Wow. I haven’t shown up here in 2 months. I started a post a couple weeks ago but didn’t manage to put it together and post it.
So, here’s the skinny on the last 2 months (and skinny doesn’t happen much around these parts):
In late May and early June, I worked on my Spanish skills with an excellent tutor.
I took a break from the Spanish sessions in order to help host 7 relatives who came to visit for a few days/nights. I continued the break from Spanish sessions to drive B&D and I up to Dallas for some annual doctor visits as well as a few ministry meetings. After 2 weeks in Dallas, I drove us home (along with Beth’s mother who flew up to Dallas to see Bethie’s doctor as well).
Did you know that the drive from Dallas to Puebla meant that we spent about 24 hours in the van over three days? We were blessed that the expected traffic delays on both sides of the border for the most part didn’t show up. Otherwise the time would have ballooned to closer to 30 hours.
I’ve just resumed my Spanish tutoring sessions and we’re working on my oral development along with addressing deficiencies with grammar usage, verbs, and vocabulary. It appears to be a long haul to reaching an acceptable advanced level of Spanish. The neurons are busy lighting it up, but at times, I suspect by the amount of smoke generated that there are some misfires in there somewhere!
While we were in Dallas, I was asked to teach 9th and 10th grade Bible at PCS this school year. I accepted that position and am adding to my Spanish learning, creating a hermeneutics course for 9th and 10th graders using a text titled Grasping God’s Word. This will be the first time this course has been taught there, so I will have my hands full…grasping the material…so to speak. I’m familiar with the book as I used it at MTS for a hermeneutics course, and I used it to teach Cameron and Dayton as a homeschool course. My MTS prof told me he used it to teach his 12 year-old son, so he felt the text is at a level that teens can grasp (*ahem*). So, hopefully, my 9 students will not have too much trouble with understanding the material. I think they’ll do fine. Curriculum design is one of my weaknesses as a teacher, so I expect to be trudging through this for the next month until school starts.
I’ll also be doing a bit of lesson planning for teaching English at the seminary in the afternoons as well.
So, it appears for the coming school year, Bethie will be fully engaged at PCS with a full-load of math and science classes. I’ll be focusing on learning Spanish while also teaching the Bible and English classes. Once my Spanish finally reaches an acceptable advanced level, I will be considering ministry options using Spanish.
Pray with me that I’ll reach that level this year or early next year and that I will understand the Lord’s leading from that point regarding how to proceed for future ministry.
Today and yesterday Dayton has been and is helping our co-workers, the Vanderwerfs, prepare for their annual music camp which I think has about 200 participants plus or including a good number of music teachers. He’s been at the seminary moving things out of storage, cleaning/dusting off these things, packing things up for the camp (which is out at Lake Valsequillo and Camp Oasis where the annual PCS Spiritual Emphasis Camp is held also).
Bethie is working on annual classroom planning today. I would be doing that, but I have a good bit of Spanish homework to do for today’s tutoring session. As soon as I get this posted, I’ll return to doing just that.
Here’s a dash cam video of the 1/2 mile (or so) trip from the seminary to our house at 3x speed. The rains have brought more and more potholes. Most have been “fixed” with patches that now are like random, miniature speed bumps that aren’t quite tall enough for which to slow down too much, but are tall enough to make the ride feel like it is an off-road yet on-road adventure. I recall driving in Texas and thinking that it was so strange to be driving on mostly smooth roads. Some were incredibly smooth. That is a rarity in Mexico and around here, even more so.
Knowing Your ABCDs 