Acceleration

This year seems to be accelerating at a ridiculous rate.  The days and weeks are flying by faster and faster; how is it already February?!  Time isn’t the only thing accelerating though, life in general is.  Each day is becoming busier and busier.  There are more things to organize, more things to grade, more things to plan, more jobs to cover, and more work to finish.  We are short staffed again!  Andrea and Sophie will be in a Hawaii for a month while Andrea recovers from the surgery she had to have on her fractured ankle.  We’ve really only had 8 hours of the entire school year that we had the full staff present and healthy, so we are getting used to it.  That means I have extra PE classes to teach, senior health, and some office work.  This is the hardest work I have ever done, and I have never loved anything so much in my entire life. This week I painted in the senior classroom, graded, planned, baked for the students, cooked dinners, lead staff worship, continued planning graduation, planned and organized spirit week, had several staff meetings, spoke at vespers, and the list goes on and on.  There is so much to do!  Next week will be spirit week for all grades; promises to be fun and crazy.  Friday will be an all day game day for all grades.  Then that same weekend a group of leaders from the North American Division Adventist Conference will be coming to see and assess our school.  I’ve always heard that island time is slow, which for the most part is true.  The culture is laid back, it’s common for events to start over 2 hours after they are scheduled and no one arrives on time.  At Yap SDA School however, time moves with acceleration.  I want to suck every minute dry before they are all gone.  Here are a few ways I tried to do that this week…

-          I talked with my seniors who returned from their suspension for Tuesday worship, I talked about how our choices affect us and everyone around us, how everyone makes mistakes, and how God still loves us and wants to give us a fresh start.  I know most didn’t pay attention, but several of my students were glued to what I was saying.

-          After school one day we grabbed some water guns and attacked Pamela in her classroom then we went for all the students still waiting for ridesJ.

-          I spent Friday lunch time sitting on the floor teaching and learning some guitar with two of my senior girls.

-          I asked one of the junior girls who looked upset what was wrong and listened for 30 minutes as she told me.

So even though these next few weeks are going to be crazy and busy and really hard, I’m looking forward to every minute.  As I was walking to my classroom Friday morning there was a beautiful rainbow hovering over the school.  I was immediately reminded of God’s promise and of one of my favorite quotes, “Life is like a rainbow. You need both the sun and the rain to make its colors appear”.  God has brought me this far, I know he will continue to carry me through.