If I wanted to...

Dear readers,
Let’s see, what is most pressing on my mind at this moment, or what is currently the most exciting thing in my life, or what is most likely to keep your interest for ten minutes as you read this post? I wish I knew! I’ve had several ideas come up in the last month since my most recent post, but I can’t recall all of them. If I were to pick something to rant about I would write about whatever genius thought it was possible that every school child in America would ever be proficient in both reading and math, let alone by a set deadline. I might also mention the hammer of professional development which is currently beating my district’s teachers into the ground while their oblivious students continue to deliberately or accidentally perform poorly on tests and behave or misbehave in exactly the same way as usual. However, I really don’t feel like ranting, and am appreciative of my principal’s OK to ditch a few of my responsibilities, even though the things I want most to ditch are non-negotiable.



If I wanted to tell you about the fun parts of my life, I would tell you about fun pizza and movie nights with Angie, Amanda, and Teri, and submit brilliant reviews of the last three movies we rented from Netflix. I would also dedicate at least four paragraphs to the Homecoming weekend that I just spent in Morris, specifically praising my excellent former roommate Kristine for her great job as hostess (she makes a mean Sunday brunch), thanking Jill and Andrea for the lovely walks, appreciating my friends Shauna, Ketsa, Tabitha, and Belle for being such wonderful ladies to spend any amount of time with, telling Jake how much I like seeing him and how cute his dog is, and rolling my eyes while being slightly nostalgic for my football players, Counterweight boys, and tenors. However, as fun as that would be, I guess I can deliver all of my praise to my wonderful friends individually, and if I wanted to fill you in on how Homecoming weekend was, I guess I could just call you, like I called my dad to report on my tour of the UMM biomass plant.


If I wanted to tell you about the humdrum details of my daily life, I could tell you about funny things my kids do, like the 8th graders who all decided to write stories in which Miss Osthus married one of their relatives or the 7th grader who makes all of the teachers laugh and drives his classmates crazy with his “clever” comments. I could tell you that we’ve gotten close to twenty new high school students within the last month, and that I haven’t been able to enter grades or information for any of them online because with a new clerk and without our lab manager the EC is a bit behind on clerical things. I could tell you some great stories from youth group, like how much Katie and Jacob make me laugh with their arguing and how great it is that Nico and James brought a friend when Pastor Del Palmer made a missions presentation last Wednesday. However, I’ve found that not everyone appreciates exhaustive accounts of my life, and it would probably take more time than I have to give.


If I wanted to give my readers things to pray about, I could give a list of concerns for my family, particularly that Michael and Marretta would continue to settle into their new surroundings and that Julia wouldn’t, so that she will come home from Brazil! I could also tell you about all my missionary friends, some of whom are facing challenges in ministry, some of whom are working to raise funds either to go to the field or to stay there (like Sigi, Richard, and John), and some of whom are in places that are lately unsafe, like the Pacchas and the Schierkolks. I could even tell you about a long list of friends back in Morris who need some heavy duty prayer, like Sarah, Ted, and Rachel. I guess I just gave you that list, didn’t I?

If I wanted to tell you what God is teaching me lately… I’m never very good at encapsulating that, but I might take you on a walk through Ephesians or Malachi, where I’ve been reading lately. I might tell you that He’s teaching me a whole lot about love, and that I’m trying to find different ways of showing my love toward Him. I might say that I’m finding different ways both to value and to evaluate love, and that I’m trying to remember the One who chose me must always be first in my heart. The book of Malachi is all a conversation between God and His very confused people, who really are hurting God and don’t have a clue what they are doing. He tells them all of their offenses one by one, and they ask Him, “How have we done these things?” I am examining myself to look for any areas of my life in which I forget that God is touched. Have I robbed God by holding back too much of the wealth He has given me? Have I been unfaithful by investing in an earthly relationship more than I have invested in Him? Have I rejected God by ignoring a beggar on the street? I know I have all done all of these things before. Anyway, like I said, I’m not very good at giving a little tidbit of what God is teaching me at the moment.


Those are all options that I suppose I have when I blog. I usually do a little mixture of all of these things, and I guess this post was no exception. I continue to keep my goal in mind to write more often and more pithily! According to spell check, that adverb works, so I guess I’ll keep using it. I love you all, and I am signing off to go to sleep! Pray for Ecuador, my students, and the other requests that I gave you earlier! Showers of blessings be upon you! Christina

Some philosophical musings for the beginning of the year

I have successfully finished my second week back at school, or third week if you count in-service training. Last year I had to push most philosophical questions out of the way to maintain my sanity, but now I am slowly pulling them out again to ponder. Our keynote speaker for in-services was a friend of our superintendent, and his message was based on the song “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” As I’m sure you can guess, it was interesting and entertaining. However, there were some really fascinating questions that he brought to light for me: first, what are teachers really trying to do (not to mention what is possible for us to do), and second, what are the dominant philosophies of education in today’s political climate?

Our speaker told us that we should know ourselves as educators, as opposed to teachers. Sounds great, but why? He says being a teacher carries with it the denotation of instructing someone else in how to do something. On the other hand, being an educator etymologically has the idea of “bringing out something that was within.” The latter definition sounds warm, fuzzy, and humanistic, but I can’t quite buy it, for several reasons, some ideological and some practical. Ideologically, I know that there’s plenty of lousy stuff within my kids, and that without instruction the lousy will trump the good every time. I love my students very much, but they are not naturally well-behaved or brilliant. I also know that constantly teaching that way would be ludicrous. As a language arts teacher, I often do leave something to my students’ opinions, ask for their first reactions, or ask them to dig deeper than I have. However, I do not expect them to have my expectations for behavior implanted in their hearts or to create their own coherent ways to categorize parts of speech. Of course, any philosophy can be taken too far, and I would assume that Dr. Ed would not expect us to take his ideas of education to these lengths.

