Hope Lives

Before we went to Kenya we read a book called Hope Lives. Consequently, I named my first blog the same name. The blog was a place for me to tell family and friends at home what we were doing each day. Each day we tried to bring a sliver of hope to the people we met there. Promising hope is only possible through faith in Christ Jesus. When I am going through a difficult time, the only thing I hang on to is hope. Hope gives you something to look forward to. Hope gives you a reason to get up in the morning. The dictionary defines hope as a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.  The thesaurus had this entry about hope: a life filled with hope: hopefulness, optimism, expectation, expectancy; confidence, faith, trust, belief, conviction, assurance; promise, possibility. Wow! Maybe I am an optimist, but just reading those entries lightens my mood and causes me to feel like I can accomplish anything. Today is going to be a great day! Can you feel it? Do you anticipate, expect, believe, and trust that this is will be a fantastic day? Look for it.
God's Word says in 1 Cor. 1:9 What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived is the things God has prepared for those who love him!  OK get ready for it. God is preparing something terrific just for you!

My First Twitter Chat

So, last night I got involved in my first Twitter chat. (If you have never engaged in a Twitter chat, I would highly recommend it.)  It was #ELLCHAT, an excellent conversation with some great minds in ESL. I have always wanted to check out this conversation, but it does not start until 9pm on a school night. I like to be heading to bed around 9, so getting involved in a professional conversation is not something I am looking to do right before bed.  At first I thought I would just scan through the tweets and see what is going on in ESL right now. Before I knew it, I was tweeting and they were retweeting and including me in the conversation. My phone was blowing up! Tweets and blogs and websites, OH MY! I finally excused myself from the conversation after about 30 minutes and headed to bed. Long after I was trying to fall asleep, I could hear notifications on my phone continue. If only we could have this conversation at 9am...

Starting New

So, I finished the Tech Savvy Literacy Teacher course with the goal of starting a blog. Almost a month later, I am finally doing it! I faithfully wrote blog posts when I was in Kenya the summer of 2012 to document our trip. (See my Hope Lives blog.) Besides that blog, this is my first blog that will be a mixture of both professional and personal, so let's get some things straight. I am a Christian. I have loved Jesus for as long as I can remember. I have a strong faith and trust in God. I am not judgmental of those who do not share the same faith. It is not my mission to use this blog to proselytize. However, if you ever need prayer, please ask. I will be glad to pray for you.  On the professional side, I have reading specialist and ESL program specialist certificates. Most of my teaching experience has been traveling from classroom to classroom teaching small groups of students. Besides that, I love to travel to new and familiar places. I have visited or traveled through 8 countries and 23 states. I would love to travel to the remaining 27 states that I have never visited.
I am married to an incredibly wonderful man and we have 4 amazing children. I enjoy reading historical and realistic fiction and I love picture books! These are the facts that make me who I am. Thank you for joining me on this journey. You are a part of who I am as well. :)