Off to a good start

It’s hard to believe I’ve been down here two years, then at the same time it feels like I’ve lived here forever.   I’ve been back for 2 weeks and everything is right where I left off... in full swing! 

                        Here’s an update on the school, community, and my life here in Belize.  

School orientation and workshops were the best out of the three years I’ve been here.  I can see the administration really put a lot of thought into what would be of use and of interest to the faculty and staff.  The orientation week flew by and before we knew it we had about 150 new 1^st Formers nervously staring at us from the bleachers at orientation!  Along with teaching Religion, this year I’ve been assigned a homeroom.  In the U.S. this is primarily a role of taking attendance but here in Belize you are the mom to a particular class.  The students are your kids for the year and you take care of them, look out for them, and report back to their parents about twice a year on their progress.  I have 38 1^st Form girls I’m responsible for!  My goal is to keep all my girls for the whole year.  I don’t think this is a realistic goal since we usually have about 6-10 girls drop out of each class or fail between 1^st Form and 2^nd Form, but I don’t care if it’s unrealistic, it’s still my goal!  The girls are very quiet and sweet.  At this point in the year they are shy and still nervous about being in High School so I have to pull answers out of them in class.  I’m not worried about it; I’ve been here long enough to know that it will change soon enough and then I’ll be trying my hardest to get them to STOP talking.  The boys on the other hand… they warm up a lot faster!  They are quiet for the first 2 days and then they start in being funny, yelling out answers, talking to each other, and just acting like normal 14-year-old boys.  Once again this year, I am so thankful the classes are separated.  It’s so helpful to their learning at this age.  Coming back into the classroom for a third year here is a wonderful feeling!  It’s definitely a feeling of being “home” when you are at school where you are teaching all the 1^st Formers and know all the 2^nd and 3^rd Formers from teaching them in previous years.  For some of my students this year I’ve already taught 2 of their siblings! I feel like part of their family J

I realize every new school year how much I LOVE teaching!  It’s so fun challenging the kids to think on their own, to ask questions, and to find the answers!  They say little kids are like sponges, but I think they’re still pretty spongy their first year in high school!  By the end of the day I’m usually exhausted.  Any teacher will tell you how much energy it takes to teach.  But, it’s a good kind of exhausting; it’s rewarding, and it feels good to know you’ve given so much to the kids!

As you may have heard, I will be helping prepare for our Jr College to open Fall 2013.  We can use some prayers for this!  Having a Jr. College here in Benque will be so beneficial for the community here.  Right now people have to travel to go to college and the inconvenience along with the cost deters many people from being able to attend college.  There’s a lot to be done between now and August 2013.  I keep reminding myself “His grace is sufficient”!  It’s neat to be a part of something from the ground up and it’s great to see so many things are falling into place beautifully, Thanks be to God!  I’ll be posting information about Our Lady of Mt Carmel Jr College on my blog this year so you can be a part of it all!

We have an awesome group of volunteers this year!  We have 4 new men and 3 new women from different places in the U.S.  It’s refreshing to have new faces around, new people with new ideas, new friendships to form, and new memories to be made.  All the new volunteers are eager to be the best teachers they can be, to serve the students well, to learn about the culture, to experience new things, and to be part of the community.  It’s a great reminder to us returning volunteers of why we’re here, to serve, to give it our all, to be exhausted at the end of the day, to lay down our lives for others, to LOVE.