"I AM the Teacher"

Thank you for being patient with me while I went through a blogging drought the past few weeks! It took us a little while to get internet access in our new home, and then we've been busy planning our first few days of lessons! Here's a brief update on what's been going on:

• We made it safely to Harbin! (Or Haerbin, as it's spelled here.) Our apartments are pretty snazzy (be on the lookout for a virtual tour soon!) and the campus is beautiful right now! The weather feels like it could be late October in Alabama, and word on the street is that the cold is coming in about a month. Guess I better stock up on my long underwear!

• We've gotten to see a bit more of Harbin during a few excursions into the city to fulfill paperwork for the local government and to attend Fellowship on Sunday. Harbin (from what I've seen so far) is characterized by cool, Russian-influenced architecture, gigantic shrubbery sculptures, and, best of all, blue skies!
• We also received our teaching assignments last Friday. Up until that point, both our schedule and our classes were a total mystery. All we knew was that someone would be teaching Writing. Can you guess who that someone ended up being? Yep... yours truly! And I could not be more thrilled! I'm teaching four classes of Freshman Writing and three classes of Sophomore Writing, both of which only meet every other week so that I can have an off-week for grading papers. Since this would have given me much fewer teaching hours than my teammates, I have also been assigned two Sophomore Oral classes. Writing classes don't start until next week, but Oral classes are in full swing. Which brings me to the main topic of this post...
  

The first day of class.

It was a day I had been visualizing ever since I was accepted to teach English in China. Throughout the past month, the prospect of this day had been sitting heavily at the front of my mind as I wondered what it would be like to actually be in front of my class, to see their faces, to teach.

All of these thoughts were bouncing around inside my brain as I walked from my apartment to the Teaching Building yesterday morning. Both Wes and I ended up getting there earlier than we needed to, so we spent a few minutes asking the Father for His wisdom and guidance throughout our classes. Right before we left the office, Wes reminded me of a phrase that we've been saying since training:

"Remember... you ARE the teacher! YOU are the teacher! You are THE teacher! You are the TEACHER!"

I laughed, feeling the butterflies settle in my stomach, and said, "That's right... I AM the teacher!"

And then the real truth behind this statement hit me. Yes, I am a teacher, but more importantly...

I AM is the teacher.
Not only the teacher, but the Master Teacher.
And He is constantly with me.

That was the resounding thought in my mind as I stopped outside of room 402, took a deep breath, and opened the door into my first class.

My students were already sitting at their desks, and when I walked in, I was greeted with delighted giggles and smiles.

"Oh the foreign teacher!"

"Ah, she is so beautiful!"
(This is a favorite phrase and greeting in China, apparently. Not that I mind at all... I say keep it coming!)

"Hello teacher!"

Talk about a great way to start your first class! And the good times didn't stop there. Both of my classes were taught last year by a teacher from my organization who also graduated from Auburn, so my students knew all about the Loveliest Village! They even did "War Eagle" for me! (Now if that's not a "War Eagle moment," I don't know what is.)

Even more heart-warming than hearing my students say "War Eagle" were the texts that some of them sent me after class... particularly this text from one of my girls:

"Hello. I love you very much, you are so beautiful, I want to make friends with you, so I will try my best to study English so that I can communicate with you well. Thank you for teaching me."

As I read the text (and then re-read it), one thought was playing on repeat in my mind...

I love teaching.
I LOVE it.

It's the prediction that my mom has been making ever since I was in elementary school. (I don't how she could have known it then... maybe it was the fact that I would play school during summer break.)

Shout out to Mom for knowing her daughter... you could not have been more right.