A Different October

Usually around this time of year I would be wearing jeans, socks and jackets again. But a new place with new surroundings and a new climate have chosen otherwise, now the new normal is still putting shorts on, hanging clothes on the clothesline, and planting seeds.

Going outside still means sweating, and drinking lots of water, but it’s slightly more bearable, shorts and a t-shirt make sense still! Projects are underway at school and at home, a raised bed garden, a bookshelf, and organization for tools that were just piled into a box. The garden looks great and we already have a dozen sprouts to keep our hopes up. The bookshelf is something to make our home a little more homely and the organization in the garage is to keep me happy.

Sadly there are no pictures of any of these things because our 8 year old camera has finally called it quits. Thanks for reading this short little update.

Emil out -

Life-Giving Moisture

Earlier this week we were blessed with rain! While it made for a couple of extremely hot and humid days (especially in the gym), the precipitation presented the ground with a chance at new life. I used to think of the desert as this bland and changeless ecosystem. Now my eyes have been opened to the beauty and miracle of the rain that can, in the course of a few hours, transform the surrounding landscape. Our backyard, for instance, went from a brown and barren sand lot to, well, still a sand lot but with a fabulous faint carpet of grass. Though small, even a few clusters of small yellow flowers have sprung new life! It amazes me to realize that when it is dry and hot as it has been since we moved here, seeds remain dormant just waiting for God to bless them with enough moisture to produce incredible life.

The same can be said of my walk with Christ. There are many times when I experience drought. The drying process occurs over a long period of time and I barely take notice of the Living Water that I am lacking. Before long, I am withered and despaired, seeking answers and longing for renewal. Then God sends me a thoughtful friend, an applicable devotional, or that perfect sermon and it is like the springs of God’s love are flung open when in reality it is the floodgates of my heart that are once again opened wide, ready to seek and receive God’s will for my life.

I know that in time this new life in the desert will shrivel and burn but it makes me so grateful that Christ nourishes me with his living water. For he said: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14

Yay for flowers!

Desert Living: The Good the Bad and the Not So Ugly

It’s been 3 whole weeks since we moved to Yucca Valley, yay! With a week of the school routine under our belt and a few weeks since settling into our house, I thought I’d share some differences/trials/excitement that come with living in the “Hi Desert”.

a Joshua Tree in Joshua Tree National Park

1. Because of our higher elevation of 3,369 feet (that’s 1,566 feet higher in elevation than Montague township, the highest town in New Jersey) it’s very important to stay hydrated. It doesn’t matter if we’re simply running a couple of quick errands in town, we always take a water bottle with us, EVERYWHERE.

2. Our relative humidity has been between 18 and 30%, much more dry than the East Coasts’ typical humidity above 60%. Here are a few benefits of living in a low humidity climate: 

a. frizzy hair = extinct! 

b. your beverages don’t sweat (zero condensation build up) 

c. line drying your laundry in the shade of your veranda can be done in <2 hrs.

3. Always keep drinking water handy.

4. Learn how to use your swamp cooler and use it often! While our house has two window A/C units, we prefer to use our large swamp cooler. Not only is it much less expensive to run (equivalent of 2 light bulbs) but it cools our little cooker, I mean home, fast. We close up the house when we go to school in the morning and come back to an oven; however, our handy dandy swamp cooler pushes the hot air out in no time. It took a while to master the technique of using the cooler as it functions much differently than A/C. For optimal success, OPEN a couple of windows and park the cooler in front of a large opening. This allows it to draw warm air from outside, evaporate the water in the cooling pads, and blast cool and moistened air throughout your home.

5. Be sure to drink lots of water, especially if teaching PE outside on a clear blue, dry, breezy day.

6. Don’t own a black vehicle, oh, and make use of window tinting or windshield shades. With an average of 283 days of complete sunshine, let’s just say the parking lot can be a pretty brutal place for your vehicle.

7. Stay hydrated. Don’t leave your water bottle on your desk, even if you only have to teach 2 periods of PE. Your voice will not forgive you.

Outdoor movie night on our schools' football field. How about those mountains?!

8. Embrace the dust. No matter how often you clean, dust is inevitable.

9. Water, H2O, /wooder/ for you New Jersyians.

10. Embrace sweat. No matter how often you shower or apply deodorant, sweat is inevitable.

So there you go. The desert has so many new and interesting things to learn about! While it is indeed a dry heat, it is still hot. But as we look at the hills and mountains, endless blue sky and breathtakingly clear starry nights, we can’t help but be amazed by the variety and endlessness of God’s beauty as shown through His creation.

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words;

no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,

their words to the ends of the world.

In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,

like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

It rises at one end of the heavens

and makes its circuit to the other;

nothing is deprived of its warmth.

