Happy Tuesday! We had some very welcomed cool weather this weekend! Saturday I woke up to a rainy, cool day. It was one of those days that was nice to be able to be at home with nowhere to go! It was cool, and a nice laid back day. Something I certainly needed! And enjoyed the slow time and loved the cool weather! It was cool enough for fuzzy slippers and long-sleeved shirts!

The sun came out the next day, but the days are still a bit cooler than last week. And from what I have been told, they are much cooler than what is typical for March. We are all thankful for this weather!

Let me tell you about my class today...well let me back up a minute. Yesterday after school we were talking about how the kids all seem to be out of control. Part of it we are sure is that they do not have all of their paces, we don't have goal cards and goal check reports and those things that keep things in order and on task, but even so it seems we cannot keep a handle on the kids. This morning when I arrived in my classroom, before all the kids came in the thought came to me that we really should pray for order in the school. So I just prayed in my classroom for order and that there would not be any unruly spirits or confusion, but order and peace in my classroom.

The first part of class went very well. The kids are getting better about not getting out of their seats without permission, I had much less talking between the students and the day was going really well. During our morning break, I worked on pulling some verses from my Children's Bible (actually it is Joshua's Psalty kids Bible!) ....so that I could begin talking about Holy Week. Last week when I asked them what we celebrate during Holy Week I got information about going swimming and taking vacations and that it is "Maria's birthday"....so I broke it up into sections so I could tell the whole story, starting with Palm Sunday and ending with the Resurrection of Jesus, and have part of the story each day this week.

The kids came back from break and we finished up the game we were playing...

Anthony asked if he could go to the bathroom, and as he left the room my door slammed shut.

Now that shouldn't be a problem, except that the handle on my door is broken. If it latches it cannot be opened. When the outside handle first fell off, we were able to open it by putting the handle to the door and wiggling it around to get it opened, but it has now fallen off on the inside as well. I have had duck tape over the latch inside the door so that if the door shuts it does not latch. Well today when it closed the latch came through the tape and there we were. Trapped inside the room.

Anthony came back and came to the window and I told him we could not open the door. I saw another teacher, Miss Sandra, so I told her through the window that it would not open. She is familiar with the door because we share the classroom. It was stuck and stuck good. I tried for a while with various objects to get the metal latch to move and I had boys on the outside trying to help. Some highschool boys came and took the glass slats out of the window so that they could lift the screen and climb into the room. With one highschool boy on the outside and two inside they were trying to get the door opened. While all this is going on my class is screaming and running around and absolute chaos!

Finally I said to one of the boys, why don't we just take the door off the hinges and remove the door. So that is what we did. We all cheered! This ordeal lasted 20 minutes. Well I had set aside the last 30 minutes of class to talk about the holiday, so that didn't happen today. I finally got my kids back under control and then it was time for them to go to Spanish.

I was talking to some of the teachers about this later. We have all felt over the last couple of weeks that there is some serious spiritual stuff going on with the kids. We have a school with great kids and many of them sincerely love the Lord and want to serve Him. We have had nothing but obstacles since school started. And things have been so out of order and chaos ruling in many classes and in the Learning Center. Here I am trying to teach my kids about Easter and the true meaning of the holiday and we get trapped in our room. Coincidence? Some might argue that, but I don't believe in coincidence. I also won't give up. Tomorrow the first thing of day we will talk about the holiday and cover what I had planned.

There is also a lot going on with the kids here in the school with Harry Potter trading cards...an obsession with some of the kids. I have caught some of them buying and selling the trading cards during class and they have their school notebooks covered with Harry Potter stickers. We also have the Pokeman craze that we have all seen in the U.S. before. Some might say they are just toys or cartoons or movies...but they deal with witchcraft and demons and getting powers from evil sources. How can I say this is good? I have talked to one of the boys about it several times. He is a 4th grader. I don't tell him he is wrong or that he should get rid of them, that must be his decision, but rather I talk to him about why I don't like them. We had talked about it last week, and today he brought it up to me. So I believe that the questions I raised to him are stirring in his spirit.

Again, I don't think any of this is coincidence. There is so much going on in the spiritual realm, if we could only see and hear what God needs us to be aware of.

We have a school full of kids who God has big plans for in His Kingdom. Please continue to pray for our school, our kids and our teachers. And please remember my student, Alejandro.