Birthday Blessings

Well how many people can say they celebrated their 21st birthday in Spain?!? No worries, I didn't do anything crazy, but it was a great day, for the most part (I'll come back to that). When I got to school, I already had a couple cards waiting for me from my teacher-friends. And I actually have the same birthday as Marie, the French teacher; it was fun to have a birthday together. Someone made a cake for us, which was great, and then later on in the morning I went upstairs to the kitchen and a couple of the other teachers had made some things as a surprise for Marie, but once they found out it was my birthday, they invited me to stay. The piano teacher (Korean) had made this Korean dish that was amazing! And she's really funny, a Korean lady who speaks English and Spanish intermittently:) The other teacher made amazing sugar cookies, and another made crepes. I didn't eat full portions of all of this, but the piano teacher told me it's Korean tradition to eat LOTS on your birthday. A couple of hours later Merry took me out to eat for lunch at a place called Ribs. It was really good; I think that's the first time I ordered Ribs (it use to have a more Spanish name, and it was the very first restaurant Merry went to when she arrived in Spain). We ate a big lunch, and then came back and cleaned her apartment and made snacks. Later that night, about 7 or 8 of the single lady teachers came over. We talked and played Taboo (which was hilarious) and then Merry made me a "cake." I told Merry that I wasn't the biggest cake person in the world, but I told her that I like peanut butter and chocolate. So she made homemade reeses, and we ate them with vanilla ice cream. I loved it :) It was a wonderful birthday (although according to my family I get to celebrate with them when I get home, so I get it twice:)

The only hard part of the day was one of my classes. I won't go into detail about it all, but I let the students goof off and act in a way that I should not have tolerated (they were working on a project together). I should have been more specific in my directions among other things, but during class I didn't do much about it. When class was done, I talked with Merry about it. To be honest, I was ashamed; I should have handled the situation so differently. And I wasn't the example to the students I should have been. So on Monday we are going to have a chat, and I am going to admit what I did wrong, and we're going to see what we can learn from the situation. I really would ask you to pray for wisdom, that I would handle the situation in a way that would just point the students to God. I read in Hebrews 12 a few days ago "He disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness." God is good, especially when He reprimands me.

Oh, and I have one other prayer request. You can pray that all goes well for travels. I don't know how much you have heard about the volcano in Iceland, but the ash is making a mess in Europe. Paris, London, and Frankfurt airports are closed, and the one in Barcelona is cancelling a lot of their flights. The flights to the US from Madrid are ok right now, but they are saying there's a bigger volcano in Iceland that could errupt soon, and that one could create a bigger mess. I would appreciate your prayers, but God knows:) Thanks for reading and for praying.