Another thing that really interested me was Dr. Ed’s commentary on “self-esteem training,” and I think I agree with him on this, but I would be fascinated to talk with him more on the subject. He talked about the popular cause of building kids’ self-esteem that took over education and other public sectors in the early 90’s, and how everyone was sure that it was the key to eliciting better performance and behavior from kids. He says it didn’t happen that way. This goes along with what Olweus, our school’s bullying prevention program, says about bullies: for so long, the conventional wisdom has said that the typical bully has low self-esteem and is very insecure. However, according to the body of research on bullying, this is not true. Many bullies have very high self-esteem and believe that they have many friends (though of course, they may only be their friends out of fear). We see the same thing at my school. Our counselor asks new students questions of their self-concepts and how they see others, and most of our bullies and our most resistant students have very high opinions of themselves, or at least they claim to. I know there is a difference, and that self-reporting is very tricky. Taking a test like that is quite a quandary for me, as a realistic person and a Christian. How in the world am I supposed to rate myself as a person on a scale from one to ten? Who made the scale anyway? The only scale that matters is God’s, and I guess without Jesus’ righteousness I’m weighing in at zero. So maybe the tests are ridiculous to begin with.

Anyway, the point is that filling kids’ heads with news of how terrific they are is only good if you have something solid backing it up. It seems like some of the gurus in education are getting that, but I know some of them are still missing the boat, because I still hear plenty of “rah-rah-rah go me” mumbo-jumbo out of my kids and my fellow teachers. So what is going on in education today? In my first education class I learned about different public education models and different philosophies that have been prominent through the last decades, but how will those in the future look back at these years? The National Education Association (NEA) is ridiculously liberal as a whole, from what I can see, but there seem to be some conservative voices in education that are very strong right now. I still haven’t quite gotten over the choice for keynote speaker when I attended the Education Minnesota Convention in the fall of 2008: Ron Clark, who wrote 55 Essential Rules, and whom my sister has decided to emulate in her future teaching career. My sister is pretty old school when it comes to her philosophy, and this guy really is, too, though he finds many very creative ways to get his point across. I need to read his book, and though I’ve been thinking about it for the last few years, now that my sister’s found him I know she won’t let me forget!
Of course, when I talk about “liberalism” and “conservatism” within education, I know I need to watch what I say, particularly because I found out during some of my college classes that certain methods of mine are labeled “liberal,” since they haven’t all been used for the last hundred years. During my class on writing and writing pedagogy, a classmate and I had some great conversations and were hugely entertained when we realized that she, who is a card-carrying liberal and pretty much a hippie, preferred many conservative methods of teaching, while I was the exact opposite. I’d never hated being put in a box so much before that moment. There are negative connotations that we carry along with every label, of course, but political terms probably make me go “hmmm” the most. Nowadays, the running conservative joke about me at work is that being conservative is the reason I don’t like spending money. I’d always thought that instinct came from my hippie side… my very closeted hippie side… There now, was that a bit more bloggish? Are you slightly more intrigued than by my typical post? : ) I love you either way! Blessings, Christina

Brief reflection of the summer, prayer preview into the future!

Dear cherished readers! I have a few goals for blogging this year: first, to blog slightly more often, perhaps twice a month, and second, to make my posts, somewhat shorter and pithier. Can I hear an amen? Yes, I’ve been made fun of enough for my long blog posts that I can take the hint! The reason I cherish you is because you read anyway!

Having said that, allow me to give you a window (not a door) into my summer of 2010. At the end of my previous post, I was on my way home for “vacation” with my family in the Twin Cities. We found plenty of ways to amuse ourselves, including the Mill City Museum, the U of MN Arboretum, the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Science Museum, and several movie nights. We even took some pictures!

Then I headed back to SD to teach summer school, which was good, but pushed me a little bit further into exhaustion than I really wanted to go. I wondered several times what I had been thinking when I had signed up to teach back in April, but the kids and I survived barely the worse for wear. After that I headed back to Minnesota to spend about five days with family and friends. I met up with Shauna Rosen and Becca Hjermstad + Casey at Music in Plymouth, had a lovely day in Edina with Miss Jenna Temte, a fabulous adventure with Seth De Penning in Minneapolis (and Shauna and Bethany when they eventually joined us), and a bit of quality time with Marretta and my parents as we marched in the 4th of July parade and then went to the pizza buffet at CiCi’s.

It would be easy to characterize the whole month of July as Vacation Bible School, but it was a lot more than that, and didn’t feel like school at all, trust me! I got back to Eagle Butte on the fourth of July, and then had my first year as a bona fide “church lady” during Emmanuel’s VBS. My responsibilities consisted of hosting the girls from AFLBS, Audrey Nash and Erin Harris, leading crafts one day, feeding kids at snack time, keeping the Timothy team (the girls + Caleb Fugleberg and Ben Dahl) up late at night, and trying to make little Shawn Anderson smile! We had a pretty small crowd, but it was great fun!


Shoot, this post is already getting long, but you didn’t you just long to know every single thing I did this whole summer? I might as well keep going. The next week was basically travel time, hanging out with my mom and my uncles and stopping at Pickerel Lake Bible Camp! Of course, I already missed the Timothy team, so it was very convenient that they were at PLLBC that week for middle school camp. When I arrived back in MN it was almost time for VBS at Minnesota Valley, and I was teaching preschool, so I was a bit apprehensive, as always. That ended up being a great week, of course, and my little sister was once again my comrade-at-arms down in the church basement!


After that, we went up to St. Cloud to see my little cousins who are hardly little anymore! Even though they aren’t that little, they sure are cute, aren’t they? Though I did many delightful things this summer, I must say the highlight was probably going to Bear Trap Ranch again for family camp! I went there once during college to volunteer during another region’s chapter camp, but ever since then I’ve been hankering to go back, and now that I am a teacher and no longer a broke student who needs to make gas money every summer, timing worked out! I rode out and back with George and Sharon, my InterVarsity parents, and I even got in on house-hunting with them for a bit in Manhattan, Kansas. It was so good to be with them again, though they have stopped in Eagle Butte to visit a few times this year!

I helped the camp director’s wife with the four and five year olds for the week, and I adored our class! We had seven little kids the whole week, and two extras came to visit the last day. I fell in love with all of them, and we had our share of adventures together. Who takes four and five year olds rock climbing and camping out without their parents for the night? Well, we did, and miraculously it all turned out all right. I got to do some very fun things that week—I went to a coffee-tasting and managed to slug down taster cup after taster cup of black coffee, paired with the perfect food item, I went on three longer hikes, two of them for the sunrise, I went to a square dance, which my family camp growing up never had, and I got to hang out with some cool people.

