When asked what I teach in this season, I usually answer, “I teach a little bit of a lot!” I am the preschool teacher onboard the Africa Mercy at the moment, however preschool only goes until lunch time, so after lunch I pick up other classes for the elementary students such as art, choir, and grade 1 science. This is a short season for me onboard, just mid-September through mid-December while I wait to board the GLM, but it also has been an incredibly sweet season as I feel like I get to teach all the fun stuff and I get to know all of the elementary students very well, which brings incredible joy to my heart. Here’s a glimpse into what my days onboard look like:
7am – I wake up in my little cabin,
get dressed, and head up to breakfast where I usually get to eat with some of
the incredible Academy team or with my Daddy, which is such a treat after
spending three years onboard without my parents.
7:45am - Teacher devotions time
8:00am - Student devotions time (the
teachers take turns leading the student devotions)
9:00am - My first-year preschooler arrives
at school. We pray and do calendar and then go into our Bible story for the day.
We then go over our letter for the week and color it or find magnets of that letter
or cook something that starts with that letter. Then we have choice time and snack
time before heading up to the playground on deck 8.
10:10am We battle the winds up on deck 8
to play on the playground and our two year old friend (who isn’t technically
old enough to be in preschool, but whom I recruited as a friend for my three
year old) comes and joins us. We slide and scooter around the stack and work on
our climbing skills. They’re very imaginative and we like to play castles and
princesses and fairies and cars. I pull them around in a wagon and on occasion
they pull me.
11:00am We blow back into our classroom
and take a respite from the relentless Tenerife wind. We play in our box castle
we have built (with electricity and everything!), we bounce balls down the long
deck 7 hallway (and on occasion our principal comes and bounces with us), we
read books, and we go on little fieldtrips around the ship.
12:00pm Preschool ends, often with a few
tears because my boys don’t want to leave. What can I say…we have fun together.
Lunch time! Some days I eat lunch in the dining room, but I also spend quite a
few lunches on the go as I set up for my afternoon classes.
1:00pm On Fridays at 1pm I teach elementary choir. We’re not allowed currently to sing onboard due to covid restrictions so we do our breathing warm-ups in my classroom and chant through some of our songs before traipsing out to deck 7 to actually sing through our songs. We do our best to sing over the whistling wind and the roaring jet engines flying over us from the airport nearby. We’ve been working on Christmas music since October, and it brings joy to all our hearts! You oughta hear these kiddos working on their Christmas songs in Spanish (since we’re in spain)!
1:40pm On Mondays and Wednesdays during
6th period I teach elementary art. We have gone through the color
wheel, primary vs. secondary vs. tertiary colors, complementary colors, and warm
and cool colors. I’ve never specifically been an art teacher before, but we
have a ball!
2:30pm On Thursdays I teach the first
graders science for the last three periods of the day (12:55-3:20pm). This
trimester we have gone through a unit on light and dark as well as a unit on electricity!
I love living in a community where the kids and I can go out into the community
to learn from people who are more knowledgeable than me on some of these
subjects and we can learn together!
3:20 School is out for the
day…but of course a teacher’s day is NOT over! On Mondays we have teacher
meetings after school. On days without meetings, I prep for the classes I’ll be
teaching the next day. I also learn music to teach the acapella group (Key of
Sea) and work on worship music for the next Sunday I’m leading.
5:00 Dinner time!
5:30-10pm Evenings are full of all sorts of
activities! I run Key of Sea rehearsal, we have our Christmas quartet
rehearsal, we watch The Chosen as a community, we have Community Gatherings, the
kindergarten teacher and I watch “All Creatures Great and Small” together, Dad
shows historical movies on the big screen in the international lounge, we go
for walks on the dock with friends, I work on editing some photos for the comms
team, we rehearse for Sunday worship, and we watch the fiery Tenerife sunsets.
10:pm Around 10:00pm I throw on my
fleece and head out to deck 7 with my Bible and journal. There’s a little table
out there that one of our sweet, British carpenters made where I set my books
and my little unicorn lantern. I spend quite a bit of time out in that spot
reading and writing before I set my pen down and walk down the length of the
deck. I walk back and forth and back and forth as I pray and listen for God’s
voice and wisdom (in full disclosure I do lot more talking than listening, but
I do try to do at least one lap of just listening). I think this is the spot I might
miss most when I leave for the GLM. This has become a sacred routine for me.
11:00pm I walk through a deserted
midships and head off to bed in my little cabin to snuggle under my two
comforters and quilt and rest before doing it all again tomorrow.
In two weeks I
head back to the USA for Christmas and then on to the Global Mercy in January
where a whole new season will begin. I will switch over to teaching
kindergarten instead of preschool, I’ll have four students instead of two, I’ll
be on a whole new ship and with a whole new community in a whole new country. I
don’t know what my classroom or my cabin will look like. I don’t know some of
the students who will be in my class. I don’t know how I’ll ever find my way
around on that big ship. I don’t know where my unicorn lantern and I will find
to read the Bible. But I know it will be good. I know that’s where God wants
me. So for now, I’m just trying to soak up every moment I have left in this
home before moving to another.
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