Prayer Partners

Thank you to everyone who has agreed to be prayer partners with one of my students! They are very excited to receive your letters back. All of you should have gotten your letters in the mail last week. If you did not, please let me know! Also, I would like to get your letters back by the end of this week, so get your responses in the mail as soon as you can.

Shoot me a message if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks again and please keep praying!!

"The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." James 5

Donations

Hey Everyone!

Some of you have been asking about donating things to my classroom, so I thought I would just post a list of things here that you can take a look at. Here it is:

-Educational games and videos

-Math manipulatives

-Play money

-Tissues

-Hand sanitizer

-Any school supplies (looseleaf paper, markers, pencil sharpeners, construction paper, ect)

-Books (between 2nd-5th grade reading levels)

-Stickers

-Prizes for games and rewards (small toys, fun notebooks, pencils, ect...)

-PRAYER!!!

Thanks for your generosity! If you do want to donate, contact me and I will send you the address of my school. I pray that you are deeply blessed this October and that the Lord is continuing to teach you more about who He is and how He is moving in your life. Christ is supreme- may we yield to His will. (Colossians 1).

Public Transportation 2 Katie Lane 0

I am thankful to report that even though I am without a car here in Philadelphia, I have two roommates who work at Visitation with me. Because of this, I do not have to use public transportation every day like I was originally planning on doing. In fact, I probably only use it two or three days out of the week. From an entertainment standpoint, I'm sure you are all shaking your heads in disappointment as you realize the absence of amusing public transit stories posted in my blog. However, let me remind you that these stories are only laughable in hindsight and that the actual experience is oftentimes near traumatic. I promise to try my best and share the few stories that I do have if you promise to avoid praying that the Lord would strike immobile the cars of my roommates in hopes that I will be forced to use public transportation more often.

Having explained that, I would like to share a story with you all. My school weeks are very busy, intense, and exhausting, so Saturdays seem to become a leisurely day in which I can rest and relax. For me, resting and relaxing usually includes going to a coffee shop for a chai tea and reading a good book for a few hours. Conveniently, there is a bus stop about 3 blocks from my house that runs straight to St Joseph's University. St. Joe's is where I take grad classes on Tuesday nights. There are a number of cafes and coffee shops in the area that I visit frequently.

A few Saturdays ago, I left my house around 11:00am to catch Bus 65 on the corner of 67th and Landsdowne. I get to the corner and notice a piece of construction paper taped over the bus stop sign informing passengers that Bus 65 would be picking riders up down a block- on the corner of 68th and Landsdowne. I look down the street and notice that, sure enough, the route that Bus 65 normally takes is blocked off with a long piece of string tied to two street lights. In the center there is a pizza box draped over the string reading "BLOCK PARTY". No orange and white "Do Not Enter" signs, no police cars, no warnings. I guess this is how they do it in West Philly.

I begin walking in the direction that the construction paper instructed and glance up. Bus 65 is just pulling away. "No problem." I think to myself. "I'm not on a time schedule today." I get to the bench an sit down next to another woman.

"Are you waiting for Bus 65, too?" I ask her.

"I would have caught it if it hadn't been for that dang block party." She says in a huff. Guess she didn't get the memo either.

I pull out a book and begin reading while I wait 15 minutes for the next bus. I'm enjoying the beautiful weather and thank God for a day to rest. Sure enough, 15 minutes later I see Bus 65 driving towards the stop. I stand up, ready to get on and get to my destination. "That's strange." I think as I notice every single person on the bus out of their seat, piling out of the doors as they open up. "This isn't usually this popular of spot." I look to the back of the bus and see the problem. There is smoke everywhere. It is clouding up the whole area we are standing as people cough and cover their mouths. There is something leaking onto the street as the bus driver pulls the bus forward and off to the side.

"What happened?" I say to one of the women who got off the bus.

"I don't know." she says back. "The bus driver just asked us all to get off and we noticed the smoke. He called to the terminal and there should be another bus here in a few minutes."

We wait. And wait. And wait. There was not a bus there in a few minutes. In fact, three bus 65's passed us going the opposite direction in the amount of time it took for a bus to come to our stop. When a bus does finally come, it's a short bus, already full of people. We all cram on, standing in the aisles, body to body. What's usually about a 17 minute ride took about 35 due to traffic on City Avenue (I don't know if it was a result of too many block parties or what. Saturday morning- are you kidding me?).

The good news is that after about two hours I finally got to Starbuck and had a delicious chai tea. For the record, Starbucks is about 8 miles from my house.

A quote worth reading....

"Sometimes I am asked to speak to young people who are toying with the idea of being missionaries. They want to know how I discover the will of God. The first thing was to settle once and for all the supremacy of Christ in my life...I put myself utterly and forever at His disposal, which means turning over all rights: to myself, my body, my self-image, my notions of how I am to serve my Master.....the will of God is always different from what they expect, always bigger, and, ultimately, infinitely more glorious than their wildest imaginings.

"I want to put it down right here that I have certainly 'tasted the joy'. I cannot imagine a more wonderfully blessed life than mine. Faithfulness of a loving Father--that's what I've found, every day of every week of every year, and it gets better."

-Elisabeth Elliot