I already mentioned how much I enjoyed being with George and Sharon again, and besides that I got to see my friend Will Michaloski again and meet his amazing wife Beth and their kids, I got to spend time with my friend Richard and finally caught him long enough at the end of the week to hear a tiny bit about the work he’s doing with One Challenge International, I met some really sweet kids, as I have already mentioned, and I made some good buddies who were on the summer crew. I especially had fun hanging out with my roommate Mary, the talented musician Emily, and my fellow “adult” CiCi! What a lovely place Bear Trap is… methinks I will not be able to wait so long to revisit this time!

While I was buzzing through Fargo on my way back I caught up briefly with Krista, Luke, and Elise, then with the rest of my spare time until school I set Andrew Olson off on his roadtrip west, caught coffee with Therese, and attended two weddings of friends from Bible School. Wonderful, wonderful summer! Shoot, not so much pith to this post! I’ll keep working on it!

As I start the school year, with kids returning this Monday, I would love prayer for…

• Productivity and creativity on my part as I plan
• My students, that they would be motivated to work hard and that they would see Jesus in me and be drawn to Him
• The new teachers in our district, particularly the two brand-new college grads that we have at the EAGLE Center teaching special education and social studies
• Our youth group at Emmanuel—we’re having a back-to-school party tomorrow and then doing some graffiti removal this Wednesday, so pray that we get off to a strong start!
• My sister as she is student-teaching in Brazil this semester
• My brother as he is applying for parish building ministry for this year
• My younger sister as she is starting Bible School
• My parents as they are probably missing us all… probably!

Thank you for being my support as I try to love like crazy here on the reservation… and without reservations! Love, Christina

Summer post number one: End of school!

Dear family and friends who have no doubt been waiting on pins and needles for my next update,

Here I am, still alive at the end of my first year of teaching! Shortly after my last post, life got rather crazy. At the beginning of April, right after Easter, my grandma on my mom’s side, Helen Engevik, died suddenly in the nursing home in Sisseton. I mention that it was right after Easter because I can’t imagine a better time to go home and be with Jesus. Grandma had been pretty healthy most of her life and never lost any of her mental capacity. We never exactly found out what caused her death, but I had so much peace knowing that she was with my grandpa and her two babies that she had lost, as well as her older sister who had just died weeks before. My sister Marretta and I sang “It Is Well With My Soul” at her funeral, and we didn’t cry too much. I did better while we were singing than I did while I was speaking beforehand. Besides the fact that Julia and Michael both couldn’t be there, the funeral was beautiful. Many people in Eagle Butte seem to look at death so differently, even Christians, so being at a funeral where there was so much hope was refreshing. So far in my life, I have never felt more sure of God’s presence than during times of sadness. I know that the comfort He gives is nothing that the world or my own imagination could come up with. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted. Praise God.



You can imagine the reason why life continued to get more stressful after that, given the season we were in. About that time we really started to push seniors to get work done in preparation for graduation, and those who were still working on a class from freshman or sophomore year started to panic a bit. I was always a bit of a procrastinator as a student, so I can sometimes relate to my students, but many of them pushed procrastination to a limit that I didn’t even know existed. Nevertheless, we had a month left before graduation, and at that point I’d say I had one student scooting to the end of his freshman exercises with junior and senior English work barely started, probably five kids who had the majority of junior and senior English to do, and two who had senior English and the fine arts requirement left. Those were just the classes they had for me—many of them also had some math and two or three textbooks in progress for social studies. At that point two of the girls decided they wouldn’t be able to pull it off, and another quit about a week later when she moved down to Pierre with her boyfriend and enrolled in a GED program. Everyone else, about twenty-four seniors, kept plugging away, and to my consternation, many of them kept up their routines of randomly skipping school just because they didn’t feel like coming in. Most frustrating to me was that my two advisees, two of the brightest seniors, acted as though they were trying not to graduate, either by skipping or by playing solitaire all afternoon. I really didn’t know what would happen, but older teachers assured me that we would graduate the vast majority of them, because they themselves would kick into higher gear the closer graduation got, and we would all work hard enough to help them.



Seniors kind of took over my life for that month, and I apologized to many underclassmen for any neglect I felt I was displaying. Because of the urgency, seniors’ essays got graded first and I would sometimes focus more of my attention on them. The ethics of that really nagged at me, because most of our seniors who really needed the help were those who had refused to work or accept help earlier in the year. One thing that I learned from my first year at the EAGLE Center was to push the seniors much harder during fall semester, though I may not be very successful and may just get a bunch of crabby students. Maybe I can bring in one of this year’s seniors to talk to their successors about the pain they will avoid if they front-load their work. Being on an independent study program has its challenges, as I have learned from being homeschooled and taking online classes.



Despite the overwhelming need I felt to help seniors, many of my other students made great achievements during that last month. One of my sophomore/juniors worked to finish all his junior English, and though he has quite a bit of old math and science left to do, I really think he can graduate next year if he stays in the groove he got going this past semester. All of my seventh grade girls finished their book reports, though they didn’t have a lot of time to spare, and one of my freshman/sophomores quietly finished half of his freshman English, which I had not really expected. He recently told me that English has become his favorite class this semester, and believe me, I am not about to let him forget that he said that! On the other hand, one of my juniors handed in a question packet for a novel that was copied word-for-word from one of the seniors, even though from talking with him I know that he read and understood the book! He didn’t even copy the corrections that I had made on the senior’s packet, which I told the other teachers was either supreme laziness or the weirdest form of honesty I had ever encountered. : )

One of my favorite stories from this whole first year of teaching involved another one of my juniors. He lives with a woman who works for the school, and though he is quite intelligent, he has somehow convinced her that he cannot write, to the point that she will write his essays for him. Other teachers asked me if I knew for sure that she had and whether or not I had reported it to the principal, and I responded that yes, I knew for sure, and that I didn’t have the heart to report a writer who had honesty to tell me about “When I was a little girl.” I got a good laugh out of that one, and that student will be starting that essay over this fall.



