Christmas video

Happy Christmas,
i couldn't get it to work on YouTube, but I did get it to be on the blog so do enjoy. earl and rebecca

100

This is #100, unfortunately I don't have the energy to make a big deal of it. I could go on and on about what this blog has beheld over the last year, in fact it is almost one year to the day of when this blog started. Hard to believe that we have been back in the states for almost 6 weeks, my how time flies, it does seem like yesterday we were in Oxford enjoying all that England offers. Today we were talking with our friend Tash who is visiting from Burlington, Ontario and I stated that each day here in Goshen is like a carnival. There is so much interesting stuff that we do ( high school sports, great restaurants, old friends, etc...) and each day seems to be a blast. We are attempting to live one day at a time, it is easy to look toward the future, but we are attempting to live day by day. Today we heard a message by one Rob Bell about living in the present and having the focus of a child in a good way. Realizing that children don't worry about the future, are focused upon what they do, and enjoy opportunities of the day. That is where we are at presently, enjoying what each day brings, the trials of each student in class, how to get a couple of them on task, what to do with the extra five minutes before lunch, etc... There is so much that happens daily that I think I take for granted, my how I could invite the Lord to step into each of those situations, this is certainly something to work on. I can now feel myself starting to drone on, not interested in doing that so I'm going to sign off, and revel in the fact that the blog has reached #100 later

Closing in on 100

Blog entries that is, I know the blog has slowed in the last week, that's what the first week on the job will do to ya. Last week was the first full week of school, I feel as though I am off and running like a gazelle in the brush. That means moving quickly but having to dodge potential pitfalls like fallen branches, predators or other gazelles. What this has to do with school, not sure but I'm sure if you search you'll find an analogy there somewhere. The 6th grade is a blast, the students I have are a wonderful brood, at times I can't get them to talk. That's not usually a problem in the classroom, but in 6A as my room is known it can be. Especially in the mornings when they are somewhat asleep and not into yet, although this morning I had them dancing, singing and boxing their spelling words. Does it sound like a place you'd want to hang out. We started science as well, that is always a blast, the first lab of the year is on Wednesday. We are making Ooblik, if you know about it you know that the lab will be fun. Nick is bringing in a couple of toads and frog, there will be exotic fruits, eggs and who knows what else. My creativity has started to kick in as well, I have the thinking clubs (table groups, we don't do rows of chairs) working on a big social studies project, and many other activities that are not in the regular textbook. So ya school is great, so is the remainder of life.
Broadcasting football has been wonderful, I will try to put a link on my blog but if I can't get it to work try www.broadcastsport.net and go to Jimtown football games. There you'll find myself along with Luke Miller as we do the Jimmies games. The first game of the year has terrible quality, the second is much better. We'll see as the year goes on if the whole broadcasting gig gets better. Led music at church for the first time since being back, that was great, it was good to be back in the saddle once again. It has been since grad when last I led, so I was grateful for the opportunity. Am leading this week as well so no rest for the weary. We are still enjoying the whole role reversal that I wrote about in the last blog, and attempting to keep up with people. Do take care all, and watch for the big 100 coming up next, maybe a best of or something like that. later
earl

5 Miller's

I've got to tell you a bit about my 6th grade class at Westview Elementary. Out of 24 students I have 5 pupils with the last name Miller, all of them are girls. There are 3 Yoder's as well, which makes 1/3 of my class either the classical Northern Indiana surname of Miller or Yoder. Some of you reading this will be like "so what's the big deal Earl happens all the time" others of you might say "what is the deal with everyone having the same name" still others of you might respond with "why I am wasting my time reading about surnames in Earl's new classroom" if you are in the last camp sorry, I think it is quite interesting. The school I teach at is in Amish country, for those of you unfamiliar with the Amish they are a small religious minority who choose to live life without modern conveniences such as electricity, cars, phones, computers etc... Many come from farms, and all of the fathers are incredible workers. Out of my class 1/2 are Amish, I have always seen their buggies driving around this area, now I see many more each day. More than 3/4 of the class have horses that they ride so today when I found an incredibly old and tattered "How to draw horses" drawing book I was quite excited. At some level it is like driving into a new world, and of course kids are kids and still love to have a laugh and then be ready to learn the next moment. I look forward to learning all about their culture I know that will happen, just yesterday I had handed out a classmate bingo sheet to fill out. They were to write their favorite food, color, birthday month and so on. One of the categories was favorite TV show, this sounds easy enough except for half of my class doesn't have a TV and consequently don't have a favorite TV show. This is just a small piece of the learning curve ahead this year for me as I get educated by twenty-four 12 and 13 year olds. Let's get started class
earl

Role reversal

About 6 years ago Rebecca and I decided that I would go back to university to get a teaching certificate. This was a huge decision as it booked us into life for about a 5 year stretch, we called it our 5 year plan. At that point she was the main breadwinner, I subbed when I could but she was the one who really brought home the bacon. We did this arrangement until I landed my job at Ox Bow, at that point we both taught, had the same schedule and roughly did the same thing. During my time of going back to university there would be days where I would be home, maybe working on a paper or project, or I might be doing some youth ministry stuff, or I might be running errands etc... This worked out great, although there were many times when I would get to sleep in and Rebecca would be off to West Side to work with her little 5 and 6 olds. Now that we are back from Oxford the roles have reversed from their position of the past many years. I am getting up earlier than ever, driving a half hour one-way into the heart of Amish country, whilst Rebecca sleeps in or has an opportunity to sub in the Concord system. We are really enjoying this new setup to life, in fact today she went into my classroom and we worked together on organizing and making it more like home away from home. She now is doing more of the errands, projects around the house, etc... Roles have reversed in our home, but we are more than glad for the opportunity.

