November 2014

Back when I was in elementary school, I tried to keep a diary. And when I say "try" I really mean I wrote a couple entries and then never went back to it. I remember one particular diary I had gotten from a book sale at school and it came with a lock and key! I was so excited. I was good about hiding that diary away from my sneaky older brother, and even though ahead to hide the key in my sock and underwear drawer, thinking the idea of going in my underwear drawer to find the key would somehow stop my brother. I only ever wrote one entry in that diary. I was in like first grade and it was about 3 sentences about our first trip to Disney World. (I guess I remember it better because of the "creative" spelling of one word...I knew the word "great" had a strange spelling...so I spelled it as "grit"...my trip to Disney was GRIT!) Well, one day, my brother teased me and held up the key to my diary. I chased him into our bathroom where he was danging the key jokingly above the bathroom sink's drain (which was just a hole because the drain plug thing had broken). However, as he was doing this, he accidentally lost handle of the key, and actually dropped the key down the drain. We were able to break the lock off of the diary...but that still meant I needed a brother-proof hiding place (someplace worse than an underwear drawer). In the end I ended up throwing out the diary. Yes, the diary that only held one entry about my "grit" adventure to Disney World in 1995.

Ever since then, I've never been good about writing in diaries, journals, or blogs. For fear that somehow my brother will magically lose the key. And that my friends, is my great story of introduction after nearly 10 months of not writing. Can anyone say "oops"?

A lot has happened in these past 10 months. So...as always with keeping with tradition...here it is...in Past, Present, and Future form!

Past
Let's face it, the past 10 months have been...well...adventurous. When I last posted in January, I was happily employed at a charter school teaching 5th grade. As I was working that job, I made a decision. You see (if I never posted about this before) the summer I moved back to Ohio, I made a decision apply to start my master's at the University of Findlay to work on my masters in TESOL. The good news is...I got accepted!! The not-so-great news is...I got my acceptance letter 3 days before classes started...on a Friday...classes started the following Monday. I couldn't financially commit to something like that. So as I was teaching last year, I told myself that if for some reason something happened and I DID NOT take that teaching job again for another year, I'd take my acceptance with Findlay and work on my masters.

Well...let's just put it this way. Inner-city schools and kids...are rough. Coming from the girl who graduated with about 100 people in high school, and went to a small college in good old Tiffin, Ohio (seriously...talk about a random town with 2 colleges surrounded by corn fields), inner-city is a completely different ball game. We ended up with only 10 days of school in the month of January...thanks to our snow-apocalypse. Pressures mounted, kids lost vital information they needed for the upcoming standardized tests. I started getting worried. As the school year went on, I started realizing something. I'm not Wonder Woman. I'm a teacher. And these days in the world, schools think teachers need to be BOTH. All over the US, the amount of work teachers are being asked to do on a daily basis is insane. And inner-city schools just maximize that. Inner-city is a completely different feel. As I've gone through orientation at different jobs that are mostly in inner-city areas, I remember getting the lessons on inner-city kids. Mix in a change in administration, a lack of support at the school when I needed help. The end of the year started going sour. By about May, I was starting to look into other jobs. After reading some information and having some conversations with some colleagues, I realized that inner-city was not right for me. I have been teaching for 2 1/2 years...and each year things are getting easier. Teaching in inner-city for me is like teaching in another language to others. I don't understand it. So, I decided that I needed to look into other jobs. Preferably in more "suburban" settings. As the last couple months of school went on, I realized that this is just not what I want to be doing. And I made my decision that I'd look into other jobs...or plan on starting my masters.

After job searching for a while, I did send an email to my admissions counselor at Findlay and asked about starting my masters. A couple days after the school year ended, I met with one of the professors for the masters program (who also taught a Linguistics class at Heidelberg) and had a great discussion.

And I played the application dance. I applied to NUMEROUS jobs. A few times I got close to either getting offered a job or at least an interview...and then something would happen...and I'd never hear from that employer again. It seriously happened 3 different times. What a huge let down! To be so pumped about a job...just to have something fall apart at the last minute! I already had enough money saved up for the first semester of grad school in my savings account. So...in August, I went ahead, paid the money, and registered for my first 2 classes of grad school. Nerd status was at a high level!