One bright spot for me at the beginning of May was prom. I was told that as the youngest teacher at the EAGLE Center I was stuck chaperoning post-prom, and I had to take pictures at Grand March for yearbook, so I thought the best plan would be to go to Grand March, go home for supper and a nap, and then head straight to the Upper Elementary gym for post-prom. How do you think that worked out? : ) Well, I went to Grand March, then I went to the gym to take some group pictures and check out the party, then I stayed for supper, then I danced, then I danced some more, then I took more pictures, then I danced some more… then I went home to change for post-prom. I was pretty zoned out at post-prom, but not too much to beat one of my students on the obstacle course and get a whole ton of grading done. That’s right! What kind of teacher enjoys prom? Probably one who never went to prom in high school!



Crunch time really was the last full week of school, when we still had about eight students who had not yet completed all their work. Once our students complete all their work, they can exit the EAGLE Center after having a mock job interview and getting each teacher to sign that their work is done. On Monday we took inventory and reminded each senior what he or she had left. I asked one of the guys what his plan was to get it all done, and he said, “Well, I haven’t thought about it too much, because I’m trying not to get too overwhelmed.” He is a very relaxed kid, and a very likable one that could have been done weeks earlier if he had not been absent so much. On Tuesday I bluntly told one student that if he didn’t turn in at least four drafts of essays to me that day he wouldn’t be able to graduate, and though the two of us had to stay two hours late that day, he got them done! The students who had a lot of English left had an especially hard time, because I was going out of town on Friday to attend my sister’s graduation in the Twin Cities, which meant they had to finish all their English work by Thursday. They were supposed to finish everything by Friday at 1:00 or so anyway, though.

One very exciting thing that happened that week was that we finished our EAGLE Center yearbook, the first that had ever been published for just our school. I would never have been able to do it without a few of the seniors, particularly one who had finished all of her work and started helping me while she brought her attendance up to the NCLB-mandated 94%. After she made up her attendance she kept finding time to come help between her Dairy Queen shifts, and she was such an encouragement to me. The yearbook definitely could not have gotten done without her! Let me know if you would like to see it—I can send a pdf to anyone who wants to check it out!



We had our awards day on Thursday, which was terrible timing for a few students who were right under the gun. It was fun, though—I rather enjoyed it. One of my favorite seniors, who had decided to quit and taken off in a huff just the previous week, finished his last assignment right before lunch, and then right after lunch his very relieved mother came to the awards ceremony. One of my brilliant advisees was furiously working on his current events class right before lunch, and then wrote his résumé with me right after lunch as the awards were getting set up. I had sat with him at lunch and tried to figure out how he was going to finish, since he still had three books left for social studies, and we had come to the conclusion that he would need to stay up all night and read through his shift at the gas station. Then as soon as we printed off his résumé, the ceremony started, and even though he got several awards, I could just see him wilt the longer the ceremony got. I finally couldn’t take it anymore, and passed off my job as school photographer in order to take the poor guy over to my computer room so that he could get some current events done before he had to leave for work. I really didn’t know if he had enough desire to stay awake all night, but I said many prayers for him that night, and subsequently didn’t get that much sleep myself! My student who had written four essay drafts on Tuesday finished his final draft for his senior research essay at about 5:30 that evening, and I’d never seen anyone so excited to graduate! He kept saying, “Oh, Miss Osthus, I’m graduating!”

I stayed up late that night grading a handful of essays that couldn’t wait, and then packed and tossed and turned, wondering if any of my students were still awake studying. Early the next morning I left, having no clue what would happen with the three students we had yet to exit, two of whom were my highly intelligent advisees. My sister’s graduation and party were wonderful, and I was so proud of her, my baby sister. However, part of my heart was still in Eagle Butte, so I left her party at 5:00 PM on Saturday so that I could be at C-EB’s graduation at 1:00 on Sunday. The drive was uneventful until I got pulled over for sleepily drifting over the median right outside of Eagle Butte, and as soon as the tribal officer was convinced I wasn’t drunk he sent me home to bed.



Right after church on Sunday I drove to school and looked for new memos, and was overcome with delight when I found that every one of the students who had been working that week had finished! I spent the next few hours writing on cards and attaching them to the yearbooks that one of the juniors had assembled while I was gone. Graduation was fantastic. I knew that everything I had done was worth it when I saw how excited they all were to graduate. I wonder about the ethics of the ridiculous sacrifices I made a few times for those seniors (mostly sleep!), but those questions didn’t cross my mind when I was actually at graduation. At least a few of our seniors were first generation high school graduates, which is an amazing experience. Most of our students had actually worked really hard for their accomplishments, even though some of them should have started working several years sooner. Two of our girls were graduating a year early, and at least four students were graduating a year late and had barely expected to graduate at all. My heart was so full, and when I hung out with Amanda and Nicky that night I couldn’t contain the contented sighs that occasionally slipped from me. They probably thought I was crazy. I really think I am… at least crazy about my Master who planted me here to love these students, and about these students that I’ve been given to love.

After that we had three days left with underclassmen, but very few of them came in. Then we had two days full of shredding, cleaning, and meetings, and I checked out Friday morning and headed out for my week off with my family in Minnesota. There was a fall and there was spring, my first year of teaching! Uff da! I’ll fill you all in on my summer in Eagle Butte later! Love, Christina

Of parties, conferences, and small towns

Hey everyone! Here is my next note. My teaching work really has gotten less stressful, so maybe next year I will actually write more than once a month! For now I have quite enough to tell you guys about. Let’s see, since my last entry, I’ve had a lot of company, and I am right in the middle of a much-needed weekend, after a rather busy three weeks full of said company, the end of third quarter, and parent-teacher conferences.

Some people can’t bear a party of pleasure. ~ John Willoughby

Why don’t my students like to have fun? That’s a rhetorical question, to which there are several answers that might be very depressing if I didn’t know Jesus loves them even more than I do. Anyway, we invited the Men’s Quartet from Bible School to sing at Emmanuel and Bethel, our sister church in Faith. We also planned a Saturday night youth event at the Landmark Hall downtown, and invited Bethel, the youth groups from the Baptist, UCC, and Catholic churches, and lots of random people. I made invite cards and posters, and kept a stack on my desk and in my room, occasionally remembering to actually hand one to somebody. I know free food is a decent motivation for a lot of teenagers, so I figured we might have at least a few E.A.G.L.E. Center kids. I did prepare to be disappointed, and I prayed a lot that God would remind me that He had things under control.


