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!