Teaching and Uno

Hello everyone!
Another week has sped by, and it is high time I posted here again!
After a lovely weekend spent with students' families I had a good week of teaching and lesson planning. My team of young ladies continues to be a blessing to me, and we all are settling into our routines.

I have really enjoyed playing Uno after school with students while they wait for their parents to pick them up. The children LOVE to play, and it gives me more of an opportunity to get to know them individually. They now beg to play Uno whenever they see me outside of the classroom. I was shopping in town today and saw a student; when he saw me he cried, "Teacher!! Uno!!" =)

Here's a verse that has encouraged muchly this week:
"The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing." (Zeph 3:17 )

I love you all and am so grateful for your friendship!
Christy

My day in pictures.

My office...

When I am not teaching, this is where I work. (You can see me on the right in the green huddled over some workbooks with a Chinese teacher.) I really enjoy planning my lessons in the office amidst all the chatter in Chinese and students poking their heads in. They even have a cookie cupboard that is fun to raid at times! =)

God bless you all!
Love,
Christy

The chicken feet pictures

 

Picture of the day

Some of my Bei-Huei 5th-grade students. Never a dull moment!!

 

Hi!

 

People I meet

Today was Tuesday, and I thought I'd tell you a little bit about some of the people that I worked with/met today at the Bei-Huei school:

Johnson: Johnson is the director of the Bei-Huei school. He picks me up on Tuesday mornings at about 9:00 a.m. Driving with him is crazy.... imagine zooming down the freeway at 40 kms above the speed limit, him excitedly talking in Chinese using his hands to punctuate, all the while weaving in and out of traffic, occasionally using the moped lane! Aaaack! I'm amazed I'm still alive! It's actually pretty fun, though. He loves it when I practice my Chinese on him; when we get to the office he tells everyone what I can say. :)

Wenny: Wenny takes care of me at the Bei-Huei school. About 6 months pregnant with her second boy, she is always trying to make sure that I am happy and comfortable. She often brings me a mango "bing-sha" (shaved ice) during a break. During my upper-grade classes, she sits in and makes sure that the Ss behave.

Anne: Anne is the homeroom teacher for the second grade in the Bei-Huie school. This morning she brought me a bag full of pummelos - they are traditionally eaten right around the "moon festival" which is coming up soon - and a card that says "Hi! Dear Christy, Nice to meet you. I am so happy that you can come to our school. You are a beautiful and nice teacher. My English is very poor. Please don't laugh at me. Happy Moon Festival! Anne." Anne's English is actually pretty good - I'm not laughing.

Jenny, Sanny, and Ainne: These three 5th graders are my shadows. They love to just be around me, smile, and practice their English. In class they sit right near the front and are always quick to raise their hands and answer my questions. I love these girls!

Liga: I just met Liga today. She is a Chinese English teacher and is really, really nice. She says that if I ever want to go hiking in the mountains to call her up and we will go together. I think I'll take her up on that offer!!

Phong: Phong drives me home from the Bei-Huei school. Every time that I have been at the school he has bought me an iced green tea during one of the breaks. He doesn't speak any English so again, it's a good time for me to practice my Chinese. He's very patient with me and lets me say a word over and over again until the pronunciation is correct.

And of course, my students!!! Oh, I just love teaching them! =)

Christy

Of chicken feet, and other things...

Howdy all!
Today's teaching went really well... thanks for all the prayers on my behalf!

On Mondays I teach all four morning periods, but between each period we have a 10-minute break and at 10:10 we have a 20-minute break. Imagine my surprise when a steaming plate of chicken feet was brought to me during my 20-minute break this morning! I don't think I have ever seen chicken feet off of the chicken before (yah, Jen, I know you won't believe it, but it's true)! How to eat? What to do? The crowd of schoolchildren around me grew and I will admit that I put off eating them until lunch time, during which I had all the teachers watching me eat the poor things. I actually had one of the teachers show me how (he was more than happy too:), and then I managed to screw up enough courage to nibble at it. Okay, it's just chicken, but I've never eaten anything that looked so much like a hand with fingernails. Ough. Patrick, my co-teacher at the school, took pictures so I hope to get pictures up here sometime...

Have a good day!

Love,
Christy

Boy & Pump

 

Another week...

Dear friends,
Another week has come and gone! Overall, this second week of school went quite a bit more smoothly than our first week. It feels like it last Monday was a long time ago, though! I suppose that as I settle into a routine the weeks will go by more quickly. My classes for the first part of the week went well. Lesson planning still takes me quite a bit of time to do it right, but slowly I am getting the hang of it. =)
The picture on the left is of two of the 1st grade homeroom teachers (there are three 1st grade classes at Siang-He), Iris & Sue. I teach English 5x a week to Iris' class. Iris & Sue were so kind to take all of my team shopping in Chiayi city last Saturday! My Chinese co-workers are GREAT to work with! This is such a blessing!
The Tropic of Cancer runs right through Chiayi county and we cross it when we go into the city. The picture on the right is of a building erected on the Tropic of Cancer. Kind of interesting.

One of the schools that I teach at, Bei-Huei, is right down the street from this building.

Some highlights from this week:
...having a huge and beautiful bouquet of flowers arrive at our door! (Although not for me - for a team member - I really enjoyed seeing them everytime I walk past them.)
...sharing the gospel with Myra, another English teacher at Siang-He. Pray that God would indeed send forth His truth into her heart.
...having nearly all the first grade students in the Bei-Huei school give me a hug. :D
...making chocolate chip cookies. Yum.
...running with Jessica & Ruthie.
...TWO hour bike rides!!!
...continuing Chinese classes. I like them!!