coming stories

There is much coming up on the blog, just not alot right now. All you faithful readers do check back in, I'll be scribing about; role-reversal, Glenda, hoodies, 5 Millers, testifyin (spelling?), Panthers and Jimmies, Jambo, books and crates, and oh ya it's almost college football season:) later all
earl

Shots in the dark

It seems as though everyday a new opportunity comes up in our lives. Rebecca and I returned from Oxford not sure what the next steps are, knowing that wherever we are we want to be ourselves. The openings for our old teaching jobs were not available, but others have come up, some of which without looking for them. As with many job positions they are usually shots in the dark, but once in a while you hit something. Since being home we have been looked into 2 different long term maternity leaves, 1 middle school science teaching position, 1 high school science position, a possible lower elementary position, and have declined other offers for assistants or langauge professionals. I write all of this to speak to the goodness of God, we did not know what to expect here but so far it has been one thing after another. Are any of these going to work out, maybe not, some probably will, I'll let you know once we have further clarity. School starts next week so time is running short, and it could be back to the classroom for us.

Another shot in the dark that I took was calling around to different radio stations to see if they needed any sports broadcasters for the upcoming high school football season. Of course they didn't but I was directed to an internet site that did games and maybe they needed someone. Lo and behold they did, I received an email from them on Tuesday stating that I would be doing a couple of games for one Jimtown, and then transferring over to the Concord team for the remainder of the team. This means that you'll be able to hear me anytime you want provided you want to listen to high school football being broadcast. The site is broadcastsport.net, each friday night for the season I'll be out at the stadium watching either the Jimmies or the Minutemen tear up the gridiron. As you can tell I'm quite excited about this opportunity, I've always wanted to do football or basketball in a broadcast type situation.

By the way today ran into a lady at a garage sale who is looking for a male vocal for some recording and to work with their band. Who knows maybe another shot in the dark? later
earl

A new understanding

If you are reading this post and wonder why I am writing about a new understanding of the Abraham and Isaac story it is because we were at Mars Hill church on Sunday and the speaker spoke about this topic. I briefly mentioned it in the previous post but wanted to give a bit more space to it as I was somewhat blown away by the faith of Abraham. Here goes

Most readers of Genesis 22 assume that Isaac was probably a young lad or even a little child. According to data in genealogies he was in his upper 30's probably about 37. Don't you think that he could have taken Abraham if he wanted to, and not gotten strapped to an altar to be chopped alive? Also I have always thought that Abraham expected God to speak before sacrificing Isaac, so that in his mind he would go through the song and dance of getting him ready for sacrifice knowing full well that we wouldn't have to do it. The speaker on Sunday then reminded us of the faith chapter in Hebrews 11 and verse 19 it says that "Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead" This hit me like a ton of bricks, Abraham thought through the fact that God could raise his only son from the dead, I take this as he knew that when he sacrificed Isaac God could then raise him back again. Not that God would spare Isaac before sacrificing, Abraham had reasoned that the sacrifice was going to happen. As had 37 year old Isaac, the faith the two of them had is astounding. One that is willing to sacrifice his only son, and one who is willing to be sacrificed. God spoke before it took place, not the answer that either were expecting. This is a new understanding for me, I had always given all the credit to the ram in the thicket for showing up ( I know that God provided him) but really the credit goes to both Abraham and Isaac who were expecting to go through with it and then see the miraculous hand of God. I must ask the question am I ready to go through it ( whatever circumstance that is) then see the hand of God, or do I only have faith to see the hand of God without the hard times? Tough question to answer, I'll let you ponder the story a bit more
Thanks Ed Dobson for your teaching and insight on Sunday morning
earl
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the weekend

Since last I've written we have; sold a bunch of stuff at a garage sale, went out for ice cream on our anniversary, gone to Grand Rapids to celebrate our anniversary, went to the church Rob Bell leads, heard about a few more teaching opportunities, enjoyed having my parents in our house as they arrived yesterday. It has been a busy few days, I thought that not having a job meant you didn't work, while I suppose this is true we have "worked" in the last week. Garage sales are huge in this area, and we love to gather stuff, price it, present it and sell it. We made $250 at last weekend's sale, not bad considering it is stuff that we didn't need whilst in England, why would we need it now? So we sold a bunch of it, a great feeling to drive two full car loads to Susie's mom's and come back with one car load. As mentioned before we went up to Grand Rapids, and ended up in Baker Book House which has the best selection of Christian books I've ever seen this side of amazon.com There are many that are on our wish list right now: This Beautiful Mess, Blessed are the Uncool, They Like Jesus but not the Church, The Secret Message of Jesus, Peppermints in Pinatas and The Gospel According to Starbucks. These are a few that have made our list, now if only money would drop from the sky so that I could rush out to the bookstore or to amazon and get a few. Did I mention that I also want the new Lifehouse album that has just come out? I don't usually want to get much but lately the spending bug has been biting, I've done ok so far:) Sunday we went to Mars Hill Church, we have been there now 4 times. Each time I have walked out challenged, thinking about the message, enthused about the faith and saying "I don't feel dissappointed when we make the effort to come here" I think I say those exact words each time. Anyway Rob Bell's mentor was speaking about Abraham and Isaac, and he opened up a new understanding to me of the text in Genesis 22. I'm going to write a different blog to explain what I mean. The music was rockin it was by a group called the Michael Gungor Band, they are a new sign on the Worshiptogether label and they really led well. Now I am enjoying some time with Mom and Dad, it is hot so they are taking a nice afternoon nap whilst Rebecca chats with Rachael on the phone, we do miss our Sycamore girls. later
earl