Day Picnics

January has been the month for picnics. All the grades have gone on day picnics as well as other groups (like the dorm staff or afternoon work groups). There is always a lot of excitement and anticipation in the air as the time gets closer to leave on a picnic. For the grade 9 & 10 picnic we left early in the morning and arrived at the riverside before breakfast. After breakfast and worship, we spent the rest of the day playing games and just having fun with each other. We ended the day with a nice campfire worship that everyone participated in. 

I will always treasure those moments... the moments of laughing together, chasing each other on the sand, enjoying special food together, laughing some more, taking a refreshing dip in the river, reading the Bible, singing together, and much more. 

These are two of my 10 graders - they love to have their picture taken. 

Saw Eh Shee has quite the look, don't you think? :)

Myint Htay is making a funny face in the background, 

which is not out of character for him at all. 

The beach was such a nice sandy place for our games. 

This game especially had us laughing. Mrs. Steck was right in the middle of the fun. 

I love their facial expressions in this one. 

Thara Di Yay enjoyed the games too! 

He helped a lot to translate my explanations of the games. 

A Karen Bible

I'm thankful the Karen characters don't just look like random lines and circles to me now. 

I can read most of the letters now (although I still don't know what it all means).

I think we were playing "Monkey in the Middle" here. 

Striped jackets seem to be popular here. :) 

I like it when they actually smile for pictures. 

Paw Wah Wah & Ma Shwe Win - two of my sweet 9th graders. 

I told you they like to take pictures. 

Than Than Aye & I

Please pray for her - She has a pretty bad family situation. 

The scenery was splendid! 

This was taken at the dorm monitor picnic. 

All the dorm staff - a lot of them are my students. 

Don't they look nice in purple? 

By the end of the day, we were all sweaty, sandy, & worn-out... but nonetheless happy. 

Please pray for the precious students here at Sunshine Orchards. Many of them have had really hard backgrounds. I want them to experience Jesus as a true Friend. They need to find comfort, security & peace in a saving relationship with Jesus. Even though friends may leave them and family may reject them, Jesus will always be by their side. Please pray that they will surrender their lives fully to Him - no matter what rejection they may face from their families. 

And for those of us, who come from supportive Christian homes (even though they are not perfect)

--we have so, so much to be thankful for!  Don't take your family for granted. 

136 Days in Counting

Happy New Year, everyone! It's hard to believe we've already passed the threshold of a brand new year. 

It's also hard to believe that I've been here in Thailand for 136 days already. These past few days have been wonderful, growth-filled days. I am truly an abundantly blessed girl.  

I've had great intentions to share more on this blog about my time here. But due to the busyness of my schedule here, I haven't had an abundance of time to write updates. Teaching four classes everyday, practicing songs for upcoming events, trying to work on finishing a college class, playing games with the students, being entertained by the four girls who come to our hut whenever they have free time (which is quite often), preparing to give worship or chapel talks, or teach the 9th & 10th grade Sabbath school class, going on runs with some of my fellow teachers and more... keeps me pretty busy. (Christmas was a busy time too. I'll have to write a post about that sometime soon.)

I'm thankful to have a purpose in life, like so many people don't have. I'm thankful to be a missionary working with such sweet people. 

Even though I don't have the time to put a lot of thought into writing a blog post, I thought I could share some pictures of my students and others with you. Pictures speak a thousand words, right? There's so much more to share, but this is a start. 

My 10th grade class - they all have very unique personalities. I wish you could meet them all!

 The 9th graders - They are all wearing their class shirts that I helped design for them (except for the two day students who didn't realize they were supposed to wear their class shirts that day).

 Some of my sweet 9th grade girls - One of them had to leave this term. :(

Teacher Raquel with some of her students before she left. 

 These students love to take pictures with us! 

 Moo Koh Paw is one of my 10th graders on the left.
She's one of the ones who is always visiting my hut. She keeps me laughing. 

 We went on a nice outing a few weeks ago - the views were breathtaking!

