Outside of ESL classes....

What's up? How's life? Eventful in mostly good ways I hope! Well, my week was a little less eventful...or kinda eventful yet...not fun I guess. Well I got a cold from cold wind+ wet hair combination last Sunday night! Yes it happens that fast for me. And then Tuesday night I woke up with a fever, and it continued on and off, until Thursday morning. Unfortunately I did not get to work the rest of the week. :/ Finally Friday we went to the Doctor and after some samples and blood tests, I found out Saturday that I have a Parasite and a bacterial infection and a cold...yaaayyy...Thankfully this all explains the issues I have been having health-wise and I am now on two different medications and antibiotics and hopefully on the mend! But I do feel much better than I have, and I have been assured I will be back to normal once I'm through with the meds. FUN STUFF HUH!?
Yeah I know it's not super exciting stuff, like last week but it is the non-glamorous side of traveling and I feel like sometimes a balance is necessary ;)

But not to bore you with my sick days.....I will tell you about what I usually do in school after I am done with my lessons! Since my classes only last from 10am -12:30pm, I go upstairs to the older kids (2nd grade+) and basically help students correct their homework, and help them when they get stuck on their work. To my dismay I have become a go to person for basic math... my mom is going to laugh and say: " I TOLD YOU, YOU WERE GOOD AT IT!" Well ....yes mom I have been able to successfully help kids with long-division, geometry, subtractions and multiplications so far (I had to reteach myself the long-divison). And I may have had to correct some of my advice I gave to the kids. But teachers are always learning too! I was helping one of the older boys Mason with his Geometry and he had to find the area and the perimeter for a set of shapes and he wasn't getting the answers quite right. So I had to explain the formulas to him again and I had him show me which sides you add or multiply. After he got the answers corrected for one of the shapes I patted him on the shoulder and barely took 3 steps away when he turns around wide-eyed and goes:" Where are you going?? I still need help!"  A little shocked he really wanted my help, I go: "Oh....um. Okay! Sure!"  (I say shocked because when I didn't quite understand what he was supposed to do he said:" Miss Julia go look at the score key, it will help." .....it did). He's the sweetest boy who is in 8th grade and about a good few inches taller than I am!


Last week I was helping a girl with her vocabulary, because each subject gives the kids new vocabulary for them to learn in English and Spanish, so I was having her explain the meanings of her vocab, and on one of the words she was trying to tell me: "It's what a butterfly is before it gets wings." And I was pretty certain that Cuba was not a caterpillar in Spanish. I told her they were talking about the country, and she was 100% certain I was wrong since I didn't know Spanish. We went back and forth for a few minutes and I ended up grabbing my co-worker Juan, who only speaks Spanish and he told her they were indeed talking about the country.  I may have celebrated that victory a little too much, but man winning an argument with a child is quite the accomplishment sometimes - you parents out there don't lie!!

These kids are awesome! Very intelligent and precious and I am loving working with them!

Love,

Jules

God is providing.

                   OH.MY.GOODNESS!! So much to tell! So! First week of school! C-r-a-z-y!! The first day of school started Tuesday, so I had Monday to lay out my lesson plans and mentally prepare myself. Which I needed because I was very nervous! I have a lot of experience being around Kindergarten and Elementary age kids, but I have never really taught English to this age-group... and considering 99% of the Kindergarten kids do not  speak English, I was worried!! But my sweet teacher friends reassured me and Deborah basically said I could do whatever I wanted. Only guideline I have is the speaking English PACE 1 which does not have that much in it. So I did A LOT of research for both lessons. Fast forward to Tuesday morning, I came into school around 8:30-ish just to get an idea of morning routines. Don't remember if I elaborated on this but the Kids have a morning "exercise" routine where they sing an active worship song, pray, sing the Honduran national anthem, pledge to the same flag, and two other pledges to the christian flag and the bible, then they read or recite a passage of scripture together, and finally announce any big accomplishments of the students. Anyways, at 9.30 I went downstairs to the younger kids classroom to get ready for my lesson.  I looked over my plan again and then went to collect all my kids (which took a sec because other kids tried to sneak in, and a few actually did which I didn't realize until today...no wonder they were so good...), and we settled down on this small blanket in the corner of the classroom. So with 8 Kindergarten kids (should have been 6😀) I began lessons with the method we had been taught at OC to be "total physical response method" where kids learn English words through actions and moving their bodies. So I started the lesson with simple commands that I could demonstrate: like "stand up" or "sit down" or "walk in a circle" - the kids really enjoyed this and it was a fun activity. We may have been distracting the other kids a little bit. :). Through a few different activities I was able to get all their names, numbers 1-5 and a few colors. I taught them a "Good Morning" song which my 5th grade English teacher had taught us (it's still a work in progress, but it's their favorite thing). I was surprised the K-kids turned out to be MUCH easier going than I had expected. I do have to remind them of boundaries since they just started school but overall they are so precious.
                 So at 11:30 I had my Elementary girls (pictured above). These girls are fun, because they have a few different levels of English speakers, but since I only have 5 of them I am able to have them help each other out. Lessons with them over the past week have been quite experimental because I'm still figuring out how much English they actually speak. I had one day where I did some harder activities and it made for a very slow lesson. But the next day I adjusted them slightly and it got much better! They are all beautiful little spirits, I have shy Tiffany, sassy Sachy, happy Keren, eager Onice and adorable Llarelli! Apparently my English lessons have become popular, because I had a few kids (who are fluent English speakers) come up and tell me they needed more practice so they needed to join my class...it was heart-breaking having to tell them no.... :)
               