We had six kids, I guess: two from Emmanuel, two from the Baptist church, one from Bethel, and one from Firesteel. The guys got here about 3:00, right as I got out of the shower and was getting ready to start dishes and clean the mess I had made making frybread. They just sat in my living room for about an hour while I finished cleaning and getting ready, and they enjoyed my mirrors I have on my ceiling a lot. Emma LaPlante had come with them to surprise her family, and it was really fun to have her along. That night we played a few ice breakers and group games, and I finally got to play Signs! Most of us took a while to get the hang of it, and it was great to watch some that took longer than others. : ) We ate pizza and had lots of desserts. Lots of desserts. I still have some of them in my cupboard, but I guess it’s been only a week. After that the guys sang a few of their songs (“Silent Night” and “In that Great Gettin’ Up Mornin’”), David shared his testimony, and then we sang some worship songs, which was lovely. I wish I could play guitar! It would be so nice to have worship music at youth group. Hmmm, Amanda can play guitar…


Then I took Michael and Isaac home to my little house, fed them ice cream cake in honor of my brother’s twentieth birthday, and set them up for the night. I love having company in my own house so much! I’d love to have more visitors (hint, hint). I would even make you breakfast, like I did for Michael and Isaac the next morning: scrambled eggs and apple pannekoeken. The boys sang for church, with a very Lentish, Easterish repertoire. Then I got a picture with my little brother, and they sped off to Bethel to sing before they headed home to Bible School.

Hey Miss Osthus, where’s your stunt double? ~ Richard

That very night, my sister arrived to stay with me! It was so wonderful to have her here for the beginning of her spring break. She got there pretty late on Sunday night, and I should have warned her before she drove into my snowbank that has been in front of my house since Christmas. We shared a little bit of ice cream cake before we went to sleep, and then she went with me to school the next day. Everyone thought she was my twin. Dr. Birkeland told the junior high during class meeting at the beginning of the day that there were two Miss Osthuses in the building. Dr. Birkeland took a keen interest in what Julia thought of the school, and sat with us for a bit at the end of lunch to get her impressions. She pretty much told Julia she’d hire her for social studies if she applied after graduation, to which Heather responded that she wasn’t gone yet! We also sat at lunch with Alex, a super cool kid who has been at the EC for like a month and a half. I knew that he plays guitar, like Julia does, so I started them talking guitar, though I know nothing about them. I guess he got a kick out of it, because his mom told me at parent-teacher conferences that he had mentioned it.

Then that night, guess what we did? We had a Bollywood party, complete with curried rice, chickpeas, sambosas (from Somalia, but kind of close), and Bride and Prejudice. Now, what do you know about Bollywood movies? I’m hardly an expert on the topic, but with a Pakistani nanny family and a Nanu who likes to watch Indian soap operas, I have a little bit of experience. Bollywood movies are strange, but they grow on you. They are Indian, and the name comes from Bombay, the former name for Mumbai. As you can probably tell, it is India’s version of Hollywood. A movie is not Bollywood unless it is a musical full of song and dance numbers, and usually it will be in Hindi, with a ton of English words thrown in from when India was colonized by England. The characters typically swear in English, which is pretty interesting to me. Slumdog Millionaire was just a taste of Bollywood, but really didn’t have enough music. Bride and Prejudice is closer, though they almost exclusively speak English, since it was directed by a British Indian woman. It is also based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, one of the best stories ever, so it was enjoyable working out the parallels between the stories. Amanda came over, too, and we had a great time. The reason I should have stopped Julia from driving into my snowbank was that she, like the Men’s Quartet, got her car stuck in the ice on Tuesday morning, but thankfully, one of my neighbors came over to rescue her after I left for school. Then she left to return to Minnesota. As you can see from Richard’s quote, a few of my students became rather fond of her in the short time she was with us!

My creation!

Never mind, we got it off the Pillsbury website, but I made it and it turned out really well! For my weekly movie night with Nicole and Amanda this past week I made Chicken-Bacon-Ranch pizza. I think Nicole and Amanda both liked it a lot, because they both had seconds, though they were very little second helpings. For once, I did not take seconds, but left the last slice in the fridge as leftovers, which worked out OK. We watched Freaky Friday, since our next NetFlix disc hadn’t arrived yet, and that is a movie that I always enjoy, and that neither of my friends had seen.


Oops, I missed the memo instructing me to complain about parent-teacher conferences

And here we are again: I am still a geek, and I still really enjoy parent-teacher conferences. We have only two each school year, and our first one was in the middle of September, back before I really knew anyone here. I really enjoyed that one, to the amusement of my co-workers, but I figured this one would not be as an enjoyable. We are now a few weeks into our fourth quarter of the school year, and some of our seniors are going to have a “mighty close shave” in their efforts to obtain their diplomas. Because of that, I expected that some parents and kids might be a bit irritable or anxious, which would dampen the general enthusiasm for the afternoon.

One family made me especially concerned. Two of their children are at the EAGLE Center right now, and both of them are trying to finish up make-up work. The younger one actually skipped school one day and told her mom that she was afraid Miss Osthus would just give her more work to do! Hardly logical, since staying home would just lead to more make-up work, but since we had a late start that day she wouldn’t have even had English with me. Her mom called the counselor, though, and she talked with me, and I called her mom right away to sort through things. Two days later, I typed up a list of everything she had left to finish up the grade that she was currently in, so that she couldn’t accuse me of giving her extra work, and then she and I met with the principal to settle what she had left. On the other hand, her older brother is trying to finish up to three grades in some subjects so that he can graduate this semester, and he still has a ways left to go. I know he can do it, but he doesn’t really like coming to school every day, and actually has probably never been to school this year more than three days in a row. That won’t cut it, so every time I see him in town I bug him to keep coming to school. They both came to conferences with their mom, and I was able to lay everything out for all three of them so that they knew exactly what to expect. Everything went just fine, and they really are great kids, though I still don’t know if either of them will muster up the motivation to finish everything they want to finish.

