Trusting Jesus in the Minutest Details

Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
-Isaiah 43:19

Before New Year's Day 2014 after Christmas, I spent most of my free time on the Idealist website searching for volunteers opportunity. I saw that the Young Women's Christian Association-National Capital Region (YWCA-NCA) was looking for teacher/tutor volunteers for their General Education Development (GED) certification preparation program. I ended up being a math teacher and I have been with them for about seven months now. I thought I never could have done it...

First, I always thought I was very bad at mathematics. I remember the torture of my high school pre-calculus class and the chemistry and physics classes. They all dealt with complicated computations that I could never wrap my mind around. I was always messing up my own calculations somewhere... And never could figure out where it happened until someone sat with me one on one to show me. This made me realize how important it is to spend time with students when it comes to their hurdles.

Second, I've always thought I talked too fast for anyone to understand anything I say. But this teaching experience taught me different... If I was passionate enough, I would get through to these struggling students. And I did, I got one student to the next level in about six or eight weeks. It was mostly spending time with her explaining how to solve word problems regarding multiplication and division.

I could have never done this without Jesus guiding me each step of the way. He stood beside me as I struggled to explain things I was still confused about especially those severely loathed fractions. He told me to be compassionate when students' nerves were getting to them. He gave me patience when they kept asking me to repeat the same thing over and over again. And He also taught me to be wise and gentle with my co-teachers and the staff members of the YWCA... If this program is to succeed in making an impact in these people's lives, the team had to work together in great unity and being impertinent and impatient would just hinder the fulfillment of organization's mission (which is the ultimate goal).

Along the way, I also learned how to be better prepared and organized with lesson planning. I realized not having a plan was pure chaos. Today is the first day of my Summer 2014 term, I planned ahead and I feel very confident that I will have a great evening with my students tonight. God is getting all the credit for my lesson plans for I could have not created any of these ideas on my own. I was confounded with what activities to do in my classes. Out of desperation, I pleaded to God; and He told me to rely on Him with every little detail. As I have been doing lately, He's given me ideas that I am excited to teach and a great spark of hope that I am making a difference (and I will be rewarded with a well-paying job with my dedication to this volunteer experience).