I don't usually make one of these, but I felt it was necessary for today. I wanted to update you all on what is currently happening in my life. I am finding this necessary because I feel like I am letting so many people know different specific pieces of information and I get to a point where I am not sure who I told and who I have not yet told. So, here we go!
First off, I am an RA (Calvary calls them RDLs- Resident Discipleship Leaders) this year. I have ten lovely girls on my hall and I cannot wait to serve them and grow alongside them this year. I am getting to know many of the new students- both freshmen and transfer students. I have been able to help plan some events for the coming weeks to keep the excitement for Calvary up as well as grow the community. The theme verse for this year is Ephesians 2:10, and the book we are going through is (you guessed it!) Ephesians! We want to focus on the understanding of who we are in Christ, and how that should impact our daily living.
I am the Head Tutor at the Clark Academic Center. This mostly means that I am a regular tutor who sometimes helps with the hiring process of adding new tutors to the team, and I'm in charge of making the schedule. I am slowly understanding what my bosses have had to go through when I change my availability, though they had a computer that was better able to auto-generate schedules than my brain can. I am learning it is more than just "when can a tutor work?" but also "How many hours can this tutor have total? " as well as "How many hours can we schedule all of the tutors together for?" or "Does this time generate enough traffic for use to validate more than one tutor on the clock? More than two tutors on the clock?" Then, there are the times when schedules change. Or, what if none of us can work a specific time? Throughout this new project, we have also had a Director change (so my boss is different than it was a year ago). It is sad to see the new Director go, especially because with the timing of it all not everything that needed to be communicated was able to be communicated. So, we are learning as a team together trying to stay afloat. But, that has been doing much better in the past week. There is a little bit of a routine and system that is being figured out and worked with.
On top of this, I am working on preparing for graduating college already (this should be my last academic year before student teaching) and figuring out what the future holds for me. This semester I am taking a class called "Field Expirience 2" where, lord willing, I will get to spend about 45 hours during the 16-week semester in a classroom acting something like a "teachers aid" or "teacher's assistant" to give me more in-school experience. I might get to do things like grading assignments that students turn in, leading a small group that the teacher assigns to me during the specific time for group work, or possibly even teaching mini-lessons in class, such as a 5-10 minute grammar lesson before the rest of the English class takes place. Of course, not all of those details are in place yet, so I don't know exactly what I will do- not even the school I will be teaching at, yet!
On top of not knowing what this year's classes and teaching hold, I will need to start "fundraising" or "raising support" depending on how technical you are getting with my position, for student teaching overseas. Currently it looks like I might be able to go overseas to Papua New Guinea and teach high school English for a semester there as a student teacher, still learning under a head teacher and being severely monitored. This would allow me to get a feel for what missions teaching would look like on my own in this location, and I am hoping the experience will give my guidance as well as confidence on what choices I need to make next in life. But, until I head over there, I need to raise the money to be able to send me over there. Student teaching is difficult for all teachers in America. They are required to make sure they have enough to live off of as they begin the semester of teaching. They are not getting paid to teach- in fact, they are paying to teach. They still owe the school money for this class being marked as complete on the college transcript, and there is still homework involved. But, they are asked to not work another job on the side, as their main attention should be on the students and learning through the teaching process. Of course, if I am able to go to Papua New Guinea to teach at Numonohi Christian Academy, I will need to raise enough money to fly over there, as well as for the return flight. Even if I discover that staying at Papua New Guinea to teach is where God wants me to be, I will still need to get more official training on different things such as language learning techniques and cultural understandings before I can be sent over long-term. So, there are still a few years in my current plan before I will be able to stay for the long term.
Relationships as a whole is something I am working on learning through. I get to discover what it is like to deal with someone who does not like me. I get to learn how to grow through a big disagreement that damaged both parties. I get to learn how to deal with hearing about problems that others are going through and listen without trying to solve the problem. I do not need to bear everyone's problems. In fact, I can't. I also cannot be best friends with everyone in the whole world, even if I wanted to. Both because there are some people that will just not get along with my personality, and because if I wanted to be that close to everyone in my life, I would have no energy to continue in life on my own. I love that I get to build on relationships with others, but I am sad that I cannot focus my whole life on relationships solely. I would be able to get know so many of the people at Calvary better if I could invest in each of the relationships in a deeper, more personal, level. But, that is not practical for each of my girls, nor is it practical for me.
I am also learning how to say "no". I was the President of MOST (Missions Outreach Student Team) as well as serving as a T&T leader last year. I loved both positions, but when there were things that I saw coming in my future that would look better on my resume or better prepare me for the future, I knew that I had to say "no" to some things to be able to say "yes" to others. There are also about 7 on-campus jobs here at Calvary that I would love to be able to work "full time" or as full time as they allow students to work (which is currently 20 hrs.). But, there were some that I was already working that I had to say no to in order to allow the future commitments I had to be able to come in the most mentally healthy way for me and others involved. As this has happened, I have learned that it is healthy for me, as well as providing many more opportunities to others. I was taking up space that did not need to be taken up anymore. Small changes feel so much bigger in my mind than they really are. While God can use the small things as small things that point toward Him. I love to see what I can learn through this experience as well.
There is so much more that I am learning during this time, and my summer was almost a whole different experience that I could talk about. But, this is not the time for it. Ask me about it sometime when it is not almost midnight and I am not sitting at the front desk of my school working on making sure that all those who came in late are recorded in a system.
Thanks for listening!
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