It was very good

GOD IS SO FAITHFUL!!!

If you like, you can fore go reading the rest of this post now that you've gotten the summary. It may be that you will tire of reading about God, my life, and my gratefulness. But if you want to risk it, I invite you to read further...

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The step creaked in protest beneath my tired tread. Winding up the wood stairs to the third floor bedroom, I set the rinsed out trash can by the desk and collapsed on the bed where my sister sat working. I had taught my first lesson that day. I had only started learning how to teach yesterday and already I'd been tossed into the deep end of the swimming pool. Trying to swim had thrown me into a whirl pool of headache, sobs, and vomit. Just that afternoon I had been washing my hands in a restroom in Faneuil Hall, looking at my tear stained face and sighing, "I feel so weak."

Then in it flashed.

I say flashed. When God whispers to my heart it is more like a loving impression, too random and perfect to be any thought of my own.

"My power is made perfect in weakness."

Now I lay on my bed. It was about 8:30 p.m. and all I wanted to do was sleep off my headache and exhaustion. I didn't feel capable of doing anything at all, and yet I knew I had a mountain to swallow before 9:00 a.m. the next morning: my first forty-minute lesson to plan. I knew there was no way I could accomplish such a feat with a passing grade in the condition I was in.

"My power is made PERFECT in weakness."

I had God's power and there was nothing I could do to make it any more or less perfect. Now was the time to "ride out" with God and see Him work. Now was the time to see the rubber hit the road. I knew I couldn't do it as I was. The Holy Spirit would have to take over and plan the lesson through me.

So I sat up and set to work, tapping into that perfect power. I finished four hours later.

The next day I taught my first forty-minute lesson. That is, I asked the Holy Spirit to teach through me, and He ended up getting the best grade that I would receive for the entire course. That week I read about how "nevertheless, David took the stronghold." A note I made in my margin during Bible class blessed me: "The Davidic spirit is one that overcomes the impossible. This comes from faith in God's ability."

God had taken one more tiny stronghold through me.

I've neglected to recount God's goodness to me over the summer so far. I wish to do so now. After all, my purpose here is not just to sing of my woes or selfish concerns, but to sing of the faithfulness of the One who has loosed my tongue. The Bible reference in my blog heading includes the following words: "Say to those who have an anxious heart, "Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you."5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert."

My summer was kicked off in early May with my Bible school graduation. Three years of intense feeding on God's Word--over. I didn't have much time to mope about it though, because I spent the next week packing, cleaning out, throwing stuff away, signing yearbooks, and completing pre-course homework for the following week.

And then It began.

To put it in an egg shell, for some strange reason, my dad and I felt that God wanted me to take a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages course with my sister. So, knowing that spending a couple thousand isn't really the most logical thing to do when you're saving for college, we took the plunge of faith and signed me up for the CELTA course (Certified English Language Teaching to Adults). What is the CELTA? Only the Cadillac of TESOL courses, certified by Cambridge across the Pond. Known for its communicative approach and hands on practice built into the course, the four-week version of the CELTA course places an emphasis on the word "intense."

It wasn't long before I learned that they weren't joking. Not. One. Bit.

Honestly, going into the course in the middle of Boston, I was terrified and I was at peace. I was terrified because I knew it would probably be the most challenging task I'd ever undertaken and I had no idea what it would look like. I was at peace because I knew that since God had called me to take it, He would back me up and see me through it.

And so, as I read on the first morning before taking my first bus and train ride into the city, I put my devotions from that morning into practice. "But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God." (1 Samuel 30:6)

I had a lot of "impossibles" to face.

Over the next four weeks, I got to know and like my twelve classmates, who soon became eleven. Half of them were recent college graduates, with majors including Russian, Chinese, English, and Spanish. Another was a Muslim girl from the Midwest who has her degree in nursing ("This course is harder than nursing school," she confided in me. I wasn't sure I believed her, but it did help justify some of the stress I was feeling). My sister and I had opportunities to show her love. Once, after our class had been plotting on going bar hopping, I conspiratorially told her that I didn't want to go.