Psalm 19: 1-6 

(emphasis added)

Rockstar - JT National Park (Google image)

Story Time!

We are here! Where is here you ask? Well it’s the end of the first week of school, where experienced teachers can relax, and inexperienced teachers head home and change everything so that maybe next week it’ll be better.

Honestly I have no clue what teachers do on the weekend, maybe they recount the different stories they heard. Go over the things that happened in their classes like this one.

First day of class with 1^st grade:

Student: “Do you have a trash can?”

Me: “Yes I do, but you can just put it in my hand.” (I reach out my hand to the student)

Student: (as he starts to put something into my hand) “It won’t come off!” (I look down in horror to see that the student is wiping a rather large booger into my open palm)

Needless to say I let the class start working on the next task at hand and I nonchalantly walked over to my desk grabbed a tissue, wiped my hand and then covered both hands in Germex.

For that I received the award “Best First Day Story” from my coworkers and friends.

Another story, less gross:

Students: “Where do you live?”

Me: “Why do you ask?”

Students: “The closet isn’t big enough for a bed.”

Me: “Yes it is, there’s a bed in there right now.”

Students: “Can we see?!”

Me: “No, I forgot to make it this morning, so it’s really messy.”

My students now believe that I live at school. Whoops…

I teach Pre-K as well, so little little kids, note to self, don’t ask pre-k students to stand in a line when they don’t even know what a line is.

Unfortunately I do not have any pictures for you this time around, so I hope that the fun stories can suffice.

Emil Out-

Puzzles

Puzzle Piece #1

By now everyone should know that Karisa and I are in Yucca Valley, California. But not everyone has heard how we ended up here, this is that story.

In October of 2013, Karisa and I started to look for jobs. We applied first to SPH a school in Indonesia, interviewed with them, were high up on their list, but were then told they had accepted another couple to come and teach for them that has experience. We then applied to many other overseas schools that had positions for the both of us. These schools were in Thailand, Japan, Germany, and many more places.

When we realized that God was telling us that we necessarily shouldn’t go overseas, we started to look in the United States for jobs as well. We applied to many schools that had positions for the both of us, and yet all of them were either already filled, or they cut us out of the application process. We started to get discouraged and thought of our options in Canada. However, Karisa and I decided that it would be easier for me to find and get a job in the states than it would be for her to get everything cleared in Canada.

I proceeded to send out resumes all over the country. I sent resumes and applications to every school on ACSI (Association of Christian Schools International) and CSI (Christian Schools International) that had a music position opening. Out of all of the 20 or so applications I sent out, I received maybe 3 replies, one of which asked when I could do a preliminary interview with them. Two days later, I was on the phone with the principal of Joshua Springs Christian School talking about myself and what I knew - I let her know that I was married. The principal asked me what my wife did and I said Karisa had a Physical Education major, the principal said “no way!? We have a PE opening!” I then mentioned that she also had Special Education minor, the principal then said, “the last PE teacher also did resource! Tell your wife to fill out an application and we’ll see what happens.”

The Tuesday of the next week Karisa did a phone interview with the principal and everything went just as well as my interview. When Karisa finished talking with the school, she said to me, it would be really nice if we could get a job by the end of this week.

At this time we were kind of in stress mode because Karisa’s parents were taking us and her family and Opa and Oma to the Netherlands and we were leaving the coming Friday.

That Friday at 1:59 PM, we received an email letting us know that we had been approved and that we were accepted to teach in Yucca Valley, California for the 2014-15 school year!

Puzzle Piece #2

This past summer we decided to rent a house in Yucca. While looking, we found a place located on Sioux Ave. This is significant to us since we both went to college in Sioux Center, Sioux County Iowa. We looked at it and liked it, though kept looking for other places in case this one didn’t pan out. But we just couldn’t find anything else that we liked as much as we did the little Sioux Ave place. So we decided to rent it!

Puzzle Piece #3

Yes, that is me, the only guy in a class of women.

As a requirement from the school for me, I was to take a music class named after the creator of it entitled Orff: Music for Children. While looking for it I had to make sure it fit into my schedule for the summer. My parents had planned a summer vacation starting on the 13^th of July right after my best friend was getting married on the 12^th, and there was a wedding on the 2^nd of August of Karisa’s college roommate. Low and behold an Orff class, two weeks long, on Prince Edward Island, starting on the 21^st of July and going until the 1^st of August. I jumped on it and took it, it was more practical than the elementary music class I took at Dordt, and it cost nothing to me as the school was paying for it!

God was and still is holding us to Joshua Springs Christian School and he is letting us know day after day that this is the place for us. Each puzzle piece just strengthened our justification for coming here.

Emil Out-