SarahJane's Page

Posted by SarahJane on May 23rd, 2009 at 1:57pm
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1) I am finished my undergrad university degree!!! It hasn't really set in yet. Convocation is this coming Friday and my parents and grandmother are coming out for the occasion.

2) I started my first official paid teaching job on April 20. Despite some frustrations in the week before I began, it is going well. I love Social Studies! I'll be teaching here (0.5 f.t.e.) until the end of the school year. I've been having some major challenges with this class, and it's been weighing really heavily on my mind. I've been questioning (not for the first time) where exactly God wants me to be in the future. I'm open to that not being a classroom teaching, if that is where He leads. Some days, I wish that He would lead me away from teaching in the classroom, because of how discouraged I have been lately. But He knows best, and I will see this job through to the end, to the best of my ability.

3) I have been accepted to be an English Language Teaching Assistant in France, next year! I will be living and working there from October 2009-June 2010. I'm not sure of the exact location, yet, but it will be in an elementary school near Amiens. I strongly feel that becoming bilingual is of great importance for where God wants to lead me in the future.

4) I moved into a new place, at the beginning of May. I am greatly enjoying my new roommates! We've been friends for several years, and it was nice being able to move in with someone whom I knew already, since I'm only here for two months.

5) My parents have just begun renting a new place, back home (two doors down), because they (thankfully and finally) sold our house. I'm moving back there for the summer so that I can save up money for going to France. It's going to be an adjustment...

6) I have finished one small group and started another one. My new small group is made up of all the preschool children's church volunteers so it is a pretty interesting mix. However, we have bonded in an incredible way, already, and God is doing good things. I can't even express how grateful I am to be involved in this group and to be involved in the lives of these amazing ladies from all different backgrounds and walks of life. I'm the youngest member of the group, and we have a grandma in the group too! Almost everytime we get together (even the first week), it seems that God just sweeps in and meets us there and opens our hearts, eyes, ears, and MOUTHS so that I find myself sharing things that I have never told to anyone. I hardly even know these ladies - but I know that God has brought us together and is working in us, so somehow it is OK. One of the ladies is moving to work at a Bible college in Texas, so the other unmarried woman in the group was joking about how she and I would go visit her so that we can find some Christian cowboys to marry. :D I doubt it will happen, but it was so refreshing to get my desire for marriage out in the open like that with these ladies.

7) I'm going to be an auntie! My brother and his wife put in their application for adoption, a few weeks ago! They were working at an orphanage in Uganda, last summer, and they just fell in love with the children there. After much prayer and wise counsel, they made the decision to adopt. It will likely take 3 years before everything is finalized, which may include my brother and sister-in-law living in Uganda for an extended period of time, but I'm still excited!

There's my news!

SarahJane

Posted by SarahJane on April 4th, 2009 at 8:34pm
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I just returned from a funeral for a family friend. He was 65 years of age and died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack. He and his wife had seven children between the ages of 33 and 15. They also had two beautiful grandsons. Their family was quite close to my family, as we were involved in church ministry together for a number of years. If you had asked me a month ago if I would take time off work and travel 600 km to go home for a funeral for this man, I would probably have said no. But, when the occasion actually came up, I found myself unable to deal with all the grief with no closure. So I went home. I cried a lot and spent time with my family and with the family of this man. I anticipate spending more time grieving in the next while, particularly for my friends who have lost their father. It is a very difficult time.

This also gave me reason to think. I pray for a husband, but don't think about the possibility of being a widow. Tennyson (I think) wrote that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I think that I believe that - but I may never know until it happens to me. This family friend who passed away had been married for forty years. His widow is now left alone and must raise their children to adulthood on her own. It is sobering. It reminds me that sometimes God does give us what we pray for - perhaps more to make us holy than to make us happy (as was said on a recent Boundless Show episode).

Posted by SarahJane on March 15th, 2009 at 4:25pm
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Hello,

This past Friday, I was offered my first *paid* teaching position. I have spent about 6 months total teaching in practicum, in addition to many hours of theory courses. This is my first "real" teaching job, however. The job is at the high school where I interned, last fall, so I am already familiar with the staff and the school culture. I also know many of the students! I will be teaching grade 11 social studies, in the non-academic stream. There are a number of challenges associated with this, including timing since the job starts April 20 and I am still finishing the last course of my degree. I would appreciate your prayers as I head into this new adventure.

SarahJane

Posted by SarahJane on March 9th, 2009 at 7:34pm
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An excerpt from Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions:

"J. Oswald Sanders...told the story of an indigenous missionary who walked barefoot from village to village preaching the gospel in India. After a long day of many miles and much discouragement, he came to a certain village and tried to speak the gospel but was spurned. So he went to the edge of the cillage dejected and lay down under a tree and slept from exhaustion.
When he awoke, the whole town was gathered to hear him. The head man of the village explained that they had looked him over while he was sleeping. When they saw his blistered feet, they concluded that he must be a holy man and that they had been evil to reject him. They were sorry and wanted to hear the message for which he was willing to suffer so much to bring them."

May my feet be blistered for the cause of Jesus Christ.

Posted by SarahJane on March 4th, 2009 at 9:25pm
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Hi all,

I strongly, strongly encourage you to download the last two episodes of the Boundless Show (episodes 58-59) and listen to the opening round tables (if not the whole show!). Candice Watters, Lisa Anderson, and Julie Slattery (sp?) talk openly and honestly about single women and marriage...and it's just good.

Go listen.

SarahJane