Let me tell you about my fun week! I wish I had pictures of some of this to share with you, but I find some of the most spontaneous moments of joy don’t have a camera poised and ready to capture it, so here is my attempt at a few word pictures of what this past week has looked like…

It started on Monday. Eighth period is a time after the last class of the day designated for students to be able to come to the classroom for extra help. As such, I can often be found in my classroom from 3:30-4:00pm, working with students, or waiting for some to come. This particular day, I heard a hubbub outside my classroom and saw a gaggle of boys in the class I sponsor making very teenager-esque noises (think: HOO-HOO-HOO HAHHHHHHHH!!! AYEEEEEEEE). Curious about the sounds, I peek out the window just in time to watch 24 eyes move from left to right as they traced the path of the ball that was just launched by a beautiful swing of a golf club.

Ever the realist, and knowing these particular boys very well, I join the circle and regale them with the cautionary tale of Max who broke, paid for, and fixed one of my classroom windows after a similar golf swing a few years back. I got “We’ll be careful!” and “The person swinging will pay if it breaks.” and “Not me. Won’t be me. Nope” all at the same time as one of the boys came jogging back to the grassy tee, ball in hand. It was then I realized they were only kind of playing golf. In his palm was clasped an old tennis ball: an easier target to swing at, and a lot less dangerous as far as windows damage goes. It was here I changed tactics, “You guys want me to go get Ginger? She can be your ball retrieval…”

Cue teenage boy noises once more, “HOO HOO HOO! AYEEEEEEEEEE!” Needless to say, they thought this was a brilliant idea. Thus my time in 8th period ended and playtime with my dog began. Ginger fetched their hits for about 20 minutes until the once-per-term-post-8th-period assembly began.

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It continued on Wednesday…we were in the weeds of a unit on atomic structure, working with something called electron configurations. It’s a weird idea to wrap ones brain around, and in my classroom I really love to include “Chemistry Songs” which believe it or not, there are a lot of on YouTube to aide in the learning process. Typically my philosophy is the more obnoxious the song, the better! That criteria in mind, the best song happens in this unit! A slightly off key singer aided by the help of the recorder repeats over and over again the pattern to be found in writing these elusive electron configurations.

(Check it out if you’d like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb6kAxwSWgU )

In first period, I proposed the following: if you sing your answer in accordance with the song, I’ll give you candy (I keep a stash of dum-dums and smarties for instances like this, good answers, and hilarious ironic comedy). I have a beaker with popsicle sticks of each student’s name, and when I call their “popsicle stick of doom” it is their turn to share with the class what they got. Welp, only the last student that period sang their answer, but it was awesome. I made the same deal with third period and had quite a bit more participation… about half of the students sang their answers.

Fourth period had heard the rumors already and came in ready to rock and roll. “CALL ON ME MISS GALLOWAY! I WANT TO SING IT! I WANT THE SMARTIES!”

Every. Single. Student. Sang their answers in fourth period! Each singing of the answer was met with a chorus of cheers and clapping by the entire class. Did it take a lot longer to check our answers when we stopped to cheer for each one? Absolutely, but as I grade the tests today, I guarantee that fourth period will not miss a single one of that type of problem. I began our follow up lesson grinning ear-to-ear. I can always count on fourth period to have a good time! I realized in part, it’s because almost everyone in that class period of students comes every week to our late-night Wednesday Hot-Cocoa party at the Hupps house. I’m telling you! I’m loving life this term.

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Friday was no disappointment to my already stellar week. Seventh period rolled around and I decided to use my prep time to make copies for this week- appropriate use of prep time on a Friday afternoon. I was walking back with a ream of paper once bare now covered in chemistry notes, worksheets and even tests. As I approached the grassy space in front of my classroom, I neared a group of students who were… well… it was clear they were trying to pose for something. Vis-comm project? English class video? It looked like four or five of them were trying to make themselves into an airplane. Kneeling, arms out. No, not going to work. One guy scrambled up onto the shoulders of another. I kept walking and chatted for a minute with the physics teacher nearby. When I turned around it looked like they’d accomplished their goal. One student was on the shoulders of another, two guys flanking the base with their arms out in the shapes of wings. I approached the other three students standing there to get a better view. One of them mumbled something about being part of the video, but I didn’t catch it as I was more interested in what this human plane was about to do. QUIET ON THE SET!

