In Pictures

School has become busy. And by busy, I mean I am currently taking a break from writing about an English Language Learner (ELL) who I interviewed, analyzing a unit plan for 3rd grade Language Arts, writing a math lesson that incorporates technology, and researching for my Senior Integration Paper (SIP). I am thankful for the weekend. A chance to sleep more, catch up on everything I have to do, and relax a little in between. This – blogging – is my relaxation. 

I'm sniffling up a storm right now. Someone told me that student teachers and first year teachers always get sick more throughout the year because they are exposed to so many more germs. I should have been more aware of all the coughing and sniffling first graders I was around, but I wasn't. Whoops. I have been coughing and sniffling all week and today I just feel plugged up. Vitamin D and I have become friends again, as well as lemon tea and tissues. But a cold has not been all that has been going on in my life. I decided the easiest way to share a little update on life would simply be to post some pictures. And so, without further adieu, a little update on my life. 

Pancakes. Damarise and I have begun traditions for our house and Saturday morning pancakes is one of the traditions (actually, it may be our only tradition at the moment...). Some Saturdays we'll have groups of people over, and other Saturdays it'll be just the two of us, but pancakes are always a must and we've had fun spicing them up in different ways. This morning's pancakes were pumpkin spice with chocolate chips. Yum! 

Guitar playing. I am so thankful for the guitar that Dad left behind in storage. When I feel stressed or just unable to think, I play music. Piano was the only instrument I knew and finding a piano to play on campus was always a bit of a struggle. I knew that living off campus this year it would be even harder to find a piano to play, so I began to learn guitar. I love it. I'm not that great at it, but I love picking it up after a long day and listening to the strings sing while being plucked. 

Kilter! I wasn't sure if I'd go to Kilter this year, but I figured that since it was my senior year, I should probably go. And seeing as I never see Kent around campus because both of our schedules clash so badly, I decided to ask him so that we could at least catch up on each other's lives. It was great! We went as Shaggy and Velma from Scooby Doo, and had a great time hanging out together.

 I love this girl! Faith has been a blessing and I am so thankful to have met her over the summer!

Pomegranate. I had a pomegranate once. It was in the backyard of Ouma and Oupa's house in South Africa. It was the first time I'd ever eaten one and I couldn't believe it was just a big ball of seeds covered in juice. It looked funny, but as soon as it hit my tastebuds I was a pomegranate fan! Since that day I have looked everywhere for pomegranates because I wanted to eat another. I even resorted to looking on Amazon, thinking that maybe they sold them. They did, but for $40 a fruit I decided it was not worth it. Then we went to Aldi. And in a little corner by the rest of the produce was a box with three pomegranates left. I couldn't believe it! I was elated! (Not only were they amazing looking, they were so cheap!) I picked up those pomegranates and have been slowly enjoying them. Yum! If you have never eaten a pomegranate, I highly recommend them. 

Tissues. Buying tissues has never been something we've done. We've always used toilet paper to blow our noses. But the other day, Damarise and I decided it would be cheaper for us to buy a box of tissues rather than use our toilet paper. Ah. They have been a soft blessing to my tender nose. 

World map. We got our world map in the mail a few weeks ago. We hung it up and marked everywhere we've visited and lived. I love it. 

And there we have it. A little bit of a peek into all that's been happening in my life. Relaxation time is over, and I should get back to all my assignments... until next time. 

'Twas the Week before Thanksgiving...

Thanksgiving is coming up in six days. I'm looking forward to being away for a few days, relaxing with the family, and seeing extended family who I haven't seen in about five years (which tends to happen when you've lived across the world for a few years ;) ). It'll be a good time to rest and to specifically set aside a day to give thanks to God.

I decided that in this week before Thanksgiving, I'll try, and hopefully will, post once a day about something I am thankful for. It may be something from that day, or just something that popped into my mind.

Today, I am thankful for:

• The hat and scarf set that my amazing suitemate from last year, Kathleen, crocheted for me. It has been keeping me toasty warm on this slightly cold day.
  
  
• Tissues, hot tea, and cough drops. Yep, I've caught the cold yet again. I'm thankful for an endless supply of hot water, for tea bags of many flavours, and for soft tissues for my chapped nose.
  
  
• Chapel today. It was wonderful and refreshing. Dr. Eric Mason shared from 2 Peter 1:1-9. He was a great speaker and really preached the Word to us.
  
  
• The weekend. I'm thankful for time to rest and hopefully get rid of this cold. I'm also thankful for time to work on projects that are due when I get back from Thanksgiving Break.
  
  
• Janessa Chupp. God has blessed me with such an amazing friend! I love her. We always seem to be going through the same trials or joys, or thinking the same about a lot of stuff going on. I'm thankful for her godly perspective on a lot of life. She not only is encouraging, but also points out things in my life that should change. She listens to me, laughs with me, and challenges me in my walk with the Lord. She has been a huge blessing and I am SO thankful for her friendship.
  