     I will give you a slight update on my adjustment process: I successfully ordered food in Spanish! It only took me like 3 words but it was a milestone for me! I also started teaching a private student on Tuesday, she is in her 30s and simply wants to improve her conversation skills. We spent our first lesson just laughing and getting to know each other. It was sweet! Her husband works at a resort and she said she wanted to invite me there and cook for me..my response: YAH! She has two little sons who are so precious! I was supposed to have my first Spanish lesson this last weekend but I got sick Thursday-Saturday so I was knocked out pretty much the whole time, so we didn't meet up. Hopefully next week though! Apparently my body is going to make this adjustment a little difficult so please pray for that! My digestion is especially annoying right now...

Saturday night (I was feeling a bit better) the mission group that has been here this past week was invited to a traditional Island dinner at Mazy's house (She is a mother of one of our school kids). So this island dinner consisted of banana dumplings, flour dumplings, fish, pig tail, plantains, and cooked bananas. My digestion was still on the mend so  I wasn't able to eat much. But I tried everything except the pig tail - not ready for that yet. One day.... But they had prepared some interesting questions for Mazy and it was basically a night of learning about island culture and what life was like before tourism took over. Really cool experience!

Sunday morning I attended church with my friend Esther (she's a teacher at school with me). I got to ride one of the busses they have here for the first time and the road to our church was AWFUL! Sooo many potholes everywhere! Church was a nice service! It is lead by American Missionaries and most of the families there are Expat-families so it was all in English. Apparently its known as the "Gringo-church" (white church). I plan on visiting other churches too though. The nice thing about this church is it takes place in a big conference room of a resort out in West Bay and the people who go to church there are allowed to use the pool and chairs out on the beach. So this is what Esther and I did for the rest of the afternoon. We laid out by the pool and talked and I even got to snorkel later that day! It was a terrifying experience because I had to keep anxiety of breathing through my mouth only under control!! But the reefs are so cool! And the experience of looking into the water and only hearing your breathing so loud in your head is so strange yet so cool!

           The good experiences just keep adding up. The importance of community is so refreshing and the mentality of island culture is really interesting! Esther was telling me about switching from her previous job to teaching at school, and the switch caused a decrease in pay for her, so she told me how she simply had to trust that God would provide. I told her I was having a hard time trusting in this and learning this over the past few months, she responded and told me: "You know Julia, one thing Islanders are really good at is trusting that God will provide. Because for us, that's all we can do. I didn't think I was going to have enough money for this next week but then someone yesterday overpaid on purpose for a bracelet I made (she makes and sells jewelry on weekends),  and now I do have enough until the next payday!"
One of the best things here is I get to hear and see God be active every day. Because being reliant upon oneself is not priority #1. So this is how I am trying to dismiss my fear, by training myself to truly believe and act upon the belief, that God will provide. Of course easier said than done. But I know this is something God wants to work on with me, so that's what we're doing!

Please keep praying for my co-worker, she is back at work, and happy to be here but I know it's going to have good days and bad. Keep praying for my funds, and financial stuff. I believe God will provide, but I still get tired and anxious from seeing reminder-emails of payments and such, and they don't seem to want to leave me alone (because sometimes random new things will pop up). Pray for health please. My body is feeling very tired,sick, and exhausted, and it's struggling to transition. I hope this wasn't too much to throw at you!

Trust me!

                It has now been 7 days since I arrived in this hot and humid climate! And to update you I have started to slowly tune out the rooster that likes to scream outside our house at 3 am. Still taking everything in! This last week I have been in training! I got to learn about the different curriculum that Samuel Raymond Christian School implements. So this is really different from a typical classroom set up. Basically you start off by testing the students level of learning abilities and then they get their material prescribed in correlation with their specific levels. For each subject there is a workbook and accompanying text, along with check up tests and quizzes to test comprehension. The students gets to work through his/her work at their own pace, without worrying about comparing their progress to other students or falling behind the rest of the class. The teachers keep up with the students work, and provide 1-on-1 tutoring as needed. Well, despite this very different way of learning at this school, my ESL classes will not really be in this fashion but still in a small group of students. So my priorities will be 2 ESL classes for new incoming students, one for 8 Kindergarten students at 10am and then another for four 2nd and 3rd grade students at 11:30am. After that I will be helping out with the other classes until school ends, which I will let you know what that looks like once I do it. :) (I will be getting some evening adult classes in a few weeks)

