Friday, August 23, 2013

Day of Showers

The first week of school was coming to a end, I woke up on Friday morning to be blessed with a downpour of rain as I was walking to work. Oh don't worry the rain stopped, however it was too wet to take my lower elementary classes outside. So I had my students in this little indoor area, which has no air conditioning or fans needless to say it was extremely...awesome! Wuhan is still reaching temperatures of 95+ mixed with the humidity of the rain means DEATH. After leading one class in a dance to the song "My God's not dead" I was literally DRIPPING with sweat, I did this for 3 classes which gives me my first 3 showers of sweat for the day. PS the kids love ROARING like lions! 

The rain had been off and on all morning so I decided to take my middle school classes outside, 6th grade had no problem then came 7/8th grade. As they were finishing their laps I felt a few rain drops. within 2 minutes the rain drops turned to a literal down pour, 30 students and  2 teachers, oh how fun. So I sent the majority of the class and the other teaching on their way back to school (about a 5 minute walk)... While I had the privilege of waiting for the 2 kids who sadly were on the far side of the track :-) Rain shower making my overall shower count to 3.

The last class of the day was High School PE which was inside. I decided to do a 30 minutes aerobic/strength training workout, of course being the awesome teacher I am I couldn't just tell them what to do I had to show it and do everything I was asking of them. So after thirty minutes I was drenched again, shower number 4. 

After school I walked home and felt so gross I had to take an actual shower, shower total = 5. After I took a shower I jumped on a bus headed towards HanKou (another part of Wuhan) to be in a Video/Photo event for my friend who was leading his first BodyPump class, yes the token white face! BodyPump can be described as Terrible tuesdays times 10!  Terrible tuesdays are what my sports teams know as the worse day of practice as we push ourselves to extreme levels of fitness. So after BodyPump I was again drenched in sweat equaling shower #6. 

As I walked back to the bus stop it again poured, I was walking in flip flops along side of the rode and found a pot hole that was covered with rain, yeah that was unfortunate. I got home about an hour after finally getting on the bus :-) Arriving home I immediately jumped in the REAL shower :-) Making my day complete with 7 showers!  

You might be thinking "wow, thats a crapy day"... And at first I thought that as well, but then I was reminded that God continually "showers" us with blessings. I had the privilege of leading 3 classes where I saw students get so excited to roar like lions, singing MY GOD'S NOT DEAD, yes sweating profusely and dancing hard enough to get their little heart rates up.  I am fully aware that every student doesn't understand the meaning nor can they actually speak english however, God isn't dead and he can turn our crapy days into days of blessings. Not only did I see God blessing that time with the young kids but, looking back I am reminded how God uses each storm to bless us, I pray that while I stood in the BodyPump class they didn't just see a simple foreign face but they saw something different and that is Christ. 

on a side note ... I was also grateful that the rain was real rain and not rocket fake acid rain. (China can actually "make it rain") 

I ask you today, where are the storms in your life? And how is God using those storms to be immense showers of blessings?