God's Sufficient Grace

Pawn

Today was the first day of school for the Secondary students at ICS, tomorrow begins Elementary classes. Up until mid-way last week, I was thinking "Yea! I don't start school until Wednesday!" But then as I was meeting with the Secondary Band and Chorus teachers, I realized that I do teach a Secondary class: 6th Grade strings. So today was mostly meetings and planning for me, except for that one class during my last period.

I must admit that I began to get more and more scared as the day progressed about that one class, though. Of all the things I'll be teaching here, my string classes are the ones that I feel most nervous about. Don't get me wrong: I am extremely excited to be teaching strings. I've been dreaming about being an orchestra director since I was in Middle School and heavily involved in my old orchestra program. But I'm afraid I don't have enough experience (any at all!) teaching groups of strings, or enough experience on the violin. Plus, I don't know how to organize a Secondary music program. (The band director here has been very helpful on that end, telling me what he does and what they've done in the past). The good news is, all the students are beginners, so I'm pretty sure I know at least a little more than they do!

Anyway, today the class period was actually more like a combined meeting with all of the 6th graders together. I really didn't know what/how to prepare for this (and I feel so much less prepared for the string classes planning-wise in general) but the Lord really answered my prayers for a good class anyway. He helped me know what to say to the students and what I did have planned was useful, I think, and exactly filled the amount of time we had. He also gave me a confidence before the students that I didn't feel like I had 5 minutes before they arrived! We divided up the students into band/choir/orchestra and I ended up with 13 6th graders in strings, which feels like a perfect number to me! And they all seem very sweet and eager to learn. (Although I did have a 2-3 rather active boys who I already had to split up! Actually, most of the class is boys, which seems odd to me for strings...) And they really seemed to enjoy hearing me play for them.

Which leads me to the very exciting news I wanted to share with you (drum roll, please): I purchased a new cello yesterday!! I went back to the first music store that Dad and I visited while he was here and bought the one that he and I both liked the most there. A Thai woman from the school (mother of an older student and also member of the Fine Arts Society here at ICS) met me there and helped me buy it. She has gained a reputation for herself at the school for being able to bargain well. The price I paid for the instrument was just about exactly what I had hoped to spend, so I am very grateful for the Lord's provision! The cello is a German model, about 50 years old. It sounds and feels a bit different than my other cello - not in a good or bad way, just different flavor. It has a very rich, deep sound; probably not as bright as my one at home. The bow is just ok - I might pay more to upgrade later - but I love the case: it is very light-weight, has wheels and is easy to carry (and it's a beautiful deep green!). I named her Pawn, which I think means "blessing" in Thai (if not, I'll have to change the name! : ). This cello, along with all of you who prayed and gave towards it, has already been a great blessing from God. Thank you.

posted by Catherine Rogers @ 2:26 AM