They began to roll film, this make-shift plane coming closer to our line of spectators.

“Oops! What was that?” I hear the on-the-shoulders guy say as he tosses something at the line of spectators, that I am standing in the middle of. In the fraction of a second delay between it releasing from his hand and landing on the ground at my feet I realize I am now part of the video as the students on either side of me scream and fall over. I am not sure how I managed, but I too fell over, almost in sync with my students. Somehow I managed the fall in timing, even though re-watching the clip, my scream was delayed by half a second.

“How did you know you were supposed to fall?!” The physics teacher asked.

“I didn’t. I just fell when they did.” I finished the 20 foot walk the rest of the way to my classroom delighted they’d included me in their fun, but even more delighted that I had taken my cue correctly and added to the drama of the scene. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if I hadn’t maintained my grip on the 500 sheets of paper I held, and they had flown around us like debris from a crash. But then we’d have had to pick them up and that wouldn’t have been so fun, so maybe everything worked out just right after all!

My thrilling week came to a close with an afterschool basketball game of the season, followed by an evening band/choir concert! Here at RVA, our athletic teams tend to do pretty well, especially in basketball when compared to our peers. Kenyans love rugby and soccer, so many of those games are competitive, but we tend to stomp on the competition when it comes to basketball. Our best rival drives over 3 hours one way for this game, and Friday was the game. They come from the land of tall genes, half of their team running over 6’6″, some of them even scraping a whopping seven feet. Our tall guys look short when lined up next to them. It was an intense game, screaming and cheering filling the gym. We never trailed by more than six points, our 5’5″ scrappy starting sophomore getting right up next to guys with almost 18 inches on him. Our 6’3″ post could barely get his fingers on the ball for a rebound, yet somehow we held our own. The fourth quarter came and the taste of victory was on the mouths of everyone in the room. Down by 2. Tied. Down by 3. Tied. Up by one. We finally took the lead, having been down the whole game. The crowd went WILD. We oscillated back and forth that whole fourth quarter until, with nine seconds on the clock, tied score 56-56, we fouled on a shot. They took the foul shots and secured the win. I’m sure the sounds of the game were heard all the way down in the valley! My head was pounding and throat hoarse when I finally walked out of the gym, adrenaline still pumping through my veins from the excitement of the game.

Luckily, the music department was prepared to calm us all down with their evening of performance well prepared. Though many talented musicians performed, my favorite piece was from the jr. high choir who sang a lovely rendition of “Rainbow Connection” from the Muppets. My runner-up fave was either the piece from “The Incredibles” or from “Chicago” played by the jazz band at the end of the night. Overall, it was a great way to round out a really fun week!

Prayer Points

-This weekend there were a lot of spiritually oriented activities happening! All on Saturday, a Gather-25 event hosted 6am-6pm of prayer for the church around the world, a ladies “ask anything” event for HS girls from 10am-12pm, a “Freedom Fight” worship night from 7pm-9pm and even more happening on Sunday! A bug has swept through campus (a nasty 24 kind) and some of us are wondering if it may be a little spiritual warfare. Would you pray God would continue to be on the move in the students hearts and minds? Would you pray for the health of our students who are dropping like flies? It seems to be a nasty 2-3 day GI bug and MAN it is making fast work of this campus.

-In just a couple weeks I leave on a trip with 14 students and 1 other adult for our annual “African Field Studies” trips. Many other staff will be leading similar trips. Would you pray as we finish last minute plans that all would fall into place and go well? Logistically, and with opportunity to connect with students during this time?

-I’ve got another post brewing about the banquet planning process, which is going exactly according to plan! Some of the plans involve letting the students fail so we can walk with them through that as a learning experience. It’s been a hard week in some of that regard, but really cool in others. Would you pray we as adults can support our student leaders well in this? We’re really excited to help them learn and grow, but that isn’t always easy for them.