Almost a week down

 This week really sped by now that I started teaching virtually. My one student has been a load of fun and personality, and he's connected well with me. 

We start out every morning talking about how we feel, how we slept, what we're excited about, and what we're thankful for. (We'll start the day with a gratitude journal once the students are all on campus). Then we play a little get-to-know-you game where we share one new thing about ourselves and have to repeat everything the person shared on all the prior days. So far it's easy with only four days, but I don't think we'll take the game much more than two weeks. 

After that, we talk about what makes a good leader, and then we read a chapter of a book about Jesus and discover what leadership traits he modeled for us. 

We then go over his agenda and assignments for the day, I pray over him, and then he gets to work. For now, we leave the camera on for most of the day (with a two hour break between 11-1), and he knows he can just ask if there's anything he doesn't understand. We also get back on at 1:45 for a Fitness break that we do together. We've done stretches, animal moves, and today it was a "sweat and spell" activity where he had to do different silly exercises depending on each letter of his name. We had fun and laughed a lot. I sat out a few of the activities, like cartwheels and somersaults. When he asked why I wasn't doing them, I just said, "Once you get past forty, you just don't do those things anymore." Haha.

His last assignment every day is to write in his journal about how he feels, what he learned, what he enjoyed, and what he hopes about the next day. I love how putting journal writing as the last thing makes him beg to write in his journal! That's exactly how it worked with my last class. Hey, it's one way to get them excited to write!

I am thoroughly enjoying getting to know my new teammate/student life assistant, Julie. She's a native Columbus resident, born and raised here, so she's a wealth of information and a great resource to me. She's also got an amazing missional heart, so we connect very well and on a very deep level. I couldn't ask for a better person to share a classroom with every day. We both know that we're here as partners on a mission field and coworkers in a ministry. We are still praying for the right set of houseparents to answer the call to join our team here at New Song to help us disciple disadvantaged kids and raise them up to be godly leaders in their communities. If you know anyone interested or equipped with the right gifts for such a ministry, please have them contact me or reach out to Bob at newsongmission.org. We are praying in faith for God to bring just the right couple so our kids on the waiting list can soon call this their home away from home. 

Now that David's officially back in Texas at DBU, Mike and I are finally starting to relax a little bit in the evenings after work. We've all been battling quite a bit of sickness the last few weeks and are realizing just how exhausted we are. Besides being physically exhausted from stomach issues and a really bad cold passing around, we're also mentally exhausted from so.much.change. So, if you don't hear from me by phone, text, e-mail, or even on this blog for a lengthy period of time, don't take it personally. We're still trying to process a whole lot of new things and don't have a lot of mental or social energy to give after a full day of work.