Baby Payne!

We have great news...we are expecting our family to grow by one this winter! Nicole and I are SO excited to be entering parenthood soon, ever since we met at EWALU summer camp counseling elementary/middle schoolers we have both known we wanted to have (lots of) kids (and have them soon). We are so thankful God blessed us with our baby and are eager to meet him/her.

Our story of becoming pregnant is so full of God's love and faithfulness in spite of our doubt we wanted to share it in the hope it might bring encouragement and a greater faith in His love!

When Nicole and I decided last year we wanted to begin trying to get pregnant, we were both significantly afraid of not being able to get pregnant. We had heard that 1 in 8 couples struggle with infertility, and as we both absolutely love the idea of being parents, this was a real fear for us.

However, in light of who God is, we had both committed to striving to live our lives free of all fear and doubt, but after a few months of trying it was clear we both were not fully trusting God. As I prayed about this, God made it clear to me that as long as there is fear in our lives, it gives the enemy permission/authority to mess with things, but that when fear is gone, everything will work as it is intended.

We both knew the way to conquer fear is to understand and believe the full love of God because perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn 4:18), so while Nicole was in Brunei I was praying seriously about what piece in my understanding of God I was "missing." Our conversation went something like this: 

--

"Justin you need to believe the truth about me"

"But God, I don't know what truth to believe about you.

I'm not afraid of not having enough money because I know you are a Provider,

I'm not afraid of my sin because I know you are a Savior,

I'm not afraid of sickness because I know you are a Healer,

But I don't know why I don't need to be afraid of infertility..."

"You don't need to be afraid of infertility because I am a Father"

--

Of course, I have always know God is a Father, but I had never though of it in the context of pregnancy. Obviously God has the heart of a father and a father always desires children, therefore we didn't need to doubt His ability or desire for us to have children! I haven't had too many experiences like that, but I left that prayer time completely free of fear and wasn't ever afraid of infertility again.

I shared with Nicole what God had spoken to me, and the first month we both believed it, we found out we were pregnant! We are so in awe of how faithful God is to his children. His Word is true, and all we need is to trust Him! 

New Job!

Last week I started working full-time as a Preschool Teacher at Play and Learn Children's Center in Ames! It is such a blessing to have consistent work now that will also continue through the summer. While I really enjoyed substitute teaching for its flexibility and variety, one thing I really missed was building relationships with the children and adults I worked with. My schedule was so variable as a substitute that I was in a different school working with different students and teachers everyday so I never really got to know the people I was working with well, and I realized that wasn't ideal for me.

Right now at PLCC I am working in the Pre-K classroom, which means the kids are four and five years old.  Since there has been a lot of transition with their previous teacher leaving, the students are in a bit of a rebellious stage and I've been having a lot of issues in these first few weeks with classroom management and students being disrespectful and acting out toward teachers and each other.  I've realized at first I need to spend a lot of time modeling and reteaching my expectations for good behavior and establishing routines and structure and that should really help. The good news is I can see improvement already in how the kids are beginning to behave since I've been working with them!

One of the cool things about this job is that a lot of the kids come from lower-income home situations, many are children of parents who never got married or are divorced, and a few of the kids' dads are in prison, so I have the chance to really love on kids who need a positive influence to speak truth into their lives and let them know they are valuable and special.

Here are a few prayer requests:

• Pray that the students would begin to value listening and being respectful toward their teachers and classmates
• Pray that the students would feel safe, loved, and special in our classroom community
• Pray for good spiritual conversations with my co-workers 

Failure According to Ron Clark

I recently finished reading The End of Molasses Classes by Ron Clark, an author who has some extraordinary credentials, which include Disney's American Teacher of the Year award, Oprah's Phenomenal Man award, and a movie made about his teaching success in an East Harlem school (The Ron Clark Story starring Matthew Perry).

The subject of Molasses Classes is the Ron Clark Academy, an innovative school which Clark has created in Atlanta, Georgia.  RCA seems like every kid's dream school: they have a school-wide house system modeled after the Hogwarts houses in Harry Potter, go on field trips around the world, incorporate popular music into their classrooms...check out this CNN story on the school to see what I mean!



One of the things I loved about reading this book was all of the kingdom principles I found myself pulling out of Ron Clark's story. Take, for example, how this man views failure:  "As I got older, I learned that when you 'go for it,' generally the worst that you come away with is a very good story." 

I look at Ron Clark and the way he doesn't fear failure, desires excellence, and has achieved some truly incredible things, and I'm reminded of Jesus, who walked with no fear, ushered the excellence of the kingdom of heaven onto this earth, and performed miracles--nothing was impossible for him.  Ron Clark seems to have unlocked a principle of the Kingdom: when we're not afraid of failing we walk with greater expectations and experience greater success.  Wouldn't it be amazing if more followers of Jesus had success and influence at the level Ron Clark has?  May we all abide in Christ where His perfect love casts out all fear, live with the expectation that nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37), and see what God does in and through us!

Homemade Winter Headband

I was first introduced to the cute, newly stylish knit winter headband (thin in the back and thick on top, often with a decorative flower) when my sister got one last winter. This season I started noticing them everywhere in stores and since I was feeling ready for a new knitting challenge I decided to try and make one myself. I had never knitted anything other than a scarf before, but this type of headband seemed like a project that would be easy enough for my first attempt at knitting increases and decreases.

After a little googling, I found a pattern online that looked exactly like what I wanted. Many online video tutorials, mistakes, and re-do's later, I had completed my first headband! I knitted three more and gave them away as Christmas presents this year, and I found it really fun and rewarding to make something that's so cute and useful! The one thing I haven't figured out how to do yet is the flower, so for now my headbands are plain- let me know if anyone has tips on flower-making. Give this project a try if you're a new knitter (or want to be), it was definitely worth it!

Check out the pattern I used here and knitting videos and tips here!