 "I don't want to go bar hopping either," she said. "I don't drink."

"Neither do I."

In her ecstasy, she high fived me, and I was delighted to share such a bonding moment with her. I've heard that some Muslims tend to think of Christians as hypocrites who dress like Hollywood, eat pork, and drink alcohol, and I felt like I was able to show her that we're not all that way. As followers of Christ, we do have convictions about certain things; Muslims aren't the only ones who know how to make a stand in personal areas. I'm not saying you can't be a perfectly good Christian and drink alcohol. What I am saying is that if I didn't have that one small conviction in my life then I would never have been able to share such a bonding moment with my Muslim friend. By the end of the course, she told us that she used to think she would never like Christians if she ever met one, but getting to know us had changed her mind. We are not so very different. Different, yes, but not so very.
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 Besides my Muslim classmate, we also had a chic lady who informed us that she "works for the government." My sister had fun speculating that this meant the F.B.I or something, but I wouldn't make any claims here. Another was a tall, balding 40ish guy who kept calling his new German wife his "girlfriend." People got after him for it but he persisted. He often said some awkward things, but we loved him anyway (or some of us did).

"Hey, nice kids' pants," he smiled at the government lady.

"They're capris, Jim," our put-together ex-Catholic classmate told him, "they're quite stylish."

"It's okay if she wants to wear a ten-year-old's pants," Jim chuckled. "It doesn't bother me."

Yes, our class was very interesting. Whether bound for China, Sweden, Georgia, Spain, Brazil, South Korea, or the Middle East, we somehow made it to one place, sweat blood and tears side by side, and got along splendidly.

Except when swearing at each other in Arabic.

Which brings me to my group. In order to practice teaching, we taught live international students. They were divided into three levels on the intermediate scale, and our teacher class of twelve were divided into three groups so we could take turns teaching each level. We watched each other teach every day, took notes, gave feedback, and received feedback. Basically we were brothers and sisters for four weeks. My group began with five, but after the first week our lawyer lady dropped out. She was extremely distraught on her last day, and I had a chance to offer to pray for her and build her up before she dropped off the face of the earth and we heard no more of her. Another member of our group included a beautiful, stylish lass with a brilliant white smile, an ebullient personality, and an independent spirit. I felt a little bit like I was hanging out with my cousin Cara. Secondly, I got to know a guy who just graduated from college, can wiggle his scalp, knows all there is to know about linguistics and Russian, and flirts with the girls at the desk. He seemed smart and kind enough toward me, but he took a mischievous delight in tormenting the other ladies in our small group. Which brings me to the last character of our foursome, debatably my favorite.

I'll call her Marie.

When I first saw Marie, I thought she looked like a woman who had just stepped out of Whoville. A long, slightly snubbed nose, tall, and short white hair swooped back in the way a Dr. Seuss character might keep it. On the first day of class, we played a little icebreaker game where we had to go around with a sheet of unique facts and ask three questions of each person to determine which unique fact belonged to whom. When she was free, I stepped straight up to Marie and immediately asked, "Have you been engaged five times?"

Yes.

She promptly responded with, "Do you play the guitar, violin, and piano?"

Yes.

Thus we began our friendship understanding each other perfectly.

We were about as different as two people could be. She opened her mouth to speak in class at almost every opportunity. I did not. She had lived in Boston her entire life, couldn't stand living in Manchester for ten months because it was too small, and she lives in a house right near the highway so she can have the "white noise" of traffic. I am a country girl through and through. She knows a smattering of half a dozen languages, from old Russian (her parents' tongue) to Mandarin, and she knows how to swear and ask for beer in each of those languages. I only know a little Spanish, and I could barely swear in English even if I wanted to. She's in her forties and has been engaged five times. I'm twenty years younger and don't even have a boyfriend. She's tough and just quit working in construction where she taught rough guys in the classroom and held her own. Well, the toughest thing I've done is yelled at twenty-five teenagers to be quiet and told a girl to get out of a guy's lap at camp.

We were destined to be great friends.

