SEPTEMBER

My birthday fell on the Saturday before school opened.  I was thrilled and touched that a family from my old fellowship threw me a birthday party.  It was a sweet, fun time that they opened up to coworkers in their home.  It was a FABULOUS way to spend my birthday!

I'm starting the year off with 13 cute little Kindergartners AND a student teacher!

It's funny years ago during my first job I knew/sort of prayed that one day I'd get a student teacher and that I could be a help to him/her.  I guess I've always felt that being able to help someone else learn to be a teacher would mean that by the grace of God I would have grown and learned to be a good teacher.  While I agreed to having a student teacher last spring, I've been kind of nervous about the experience...Will I be of any help?  Will I be organized enough to pass on anything?  Have I grown enough as a teacher to pass on anything of value to another teacher?  I've thoroughly enjoyed having the young ladies in the community who have volunteered for a time and student interns who have been assigned to my class but a student teacher seems pretty important and serious.  Anyway, my worries and anxieties have been a good opportunity to turn this over to the Father and bathe it in prayer.  I'm looking forward to a mutually encouraging student/cooperating teaching experience that will be a blessing to us both and find us growing in Him as we work together to help her grow as a teacher and help the students grow in both academics and character.  

Also this month, I discovered a delightfully DELICIOUS recipe for figs (which I LOVE) and goat cheese!

And...a neat story.  So my new housemate and I now go to the same fellowship.  We have a study once a week and she's an awesome baker.  She took brownies and afterwards while there were lots left over everyone else took them and she really didn't get a chance to have any.  She hadn't set any aside at home and when we returned she had this insatiable craving for chocolate that was sadly unmet.  I was encouraging her in how she had been kind and shared the chocolate brownies that she had even if she ended up without when there was a knock on our door.  It was our downstairs neighbor. 

The previous day she had made molten chocolate cake because she no longer wanted the leftovers in her house tempting her she wanted to see if we'd like them along with some ice cream!  Isn't that awesome.  My flatmate had selflessly given up something she had wanted to bless others and she was rewarded- and by extension, so was I!