Thus within a week my class was being assigned to another teacher and her third grade classroom distributed among the other classes.

Another teacher and I headed off to our new positions....

The problem at the older school was finding two more classroom spaces...which finally materialized after four weeks; meanwhile I team taught with the Lead teacher. By the time it came for me to have my own classroom I had more than my share of willing volunteers......

One little boy did not like to read and was not shy about letting me know it; he also did not want to do the rest of his work. I more or less use the ‘positive behavior’ approach in the classroom...and when this little boy didn’t get stickers like the rest for following directions it soon dawned on him that in order to get a sticker....he would have to do as asked. Within two weeks he was down to business doing his work. One day as he took out a paper and placed his name on the line he was just about to do a writing assignment and remarks, "I’m doing my work and I don’t know why!" Well, I knew why, God’s wisdom and lots of prayer.

Just before I was assigned the students and the room, the Lead teacher was absent one day. Although I am fully certified.....the Lead teacher still had to be assigned a substitute for the day; here I was, with a substitute in the room.. As she and I started to talk I discovered she was a missionary to Mexico; she and her husband came back to the U.S.A. to work for awhile so they could afford a new truck. As we talked she made me aware of a spiritual warfare front concerning some of the items the kids thought popular in the area. This particular school had a lot of trouble discipline wise and there were very evident strong holds. As the missionary and I conversed we decided that when we went out into the hallways we would pray that God would be glorified and evil cohorts bound in Jesus name.

When we pray this way there are usually  not any immediate outward - overt manifestations that take place, but later the evidence became clear  that God had changed the circumstances of this school. It left me amazed once again that what we read in the Bible is true....God is at work just as He was in Jesus’ day if we dare to believe and let Him be God. We need to take authority over evil and do as we were taught in Jesus’ name.

I praise God that He saw fit to call me to teach and to be a witness for Him in the classroom and among my colleages. Many times someone has needed the Lord to move on their behalf or to hear of His love for them.

As I look back and see His faithfulness in taking me where He wanted me time and again, I see clearly that it is all Him - from beginning to end. If we cooperate with the Holy Spirit He will accomplish through us His mighty works among men - for His Own Glory.

I stayed in south Texas school districts another three years....then right before summer vacation the Lord spoke to me....to change the direction of my life for awhile. Sometimes the Lord has to get you going in one direction to bring you ‘out’....His ways are never our ways....His thoughts are much, much higher than ours.

I was obedient to not sign a contract for the following year. I wanted to go on to school, may be seminary.....but no, God had another plan - one that took ‘me’ out of the picture so to speak. It turned out that I was to take a year off and do what I preceived as ‘nothing’.

I was always busy...busy....busy...so this revelation from God that I was to do ‘nothing’ was a scary thing to me. One day...sitting in a local restaurant soon after He directed me not to sign the contract...God spoke to me to go to a particular church that Sunday.  I usually went to another church, but  God was directing me to  a church I had never been to before. I had never been to this church,  it wasn’t my denomination nor was it one that held an interest for me. I walked into a rather large church the next Sunday and  sat down;  it was announced that a visiting minister would be preaching this Sunday...a former president of Moody Bible college. His sermon was from Leviticus 25 and his points were : Liberation - Restoration - Rest. I had no pencil - no paper...so I pulled out a card and borrowed a pen from a lady sitting next to me  and wrote the three points down - and gave the pen back; I knew God wanted me to listen not write.

I heard every word the man said, but God used the three points of the sermon the next year and following the following year to teach me and to take me to depths of knowledge that I was unaware existed. One cannot assume as a Christian that they have all the answers just because they have been through a lot of experiences and graduated from Bible college. In our daily routine of living we can think that we are learning and take sufficent time to know God, to talk to Him, and most importantly to listen to Him; but, we are gravely mistaken. There will come a time in each Christian's life that God will set them aside to learn of Him in a deeper way than they could ever imagine. This time off from teaching was one of the hardest years of my life. It wasn’t until I came through to the other side that I could clearly see it was God teaching me and accomplishing more in others lives - in less time than if I had been ‘out there’ trying to help Him.

At first I found this time off difficult...it was like trying to get a little kid to sit still on the sofa for a long duration and have them try every once in awhile start to get down and go about playing....I felt like that...each time I wanted to ‘get off the sofa’ - God would direct me right back to sit down.

He made it plain to me that my job was to focus on Him and pray at least eight hours a day...until He said stop. This went on for months and months and months. I learned that we need to ‘die’.  Die to our own ambitions, die to all our good ideas, die to what we think we are and what we think we have accomplished. Die to what we think we know of God and of how He thinks....and works. We need to die to self and let the Holy Spirit direct us in each and everything we do, say, and think. AMEN

If we do not - we cannot be used of God to the fullest and He will not impart the revelation that we so think we desire. Until we come to a place that we are nothing and He is everything we are only fooling ourselves and think more highly than what we ought. Mistakes and utter foolishness are bound up in us ...if we think we can by-pass dying to self, dying to what we ‘think’ we have all figured out.

Like I said before...this process will come to every Christian at sometime or another....

We lament some being put in prison or we ask why some Christians are sick...and not made well. We wonder where God is in all of this and why He would allow this and that ‘bad’ thing to happen, but I am here to tell you ...He is in the midst of it all and has His eye on them - He has never left and He will never forsake. He is only taking them to greater revelation of Himself. No, I wasn’t sick and no, nothing seemingly bad happened to me during this time...but there have been many that have realized ....that God breaks the bread to feed the multitudes....

About a half a year later......God brought some teenagers to our home to learn the Bible....from a High School AP History class; they wanted to study ‘Bible’ and Bible they got  for 12 months.

God has a multitude of ways to accomplish His works among men.

From here God directed me back to the University to pursue my administration certification. Another door opened that was not planned on....