Sarcasm in the Sanctuary

A couple of months ago one of my favorite Pre-AP students (yeah, all teachers have favorites and they are liars if they tell you they don't) came up to my desk. I saw him walking up and figured he needed to use the restroom or wanted a piece of lead for his mechanical pencil (because regular pencils won't do for us math nerds). He pulled up the only chair in my room that isn't connected to a desk and asked if I had a second. Now this kid has a history of asking things like "where did the quadratic formula come from" and "will we get to do any Trig this year"? This is the kid who was late to class one day because he was watching Calculus videos online in the library and didn't hear the bell ring. So when he said "Mrs. Jackson, I heard a rumor about you" he had my attention.  My stomach felt like it was going to fall out of my butt (that's two blog posts in a row with a Mean Girls reference for those who are counting). Oh crap. Are y...

So when we found out from our agency that we couldn't adopt because of my seizures we were devastated, but we vowed to fight. We were told that our agency did everything they could and it was over. We knew our daughter was in Moldova and weren't willing to switch countries as suggested by our agency many many times. I am going to be pretty vague about the goings on between us and our agency because I'm trying this new thing where I don't talk about people behind their back (if you don't get that Mean Girls reference then you can't sit with us).  We were financially and emotionally invested in this agency, and we really wanted it to be able to continue with them.  We tried our absolute best to work it out and continue our relationship with them. All I am going to say is that we didn't feel their choices were in the best interest of us, our situation, and our daughter. Therefore, we decided to change agencies. We found a new agency, and I feel...

So you need to know that I have epilepsy. Not the kind where I have a seizure when I see a strobe light, though. I had 2 my senior year of high school and one my sophomore year of college. After a ton of tests I was diagnosed with having a scar on the right side of my brain. No telling how it got there- but I suspect Voldemort… Anyway, my condition is completely controlled by medicine now. I take two pills a day and don't even give it a second thought. Honestly, sometimes I forget that I ever even had a seizure. So we are in the middle of our home study and we were told by our social worker that we should run my condition by our agency just to make sure everything was fine. It didn't even cross our mind since it's not a big deal to us. The day before our four year wedding anniversary we got a phone call from our agency. Kyle took the call at work and told me it was a lot of information so we would just talk about it at home. Once we got home he told me to sit down- I am su...

So sometimes I get these ideas but it is rare that I execute them. I am trying to get more crafty, more often- keyword "trying".  I've made a couple of wreaths before, but they were for my classroom.  I really wanted to make a holiday-something for my front door at home. I knew that it would probably take a longtime for this idea to actually come to fruition, so I knew I had to pick a holiday that was far away. I mean, I could always buy something from Etsy, but something of the size I wanted would be pretty expensive and I am sure would cost another arm and leg in shipping.  My sister-in-law made this for me, so I got the idea that it didn't have to be a traditional wreath, but could be something made out of wood.  I love love love chevron and got the idea to make an American flag out of wood and let the stripes be chevron. My friend Morgan was on board and wanted to make a bunny for herself, so we spent all day Sat...

So I have been trying to get better at keeping secrets, and I feel like I have. For instance, I am taking over as one of the National Honor Society advisors next school year. It was pretty hard not to tell my students until the current advisors announced that they were stepping down. I'm not going to lie- I'm pretty proud of myself.  I have had this blog since this past summer, and only a handful of people know about it. And not that it had to even be a secret or anything, but something inside of me always wants to tell a secret when I have one, so this was kind of a way to test myself.  So Kyle and I are taking another team to England this Friday. What we get to do there is pretty awesome and I am so thankful to be a part of it. Every class period for a whole week we get to sit down at a table with 5-10 teenagers and share the Gospel with them. It is one of the most spiritually exhausting, and at the same time, refreshing things I have ever done. Bec...

Before reading this, make sure you go back one post and read how we first came to hear of Moldova. First of all Moldova is not to be confused with the fictional country of Genovia from the The Princess Diaries starring Anne Hathaway. I'm not saying someone has already asked this, but I'm not saying they haven't *cough*mom*cough* Moldova is a country sandwiched between the Ukraine and Romania. It is about the size of Maryland and 20 Moldovas could fit inside of the great state of Texas. Moldova declared independence from Russia in 1991, and has had economic trouble ever since.  Not only is Moldova the poorest country in Europe, it is also considered the number one supplier of the sex trade.  When I was researching Moldova, I couldn't find much, and everything that I did find was about sex trafficking. I knew sex trafficking was a very rampant thing, but I think it is one of those things that isn't real if you don't think about it- I mean, it can be ign...

The Monday before school started back I was in a meeting when I got a text from Alex, one of our students in the youth group. It was a group message with my husband, Kyle, and she said she wanted to ask us a favor. Her family is hosting a foreign exchange student from Germany and their student's friend had been placed in a bad home. She was being forced to clean up after them, babysit their kid, and they were being mean to her. She was uncomfortable in the home and wanted to know if we would be open to hosting her.  Kyle and I texted back and forth until we got home and could talk face to face. My immediate answer was "no". It would be so inconvenient for us. Honestly, I did not want to have wear pants around the house, shuttle her places, or cook for her- I mean I barely cook for us as it is! Kyle, being as level-headed as he is, said we needed to pray about it. Tuesday I was on the way to another meeting and Kyle and I were on the phone. We realized all the reasons...