Every other family was a delight, and I know I’m cheesy, but they really were. I believe parental involvement is crucial to any kid’s success, so it is wonderful to be busy at PT conferences. Our stream of traffic was decent. I personally missed catching one parent who was there, so I might try to call him this week, especially since his daughter is a senior and has a lot of work left to do. Heather reminded me last week how important it is this time of year that every parent know how much work their students have done, so I am trying to get better at sending out letters and making phone calls. Next year I am sure I will be much more on top of that, but that’s one of those things that no one really taught me how to do, since everyone handles it differently. Unfortunately my default response to tasks that I don’t really understand when I am stressed and busy (this whole year), is to just not do it. It is now time to pick up the pace on those fun chores. But you don’t get cookies for sending letters like you do for parent-teacher conferences. I also went to the parent forum and got fried chicken for supper, which was a treat. Coupled with the Shamrock Shakes we had that morning, it was a very good day! I’m starting to feel more at home here, and I feel it no more than when I walk into the crowded cafeteria and see people smiling and waving at me. I love my students and their families! I just pray I can love them better.



What more can I do here? OK, the short list!

On that note, as it is finally feeling a bit like spring, though we still have plenty of snow, I’ve been thinking lately about summer and beyond, and wondering what God really wants me to do here to make more of a difference that I already am. I ask “What more can I do?” not feeling like I’m doing that much yet, but just honestly wondering what God will call me into next. I drive through some of the shoddier neighborhoods and wonder what people there really need, besides the obvious Sunday School answer (JESUS!) Do they need help fixing their houses? Do they need babysitting? Do they need lawn care? Do they need friends? I’m hardly an expert in many of these topics, but I can give anything that God has given me.

That being thought through, today I decided that I needed to spend time just trying some things out and seeing what God wants. Yesterday when I was grocery shopping I remembered that I had been planning on just buying a little something that I could give to one of the guys on Main Street, so I finally bought granola bars. I’ll keep them in my back seat until I need them. Then today, under inspiration from my mother, I decided to head out and pick up some popcans on my way back from the school. It was so beautiful today, and right about the first day of spring, I’d say it was about time! God’s timing is perfect, though. Once I got home, I decided I still needed a longer walk, so I put on my gardening gloves and took two plastics bags with me, one for recyclables and one for garbage. Since we had so much snow and now it is finally starting to melt, there is plenty of garbage that has recently been exposed by the receding snow. What I didn’t necessarily count on was picking up a few “cling-ons,” little kids that had been walking and decided they wanted to help me.

Memphis, who occasionally had to stop to take dips from his little bucket of chocolate frosting, and Michael, who is a third time second grader and kept threatening to shoot Memphis with his BB gun, were my most constant companions. We filled up about five bags with trash and recyclables, and that was just on my street and the street around the corner. We actually left a lot. One of these days when the weather is nice again (which it is not supposed to be tomorrow), I may have to go walking again. As of this past Sunday we really did have this much snow in the park, by the way—I am totally not making it up! I really do need to just wander around here more—I learned that a few of my students actually live super close to me. Knowing where people live just makes me feel so much more at home! The low point of my cleaning adventure probably came when both Memphis and I feel in the mud, but maybe he liked that part, I don’t know. I fell right on my knee cap and my jeans definitely need to be washed now.

Speaking of which: ta-da! My dryer is now ready to be used, and even turns on. Thank you to Corey, Heather’s boyfriend, who checked on my electrical wiring job to make sure it was OK. Unfortunately, the washer still is not in use, because Corey helped me to determine that there really is something wrong with one of my hoses, and the problem doesn’t just lie in my wet noodle grip. Man, I should have had Corey open my applesauce while he was here… Anyway, I guess I know my first stop next time I’m close to a Menard’s.

Once again, please pray…



Please keep praying for my youth group. Two of the kids from the Baptist church came to our youth group last week, since they haven’t really been able to get a regular youth group started yet. We’ve talked about just combining on Wednesday nights, but we’ll see. This week we are going to a youth rally in Faith, which I am getting excited for. Katie might spend the night with me, depending on what time we get back to town, which I think would be fun, though her mom warned me that she’s not a morning person. I don’t guess I really am, either, but I will make her a mouth-watering breakfast that smells so good she won’t be able to stay in bed. : ) Please pray that Jesus would set our hearts on fire and get us more and more excited to share the good news with those around us.

Four of my students lost dads last week, three of them in the same family. Please the pray for the Antonio family and the Estes family. One was sudden, and the other was somewhat more expected, but I’m sure both were painful. Just pray for comfort and peace, and pray that God might use me in some way to bring hope. Maybe it’s just living in a small town, but I’ve never heard of so many funerals in such a small space of time. It’s so interesting how moving to a different-sized town shrinks and widens your circle at the same time! My great-aunt Adelle also passed away last week, so if you could pray for my family, that would be great.

Also pray for my trip that I plan to take to my alma mater this weekend to hang out with friends. Pray that I would glorify God and bless my friends while I’m there, and that I would be kept safe on the road. I have some pretty special friends that I need to see and talk with about pretty important things, and it might take some extra wisdom. Sorry, don’t mean to be vague, but I just don’t know what the weekend will be like yet! I guess I should see if I can stop in Sisseton on the way back and meet up with my grandma and my uncles, but my uncles are probably pretty much slaves to their calves at the moment, though they hadn’t gotten any last time I talked to them. I guess I’ll call and check one of these days.

That’s all for now! I love you all! Christina

Freedom, failure, and frustrations

"How come you’re so happy all the time?”

I have often gotten that question, starting when I was going to community college and would come in on test day with a smile from ear to ear. I obviously kind of stick out on the reservation and at the E.A.G.L.E. Center, not just because of my blonde hair but also because of my joy. That being said, I have been interrogated on the existence of my smile a ridiculous number of times just in the last month. The reason for this might be a mixture of wondering when in the world I’ll lose it, since I didn’t ever let myself get too ruffled last semester, and noticing how grouchy other adults in their lives are, probably due to the ridiculous weather and our power outage. Life has been kind of tough here this semester.