 Here's a cute little munchkin. He's almost like the school "mascot." 

His mom is the girl's dean here at the school. 

 These girls were happy to be moving into their new dorm. 

We had the dorm dedication & ribbon cutting at the beginning of this term. It has been a long time in coming - we're so thankful that the girls and boys have a nice new place to stay now. 

This is one of the two new girl's dorm buildings. 

 Mr. Adams (Papa Doh) with little Timothy cutting the ribbon at the dorm dedication.

Girls carrying their few belongings to their new dorm.

This little guy gets this contagious smile on his face when I come to visit him. 

Please pray for him though - he recently broke his leg again. His bones are so weak and brittle. 

Important note: If you are email subscribed to this blog and you've been seeing some weird posts - Don't worry, it's not me... Those email subscriptions were still connected with my old blog address - which I don't have anymore. My old blog hannahmariepowell.blogspot.com has a new owner now. So you should just unsubscribe to the old blog and then then try to subscribe to my new blog.
Sorry about that.

It's Time For Class!

Disclaimer: Part of the reason I haven't blogged in a while is because my computer is out of commission at the moment. I've had to borrow other people's computers for things like this. (Many thanks to Raquel for sharing.) I would appreciate your prayers that it would be able to be fixed very soon. It also seems like the longer I'm here the more I have to do and less time I have to do it in. I never have a lack of things to do for sure.

Here's a little glimpse of my teaching experiences here. I will try to give you a word picture of what a typical day of teaching is like. (Pictures of classes will be coming soon).

It seems like every morning I have at least a little measure of teacher's anxiety. I have many thoughts and questions running through my head… What should I teach today - phonics, grammar, vocabulary or reading? How can I teach this in a way that they can understand? How can I keep the lesson interesting to a room full of teenagers? How can I make sure that each individual student is really grasping the new concepts? What's the best way to keep order in the classroom and keep the students from chattering with and distracting each other?

Amazingly, my God helps me pull something together to present to the class time and time again. Praise be to Him! Of course some days run a lot smoother than others… Thankfully, I can learn from my mistakes and trust the Greatest Teacher of all to give me the strength and wisdom I desperately need everyday.

I'm the first teacher of the day to teach the 9th grade class, which gives me the title of the "Grade 9 class teacher." This means I take attendance every morning, help to organize the class special musics up front, plan the class campouts/picnics later in the year, and teach their Sabbath School class...

Just recently, most of us class teachers ordered uniform shirts for our classes. It was a challenge trying to pick a style and color that pleased the most students in my 9th grade class. I'm thankful that the shirts are in their hands now.

After chapel finishes, my students and I meander down the path and across the road to the Grade 9 & 10 building. Sometimes one my sweet 9th grader girls carries my Karen bag for me. The students don't seem to be in a hurry to get to their classroom. I've noticed that in general the Karen people are not as rushed about life.

I never know what to expect when I walk into the classroom. Somedays the students are hyper and happy, other times they are more sleepy and solemn. It's hard to tell what's on their minds a lot of the time. There are some days when I too am tired and don't really want to face all those students again.

Nevertheless, I try to begin the class with a cheery, "Good morning, students!" to which they echo back, "Good morning, teacher!" Once all the students have filtered into the classroom they stand to sing a song. Sometimes I teach them a new song or we just sing one they already know.

"Alright students, let's do our attendance." The students number themselves off and sit down when they call out their number. Then I usually nod to one of the students to have opening prayer.

Classes are full of different activities - phonics practice, vocabulary lessons, learning games, grammar lessons, and reading practice.

"Ok students -- please say after me - Think - t-h-i-n-k - think, thump - t-h-u-m-p - thump…"

"What is the superlative of big?  Yes, that's right - biggest. Good job!"

Sometimes I feel like I don't have enough to fill the 45-minute time period, but some days the ending bell rings much earlier than I expect.

After 9th grade class I walk back down the path to my hut to prepare for my next class - 10th grade.