One thing we did have in common: compassionate natures. Beneath her tough exterior, Marie has a heart of gold. The first thing that popped into both of our heads as to why we wanted to teach English was so that we could help people.

Marie also had a way of making me laugh, if for no other reason than that she was a good storyteller and I couldn't relate to her. After my second or third day of teaching, I sat down next to her after delivering my assigned topic of blind dates.

"You know, Kayla," Marie told me, "you almost made me want to go on a blind date again. The last time I went on a blind date was a long time ago. It was a Russian guy, and he came back with me to my apartment. But then he wouldn't leave! I said, 'What are you doing?!' And he said, "We're going to leeve together.' And I said, "Well, I'm sleeping on the couch!" And before I knew it he had filled my refrigerator with cheese and the bedroom with cheese (it's a Russian thing) and the place smelled--it was awful. Finally after three weeks I told him that if he didn't leave I was going to kill him! So he left. I know it was my own fault he stayed so long. I should have put my foot down right away."  (very rough quote)

Marie and I also differ in our family situation. On the last day of our course, she shared with me how she hardly has any family in this country. All she has is a half brother, a father who doesn't care for her, and an uncle. That's all. She's been on her own since she was seventeen and in a way she's used to it, but there's still a part of her that never gets over it. A part of her that still feels lonely. A part that is partially missing.

Wow. Looking at my own close immediate and extended family, I can't even imagine how she must feel. At the same time, I think of my huge spiritual family and how special it is to be part of God's family. I long for Marie to experience that same sense of belonging.

Perhaps you'd like to know what a typical day on the CELTA course included for me. Well, between 6:15 and 6:55 a.m. I would arise, depending on how late I'd been up the night before. Get ready for the day, squeeze in a little Bible, print any papers I need, shove in some breakfast, and dash out the door at about 7:54. After a three minute trek to the bus station, two of which are spent at the crosswalk, we wait another five minutes for the bus. It pulls in, we hop on, and we're out of there for a ten-fifteen minute drive.

A word about bus drivers. I wanted to be friendly with every one I met, but once I gave a friendly hello to our bus driver and he just gave me an oily smile and leered at me behind his dark sunglasses. I decided to be a bit more choosy about who I lavished my cheerfulness on. However, our usual bus driver was my favorite. A lanky man wearing pants that were a little too short, he gave a casually warm "Good mohning" or "How ah ya" to each passenger in a perfect Boston accent.

 I decided that I liked him.

On the bus I either did class prep (usually handwriting sources at the bottom of each student handout) or people watched. Off the bus we got and onto the train. Usually it was on the crowded side in the mornings and wasn't conducive for conversation, so I picked those twelve minutes or so to pray over the day and for the city of Boston. "This city for King Jesus" rang in my heart repeatedly.

Off the train, up the stairs, and into the bustling city of Boston. After awhile I started becoming downright fond of the busy streets crawling with people of every ethnicity and class, like so many ants striding down a channel of the earth. Past Starbucks brimming with early morning coffee lovers, around the corner and in the back door of Faneuil Hall.

From 9:00 to about 11:20 we had input sessions. These were basically lectures, but we learned a lot of teaching methods by having them practiced on us. From 11:30 to 12:00 we had lesson planning. This was our opportunity to go over our lessons for the next day in our small groups and ask our instructor any questions we had. As time went on we got less and less help. At 12:00 was lunch break if you were lucky enough to be able to eat. After not eating right on my second day I made a point of sitting down and eating every day, if only to maintain my health and sanity. After feverishly downing some food, we scurried about getting our lessons ready. At 1:00 teaching began and kept going until 3:00. We usually had about a fifteen minute break, then dove into feedback from 3:15 until we were finished, whether at 4:00 or 4:45. If you were smart or didn't have a copier at home, you stuck around for awhile like we did, often until 5:00 or 5:30. Then back out into the street and onto the train. If the day was nice and we weren't too stressed, we walked home from the train station, about a half hour walk. If not, we rode back on the bus. Into the house we ran, and usually took a slight breather to gobble dinner and check e-mail. Then into lesson planning we plunged, filling out grammar analysis sheets, procedure pages, phonemic scripts, coming up with things that could go wrong and solutions, inventing concept checking questions, finding visuals, and the like. For me, I was lucky if I finished and went to bed by 12:30 a.m. Between 1:00 and 2:00 was probably my average, though 2:30 was not unusual. 2:42 a.m. my record. Then I'd wake up four hours later, begging God to help me survive through another day of the same thing.

