God is listening and acting...

FIRST. I have been feeling better. Most of the nausea has gone although my stomach isn't yet back to normal. God upheld me through my first week of classes though. He is strong.

SECOND. Class has been going okay. I am learning how to teach in this context, use this curriculum, understand and help these students. Miguel, the 14 year old, will be leaving for Spain after Friday. I also had a new student today from Spain, Esther. She has very poor verbal skills from what I could tell today. These are the three main things I have been praying: 1) That I will not show partiality! I do not do this as far as grading is concerned but sometimes it is so hard to not want to always talk to and call on and be more interested in a few of them. But this is not what God has done. Help me to unbelievably kind and interested in each individual. 2) That I would teach with excellence. I wondered about this for awhile because I am not perfect and how am I supposed to be the excellent Christian worker when I fail sometimes? But I am learning that sometimes excellence means confession. Excellence includes admitting when I was mistaken and fixing it rather than moving on and hoping no one will notice. And 3) That I would have opportunity to talk about the Lord.

THIRD. (And the best one!) GOD provided a perfect opportunity to have me talk on His behalf. We were working on "wish" grammar yesterday and I noticed on Erika's paper (from the Czech Republic) that she had written, "I wish I could meet God." So today during break, I sat down next to her and told her that I noticed her paper yesterday. I asked her what she knew about God and what she thought of Him. She said that her grandmother used to tell her stories about God and that she said He always knew what you were doing. Erika said that sometimes that made her worried because she knew what she was doing was bad sometimes. I told her I felt the same way sometimes BUT that I could then look to Jesus for taking the punishment for my sins and that, through Jesus' death and God's grace, I can know that God loves me still because I believe in Him. We talked some more and ultimately she said that she didn't know what was true. I asked if I could pray that God would show her what was truth and I encouraged her to do the same. Erika is extremely sweet and open to talking about anything and everything. Pray that God will work in her heart and provide the perfect opportunity for her to come to a true saving trust in the work of Jesus Christ.

On the train ride home today I started another summer reading book by Jim Cymbala. I have read books by him before and am always encouraged and excited to love the Lord afterwards. It was good to read especially after God's work today in me and in Erika. Cymbala wrote that true, earnest prayer should produce more true, earnest prayer.

God is awesome. Always.