Use your god-given Talents and Professional skills to 去产生影响 为着福音的缘故

“Although this year has only been my second year at Faith, it seems like two years has been such a long time already. I remember my first time meeting everyone at staff retreat. I was so shy and nervous to talk to anyone and only knew a few people that were working at Faith. I had just graduated from university and coming to serve at Faith was something that I felt God wanted me to do. I was just so blessed by how friendly everyone was and hearing how much they gave up to come to the Philippines was such a humbling experience and something that inspired me to serve. Serving here has been such a great experience!

I feel so grateful to have had the chance to serve in a school with such great people who I do not just call colleagues, but also dear friends. God has given me the opportunity to teach Pre-K along with Mrs. Tara Santos. She was one of the many people who set our working environment into one that promotes professional development. This was especially apparent this year as I earned my professional license to teach. I do not think I would have managed to teach a class and study for my licensure exam without the help and support of the people I work with in Elementary. They never stopped praying for me, encouraging me, and be there for me when I needed their support. I am blessed to serve alongside people who build up and edify each other.

Next year, one thing that I am looking forward to is not only seeing our kids move on to Kindergarten, but also seeing all the other kids go up a grade! It brings me joy to see how God allows them to grow and bloom each year.

Preschoolers have taught me that you can choose to worry less and enjoy life more. There’s always something to be joyful about! This may be cheesy but their smiles and laughter remind me that when we face problems, worrying won’t solve anything and instead we can depend on and look to God. This year’s group of Pre-Kindergartners will always remind me of that. Sometimes seeing things from their perspective can help you realize and learn a lot. And like what we always say in our class, “when something is challenging, put your faith in God and just keep going!'”

“In 1995, I came to the Philippines with a group of nine other of my college mates and one of our professors. It was to be a three week trip. For me it turned into nine and a half weeks. Faith Academy’s Middle School needed a Social Studies teacher, as the teacher that was coming still needed to raise support. I had just graduated college a few months earlier so I stayed and taught Middle School Social Studies. God used my time here to burden my heart for teaching at Faith Academy. I left here saying, “I will be coming back!” And in August 2000, I was back at Faith Academy.

I love teaching in Middle School. Middle School students are a mixture of crazy, fun, creativity, and energy. I love how our students will engage in creative thinking and be self-directed learners. There are many times I am just blown away with the work that my students produce or the deep conversations we have during discussions or debates. Middle Schoolers can “rise up to a challenge”. In one activity, I had assigned students in my Philippine Social Studies class a president that they had to defend in a debate as a being the better president. One the students that had a more challenging president to defend came back and said, “Thank you for assigning me this president. It really made think about the good things he did for the Philippines.” It is moments like this make me love my job.

The other thing I really love about my job is being able to build into their spiritual lives and seeing their love for Christ increase. I had the opportunity during Outdoor Education to pray with a student as she received Jesus as her Savior. This still stands as my most favorite memory. And I can still see all of the Middle Schoolers in our traveling group cheering when she announced her salvation at a bonfire. I have also had times to disciple other Middle Schoolers. It blesses my heart to see them long for Christ.

Middle Schoolers have a lot they can teach us. Middle Schoolers respond the best when you show them that you care, when you are willing to sacrifice for them. The more that you can show how much you care, the more they will respond back to you.”

“From the time I was born until I was 12, I lived overseas as a missionary kid, first in Kenya and then in the Philippines. In fact, I went to 5 different elementary schools on three continents, including four years at Faith Academy.

Transitions and new experiences were all I knew, it was what I felt formed my identity. However, when I was 12, my parents sensed God calling them to stay in the United States. My life as I had known it changed completely – I didn’t even get to say goodbye to my friends and life here at Faith Academy because the decision was made while we were on furlough. Needless to say, as a young teen uprooted from all I had known (even as that had changed so often), I became angry at my parents and at God. I felt that if there even was a God, surely He must not love me, since I had such a hard middle school experience. I did not understand my classmates in the US, most of whom had rarely been outside the state of Colorado, and they did not understand me, this strange girl who had lived all over the world. God used that hard transition in my life to make my heart tender towards the transitions missionary students go through. God also gave me a heart for middle schoolers, even though I first vowed I would never teach that age group, because of my own negative Middle School experience. But God knew those experiences would lead me to seek out the hurting and left-out students while working with their classmates to include them.

That is why I came to Faith Academy in 2013; I hope I can be a consistent person in students’ lives and identify with them through their struggles. When I share my story with my students, especially new middle schoolers, they seem to breathe a sigh of relief that someone understands what they are going through. I love being an encouragement to them and seeing them become more comfortable with the community here at Faith.

The students are what I love the most about Faith. I love how they bring such a richness and diversity of thought to their studies. I love how they are so grateful and that I can build relationships with them on multiple levels, both inside and outside of the school day. I pray that God can use me to show students that their identities don’t come from being a missionary kid, or a business kid, or even a Faith Academy student, but that their identities are rooted in the fact that they are beloved children of the King of Kings.”

“On my first day in the Philippines, July 16, 1990, there was a massive earthquake in northern Luzon. In Baguio City, where I was going to be working, more than 2,000 people died as buildings collapsed. There are three main roads that lead to the mountainous city and it took a week to get one of them open. So the first time I saw Baguio, it was a disaster — all of the major hotels had collapsed and they were still digging bodies out of the rubble.

余震不断（截至8月底超过1000次），人们很难找到食物，大多数人都只能住在搭在房子前或公园里、街道上的帐篷中。花了一些时间，这个城市才被清理干净，而我最终在那里生活了22年。

People have asked me if I ever considered just getting back on the plane and going home, but it truly never occurred to me. God called me to the Philippines, so why would I leave just because it was difficult? Maybe this initial experience–seeing God work and heal and save after the earthquake–helped me see all future difficulties in the same light, and I really do; when something hard or tragic happens, I’m always watching for how God might use it (and me) to accomplish something good.”