Good News!

I have some Good News to share today! Tomorrow I will begin a long-term substitute teacher assignment in the Bentonville Public School system! I will be teaching a 5th grade Science class at Old High Middle School in historic downtown Bentonville, Arkansas for the next six/seven weeks while the regular teacher is taking off to have knee surgery. (Her surgery is early tomorrow morning, so please remember to pray for her to have successful surgery and a full recovery.)

Today I spent the entire day with the teacher and her students to "shadow" her for a full day which was incredibly helpful as I am "stepping into her shoes" at this point in the school year. She plans to return after six weeks, and during this time I will also have Spring Break, so it will really cover the next seven weeks. Her class will be learning about the Solar System, so I will be "re-learning" many interesting facts about the Sun and the planets that God has created so perfectly for us. (This of course reminded me of the sermon by Louie Giglio titled "Indescribable." If you have never heard this sermon or seen the video that goes with it, I highly encourage you to try to find it either online or in a church library.)

Throughout the next six/seven weeks, my prayer is that I will be patient with the students, that I will develop new friendships at school, and that I will have a positive impact on the lives of the students that I will have contact with each day. They seemed like great students today, so I hope this will continue. I'm sure it will be hard for the students to adjust to a new teacher because I could see how much they love their teacher today. The hardest part for me will be getting up early every day. I will need to be there by 7:20am each morning since the school day starts at 7:40am. But the good part of going early is that the school day will end at 2:40pm.

I am so thankful today for this new opportunity, and I'm looking forward to the next six/seven weeks as a fifth grade teacher.

I'll keep you updated on how it's going!
--Pam