My Students Are Contagious

I teach English as a second language. I've been working with a class of adult students, graded as level "zero" in language skills, for the last two months. They are absolutely inspiring. All are from China. Some of them came to my class after being in Canada for only 15 days. I'm blessed to be the first Canadian they have a real connection and relationship with. I'm thankful God grants me patience and energy to help them in their language journey day after day.

Somedays, the faux pas made in class are unbelievably hilarious. This morning, for example, the students were asking each other, "What do you wear at home...at work...on special occasions?" Bing, my funniest student, upon being asked about clothing for special occasions, struggled through answering, "I wear a T-shirt and sun hat when I go....." the whole class was shouting at him, "special occcasion? T-shirt? Hat??" He completed the sentence with, "When I go SWIMMING!" so I wrote that on the board and the class burst into laughter. Then he said, "no, no, when I go fishing!" Then Bing was to ask Feng one of the three approved questions, but, always being creative, he instead mumbled through, "Feng, what do you wear when you go to swimming?" Feng tried to reply with something about not swimming. While he was answering I was correcting his grammar and simply wrote on the board, "I don't" which I quickly realized could have easily been misconstrued as "I don't wear anything, I skinny dip..." so I speedily scrawled the rest of his meaning on the board and the class again erupted in laughter over the situation. They are a delightful group.

The icing on it all was this afternoon in reading class as they learned about yawning and how it is contagious. As the final reflection exercise they had to write a list on the board of things they do in our school, then select what they enjoy most. From a list of nine daily activities that they created, including things like reading, writing, practicing speaking, listening to CD's, etc... half the students said that their favorite thing about our class is that "We make love contagious to anybody." That is the sweetest way to end a work day, knowing that there are new immigrants who feel loved and who share laughter while straining through textbooks and starting a new life in a foreign land. I am blessed with work and with a classroom full of contagious love.

You Are On Our Side

Gabriel and the Vagabond

Herein we find hope: a Man came for us, bled for us, reached for us, fought for us, lifted us from poverty and set us with Royalty. He makes all things new. May you hear His whisper to you today; hope.

He Breathes

He breathes; she sighs
He draws; she waits
He lingers; she kneels
Time slips by:
A moment...two...life moves...
His picture forgotten?
Her life unseen?
No, while she waits HE dreams.

Hands lift; heart beats
Paint drips; eyes weep
His eyes; her face
Time stands still:
Words spoke...brush strokes...Life shown...
His picture revealed
The beauty concealed.

While she waited HE painted the scene
So her living gave life to His dreams.


Inspired by the life of a friend, this Fall past.

Life Rolls By

It's an understatement to say it's been awhile since I've written. Over the spring and early summer many things have filled my hours. I have been studying for a teaching English as a second language certification while teaching adult new immigrants and refugees in PEI full-time. God has expanded my heart and surprised me with deep love for these people from China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, El Salvador, Mexico, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Germany, Israel, Turkey, and Quebec! I see the heart of God painted on the faces of all these nations. I feel His heart beating for them. Teaching and caring for them has consumed many of my days.

Over the spring and early summer God has surprised me with love; He has filled my life with beautiful people and rich relationships. My hours have been full of walking through life with my church family. Two weeks ago we lost a brother from this family in a tragic truck accident. He left behind four children and a wife. We have walked through deep grief together and are experiencing God together as Healer. Pray for this family that God will breathe life into their ashes and hope into their mourning.

Through all the busyness and surprises of the last four months God has captured me with life. Even in our times of grief and pain, through letting go of my own dreams, through trusting God with my mother's health, through watching those I love struggle to learn a language and make a new life, through walking with precious family as they mourn the loss of a husband, father, and friend, through joys and sorrows and disappointments, confusion, anger, laughter, shock, and sleeplessness, through the mundane day to day stuff, through daring to risk my heart, through the rich blessing of relationship, in it all God has shown me Life. He is a God of resurrection. He brings the dead back from the grave and breathes His Spirit into weak and shattered souls. He is good and He fills our lives with good things, even in the midst of difficulty. He is Himself, in all seasons. He is now, here, with us and He wants us to just be here now, with Him.

So through the spring and early summer as I haven't been blogging I've just been being, which is not an new idea but is a new reality for me. In HIM we live and move and have our being and that is enough. As life rolls by I'll try to post here more often, but I've learned much about just living the moments God has set out before me. I must just go and live them in presentness and awareness that God, Who promises to be His brilliant Self, is faithful. Be here now, awake to the pain, the joys, the doubts, the surprises, the Love. Just be here now, becuase here is where HE is. And HE is Love. May you be found in Him today.

How Day is Made

In the shade of my night
A ray of Your light
Sneaks in, un-beckoned
And settles.

In this space, damp and cold
You breathe on the glow
And Your warmth this darkness
Mellows.

As they fall and they rise
Your breaths waken the skies
And the sun dispels
The shadows.

A new day, a new hope
In You, enfolded,
Your light leads, we see
And follow.

** ** ** ** ** **
How can I breathe without You?
I do not want to try.
You are my being; You are my seeing.
Your light is my life.

Beauty

I see beauty in the nations; in the faces and languages and hearts of people from all over the world. I am blessed to have a classroom full of students from China, Japan, Korea, Peru, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sri Lanka. A few weeks ago my family had 20 of my Chinese students out to our house for a potluck - they tried our food, we enjoyed theirs. Their English is quite limited, as they are the newest class at our school, but their hearts are big and with the help of cameras, food, smiles, and lots of loud laughs we crossed the language barrier and found new family among the nations right here in my home town. Abba is good.



This last one is a photo of my dear fellow "God's special operations" worker. She just came home from several months overseas. With the overlap in our international journies we hadn't seen each other in over a year and a half. Seeing Deb for the first time in that long was beautiful; it led me to that place inside of God's heart where even all the pain met along the way to "the place where all the beauty comes from" gets painted with the colors of His love and grace. Beauty: friends, family, and strangers sharing life in the love of God.