At the beginning of the school year, I was often accused of being high or “cheesed up,” but I don’t get that as often anymore. Now they just ask why, as one of my students did last week, after warning that sooner later, I’ll snap and run screaming down Main Street. I feel kind of cheesy when I answer, and I remind myself that I still work in a public school, even though the setting and the relationships are automatically somewhat more intimate. What I typically say first is, “I have a lot to be joyful about.” When they ask what I've got, I usually get a little spunky, since maybe not everyone would agree that my life is to be envied all that much. I typically grin and say, “Oh, because I get to hang out with you,” but then I kind of look around and lower my voice a tiny bit (probably not enough), and say that Jesus loves me and I know that God is good. Very few of my kids get that, because very few of them know anything about Jesus. It's always ended there so far, but maybe tomorrow it won't!

I want to shine to my co-workers, too, and I was thinking about that a lot while I was at my parents’ house during the power outage we had at the end of January. On one hand, I want the light and grace I bring to my surroundings to not be about me. I kind of like the idea of my co-workers who were here last year saying to themselves that something is just different—that we work together better, that we care about our students better, and that is just a better place to be—but nothing that they can put a finger on. On the other hand, you know that saying that is credited to St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words”? Words are always necessary, because otherwise people will just think you are genetically a ridiculously nice person, and it won’t mean anything. Because of that, I guess my co-workers need to know that something I have is what is different this year. Don’t get me wrong; actually, most of my co-workers are Christians. A few of them are especially committed to their faith. But I still know that I bring a joy to this place that people don’t see very often. I think joy is the thing that I tend to get the most judgmental about toward other Christians. If people don’t show the joy they have in their salvation, I tend to think they are pretty pathetic! : ) Sorry, I’m working on it. But seriously, when you are with Jesus, there is always something to smile about!

Failure


I am feeling like a tired homemaker as I sit here and try to hack out a paragraph or two at 11:28 PM on Wednesday night, with peanut butter cookie dough waiting to be baked in the fridge, Tyler’s art worksheets on my kitchen table, and lesson plans that need to be done before Monday. Since I will be spending my weekend either in the car, in a FLY committee meeting, or at the hardware store buying accessories for my new used washing machine, I’m not expecting to be very productive in anything else. Of course, I am kicking myself for not getting more done during President’s Day weekend, but I have just been hitting walls regularly this year when I reach my limit of productivity, and I reached my limit quite early that particular weekend.

The teacher-brain of forgetfulness is still with me as well, and I need to turn in my water meter read by tomorrow at 4:00 PM to avoid an obscene bill. I just recalled this about an hour ago. Imagine if I went to bed earlier! I might never have realized until it was too late. So there. I am also getting a cold, finally. I have been expecting one to come on for months, and here it is, though I am still in the sore throat and early runny nose stage. I hope it will not put a damper on my weekend in the Cities, or for that matter, my last two days of work for the week.

I just had another one of those many “Good grief, I’m an adult with a job” moments, and I decided once again that I’m pretty content where I am. However, I laughed today when I was talking with one of my co-teachers and found out that she and I had both been lured to the E.A.G.L.E. Center on somewhat false pretenses, because both of our jobs were just advertised as regular high school positions. We both found out at our interviews that we were applying for the alternative learning center. But to tell the truth, I think this is where I belong—not necessarily in Eagle Butte, specifically, but in an alternative program. I figured out pretty quickly that my time tutoring football players in Morris and my homeschool background prepared me for the EC pretty well.

Anyway, because I know I’m where I belong, though I have dirty dishes on my counter, my cookies didn’t quite make it into the oven, and Tyler’s art worksheets are still lying on my kitchen table, I know that I could never be a failure.

“Well, what you could do better… how do you do this?”

I’ve probably complained a little bit about our burden of professional development in our district, and I have just one thing that has been preying on my mind lately. I absolutely love the trainers and consultants I get to work with, but I would really appreciate having someone come in who is not an elementary teacher, has taught in an inner-city setting with gangs, or has actually worked at an alternative learning center. I figure they are all easy on me because I am a first year teacher, and I love the affirmation and encouragement, but often when I have an observation all I hear is, “Wow, I couldn’t do this. You are amazing.” That isn't always really helpful, though I really am a sucker for encouragement. I suppose it might be more productive to talk with my principal about this than to just write it on my blog, but I guess I don’t really want more professional development than I already have, either! The sweet ladies that do come to observe us have been coming to our district for years, and they will probably be with us for many more years. Because of that, it is probably in my best interest, for sanity’s sake, to not express my desire for different (meaning additional) trainers at this point. Of course, I could go looking for a conference to attend that might be helpful instead of saying no to every opportunity I get, but I figure during my first year of teaching I can say no.

Keep Praying!

Let’s see… please keep praying for my students, for families in the Eagle Butte area that have lost loved ones, as we have had a whole bunch of funerals lately, and for the heart of this town and this reservation. Pray also for the women and girls who attended the women’s retreat in Rapid City last weekend, that God would continue to bring His words and teaching to their minds. I went with Barb Berndt, her two daughters, and two of their friends, and one of the friends, Valera, asked Jesus into her heart for the first time! Praise God, but really be praying for her, because she will not have a lot of support from her family and friends in her new faith. Also, I shared the Bible study with the elementary girls, and I have no idea how much they were able to take in. They were very attentive... but now after working with kids who never listen attentive kids make me nervous. I am worried that I went over their heads or lost a lot of them. Please pray that the girls would remember the words God was speaking to them that day, even if they don't get have of what I said!



Also pray for the visit that the AFLBS men’s quartet will be making to EB on March 13th, that the team would have safe travel and that plans for the youth group activity on Saturday and the Sunday service would go well. I really want Saturday night to be an outreach, but I have been so slow in getting things organized that I don’t know what will happen. But God does. We will be inviting all the youth groups in town, putting up posters on Main Street, and inviting our sister church in Faith. Besides that, I think I’ll be OK inviting my students to it, or at least leaving invite cards on my desk. My brother Michael is on men’s quartet, by the way. That is part of the reason that I am so excited that they are coming! Let me know how I can pray for you, too, OK? I love you all! Christina Joy

Glad we have electricity in Minnesota!

Hey there!

