The Hills Are Alive…

images I think I’m living The Sound of Music. It was a family favorite while the kids were growing up and the true story is equally fascinating. We need to hop over to Austria and do the  tour someday. But in the meantime, I am currently relating to Maria on many levels.

As you may recall, I was delivered from menopause symptoms this summer and saw a lot of healing in Oceane last year. I had been a tiny bit critical of teaching/discipline methods at the school last year as they affected Oceane, and I wanted to put my money where my mouth was, as over the summer, I discovered some innovative teaching methods on the internet that convinced me that learning can actually happen in a middle school classroom!

Then I got a Holy Spirit download for a new way to do Sunday School for our handful of 5-10s that attend sporadically. This has been a very weak area of our church because all our energies go into the school week and "teachers" needed a Sabbath too. But I knew parents were getting frustrated and it kept our church from attracting new families. So I proposed my ideas to the elders and they were thrilled. Another mother said she would alternate Sundays with me, so I have dropped worship-leading and cleaning in exchange for this new role.

When I learned that our school is teaching languages by levels this yr and they needed an extra teacher, I let them know I was up for the challenge! So 2 days before school started, they decided to give me the lower level 7th-8th grade class to teach 3 hrs/week, along with my hour of conversation with the sophomores. (I also volunteered to be study hall monitor for 24 sixth graders.) Even though they are not familiar with the film, my students can now sing, "So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good-bye," because I sing it whenever I need to send a kid out of the classroom! (Oceane is my best student and should move up a level, but she doesn’t want to leave me!) So like Maria, I am feeling suddenly surrounded by children under my influence several hours per week! And even though I am creating all my lessons from scratch, I am operating in a new grace and wake up in anticipation most days!

AnnaOur new boarder, Anna-Elisabeth, arrived by train from Dresden at the end of August and she also reminds me of Maria: conservative, servant-hearted, positive, and full of songs! As a walking German dictionary with a desire to master English and French, she is a perfect companion for Olivia! Her presence has lightened my housework load and made it easy to run off to Lucerne without Olivia feeling abandoned…

Lucerne giftshopI had organized housing and tourism this summer for a couple from Indianapolis who wanted to visit during the 2nd week of school. At the end of their time, they wanted to treat us to a weekend in Lucerne before going on to Italy. This is German-speaking Switzerland in the Alps, where young guys are riding the city bus dressed in "Lederhosen" to go to work for the tourists. It might as well have been Salzburg. On the way back, we stayed at a retreat center where the hills came alive with the sound of cowbells echoing off the mountains – the most magical and calming sound in the world for me. David had lost his Swiss army knife the week before, so he had the thrill of buying a new one there with free engraving. It was a total 3-day escape from the back-to-school stress that we both needed and our belated anniversary celebration.

The Sound of Music shows the struggle against evil and finishes with a wedding. Last week we felt equally harassed before our first Love After Marriage cell group. Just a few days before, not only was our pastor hospitalized with kidney stone pain, but our LAM co-leader also had her 2nd big MS flare-up and was suffering from the side effects of the cortisone treatment. Yikes! We started the meeting letting the enemy know that we would not be intimidated, and I think everyone left feeling encouraged!

"Lay-dee-oldel-lay-dee-odel-lay-hee-hoo!"

Angela

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