My dear supporters,

I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to send you a personal update! Please forgive my tardiness and I will try to be more punctual from now on.

First off, I want to thank each of you who were praying for me while I was gone and I also want to thank those who supported me through finances. What a great blessing both of these things were to me! Thank you all!

Now, what I have learn…is a lot! There is so much to tell with so little time!
I will give you the basics:
I have learned how to teach a whole class of children (usually consisting of 21 children in a school room) on my own. I teach them a word, its definition; give them examples, stories, object lessons, skits, or activities to help engrain it into their head.
Each school and each class are different. Some classes like storied better, some like object lessons better, and others want personal examples from you, and basically all kids love skits and activities!
I went to a different school everyday…except on Saturdays and Sundays of course. My favorite days of school were Wednesdays and Fridays…because those were my two favorite schools, but SSSSSHHHHH! I’m not suppose to have favorites…I just can’t help it though. ;P

In Bible Club I learned how to use links and how to tie in the gospel when I tell a story. I also learned about the different visuals I can use for a story; whether it be actors, flannel graph, flash cards or puppets. I learned how to open the story in an attention grabbing way and end it with a salvation invitation.
I did get to tell a Bible story by the way! It was very exciting! I told the story of the conversion of Saul/Paul…very exciting. And it went very well. I used actors…and my attention grabber to start the story was two girls running across stage screaming like they were scared…it worked effectively.
Anyway, I also learned how to turn basically any conversation toward the gospel and get a person (child or adult) into the gospel and lead them to the Lord in an effective way.
I also know how to start my own Bible club in my own hometown now…or anywhere for that matter! I was incredibly excited! I still am!

Besides all that I also learned how to just tell any story and make it exciting and life like! I learned how to praise a child, instead of correcting them all the time, and I learned how important it is to praise a child for his character, and what a life impact that can make on him.

I also had much spiritual growth during this time. I learned about selfishness and how even just a little bit of it can impact your life and the lives of others around you in a bad way.
I also learned about joyfulness! It is not important to be happy…happiness is not what matters. It is joy that matters and can change your life and the lives of people around you in a good way.
Joy is having a good attitude and looking at things from God’s perspective, and praising Him even when things are hard and life seems miserable.
Life is only miserable when you let it be. There are going to be times when life is un-enjoyable and hard, but we are the ones that make it miserable if we have no joy.
My new quote is: “why do I need to be happy when I’ve got joy?!”

I also learned that we serve a HOLY God…we don’t serve a sissy God who tolerates what we want and what we like. NO SIR! We serve a HOLY God who makes us look like spit and who will not tolerate our selfishness.
In Isaiah when he sees the vision of God clothed in light and thunder and the seraphim and other weird angels are singing “Holy, Holy, Holy…” Isaiah puts his face flat to the ground and says “WOE IS ME!....” Isaiah saw how unholy he was, even though he was a ‘good man’.
I was challenged, in light of knowing that I serve a Holy God, to look at everything in my life through God’s eyes. Everything I want, look at it through His eyes. Everything I like, look at it through His eyes. Everything I get irritated with, look at it through HIS eyes. My music, my clothes, my attitude, my friends, the people I don’t like, my food, my eating habits, my time with Him….EVERYTHING…
That intimidates most people in case you did not know that…and then they don’t want to do it. It intimidated me, but I have been trying to do it in everything in my life. I cringe sometimes when I think of something and then my mind automatically wanders to “How does my Holy, Just, righteous, God look at this? What does he think of it?”

It is not likely that I will forget any of this. Everything I have learned is burned into my mind. Everything that I was taught, I used. There wasn’t a thing that I was taught, as far as school and Bible club, that I did not put into practice right away! That goes with most of the spiritual growth as well. I have already used much of what I have learned here at home! Talk about learning and sticking to it!

Thank you again for your prayers and support! I will be going back to Character First for more training March 26th and I will be there until May 14th. Then I will be home for the summer.
If you have any questions concerning what I learned, please feel free to ask!
God bless you all!
Shieldmaiden