equipped and excited about teaching and using all my fun new things. I geeked out in the teacher store - it was pretty hilarious - and Molly said it was like I had been shopping for new clothes, showing her everything I got! It was so good to see my family and spend time relaxing together. I also got to spend four days in Milwaukee with Erica, going to school with her and seeing what her city life is like.

America is nice, but I was ready to come home. Maybe not ready to return to the heat, but ready to return to Lauren, my apartment, my students, and this culture that in so many ways feels more normal to me than American culture. What a blessing it is to have "home" in two places! My next trip to the States will be for Christmas, and I will be in Quakertown on that trip.

what DO we do on the weekends?

I often am asked what I do on the weekends here. Well, this weekend was a three day weekend thanks to Saint Mercedes (whoever that is!). On Friday we slept in and then went grocery shopping. We were going to watch a movie, but our friend Joe called wondering if he could shower at our house since he had no water at his house. We said yes, so he came over, showered, ate dinner with us, and then we ended up hanging out and talking until 11 or so - no movie. Today we slept in again (seeing a theme here?), had our traditional Saturday Morning Pancakes - this week they were banana - and I did some work on child sponsorship. We skyped with some people, called some people, went for a long walk, played a game with some friends, and worked on our homework from our Beth Moore Bible study on Daniel. Tonight we will go to the Makarios team house to watch Glee on the big projector! On Sundays we go to church; I arrive an hour early to practice with the worship band; church is at 11. After church we sometimes go out for lunch; tomorrow we will pack veggies and hummus and tortillas and head to the beach after church (yesterday and today were cloudy/rainy). Part of tomorrow will probably be devoted to lesson plans and prep for the upcoming week of teaching. Sunday nights I skype with Erica, my best friend from Wheaton, to finish my weekend off well!

So there you have it - my weekend in a nutshell!

Back to School!

The most important part of a 1st grader's school day is, of course, breakfast! On the first day of school, we started them off with nutritious hot oatmeal drink called Avena. They proceeded to make milk mustaches with it and make me smile!

One Year with Lauren

On August 3rd, Lauren and I went out to lunch to celebrate one year of knowing each other! Our missionary training program started on August 3rd, 2009; we met that night and have been roommates, close friends, and traveling buddies on this road called missionary life ever since. We celebrated a year of paradoxes, tears of joy and tears of sadness, hope and anger, loving life here but longing for the comforts and family of the States, experiencing the pain of broken relationships and the healing of grace and reconciliation. We have created a physical home here, intentionally living in community and sharing everything we have, making our apartment an emotionally and spiritually safe place. We have pushed each other to grow, held each other up through times of crisis, learned to navigate Dominican culture together, worshipped together, thrown the rubber "yuck" duck against the wall together, and done a LOT of laughing together! I am so thankful for Lauren, for the wisdom and joy she brings to my life. I so clearly see God's providence and work in putting us together and binding us together - it's amazing and mind-boggling how He knew we would need each other and provided for us. He is faithful. He is good. He has done great things for us, and we are glad.

A story that illustrates the hilarity of our lives here: after our celebratory lunch, we went to La Sirena (the grocery store) for frozen yogurt. We have a club card for Sirena, and we had earned two plays of their giveaway computer game. I think for buying the right brand of lunch meat? So we scanned our club card to "play" the game, and we won! We won $1000 pesos, which is about $30 US, to spend at Sirena! The man in charge turned on a loud flashing buzzer and stuck a microphone in Lauren's face and said, "How do you feel?" It was crazy and surreal, but we were very excited! Perfect end to our roommate celebration!