Home again

I got back home to San Jose late on Thursday night. There was a prayer meeting and dinner with a few TEAM families in Islamabad on Wednesday night, and I drove down with one family from MCS to go to that. After dinner, we spent the night with a family in Islamabad, but got up at 2am to go to the airport. The family and I were on the same flight from Islamabad to Doha, about a 4 hour flight. We were seated on opposite ends of the plane, but it was nice to have someone to go through the airport with.
In Doha I had a quick transfer to my next flight to JFK, at 13 hour flight. I watched quite a few movies and caught up on some new music.
In JFK I went through customs, got my 70 pound luggage re-checked and went through security again. I hadn't called my dad in a few days because I'd got rid of my cell phone already, so I knew he'd be wanting to know where I was. I was looking through my purse to find some dollars to take to a shop and get quarters when I looked up and saw my very own sister standing in front of me! Meredith had flown out from San Diego that morning just to meet me at the airport and fly home with me! It was an incredible surprise and I was so happy to have someone to spend time with before being reunited with the whole family and everyone else.

We arrived at SFO around 10pm, met by my parents, grandma, grandma & grandpa, and my brother's girlfriend. They had yellow roses for me, and even a welcome home banner. They'd also rented a limo so we could all ride home together. My brother Dave met us at home because he'd just got off work. I gave them some of their presents and we sat around talking for a while, until I finally went to bed around 2am. I woke up, wide awake at 7:30 and spent the day having lunch with Meredith and Dave and sorting through my luggage. I took a nap for a couple of hours, and slept last night for about 11 hours. Hopefully I'm cured now of any jet lag.

I'm glad to be home. I'm thankful for my experience in Pakistan and all I learned about teaching. I'm hopeful to get a job teaching here in San Jose now. People have asked if I'd go back to Pakistan, and I have to say yes. I was never scared or fearful for my own safety, though it was surreal to be teaching students who were worried for their parent's safety where they were working. I had a good experience in the country, despite the challenges and difficulty of teaching.

Thank you all for keeping up with me, and letting me keep up with some of you. Your thoughts, prayers, and e-mails over the year were greatly encouraging to me!

Here's to the future!

On My Way Home

This has been graduation week, so it's been fairly busy. We've had an awards night, Cafe Night (like a talent show), baccalaureate service, a bush dance (like square dancing), and finally the graduation ceremony yesterday. It's been really special to have only 10 graduates in such a close community. All the services and events were very personal and familial. At the graduation service, each pair of parents stood behind their child and prayed for him or her especially.
Now the students are gone and we've got 2 teacher work days to finish cleaning out the classrooms. I'll be at my flat on Tuesday, cleaning and packing there, then going to Islamabad on Wednesday for a TEAM dinner. I'll spend the night with a family there, as my flight leaves early on Thursday morning. There is another family on the same flight as me, which I'm thankful for. I go from Islamabad to Doha (the capital of Qatar), then to JFK, and on home to SFO!
A few of us got together last night to share pictures from the year, and different trips we've all taken. I'm so privileged and thankful for all the travels I've had in my life so far - Belize, Cuba, Mexico, Paris, Barcelona, Scotland, Ireland, and now Pakistan. I've realized how much I really do get excited about traveling, and hope that my future holds more of it!

Trip to the Sindh - Sukkur & Shikarpur

These are some Sunday School children in a village outside of Sukkur, singing songs they've learned.











Typical Pakistani traffic jam: horses, donkeys, bicycles, big trucks, small cars, tractors, and people walking. We also would see camels on occasion.



















This is me by a well at Moen-jo Daro











Some fishermen in a branch of the Indus river.











This was like a farmer's market, but mostly with animals, that we past along the road in Sukkur.

some pictures

This is a kind of side-on look at where I live. Up the stairs on the left is my front door, and the window on the second floor that's hidden behind the lattice work is mine. The second floor window that you can see belongs to Lucy, the other Elementary teacher. All the windows on the bottom are a 5 bedroom guest flat which is usually empty.



The snow is all gone now, but this is the tree outside my window, when there was snow.

















Believe it or not, this is one of my boys. (dressed up for Barbie Day during spirit week)

Snow!

We've had a few weeks of very cold weather, so I thought I'd post up some pictures of the snow around here :)

... 20 minutes later...

unfortunately, the internet cut out in the middle of my uploading process, so I'll just tell you that it's beautiful!

Last week was spirit week at school, so we had Pajama Day, Wacky Day, Space Day, Barbie Day, and then MCS Spirit day. Our soccer team boys left this afternoon for Dhaka to play in a tournament, so we're all cheering them on in spirit.

One of the gap year students has gotten really sick with some unknown bug and is flying back home to Germany today for treatment. She's planning on being back by the end of March. Pray for her, that she'd have a great time with her family and that the doctors would be able to figure out and fix whatever is wrong with her.

Our play is being rehearsed daily... I still don't feel like we'll be anywhere near ready for what we want to have done by the end of the term, but hopefully it'll all turn out fine!

I think that's mostly what's new on my end. I hope you're all doing well!

Term 3, Week 4

We had our first big snowfall in the past few days. It started snowing on Thursday morning and snowed all day, dropping about 5 inches. It thundered and stormed again last night and we woke up to about 3 or 4 more inches! The students have been making snow sculptures and forts and having snow ball fights all day. I enjoyed standing under an overhang after lunch today and watching massive clumps of snow drop from the branches of the trees and slide off the roofs.

We're almost half way through the term, and these past few weeks have probably been my best so far (teaching-wise). I've got a lot more self-confidence, which has made a huge difference.

We're rehearsing almost every day for the end-of-term play the Elementary kids are putting on, based on Max Lucado's book "You Are Special." One of Lucy's (my co-teacher's) friends in Australia wrote it, but she's had to do a lot of work to it to adapt it to our students in order to give everyone a speaking part. I'm in charge of sets and props, so most of my work will come in later. It's exciting to have something kind of outside of school to work on.

Also, after I taught the 7th graders some line dancing last term, one of the girls was interested in starting up a dance club. We've put up a sign up sheet, and we'll see if anyone is interested. That would also be a great distraction!

The Elementary house parents have been feeling really overwhelmed lately. This is their first year, and they came late because of their visas, so the kids had already had 3 interim house parents before they came. They're from Germany and don't speak English fluently. They're getting lessons from one of the high school boarding parents, and the lessons and studying take up enough time on top of all the juggling of handling 8 other family's kids. They get one day off a week, but I told them I'd be happy to go up and spend time with the kids so they can relax a little bit. I went up and read stories to the kids twice this week, which I really really loved, and then stayed afterwards to chat and play games with Giesela (the wife). That was also really nice, to just talk about nothing in particular and relax a little.

They say it won't snow again for a few days, but big storms are predicted for next week!

I hope you're all doing well!

(belated) Christmas Play!

(this is me with my students - the grade 4 & 5s)
At the end of term 2, the elementary classes put on a Christmas production including some songs and 3 different skits about Jesus' birth - one from the shepherd's point of view, one from the barn animal's point of view, and one from the shepherd's point of view. They all did a great job and we had a really good time! This term, we're putting on a big full-on musical/play, which we've already started rehearsals for today (the first day of school)! It'll be a busy term, but I think it'll be a good one :)
The barn animals: goat, donkey, doves, and a cow.
All grade 4,5,6 students singing carols together.
and a candle-lit song with the audience at the end. The room was packed with lots of parents, siblings, and then some other students and staff. It was a very nice way to end the term!