in the name of science

Today's chemistry lesson was about mixtures and solutions.

What better way to grasp the concept of solutions than to watch your teacher doctor up her cup of coffee?

Number of substances mixed together: four (realizing they may have been simplified a tad)

Names of substances: coffee, sugar, creamer, and the germs of ten third graders

After my students were wow-ed by the coffee, we ate the home-made trail mix (made up of pretzel Goldfish, gummy bears, chocolate chunks, and walnuts) that was used as our mixture manipulative.

What we learned today: A solution is a mixture of substances that cannot be separated. Walnuts look like butterflies and brains. And Miss Farrell will still drink her cup of coffee even after ten little noses sniff over it.

psalm 37

I've been thinking over and rereading this paraphrase* by EE and how I really want my life to be a reflection of this...

Trust in the Lord and do good.

Dwell in the land (make your home, settle down, be at peace where God puts you).

Delight in the Lord (make the Lord your only joy) and He will give you what your heart desires.

Commit your life to the Lord.

Trust in Him and He will act. 

Be quiet before the Lord.

Wait patiently for Him, not worrying about others.

...this year especially.


*taken from Loneliness by Elisabeth Elliot, parentheses included.

cozy cato

requests

I wrote this back in March:

Learning. I'm still learning: to give up my expectations; to be "fully here" even when my heart doesn't want to be; to not miss those God moments; to fight back when the enemy tries to make me stumble; to enjoy my season in China; to rely on His strength and not my own; to live one day at a time.

That pretty much sums up where I'm at right now (again). And I'm wrestling with these life lessons that seem to be magnified as I enter my second year in China and forth year teaching overseas.

I'd really appreciate your prayers--
-to have joy in being here for another year and remember that God has me here for a reason
-to settle in to my new apartment and new teaching year
-to be motivated to finish my grad class (taking it for credit towards my teaching license)
-to not think about the "what's next?" after this contract so that I can focus on serving well this year
-to trust that God knows what He's doing when it comes to my life, even when I don't
-to spend more personal time in prayer about these things

Thanks in advance.

twenty-seven

 

 

 

it's going to be a good year.

thoughts on holiness

I'm back in the states and have so much to share! For now, here are two quotes that I stumbled upon and shared with my PFO small group this morning [Don't know what PFO is? You will soon :)]. We were reflecting on 1 Peter 1:13-16:

"So think clearly and exercise self-control. Look forward to the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, 'You must be holy because I am holy.'"  NLT, emphasis added

"Holy is the way God is. To be holy he does not conform to a standard. He is that standard. He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible fullness of purity that is incapable of being other than it is. Because he is holy, all his attributes are holy; that is, whatever we think of as belonging to God must be thought of as holy....The whole purpose of God in redemption is to make us holy and to restore us to the image of God."  
-A.W. Tozer

“Many Christians have what we might call a ‘cultural holiness.’ They adapt to the character and behavior pattern of Christians around them. As the Christian culture around them is more or less holy, so these Christians are more or less holy. But God has not called us to be like those around us. He has called us to be like himself. Holiness is nothing less than conformity to the character of God.” 
-Jerry Bridges

i miss these faces

high five, photobooth

teaching

my

students

about

was

fun.