The McLain's

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Our journey began October 2005 when we met in our Single's class at Prestonwood Baptist Church. We were engaged in June 2006 and were married on November 17, 2006. JP works for ROMCO as a Product Support Sales Manager and I will begin teaching part-time for the Dallas International School in August 2011. We have one little boy, Merit Cross. God has truly blessed our family.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

God Has Certainly Answered Our Prayers

Since last January I have been praying that God would open a door for me in my career. I love teaching and truly feel I am using my spiritual gifts He gave me every day. However, my heart aches to be with Merit more then I am now. We are so blessed to have friends and family who help out with Merit but I feel that I am missing out on so much with him. In March, I turned in my letter of resignation to PCA stating that I would not be returning in the Fall. Since that day, God has opened doors right and left for me. With doors opening, I have felt this is confirmation from God that we have made the right decision for our family. I started looking at different schools, reading about them and seeing which ones had part-time teachers. I hand delivered a few resumes and sent some letters of interest with my resume via email. I immediately had an offer from Park Cities Weekday Preschool and First Baptist of Richardson Day School. The only reservation I had was that I wouldn't really be using my degree and experience. So, I continued my search. Well, Mother's Day evening J.P. took me to dinner. We had a wonderful dinner at Breadwinners and then on the way home he spotted a school off of Preston road. We drove by and checked it out. J.P. googled it and read about it while I got Merit ready for bed. He thought it was really a neat place. While I was at work on Monday J.P. sent me an email telling me that the school had a position posted that was perfect for me. They were looking for a part-time Elementary English teacher. They wanted someone certified to teach English/Language arts at the 5th grade level. He said, "Babe, that is you!" So, when I got home that evening I sent a brief letter of interest along with my resume to the Head of School. The school emailed me back the next day saying that I fit exactly what they are looking for and they'd like for me to come in for an interview.I didn't respond because I didn't know how to respond. I was excited but I was still teaching full time. I knew it would be difficult for me to do this. The next morning I received another email from them asking if I could come in and teach a lesson under observation for them. Wow! I was feeling very overwhelmed! I called J.P. and he told me to make it happen. So, I called the head of their elementary and set a date and time to come in. I spend a lot of time over the weekend preparing the lesson. I taught a 50 minute lesson on the poet Langston Hughes and his poem, I Too Sing America. Here are a couple of videos I used to enhance my lesson. One is the words of the poem put to music with pictures, watch this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eilT5hkPkg&feature=fvwrel, and the other video is a clip from the movie, The Great Debaters. Denzel Washington recites the poem and does so with such feeling, check it out, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuRQDrySOVQ&feature=related. I hope you enjoy the videos!
So, the lesson went just as planned and I could tell the Administration enjoyed it. There were three Administrators watching me, a classroom full of students and the current teacher of the class. I was not nervous at all. God gave me such peace and confidence.
The next morning I received an email offering me the position. Praise the Lord! What an answer to so many prayers! I have officially accepted the position and signed my new contract.
I will be teaching two classes of 5th grade Language Arts and Reading in English, 7 hours for each class. I will also teach Math vocabulary in English, 1 hour for each class. My new schedule will be 16 hours per week instead of 40! I am beyond excited that God has opened this door for our family! The school will even pay for me to get my Master's degree; which I have wanted to obtain for a very long time.
Thank you friends and family for your continued prayers. God is good and He knows our needs better then we do.

2 comments:

Jomama said...

I loved, loved, loved teaching part-time! I know you will too! (and I'm completely jealous!) Jo

Sarah Jackson said...

What a wonderful blessing! I miss you so much!