I have been back in my little house for three weeks, and have had a strange but welcome addition to my life: I have a temporary housemate! My superintendent approached me twice last semester about potential housemates, once a week after I moved in, and once a week before I left for Christmas break. I hesitantly said that I would consider the idea the first time, but the teacher they were interviewing ending up turning down the offer. The second time I said I was willing to meet the new math teacher that was coming to fill a vacancy we had in junior high, but I also told Dr. Slocum that I was really enjoying having my own place. I know everyone is different, but for this first year teacher, it has been so nice to have a real sanctuary where I can hide, dance, pray out loud, talk to myself, and stay up all hours of the night lesson planning. Dr. Slocum seemed to be worried that I was getting walloped with utility bills, but that really hasn’t been too much of a problem. Besides that, he was just sure that the candidate and I would just be a perfect fit for housemates, because she had just returned from student teaching in the Philippines and she is a “religious person,” as Dr. Slocum put it. Apparently he told the candidate the latter fact about me as well. I told him that I didn’t really want or need a housemate, if she had other options for housing, but that I would meet her anyway.

I did meet her briefly the day of her interview, and I found out that she would be living in the apartment that had been vacated by her predecessor, but only after his things had been cleaned out, which he had requested a week’s extension to do. This teacher that she was replacing had reportedly gone to celebrate Christmas with friends or family, but no one knew exactly where he was. Since he is from Africa and had gotten into some legal trouble in South Dakota, many were skeptical about whether or not he would get his apartment cleared out. Anyway, this particular woman did get the job, and is living with me until an official decision is made about the apartment.

Her name is Amanda Benson, and she is not only a religious person but is a solid, sold-out Christian. After Dr. Slocum had told her that I was a “religious person,” she tentatively began to hope that I was a Christian, despite the vagueness of the term “religious.” She had just about convinced herself that I was probably a Mormon, since there is a big Mormon church right down the street from my house. But we quickly established on meeting each other that she grew up Baptist and I grew up Lutheran, and that we seem to be on the same page in everything that is really important. She is about a year younger than I, and she attended Grace University, a Christian college in Omaha. Her student teaching experience was somewhat similar to mine, but in other ways was very different, most particularly because she was student teaching quite a bit longer than I did and was at a Christian school in Manila, Faith Academy. I found out that she has been to Ecuador as well, when she went on a mission trip to Quito. As you can imagine, we have already started to become quite good friends and have plans to travel the world together, starting with Israel and then going anywhere after that.


Praise God that we are so compatible, because we got some quality bonding time during our first week back at school. We had three snow days in a row! I really don’t think we got very much snow, but high winds caused a ridiculous amount of drifting, and they caused very dangerous wind chill temperature. Amanda and I went out every day, though, because we wanted to take advantage of the time to get things done downtown. Unfortunately, this is no help if businesses in town are closed for the same reason that the schools are, which was at least the case at the library and the telephone authority. Besides errands, we both got a considerable amount of school stuff done, which meant we could take time to kick back over the weekend. I made Indian pizza, which is just pizza on frybread, for the first time on Friday night, and we watched PS I Love You, which I really enjoyed a lot! I took Amanda to church with me on Sunday, and it was the perfect Sunday to be there, because there was a potluck. That evening Amanda and I went to Dairy Queen with Carla and Barb, two other teachers, and then we hopped back into our week.

I always consider it a good sign when I am super excited to be some place after a break, and I was glad to be back at the EAGLE Center. It really is the perfect place for me right now. I have no idea how long God wants me to stay here, but I can’t imagine a situation which would be better for me—not easier, not more fun, but just better. I really am all about small classes, one-on-one interaction with kids, and the supportive relationship that staff members have with each other. It’s been so great to be with my kids again for a week, and we have about ten new students so far this semester. We have a bit of a “revolving door” issue, so some of these kids have been in our program before, but I haven’t met any of them until now. One already finished reading the freshman book in less than a week, and many of them are seniors who only have a few credits left, so getting them all started might be a bit of a whirlwind.

I’ve stretched my writing time for this post out a little more than usual, so now it’s been a while and there have been a few more developments. The first one is that we got nearly all of the students back that we lost last semester, which I have extremely mixed feelings about. Some in particular really are stuck if we don’t take them back in, and would only have the GED program to turn to. On the other hand, we really gave all of them ample chances to make up attendance and get work done last semester. I do bend over backward for my kids, because I love them, but if they don’t respond, I feel like there must be some consequences. I think we are sending them a mixed message by doing this, but it’s not my choice and really doesn’t seem to be my principal’s choice, either. We are putting them on special schedules and contracts, and keeping them all in one area, so we’re not just letting them come back free and clear, but still, it bothers me. At the same time, I will be particularly glad to have a few of them back!

I had an enjoyable weekend that I am just coming off of, and now am in a very interesting week! On Thursday night I lost power in my trailer due to storms and ice, and since I was already planning to take a personal day and travel to Osceola, Wisconsin for a youth workers’ retreat, I dug out some candles, emptied perishables from my fridge, put them on my deck, and left a note explaining the situation to my still sleeping housemate, and took off to beat the snowstorm that I had heard was on the way. Thank God, I arrived safely in Minnesota without too much cause for alarm, except very poor visibility for a while, and then I had supper with my family and let my mom come with me to the retreat. The retreat was wonderfully refreshing, and I will expand on it later, but highlights were the small group discussions we had, the encouraging conversations I had with Renee, one of the speakers, bonding time with my mom, and catching up with several good friends. We also went to the movie To Save a Life, which I would recommend. Maybe I will post a review later. ; )

Anyway, that personal day I had planned to take ended up being moot, since school was canceled anyway, and it is also canceled Monday, Tuesday, and however many more days we have until the power in our whole coverage area is back on! So I am enjoying the hospitality of my parents for at least a few days, and I was able to get to the eye doctor today, which was very convenient. I was almost out of contacts!


Please pray for everyone who is out of service right now, that everyone would be safe and would have options for food and shelter! Also pray for all the new students I have and those who have been given grace for another semester, that they would wake up and get to work, and that they would realize the gift they have been given! Pray that Amanda would be able to move into her apartment soon (though it’s not as though I’m not enjoying her!), and that she would continue to get to know her students and have plenty of wisdom as she begins her journey as a real teacher! I love you all! Christina Joy