  
• Fingers :) Yes. I'm thankful for fingers! I'm thankful that I have the ability to type out this blog post, write with a pencil, and hold many things. Thank you God for fingers!

Well, that is all for now....

What are you thankful for today?

Playing Catch Up

Oh time! It goes so quickly. I didn't realize it had been nine days since I last wrote. Sorry, to those of you who read this. So much has been happening that I simply have not had the time to sit down and write. So, before this blog post fills up with apology, I'm going to tell you all what has been going on in my life the past nine days.

First of all, I got a cold. Ugh. At least here in America getting a cold makes sense (which in my mind justifies getting a cold). In Mozambique, when we would get a cold it seemed rather oxymoronic. Cold... hot place. Hmmm. So, although I definitely felt under the weather, it wasn't an awful under the weather feeling. :) Thanks to Mom's over abundant supply of tea and vitamins the cold only lasted a week. Ah! It's made me more thankful for a full night's sleep where I can breathe without trouble.

One great thing about a cold, (yes a cold is not the end of the world), is that you still feel okay to go out and do stuff. So, early in the week plans were made to hang out on Sunday afternoon. Sunday afternoon came in fogginess. Most people on this mountain are not huge fans of fog, this could be because we had ten straight days of fog last year, or the fact that, at least last year, we saw fog more than we saw the sun. In any case, many people are not fog fans. Me, on the other hand, I really like fog. It is so strange, and cool, and amazing all at the same time. It feels cozy, relaxing, and serene but that's just my view. All that to say, that Sunday afternoon came with its share of fog. But when Damarise, Micah, Janessa, Josiah, and I piled into Micah's car and left the mountain we left the fog behind.

We drove down to Chattanooga, settled down in a frozen yogurt shop, and just hung out and talked. It was a nice and relaxing way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Mmmm, yummy yogurt! If any of you ever come to visit, we will have to go to this place!

Happy friends!

Yes! There were many laughs :)

Overlooking Chattanooga.

Ah, the wonderful walking bridge.

Wednesday, Covenant College had Day of Prayer. Every Day of Prayer there is a sunrise service at Rock City. It is a wonderful time of worship and prayer. At least 200 students showed up. We all sang together while watching the sun peek up over the rolling hills of Chattanooga. Then we split up into groups and prayed together. Oh! What a refreshing way to start the day.

Oh! What a beautiful sunrise! How AWESOME God is!

At 11:30, our hall, Imani, went with out brother hall, Ithaca, to Cloudland Canyon. We all brought picnic lunches, sat on rocks overlooking the canyon, ate together, laughed together, prayed together, sang praise to God together, and just had a wonderful time with each other worshipping God. :)

Imani and Ithaca! (not all of them :( )

When we got back to campus, I went to go check my mail. And, happiness, I had mail! :) Mail is a special treat, so this made my day even better :) Thank you, Kathleen!

A letter from Kathleen! :D

Ok, I think I am all caught up on the highlights of the past nine days. I'm going to go ahead and apologize in advance for probably not writing in the next week. This week will be busy, but in that business a lot of fun things. In the next six days, I have 3 tests, 1 previewer staying with Damarise and me, 1 friend from AR staying with Damarise and me, many pages of reading, and a few short papers to write in between there. :) It'll be busy, but good. :)

So, until this busy banana finds a pause in the hecticness of life to sit down and blog again, so long :)

Random Moments are SO much fun!

#1: When we got back from Fall Break and even during Fall Break we all came down with a cold. Ugh. We sounded miserable, and felt miserable too. :P So we got a picture to capture those fun memories of being Sniffle, Cough and Sneeze :)

**one of the cool things about having a cold (yes.. there was actually something neat in all of this :) ) was that we had a cold while it COLD outside!! :D That hasn't happened in about 3 years, so it was really cool. :D

Having a cold has made me SUPER thankful for nice hot tea :D Ah!

#2: Janessa and I were lifting weights one night, and I was holding the weight over Janessa's foot. Janessa was like,"Hannah! Don't drop that on my toes or you'll break them!" Break them? Hmmm.. maybe. Well, because I was unsure about that, Janessa decided to prove her point by dropping the weight on a pencil. Um, I guess she was right. The poor helpless pencil was crushed!

#3: Friday night the Great Hall served us banana splits!! :D I haven't had a banana split in.. oh wow... a long long LONG time. Mmmm.. it was so good! :D Thanks Great Hall!

#4: Fall is here! And I absolutely loove this season! :D Damarise, Janessa, Bethany and I went on a walk to see all the loverly fall colours! :D

#5: This is Andreas! :D My home sweet home!

