Santiago, Chilly(pun intended)

The Andes Mountain, 1 hour to the base of them, 2 hours to the top!

so I find myself writing this on my second friday of living in Chile. I am thousands of miles away from what I call home, and yet I am finding this feels more like home. it feels right to walk out every morning and see this view. yea this feels like home. wonderful view, really good food. I think I have mastered the making of rice and adding spices that make it burn the back of my throat and clear my sinuses. granted they havent been that bad. you see it is winter here, but it feels on some days, like today, like later end of March in Ohio, but days like 2 days ago felt like mid- April in Ohio. it is nice, I think I have become the mothers on staff project, cause I will be outside in just a teeshirt and jeans, when it is 15c(59f) but it is what I am used too.

Kindergarten class. From Left- Sofia, Caden, Caleb, Belen, Ian, Constanza, and Martin

so I have had classes for the last 2 days. in the mornings I am over in the high school building teaching everything from Jr High Bible, Algebra 1(gaaaahhhh, I still dont know what I am doing teaching that), I start next week teaching ESL (English as a Second Language)(I am hoping to have my students singing Across the Field by the 3rd weekend in November!) and my favorite class in the high school, Logic/Philosophy/Apologetics. apparently it is "the" class to be in this year. all the kids are talking about it, and they have asked that they keep it cause it had the potential to get cut, but the kids said no. so it stays, but the real reason I came down here was to teach kindergarten. I love the little guys so much and we have only have 2 days of classes. I am only over there during the afternoon but today we did math and yesterday we did Bible, and then I let them get up and explore the room, go play and start to figure things out on their own. even today, I got to tell 2 of them that I love them. they had broken a rule and in punishing them, I told them I wasn't mad, I was disappointed, and one of them started crying, so I looked at them both and told them I loved them and that I was proud of them. within 15 minutes they were both smiling and laughing. I am not going to lie, to get me to leave here is going to have to be something huge, I dont think I am going anywhere anytime soon!