Now, don't think that I made all of these decisions based on a couple "moods" or "thoughts" or "feelings". Yes, I'm a girl. Yes, I am an emotional mess sometimes. Yes, my emotions do play roles. But a few things helped me see that maybe this was where I needed to go.

In the spring, my Bible study at church started a study by Lysa Terkeurst called "What Happens when Women say Yes to God". It's a great study where Lysa talks about saying "yes" to what God's asking you to do. Although my old habits of not keeping up with Bible studies continued to torture me, I did my best to keep up with this study. And since this grad school, job, and future thing was fresh on my mind, I even kept a journal through the study to work through the study. It seemed to come at the perfect time to work on this study. I needed to know if this whole idea of grad school and ESL was just my own ideas...or if God was in there somewhere. In the study, Lysa points out 5 questions to ask when figuring out if something is from God or not:

1. Does it line up with scripture?
2. Is it consistent with God's character?
3. Is it confirmed through messages at church or my quiet time?
4. Is it beyond me?
5. Is it pleasing to God?

The thought is that if most of these answers are yes...then it is most likely something from God and something God is asking you to say yes to. So...I put it through my grad school and ESL scenario:

1. Does it line up with scripture? Yes. The Bible is full of scriptures telling us to go make disciples, reach out to others, and teach others. You can't just enter a random country and be a missionary. Having a common language would be nice. So, yes...it lines up with scripture.
2. Is it consistent with God's character? Although this is a bit harder to understand, I believe that this is consistent with God's character. That's about the only explanation I can give.
3. Is it confirmed through messages at church or my quiet time? Haha...oh yes! I've heard messages about missions work at church, we've had updates about the Thailand orphanages, I see it on my Facebook page. But read a little further, and I'll explain another place I got some confirmation.
4. Is it beyond me? Well...unless I win the lottery, financially, it is beyond me. And as I've been told, grad school isn't easy work-wise...so it will be beyond me.
5. Is it pleasing to God? Yes...teaching others to speak English and maybe even lead them to Christ? I'm pretty sure that's pleasing to God!

This study sparked in me the thoughts and plans that maybe grad school was the right place to go. But there's something else. There's a dear friend of mine at church. This dear friend walked a little further into my life a few years ago when I would occasionally sing with the choir. And by occasionally...I mean most weeks I'd be sight reading and lip syncing during the first service, and then singing it a little better by the second service...all the time smiling and pretending like I actually was singing the right tune at the right time. Anyway, this dear friend is also a music teacher at a local school. As I've been teaching, we've sent occasional messages back and forth about teaching, music, and some other things. After my last job, I sent her a message telling her all about the end of the year and the struggles and dilemma about my future I was in.  In her response message to me, this dear friend encouraged me to pray and look for the little naggings in my heart where God was possibly showing me what path to go down. I laughed when I read that. God had been nagging and pulling on my heart for almost 4 years. Maybe it's about time I gave him a listen?

In September, I finally was offered a job. It's only part time...but I came with a GREAT reference from my old retail job in NC. I accepted the job, mostly for a way to end my boredom and to at least be able to pay my monthly bills...if nothing else.

Present
So now the moment everyone's been waiting for. What am I doing NOW?

Well, I'm working my part time job at Clothes Mentor in Perrysburg, Ohio. I like the people I work with, but the hours aren't always great, and they get long. I mean, just this week I worked 7 days in a row...starting last Friday and finally ending yesterday! I caught a cold on Monday. One of the things you need to do when you're sick is to rest. Well...that hasn't always been able to happen. I ended up crying at work yesterday because my ear was bothering me so much, that I got sent home early and told to rest. Doctor's appointment today at least confirmed that I don't have an ear infection. But congestion is not much fun to deal with! Financially, I barely make enough money to cover my monthly bills (granted I also have about 2 tanks of gas a week and several fast food trips each week due to my schedule).

