Developments.

The weeks seem to be rushing by faster and faster every week.  Days are getting filled with extra events and my head is getting filled with extra ideas and responsibilities. J They are good things, but I have realized the importance of being still here—last weekend I felt like I had been at school the whole week so I planned to go out a few times over the weekend to check out some markets and a new church and buy some guitar strings for school.  It was all fun, but when it got to Monday I felt like I hadn’t had a weekend because it takes so much energy to get around here.  So tonight I am going to a wedding reception for a couple who work at school, but otherwise I am staying in for the most part. J

This week was filled with some new experiences…on Sunday I went to an Anglican church for the first time (and got so lost on the way there! hehe), I went to check out an international choir that meets on Tuesdays, I successfully got to the US embassy to get visa pages in my passport, I spent some hours recruiting students I didn’t even know to join our extra-curricular music clubs, and tonight I am going to a Khmer wedding reception. Oh, and last week I bought hand drums for my classroom!!! I’ve had the chance to do some things that were comfortable too like play a board-game with my principle’s kids at their house, and go out to a nice dinner with a friend last night.  As I mentioned earlier, life has been full.

I think that I am coming out of my “autopilot” stage of transition, and I am starting to see reality.  I am deeply missing people for the first time.  I am falling in love with my students and realizing that I will be following through with them until they leave.  Relationships that have started here are now in the “in-between” phase where small talk is not enough but real conversation may still be awkward.  And as always when I transition, I am fighting the urge to turn off, fighting the urge to become bitter and to do it myself.  I know so well that this is where God has led me to serve, and I am so excited to face the challenge, but I have to allow Him to get me through the transition phase and take me to the things He has called me to. 

The major prayer request for this week would be the extra-curricular clubs that we are starting up.  Because there has been no music program, there is no band or choir program built into the schedule, so we are doing them after school or during lunch as clubs.  They are going to be eclectic groups with different skill and experience levels, and a strange mix of instruments as well. J Please pray that figuring out the details would not come in the way of the students enjoying the experience of music, and that we would be wise in the way that we approach the groups and the things that we ask of the students.  They are adorable and enthusiastic, and I am so excited to see them learn and succeed! J  Hopefully next week I will have some pictures of them for you~

But for today I will leave you with the picture of my lizard that I found on my bedroom wall this morning. Isn’t he cute? J