you are my star.

bottom (L to R): Mary, Jenna, Me, Nancy, Mary, Tom

top: Mike, Ellen, Danielle, Rebecca, Alice

the girl next to mike on the top was not actually in my class...so i don't know her name. 

this was my class. i had the joy of teaching the top level class. each day, i loved teaching them. they loved being silly about certain things. for example, pronunciation. this part of the lesson was my favorite! who knew working on pronunciation could be fun!? well, my students had a hard time pronouncing the "th" sound. it always, without fail, sounded like the "z" or "s" sound. to my students, they didn't hear the difference...until i taught it to them. they would say think, and it would sound like sink. even on the last day they would say something to me with the word think in it...and my response was always "is it think, or sink?" they would correct it and move on. if my students learned one thing from me, it better have been pronunciation!

one day we were doing an activity that required some extra pronunciation help. they weren't hearing the difference between words, so i kept correcting them. i would write the correct word and what i was hearing on the board. they all laughed, because once they saw it on the board, they knew what was wrong. every time they would say the word, i would laugh, because it was funny. then i would pick up chalk...and they would groan and laugh at the same time. this particular day was filled with laughter and joy.

as much as i hope those kids learned pronunciation and vocabulary from me, i learned so much from them. my class did not come from the richest of backgrounds. most of their parents were farmers, and they have to walk anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour just to get to school. when i first met them, my heart broke for their circumstances. little did i know the joy that they possessed. each day when i came into class, they all smiled. maybe they were smiling because i was smiling, but i knew that i would be uplifted when i came to teach them.

even though these students have enormous weights to bear, they have joy. i choose to believe that God has His hand on those students. that, if only for the summer, they had joy, it was God shining through me. i got this picture on the last day of class:

this is from a student who God placed on my heart very early. i choose to believe that i was her star, because Jesus is mine. i choose to believe that she found confidence in my eyes, because Jesus was telling her heart that He believed in her. i choose to believe that she thought i was beautiful, because Jesus radiated from my being. i choose to believe that God receives all the glory for this summer being a success. when you choose to believe Jesus, you cannot help but have joy.