I'm also taking 2 graduate level classes...and somehow...I'm managing to maintain A's and B's in both of these classes! It is hard for me to express in a blog post just how happy this makes me. You see, all the way through undergrad, I mostly got B's, an occasional A, and a few C's. I ended my undergrad career with a cum GPA of 2.98. I even had to get academic overrides to make up for my GPA a couple of times. But somehow I'm getting A's and B's. I'm amazing myself with how much and how fast I'm learning things in grad school. I enjoy the company of the other people in my class. And I only have one explanation on how I've gotten B's on the last few tests I've taken when I only study for about an hour the night before the test and then do another review session during lunch at work....GOD. There's only one place this success is coming from....GOD.

And I teach a Zumba class in Tiffin twice a week. This was a little goal of mine...to one day have my own Zumba class. At first the class started out really well, then shrunk down to 1 or 2 people. But for the majority of the last couple weeks, I've had 4 to 5 participants!

If you took a map of northwest Ohio, plotted out Perrysburg, Elmore, Tiffin, and Findlay, and then connected the dots, you'd basically end up with a giant rectangle around most of NW Ohio. I'm currently looking into new full-time jobs that may be a better fit for both my schedule and my bank account than my part time retail job. I'm mostly looking at administrative jobs at colleges because I think that's where I'd like to work after I get my masters. Many colleges these days have ESL and international programs, and this past summer when I was looking for fun, there were several schools in Ohio with ESL positions open. I actually applied for a couple jobs a couple days ago at one of the area community colleges. One of these colleges actually has a campus in Findlay, so I'm praying that I get that job...or at least a shot at it. That job would double what I'm making now, and would be located across town from my grad school classes....so that would greatly cut down on my commute times.

Future
So where is this all heading? Not quite sure right now. Mostly it's all prayers right now to see what God wants me to do with my future. I don't have quite the funds for next semester, considering my job situation. So, first thing I see for my future (and am praying for) is a new job. As mentioned above, that job in Findlay sounds promising (they are supposed to be reviewing applications starting on Thursday...prayers for that!). I also see myself doing even better in class for grad school. Right now...even though sometimes the immediate future is a little scary...I finally feel like this is the path God wants me on. And if I'm supposed to go back to Findlay next semester, He'll find me the funds to do it with.

More to come on this later. And hopefully in less than 6-10 months!

Six Months Later...

First off, I have not meant to be gone off the blogging world for such a long time. But so many things have happened in the last several months. To hopefully keep me from veering too far off the "normal" path...I'm going to put this post again in my normal organization: Past, Present, and Future. That way, I can update on what HAS happened, what IS happening, and what I hope eventually WILL happen. Let's just sum it up this way....things have changed!

Past
So...before writing out this post, I had to read (or more importantly, skim) some of my previous posts to see where I was in everything. Ironically, in a good six months time...the updating is not too far from the beaten path. Let's see...my last post was in June. I was struggling...financially, emotionally, pretty much on many levels. My heart was in about fifty-seven places. For one...I knew I was in love with living in North Carolina. But...as I explained in my June post, the thoughts of moving back to Ohio were hitting a little closer to home. So pretty much here's how that panned out.

I went back to Ohio in July for a friend's wedding. Before leaving to go back to NC, my dad and I sat down and tentatively set a date to move back to Ohio. By that point, I was a little okay with that plan. Job prospects weren't working out, I was running low on money, hope, and occasionally, faith. And as I said in that post in June...there were some great things that could come out of being back in Ohio. I set that date with my dad with the idea that I'd have a job before then and the whole crisis would be adverted.

However, that wasn't God's plan. And by the middle of July I was giving my 2-weeks notice to my retail job. And on August 13, exactly a month after I had arrived for my adventures in NC, I was saying goodbye to it all. Put simply: I was miserable. Because as I kept telling myself the whole way back to Ohio, I wasn't really going back willingly by choice. I was going back because I had run out of money and was at a loss. What a way to think! I mean...seriously...what good was there going BACK to the land of corn fields, flat lands, and being an "independent" 24-year-old, who would now be living in her parents' basement.