#6: Anddd Andreas has some LOOOONG staircases! After our walk enjoying the fall colours we went to find the basement of Andreas... we found it :)

#7: Andreas got together Saturday morning in Chattanooga to help serve the city. Imani (my hall) got to help out at a community kitchen. We all had loads of fun organizing stuff, cleaning, and decorating a gingerbread guy :P

Some of the organizing that took place with some but not all of the organizers :)

Almost all of Imani who went to help out :)

#8: Saturday afternoon, Damarise, Janessa and I decided to go watch the soccer game. It was SOO cold so we didn't stay too long, but when we left the Scotts were winning :D Yeah!

#9: I know, I know, I've already said this once, but it is SO worth saying again... I LOVE fall!!

#10: Yep, this is definitely a random moment... this is to show what floor we live on.. the 4th! :D YEAH!

#11: I'm starting to look into my classes for next semester. I met with my AMAZING advisor on Friday to talk about the classes. She gave me a list of all the ones I should take. I am SO thankful for her (and the list she made) without that I'd be totally lost as to what classes I should take next :)

#12: Yes, yes, another random thing, but totally cool! My laptop has a card reader :D And it has been SO fun to stick in my memory card and import my pictures like that instead of having to find the camera cord and go through that whole hassle. Yah, I love my computer! :)

Now that I've showed random pictures of random moments of my week, how about a cool story to close with? Ok, the verse in Isaiah.

Isaiah 40:31-"But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

I've always read that and found it so encouraging and neat. But the illustration about eagles wings and soaring on them... that always was confusing for me. Well, the other day in Old Testament class (one of my favourites! The teacher is SO great :D) Dr. Ward asked us if we knew how baby eagles learned to fly. None of us knew how, so he began to describe the process to us. Before the babies are born the mom makes the nest as comfortable as she can. She finds cushiony supplies to line the next with and warm things to keep her babies warm. When the eaglets hatch the mom is constantly supplying them with food. But, when the mom decides her babies need to learn to fly she will strip the nest of everything comfortable, only feed them what they need and then push the babies out of the nest. WHAT?! I couldn't believe that! But then Dr. Ward continued. The mom pushes the baby out of the nest and because the nest is up very high the bird is plummeting towards sure and certain death when all of a sudden the momma bird is underneath the baby. The mom catches the baby on its wings and brings the baby back up to the nest to do the same thing over and over again. Wow! After Dr. Ward finished that story the verse in Isaiah just became a whole lot more cooler :) When we place our hope in the Lord we will soar on wings like eagles. Christ will always be there, just like the mom eagle :) Wow! What a great and glorious God we serve! :D

Rainy day, Hot cup of tea, and Random thoughts...

I'm sitting here, typing out my thoughts of today and other random things that have happened, with a cup of hot chai tea in hand and a cold, slightly rainy day blowing in from outside my window. Who would have thought it could get cold here in Mozambique? So cold, in fact, that we are snuggling under blankets, wearing sweaters and socks, and, my favourite, sipping hot tea. I know I never imagined it could get this cold, but I'm not complaining. I love the cold weather! It's a lot nicer to snuggle up and get warm than it is to un-snuggle (?) and try and cool down! ... Whoops, I've finished my cup of tea and haven't typed out any of what I was originally on here to write. So, now for those thoughts and random things of today...

This morning, in my quiet time, I started reading through this book. Sorry, the title is rather long to type out ;). Anyways, today's part was talking about self-control. The verse they gave to meditate on was Proverbs 25:28:

"Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control."

So, here are my thoughts on this verse. First off it's a metaphor. A man is like the city and self-control is the wall. What do walls do for a city? They defend the city. The walls keep things out of the city, usually things that will harm the city. If we (the city) don't have self control (the wall) what will happen? Anything tempting us can and will "break" into our lives. Galatians 5:23 says that one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control. If we truly are followers of Christ, if the Spirit is working in and through us then we will have self-control. Our wall will be up guarding our hearts against the lies, deception and sin of this world. But we can't do it alone. We need Christ's help. We need to be beseeching Him for help to have self-control and fight off whatever tempts us. For

"I can everything through Him who gives me strength."-Philippians 4:13

So, there was just a little bit of what I got out of that verse. I'm sure there is a lot more to be had, and I would love to hear some of your thoughts on it! 

Now for some of what I did today:

This morning we went to church. There weren't very many people there because most of the congregation are in another city helping out with... I'm not really sure what. But, church went well. I think. I couldn't understand any of the sermon. [ :( ] 

After church everyone went to give condolences to a guy in the church whose wife just passed away. It was sad to hear about, but very neat to see the Body of Christ working together, going over to his house to comfort him and pray with him. It was a neat experience. The church did the same for us when Papa had died and right before Nana passed away.  It's very comforting and special. 

Now I am home. Not under my blanket anymore, no more sweater, or socks, (guess the tea warmed me up.) Speaking of tea I have an empty cup here that I should go wash. So, until I update next... T.T.F.N- Ta Ta For Now. ;)