Some challenges:
...being energetic and creative in class. Well, not the energetic part so much, but the creative part. =)
...figuring out the expectations of one of the schools and trying to meet those expectations.
...working and serving as unto the Lord, not just for people.

Thank-you, everyone!

Love,
Christy

Friday... Chinese classes and teaching.

Friday...
We started Chinese classes this Friday! Quite practical, we started off by learning our Chinese names. Mine is (phonetic spelling): Lien KeShi (Lien for Langemann, KeShi for Christy). Here is the KeShi part in the actual characters: 可思. I'll try to get my last name in Chinese for you on here sometime. We then learned about 34 sentences commonly heard around school. We will be tested on these sentences next week! This will take some practicing for me!!!

I then prepared for my afternoon classes and taught them; a 4th-grade Health/PE class - we covered the digestive system- and two 1st-grade classes. Fun, fun. After teaching, I frantically finished my lesson plans for next week and handed them in before leaving for the evening.

We all pretty much just collapsed in our rooms and went to bed early... somehow all of us were just drained!! After a sleeping for at least 10 hours, I feel ready to face today!

Love you all!
Christy

Some more pictures from Friday...

 

Siang-He schoolchildren

 

Thursday... Siang-He Elementary School

Thursday mornings I have off. I spend every afternoon at Siang-He Elementary School. This is a picture of part of my 1st-grade classroom during a break. In the front is little Junior. 1st grade is a bit of a challenge for me, because the children are little and do not understand English. Some of my dear little boys have lots of energy and like to expend it during classroom time. I need wisdom in channelling the energy appropriately!! (And knowing when to march a little guy off to the office for discipline). They are really bright, though, and will continue to grow dear to my heart this year. 

Another Bei-Huei picture

 

Wednesday... Bei-Huei Elementary School.

On Wednesday, Ruthie & I were welcomed to the Bei-Huei Elementary School. All the students were assembled in a large gym, and were singing a welcome song for us!! After meeting all the teachers and introducing ourselves to the students, we were presented with a large gift bag and note cards from most of the classes! You can see more pictures on their website at www.bhps.cyc.edu.tw.


 

Tuesday... meeting the Education Bureau officials.

On Tuesday we all met with the Chiayi County Education Bureau for a welcoming meeting. There were many speeches made in Chinese and a fair amount of formality. I didn't quite understand everything that was going on, but I did realize that many pictures were being taken! The result of this was that all of us ended up with our pictures in the newspaper and now everyone knows who we are!! It is interesting to go to a local restaurant and have people recognize us, try to give us things, or offer to have us visit their restaurant for free! It's humbling; they treat us like celebrities, but we are just normal people who happen to be from North America. Pray that we would shine Christ's light to the people we meet!

Also on Tuesday we had a missionary couple with their two little girls over for supper!! It was so fun to make dinner all together and visit with these precious people!

Monday... An-Dung Primary School

Monday....
I arrived at the An-Dung school and was greeted by a whole row of students playing a special drum greeting!! After meeting the director, principal and teacher(s), I jumped into teaching my 5th & 6th grade classes at the school.

It is really fun to introduce my family; I'll mention that I have five brothers and a collective gasp goes about the room!

The school provided me with a special lunch and now I can say that I have eaten fish eyes!!

Church...

Notes from today...

It was beautifully refreshing to be able to go to a nearby church this morning!! There is a little Christian congregation (approx. 35 people) about a 5-minute bike ride away that has welcomed us to fellowship with them. Although the service was all in Chinese, it was wonderful to be with other believers here in Taiwan; to read the Bible, pray and sing! The pastor's wife found someone to do a little translating for us - her name is Theresa and she had never been to church before! She is really sweet though, and said that she found the service so interesting that she kept forgetting to translate for us!! We knew the Bible reference (Abraham and Sarah - is anything to difficult for God?) but she had never heard the story before. She asked if maybe next week we might be able to fill her in on the story a bit more. :) Always interesing open doors!!

There was also at the church a missionary couple from Oregon with their two little girls. They have lived in Taiwan for the past 11 years, but just moved to our area to help plant a new church. It was neat to meet other English-speaking folk right in our neighborhood!

Partaking of that fellowship of the Spirit that transcends language and culture was a blessing today and I look forward to getting to know the people at the church better over this next year.

Have a blessed Sunday!

Love,
Christy

Update...

Hello friends!!!
Well, it's the end of a busy week! My classes are both challenging and fun. I didn't take any pictures (I kept forgetting) but the children are absolutely cute! Despite the busy-ness of everthing, I really am glad to be here!

This week I only taught my afternoon classes at the Siang-He school (www.shps.cyc.edu.tw) Next week I will teach morning classes at the An-Dung and Bei-Huei schools as well. I teach 21 classes per week, pretty evenly divided over the 1st, 4th, 5th & 6th grades (with a couple 2nd grade classes thrown in there). Also next week my team and I will start Chinese lessons! This will be interesting and beneficial as we start exploring around our community, which, by the way, is beautiful and welcoming.

As much as I enjoy it (when I am organized) classroom teaching doesn't come naturally to me, so I appreciate any prayers that you send up for me! My first grade class is mostly very well-behaved, but then you get these little boys that are just little boys with lots of energy! :) Not anything bad about it, just makes it interesting for me to manage when I don't speak much Chinese and they don't speak English! So pray for creativity in dealing with my little class of seven-year-olds!

Things that I am grateful for today...
...God's mercies that are new every morning
...a team of sweet, funny, and energetic young ladies
...getting a big "bear" hug from one of the afore-mentioned energetic little boys when he saw me coming
...my chin is healing nicely (I get my stitches out tomorrow). Aren't you glad that God made our bodies to heal?
...being able to chat online with my family
...YOU!!

Love,
Christy