A Lesson on Grace

  Grace. We sure do need it, don't we? Every day I am amazed, simply blown away, at the grace God extends to me each day. I also need his grace and mercy so much so that I can extend it to others, like my students. This week I really needed God's grace.

  My mom has been sick this week so I had to teach the two classes we do together by myself. On Tuesdays, the day activities begin at the project each week, we teach Portuguese class to about 10 kinder gardeners. It's slightly ironic because neither of us are Brazilian. But we are just teaching the ABC's. :)

Ana Dara practicing her spelling.

  The class went fairly well. I had two kids decide they didn't want to play Bingo anymore and escape the class room to play, so I had to go bring them back. One of the kids has tantrums, so I had to pay him a lot of attention so that there would be no problems; and the rest of the kids just don't know the meaning of "Please, be quiet and sit down." Instead, they'd say over and over again, "Tia, tia, tia, tia, tia, tia, tia....!" [teacher/auntie (literally that many times!)] "Can we have candy?" My throat was so sore afterwards because I had to speak louder than them (which, by the way, they were all yelling) just so they'd know I that was talking. Those who've seen me speak in public [without a mic!] know that I have a very quiet voice too.

Guilherme, one of the kinder gardeners.

  Okay, so the kids were a little out of control that day. But it was very interesting to teach a class by myself. I really did enjoy it. I taught the kids a song about frogs that I'd learned in Mexico at my DTS (dts folks: I translated the Sapo song from Spanish to Portuguese) and the kids all love it! We all played a game outside and had tons of fun together. They all got a prize for winning the ABC bingo game. And my throat recovered. But in the end, even though the kids may seem to drive me crazy at times, I still love them so much. I know that what I'm doing is important to their lives. And I learned something about God.

  All the time, God is asking me  "Amelia, be still... Amelia, listen to me..." and I keep babbling on, "But God... God... God... God..." Yet he continues to extend grace to me. He doesn't yell at me. He doesn't lose his temper. He continues to be patient, speaking softly to me, until I finally calm down and stop to hear what He has to say.

It's amazing the things we can learn from little kids. :)