In spite of this, it was amazing. I found myself growing more than I could have imagined, and gaining more and more confidence. And I discovered that I loved teaching. But more especially, I loved my students. Whether from Morocco, Russia, or Brazil, they nestled into a special place in my heart and stayed there. I wanted nothing more than to see them succeed and have fun while doing it.

That is, when I wasn't sweating through class.

It wasn't the students who ever intimidated me. Most of them were warm, encouraging, and eager to learn. What was scary was that instructor sitting in the corner gauging my every move. If you sat in your chair too much, they'd say so. If you paced about the room too much, they'd write it down. If you echoed the students, turned your face to the board while talking, talked too much, moved the lesson too quickly or too slowly, didn't chest your handout, didn't keep your board work tidy, didn't get their attention quickly enough, didn't notice students getting off topic, went three minutes over, or a million other things that are impossible to remember at once unless you've been doing this for a long time, they would write it down. And of course each instructor had different definitions about things, such as what was a fast pace or a slow pace.

Maybe you can see another reason why this course is called "intense."

I found myself learning to trust God just one step at a time. I took each lesson day by day and clung to Him for survival. He was pretty much the only reason I didn't panic. Even though most of my devotional time was spent on the Sabbath, I felt more connected to God than usual because I was in almost constant prayer to make it through each day.

After two weeks of this, I summed up my week this way on Facebook (it was the best way I could describe it): When I had every reason to cry, I didn't. When I had every reason to feel overwhelmed, I wasn't. When I had every reason to drop from exhaustion, I didn't. Someone must have been praying for me, and Someone must have been answering, because when I've cried, I've cried over God's goodness, when I've been overwhelmed, I've been overwhelmed with peace, and when I was exhausted, I was exhausted thinking what it would be like if I didn't have the stamina of Christ coursing through me. Thanks be to God! (And may it continue for two more weeks!)

Crying over God's goodness was no joke. I read 1 Samuel 22 and tears started streaming, it seemed to describe exactly how I felt.

But it wasn't over yet.

On Sunday, I had two papers to write, and I felt drained. Just talking on the phone for two minutes to a stranger left me crippled emotionally. I was afraid to go to church because the effort to not cry while sitting on the front row seemed too huge. So at my parents' suggestion I stayed home and worked. And worked. Then rode back to Boston and worked some more.

The next morning it was too much, so I got smart and brought my feelings to God. I was pretty sure He answered, "Who said riding out with Me was always easy?" I remembered that God had called me to take this course, and in taking it I was carrying out His will and riding with Him in this small battle. Then the words to my own song came to me, "Trust Me, Elijah, I have a plan. Join Me in the wilderness."

This was a wilderness if I ever saw one. And I got to experience it with God.

By the time I got off of the train that morning, I had recommitted everything to Him.

It's only in His will that I am free, after all.

The fourth week was hard, but through Christ, it was bearable. I hardly knew what to do with myself after I had taught my last lesson. For the first time in nearly four weeks I didn't have something stressful hanging over my head every second! It was a freedom so foreign and so delicious.

Two days after CELTA ended, we left for NY and GA where we attended my friend Becca's high school graduation and my brother's wedding to one of my best friends. I had the privilege of being one of her bridesmaid's, and I had fun being helpful and wearing a gorgeous aqua summer dress that was made just for me. They got hitched outside, though not over the dead horse's grave like I had suggested. I wasn't too offended they didn't take me up on my idea though. Somehow it was a joyous occasion anyway.