           I've been asked about my adjustment here and so far I can tell you, I'm still taking things in. The only things I'm currently "adjusting" to would be the trash that lies around and the lack of clear set structure in cities and neighborhoods. But growing up in Germany they employ people to keep the city looking so clean, and on the island regular trash pick-up is just not a luxury they have. And there is a certain beauty to the lack of structure in the cities! I have no doubt I will come across culture shock at some point but I'm trying to be aware and take things in slowly so that I can be prepared when it does creep up on me.
I will tell you that the animals and critters are not my favorite... aside from the untalented rooster that decides to scream (I say scream, because it does not sound like your typical cok-a-doodle-doo) every 10 minutes starting at 3 am in the morning, I suspected a mouse to be the source of squeaking noise and little scratches on wood which I heard...NOPE, apparently the squeaking are the bats that hang around outside, and the scratching on wood are Geckos that got into the house....comforting....SPEAKING of Geckos.....I was peacefully enjoying morning coffee on a hammock on our porch when a giant Gecko dropped from the ceiling onto my neck and crawled across my chest!!! You have never seen me move so fast IN MY LIFE!! I walked around the house grossed out for like 30 minutes just muttering: "Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew!!!"

           So my Spanish is coming along here and there. I had an epic fail when I stopped by a gas station to get some food and it was my first time ordering by myself... So the guy working the register spoke English which was great. Ordered Baleadas (which are like thick tortillas with refried beans and cheese: SO GOOD) and asked for chorizo on them. Paid, got my change and I got a receipt to give the lady making the Baleadas. From the last time we had ordered I thought I was just handing her the ticket and wouldn't have to worry about speaking to her, since I could tell English was not going to be an option. WELL, little did I know that my special request for chorizo was not on the ticket, so she got my attention and asked what I wanted on it. Me, being TOTALLY caught off guard, go: "Oh....what?" even though I totally understood what she said and could've easily said: "Chorizo, por favor." NOPE!!!! Being so nervous, I played dumb and this stranger next to me gave me this look of pity and said: "Oh she asked what you wanted on it"......yeah I totally played along for the rest of the conversation...and left the store so very embarrassed because I understood everything said in front of me but was too scared to try and speak my broken Spanish in public!
Fear is going to be one of my big challenges these next 10 months. I will have to overcome the fear of using imperfect Spanish, because essentially this is how you learn languages...by making mistakes and correcting them. Another fear I see coming is going out to do things on my own, which I typically enjoy, but now makes me nercous considering I have to take a bus or taxi everywhere and maps are pretty useless in a place where my address is "The Treehouse behind the Carwash." Another fear I know will be socializing or trying to in my case. As an introvert I'm comfortable being by myself often, but I do want to come from this experience with new connections. And one of my goals of my time here is to practice making new and real connections.
I was reading my Book "Glory Days" by Max Lucado yesterday, and he was describing the part of the story after Joshua had victory over Jericho and they moved on to conquer other towns but they failed because one of the Israelites had betrayed the pledge he took to not touch any of Jericho's treasure. He describes this action of the Israelite as a deliberate distrust in God. Taking something valuable like Gold or Silver he could've decided he wanted it as back-up in case something went wrong. Emergency fund, if you will! Or is captured he could buy his way out of trouble. All things that require zero trust in God. I think fear does that to me all the time. Especially, when finances are involved. God asks me to trust him to provide in every situation, and like I did at the Gas station, I always like to play it safe. So in case I make a mistake, the consequences won't be too bad. My mom once told me this was basically self-sabotage. So my goal this year is to not let fear control my actions. I want take the risk and make a fool of myself practicing Spanish, or getting lost (really though, getting lost on an island is probably not as bad as anywhere else) while out navigating on my own. So please the next time we chat or you want an individual update, feel free to ask me what I've done to overcome my fears! Because there will most likely be a funny story of me embarrassing myself involved! Trust me!



            Few other updates: I'm close to passing the $3000 mark on my fundraising. I can still receive funds through PayPal on roatanhorizons.com. Please, please, please pray for my transition into this new climate especially, I'm having some allergic reactions and the humidity is not kind on my asthma, but nothing horribly yet. If you could please pray for one of my fellow teachers here, her name is Lorissa, she is a few years older than me, her dad went into the hospital tuesday because he had  pneumonia for a while and it was causing him pain, and he passed away later that day. She is a strong woman but I am sure she and her mom and young sister who is 10 will need every prayer of comfort they can get.
Thank you for joining me on this journey! Feel free to contact me personally for updates!

Love,

Jules