10th grade is a much smaller class than my other two classes. It only has 11 students… they can be fun and challenging at the same time. Some of them aren't much younger than me--I even have a 20 year old in that class. Many times they act like they are much younger than they really are. It's nice to be able to do more interactive activities with 10th graders though, because of the fewer number or students to keep in line.

I have another 45 minute break between my 10th and 8th grade classes. It's nice to have some time to get a breather and finish up my lessons plans for the next class.

My 8th grade class can be very exciting at times. You see, it's the last class period of the day, so the students are a little more antsy to be finished with school for the morning. I have a lot of active, silly boys in that class. I've had to rearrange the seating a few times to separate some of the more talkative ones. I really like the 8th grade class though - there are a few more spiritually strong students in that class too.

At the end of class the teachers always say, "Thank you, class!" And the students heartily reply, "Thank you, teacher! See you tomorrow!" as they shuffle out of the classroom.

After my last class of the morning, I walk back to my hut with a grateful heart to God for helping me through yet another morning of teaching.

You know, even though I don't always enjoy teaching classes every single day…
Even though I feel very tired and worn out some days…
Even though there are situations that come up that I don't know how to handle…

I'm glad I'm here.
I'm glad for these opportunities to be stretched and challenged.
And I'm so thankful that God has not called me to do this alone.

He is always there to hold my hand, if I will only grasp it. I can be at peace.

I'm a Teacher Now

It's hard to believe I'm actually a teacher now - "Tharamu Marie" to be exact. (There's another "Tharamu Hannah" here, so to avoid confusion I'm temporarily known as "Tharamu Marie.")

The two first days of teaching are behind me now...  I am learning to push pass feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty and just do my best, one day at a time, trusting that God will do the rest. I'm so glad I always have Him as my classroom assistant. 

I'm starting to feel more at ease and comfortable with these students now. My classes are made up of a random assortment of personalities.  There's the silly ones, the shy ones, the mischievous ones (usually boys), the confident ones, the not-so-confident ones, the conscientious ones, the very sweet ones, and more. I enjoy interacting with them. 

For those of you who like statistics, here's the number of students in each of my classes:

    8th grade - 26 students

    9th grade - 25 students 

    10th grade - 11 students 

    Computers class - 15 students 

In total, I have around 62 different new names to learn, plus the others who aren't in my classes... and they're not American names... Let me give you some examples - Saw Morning Htoo, Mah Lah Gee, P'Saw Paw, Htee Nay Htoo, Saw Eh Soe, July Paw and so many more. They're not always pronounced the same as they are spelled. It's exciting that I'm starting to connect more and more faces with names. 

During my first 8th grade class, a helpful student pointed out where the chalkboard eraser was, so I wouldn't have to use my hand to erase the chalk. I quickly said "Ta Bluuu" which I thought meant "thank-you" in their language. 

The kids started giggling and the boy spoke out, "Say that again, teescha?!" 

So I slowly said it again. 

Then they really starting laughing and chattering to each other. I smiled and joined them in laughing, but I didn't exactly know what they thought was so funny. 

Come to find out later I was really saying "crazy" in their language instead of "thank-you." I guess that was my first funny language blooper (at least that I know of). :) The two words sound very similar except for a slightly more abrupt tone at the end of "thank-you." 

I'm sure there will be many more memorable moments that I will collect over my time here. I am thankful for this time that I can be here. I pray that God will touch these students' lives through me. 

One more experience: At the beginning of my first class, I had the students fill out a 3x5 card with their name, age, grade and other information about themselves, so I could learn more about them. One of the questions I had them answer on the card was “What is your favorite thing to do/hobby?” 

One of the eighth grade boys wrote that his favorite thing to do was “God work.” I really liked to see that. I want the other students to know for themselves that doing work for God is so rewarding. I think it’s my favorite thing to do too. There’s nothing more satisfying than to work for God. 

Water droplets after a recent rainstorm

 Grade 9 classroom

 Grade 10 classroom