I would say a lot more, but frankly everything was so blissful I don't think I could quite capture it, and this post is gargantuan already. I could speak of how Jane's brother Jeff accidentally made his car alarm go off while acting out a story about Jane or how the bridal party started getting ready at 5:30 a.m. or how ants were crawling all over my feet during the wedding and it took all of my composure to keep myself from leaping about during the ceremony or how I borrowed a friend's guitar and sang my heart out in the new gazebo after everyone was gone until I gave myself a blister or how I got to comfort my crying brother one last time on the eve of his wedding day. But that would take too much time. And if you've gotten this far in the post, you are probably already getting bored.

After we got back from the wedding, I had two days. Two days to job dig. I had already made about a dozen phone calls in the car looking for teaching jobs, to no avail. So I checked Craig's list, the newspaper, and on-line sites. I applied, I e-mailed, I called. Nothing worked out. I so badly wanted to do everything I could to find a job that it took me awhile to realize I had to trust God to help me find a job as well. Having done everything I could for the time being, I decided to wait on Him.

So I decided to run drama for the Family Convention again. Tackling it for my third time, I chose to be smart this time. No more trying the run the show on my own. Regular consultations with God were in order, and together we planned drama day by day. God is the Source of creativity, so to that Source I fled. Often I didn't know what we were going to be doing that day or the next, but somehow I made it through, despite late nights, tense mornings, little food, and having to continually surrender it to the Lord.

At the same time, I had a lot of fun. It's funny how stressful things and fun things can coincide so closely.

Also, during the Family Convention, I came to truly appreciate the fellowship I experienced. Whether it was getting to listen to or unload feelings to Katie or Kimberly, listening to and encouraging Emily or Sarah as they graduate from high school, having one-on-one conversations with my buddies Meredith or Klara, or just having a short connection with Mr. Brown or young Chloe, I was grateful for the Body of Christ. Especially when some of us got to stay up until 12:30 a.m. playing volleyball outside.

A couple days after the Family Convention ended, my family went to a camp in Maine for vacation. Ah, what euphoria to sit in the sun on a rocking dock and devour hours of Dickens and fantasy fiction! Plus plundering yard sales, going on a boat ride, and getting some coveted exercise. I started gaining back the 4-8 pounds I'd lost this spring (which is a good thing).

Since then, things have been a bit more quiet. Quite the contrast to the first part of my summer. I've had doctors' appointments to get ready for college, I've filled out sundry paperwork, I've helped out a little at my school, I've made Clyde and Jane's wedding present, and I've worked. I didn't find a "real" job (despite filling out yet another application), but I am occasionally babysitting and helping take care of an elderly lady in our church. She's a dear thing and very easy to please; perhaps later I'll share an anecdote or two about working with her.

Besides that, I attended a Summer Bible school here (a grand time to study the book of I John with about thirty other youngish people). It was also another great opportunity to lap up more Christian fellowship. I felt quite boosted getting to sing, laugh, canoe, pray, dance in the rain, and share our hearts.

Then I took a spontaneous road trip to NY and PA by myself. Simply because I could. And because I wanted to see people and to do something with myself. And because I was pretty sure God put it in my heart to do it. I folded piles and piles of laundry, chased cows, flipped hamburgers, went swimming in the creek, hiked to a waterfall, studied the Bible, star gazed, went to campfire and graduation parties, went to the Imax, grocery shopped, and drank smoothies--all with people I was happy to reunite with or meet (with the exception of the laundry). Also, it was the longest I'd driven by myself. I made the most of it by playing my music very loudly and singing as loud as I could, whether it was Newsies, Jamie Grace, Josh Turner, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, or Rascal Flatts. I have some eclectic music tastes.

And that pretty much sums up my summer, except for all the roller coaster drama of the unknown future school year. I'll probably write more of that later. However, I just wanted to take this opportunity to look back and share some of my summer memories. They are so many and scattered I feel like it would take months to write a really good post about them, so I'll just settle for this patchy job instead. Now you know a little more about my recent life, whether you wanted to or not. But hey, I guess if you got this far then you must have wanted to. Unless you're just plain weird or masochistic.

However, this is more than just about my life. You see, through it all, I see a common thread: the faithfulness of God. He has been so good to me, in big ways and little ways.

Sometimes it's good to look back and remember it.

I saw my summer, and it was very good.