My new class

The pre-school teacher is resigning at the end of this month and I will be acquiring her 8 three year olds! Please pray for strength and energy to take care of all 13 kids and the grace to love them well despite language barriers. It is one thing to not be able to communicate perfectly with a 5 or 6 year old, but it's very different not being able to understand a 3 or 4 year old. They are just more high-maintenance and need more help, and it's hard to help them when I don't always understand them. So please pray for grace and patience on all of our parts. Thanks.

New Job!

I got a new job!  YAY!  I started working at New Beginnings Christian Preschool two days ago and so far it's going pretty well.  Although, wouldn't you know, I was a little sick my first two days on the job. :)
So far my impressions of the job are...
-Some of my coworkers are really talkative and friendly, and others are really not.  It's not like at Shepherd's Door where it seems like everyone is talkative and friendly.
-All of the kids are super cute (of course), and I think I will enjoy working with them.  On my first day, when I was being introduced to the kids in the Pre-K class, a little boy named Tommy smiled really big and then came and gave me a huge hug.
-The other teacher I will be working in the 3's class with, Shanise, seems really great.  She is really bubbly, friendly and welcoming.  She is African-American and maybe in her early 30's.  She has been working there for 4 years and I am hoping that she will be a really great person to work with.
Please Pray...
-And thank God for this job!!!  He is my provider and His plans are perfect.
-That I would learn a lot about teaching and myself through working at New Beginnings Preschool.
-That I would be a blessing to my co-workers, the kids, and their families.

Thanks Friends!
Amanda Smith :)

China

Please pray for the details to work out so that I can be with Jen and Jon and family at Christmas time. I think it will be really good for me, and I think it's important to Jon. I know how much it means to me that my friends came to Haiti, so I want to be able to do that for Jon and I know it will be such a blessing for me to see them all.

Amanda Smith

So as you all know... I dropped out of grad school this past week.  Talk about a whirlwind!  I definitely did not see this coming.  But, I continue to feel really good about my decision to leave school.  I am actually really excited to see where God is going to lead me.  I am still not 100% sure why God had me go through all of that, but I feel confident about my decision none the less.  Also, I feel like my life is wide open with possibilities.  It's both exciting and intimidating to think about.  And if He ends up wanting me to move away from Portland, that will be weird.  But we will see what He does!

Please pray for...
God's peace during this season of my life
That I would get a job soon
That I would be sensitive and open to wherever God leads me

Thanks for all your love and support these past few weeks as I was thinking through whether or not to continue with school.  Your friendship means the world to me!  I love you all and am praying for you. :)  Love, Amanda

Michelle

Hey thanks Toni for putting this together! I really appreciate it. It is so nice to hear from you guys. And even if one person writes on it a week, that is great. Love you guys so much and I miss you!

Toni, I messed around with things a little, just for fun. Feel free to change the background back. I thought we could switch it up every once in a while, but that can be your job if you want, since you set it up. (I hope you're not upset that I messed around with things a bunch, sorry.)

As for my prayer requests, right now I am great! I just spent the day with a married couple who were childhood friends of mine in Haiti and have been stationed in Okinawa with the military four the past for years. It was so fun to see them and catch up! (It's been 12 years since we have seen each other or spoken. Yay for facebook reconnecting people.)

But this week will be interesting. The nursery associated with our school is now using the downstairs part of our apartment for the nursery. So some teachers and ten 1 year olds will be in our house from 7:30 am - 6 pm every week day. It will make things interesting because our living room is kind of taken over by the kids' stuff. We'll see how it goes. It won't be the most relaxing thing to come home to and I will be spending more time in my room I think. Please pray that the transition goes well and that it all works out for the three of us living here.

I love you all so much! Thanks for making the effort to keep in touch. I'll post more later.

Lisa

Prayer Request Huh? Well, I'm about to hit the road and I'm beyond excited because I NEED to get out of the office. Here's where that's at:
1. Amber is there now which is WONDERFUL, however...
2. John is crazy and it's sort of painful to watch her having to adapt to the unhealthy craziness that he breeds. I know it's been hard for her and it's only been three days!
3. Things are still weird with the whole transition of having new job responsibilities and the stress is minimal but annoying non the less.
4. I HATE that Colin's gone. Like I hate it really bad. I learned in the past two days that currently I hate how well we worked as a team and how 'in the beginning stages' working with Vanessa and even Amber is. I miss the comfort of working with Colin which sort of makes me realize that it's good in a way that he's gone because I'll grow from this. That said, it still SUCKS. Never thought I'd miss that dude this much.

Other than all that work craziness...life is fine. Oh Michelle! You sort of missed it, but Nathan's back. It happened a week or so after you left and it all sort of happened so fast that I'm glad I can just tell you the whole story now instead of the drama element along the way.
The short-ish version is that Nathan has gone this whole time without payment from David. David finally confessed that he doesn't plan on paying Nate and that he in fact owes David money. (Lies!)
So...after much consulting Nathan finally decided to leave, but to confront David first. That's when we all started praying because David doesn't usually handle things like that gracefully...at all. I kept praying that David would let him go like Pharoah let Moses go. And he did! Oh, he was mad, but in the end he let Nate go and even helped him. Talk about a miracle! So great.

Oh, and weight loss is going well. I've lost 5 pounds since you left for Japan - two of those were this past week. That also means I'm now 157...putting me at the smallest I've even been in my adult life! This is a whole new territory! So pray that I keep up the good habits during travel season which begins on Monday.

I'm really glad that we're doing this because now we can even keep up with each other when I'm on the road! I Love you all!

Toni

Welcome to the blog for all of us to post our prayer requests and life updates and such. I'll start...

I've been sick for 6 days now and am prety much over it. It went from fatigue, to sore throat, to congestion, to a cough and I'm pretty tired of it. Also I'm strugling to find a routine with work and school. And Luke and I had a good talk a few weeks ago about his religious beliefs. Turns out he doesn't really realize that God loves him as an individual and he can't find biblically where it says we're called to be in a relationship with God. Needless to say I've been praying a lot.

Okay. I'm going to go lie down now.