Dear Abram

You earned a name in the "faith hall of fame" (Hebrews 11), and I'm a bit confused about how all this works practically in life.  Would you answer some questions for me?

When you went to Egypt to get food in a famine, you sorta took things into your own hands.  You told Sarai to lie and say she was your sister...wanted to save your own hide, right?  It doesn't seem like that was what God wanted, though, because Pharoah's whole household got diseased when he took Sarai as his wife.  You took things into your own hands and failed.  God blessed you with riches, but that's because He promised He would.

When you gave the best choice of land to Lot (yes, your little nephew who was not given the covenant promise that you were) did God tell you specifically to do that, or were you just acting maturely? Was it faith that told you not to be proactive in gaining that land?

When the King of Sodom offered you a bunch of money, you refused him because you made an oath to God not to take money from him so that it could only be said that the riches had come from God.  Did God tell you to take that oath, or did you just know because you were abiding in Him?

When you listened to the voice of Sarai and had a child with Hagar, you were taking things into your own hands?  How did that work out for you? Is that how God wanted to work to give you children?

So I guess what I'm wondering is, what do you think of the common Christian phrase:
"Work as if it's all up to you, pray as if it's all up to God"
?
?

Monkey Horror

Today, in an attempt to check out a possible field trip opportunity, some friends and I traveled to a "monkey park" about an hour from home. We were hoping to see some monkeys up close, but after seeing these signs, we were a bit concerned.

 But in the end the monkeys were not as horrifying as the signs seemed to indicate.  They appreciated the snacks we shared with them and came right up to take it gently from our hands. They did not appreciate, however, the others there who were determined to get the baby monkeys out of the trees by throwing bottles at them.

Teacher Conferences

That's right, throughout the world, teachers gather yearly to continue their own education.  The conferences for my school regularly take place in the first week of October because it coincides with National Holiday in China.  Here are some things I've learned from my conference experiences:

1) The more specific the session, the more useful.  I've found that general sessions can be so general, that they can rarely be useful.  Educators love to point to the fact that we all must find our own style and learn what kind of teacher we are without ever explicitly saying how we are supposed to do this.

2) Sometimes teachers like to make others think so much that they've forgotten how to think themselves.
     "Professor, but how can I....?"
     "Well, that's a great question.  What do you think? Anyone?"
This is NOT an exaggeration of a real situation.

3) There's never enough time for collaboration.  What we teachers really want to do is get together and hear awesome ideas from others who teach the same subject and grade as we do.  Turns out, there's no time for that because we're so busy learning about general topics and being asked, "So what do YOU think?"
I'm convinced that the fate of teachers (and perhaps most professions) is to spend vast quantities of time on work that is both seemingly less useful and most clearly less interesting than what we would do if given the time to better ourselves.  But maybe my view of human nature is skewed.

4) Titles can be deceiving.  Had a friend go to a session entitled "Writing Indicators" thinking he would learn about how to teach writing. He soon found out it was really about how to write indicators (which are what we base lessons off of)...a significantly more drab topic (as far as most are concerned).