But as the move back to Ohio had been looming, I started becoming proactive. I started praying...and thought of some of those things that had made me dislike Ohio and made North Carolina look so amazing. And then I started acting on those. It started with an email to the children's director at church. One of the things I had learned from my time in NC...where I wanted to serve. For a while I had sworn to myself that I wasn't going to go back to my church "home" when I got back to Ohio. This was the new-and-improved-moved-away-from-corn-field-land Bethany! But...then again I thought maybe I needed to see it in a bit of a different light. So I looked into serving in other areas. I love working with children...and I love to sing and dance (thanks to the children's director at my church in NC). By the first weekend I was home, I was already in talks with the people in charge of the children's worship time at church...and getting my name on the schedule for my first time leading!

Then...I tackled the employment thing. Before leaving NC...I started looking for jobs in Ohio...and actually found one...and was offered an interview a day or two after moving back to Ohio. This was at an arts charter school that I had actually applied to last year when I was frantically looking for a job. Unfortunately, that job didn't work out. So, I went back online to all my trusted resources for finding jobs...and found another charter school in Toledo to apply to. Went in for an interview on a Monday...and was offered the job that afternoon! Granted...I am now teaching 5th grade Language Arts and Social Studies at a charter school in Toledo.

Even though at first the idea of moving back to Ohio seemed so wrong...God has made this into the best decision possible. New friends, new ministries, new schedule, new job. In a way...I feel like a new PERSON back in Ohio.

Present
So, where does that leave me now? Well...in a comfy spot. I'm happily employed (our 4 snow days postponing the return to school has been a little nice too). I'm financially stable. Things seem to be going pretty well. But here's where it now comes down to missions.

Now that we've officially hit the new year, I'm being posed with an interesting question: what do I do this summer? You see...with the new job, as a teacher, I am actually being paid on a 12-month salary. With that said...even when we hit the summer vacation, I will still be receiving my regular salary until about mid-August. I can sit on my butt and do NOTHING for a whole summer...and get paid a beginning teacher's salary to do it! But knowing me...especially after this nicely extended winter break...I will be needing something to do. My mom poses this question to me fairly regularly. Because for once in my life...the options are semi-endless. I could start a master's degree. I could just take random classes in something I want to try (underwater basket-weaving, anyone?). I could look into something completely new and different (Ohio Scottish Games...and Highland dancing). I could try something new. I could get a random part-time job. Or...the one that's been making me think a lot...I could do a missions trip.

I have the money. I have the heart. I even have an active Ohio teaching license to teach English to middle schoolers. Seems like a fool-proof plan...right? And right now...that seems like the best plan. I'm single...I have no kids...and I have the funds to support myself in a foreign country. So why not? So here's where the dilemma comes. WHERE??? There are so many places I'd love to go: Thailand, Ireland, England, Germany, anyplace tropical, surrounding countries of any already said countries. I've thought of going back to Thailand to revisit the orphanages again. Or to Kenya and look into The Kilgoris Project that my church in NC supports. Or to El Salvador to work with a set of missionaries I met in college who spoke at Campus Fellowship several years ago. For an indecisive girl...that's a lot of options! Asia sounds like a better idea for the "missions" side of things and for the potential of teaching English. But I've always wanted to go to Europe.

Future
So, as Ohio thaws out from our early 2014 snow-pocalypse...I'll start thinking of warmer places...and times. Last night, before going to bed...I had a really bad headache and stupidly took a couple Excedrin. Smart to kill a headache...but Excedrin has caffeine in it. Granted, I was WIDE awake for several hours last night when I should have been sleeping. In my caffeine-induced state, my mind started thinking about missions...and it made me so happy. So that's what my future looks like now. Continuing on the "new" path I'm on...and praying for direction. Like...literally...a direction to go (north, south, east, west, way west, way way west, far east, middle east, south east...who knew there were so many directions?). I'm praying that over the next few months, God moves in me to show where He wants to take me. I'm willing, and I have what I need. Now I just need a destination. And who knows...maybe He'll keep me in the lower 48 for some other kind of plan. So, friends, join me in praying for the direction God wants me to take to be shown.