1.I will give at least a 10% tithe in addition to any other giving I will do.
The issue of money has not been the happiest this month as you may have observed in previous blog posts. However fortunately God liberated me from some of it a couple of weeks ago and saved me from having to be productive with it. Amazingly I have also seen God move more powerfully this month in the activities I have been involved in despite having less money.
I haven't paid all my tithe for this month though, partially out of having the money stolen, partially out of forgetfulness when at church. As such this will mean that next month I, of course have to pay this months as well as next.
Another worrying thing, I have noticed that I have given less to begging babuskas this month [a sudden realisation]. I know that I had less month this month but It's not right to use being robbed as an excuse. I Shall do better next month. [I also have the plan to invite one of the babuskas for a meal soon but this will require guts, to be on top form with my Russian and some cultural sensitivity (apparently when you invite someone over you are suppose to cook many many dishes to make them feel welcome...I usually only do one!) Please pray that this happens and isn't an idea that falls by the wayside.
I haven't paid all my tithe for this month though, partially out of having the money stolen, partially out of forgetfulness when at church. As such this will mean that next month I, of course have to pay this months as well as next.
Another worrying thing, I have noticed that I have given less to begging babuskas this month [a sudden realisation]. I know that I had less month this month but It's not right to use being robbed as an excuse. I Shall do better next month. [I also have the plan to invite one of the babuskas for a meal soon but this will require guts, to be on top form with my Russian and some cultural sensitivity (apparently when you invite someone over you are suppose to cook many many dishes to make them feel welcome...I usually only do one!) Please pray that this happens and isn't an idea that falls by the wayside.
2.Making Prayer a stronger habit.
I noticed earlier this month that my morning habit said a lot about my priorities. Unfortunately what this seamed to reflect was that Coffee was number one, and checking my emails was a close second. There are some good reasons for this [I need to start the hot water flowing so by the time I have a shower it is warm!] but I decided that a small change would really help to establish pray and God as a priority in my life.
There has been some success and failures here and changing a habit certainly takes time but I'm going to stick to it.
There has been some success and failures here and changing a habit certainly takes time but I'm going to stick to it.
3.Use skype more to chat to people back home/Britain
I have had a few Skype chats this month However most of these have been done via the text service rather than actually voice chats. This has been in no small part due to the lack of high speed mobile connections on my internet dongle. Still this has been of some success.
Next month I intend to make more time and actually initiate more Skype chats [and use the voice service where I can].
4. I will improve as an EFL teacher.
This month we have been taking part in the observations as part of our International House Young learners course. This has been very useful to pick up some techniques from other teachers. One of the interesting things I noticed about most of the comments I wanted to make about other teachers, is that I am sure the same comments could be made during my lesson. Perhaps it helps to prove the old saying that everytime you point a finger. Three more point straight back at you.
In addition some of the input session this month have been very important. One of the shockingly obvious points was about insure we put a good lesson aim down and insure we do a language analysis before we plan our lessons.
5. I will improve my Russian.
I have certainly sort to have a lot of opportunities to speak Russian recently and have had some great success with a couple of people who speak no/very very little English at church, and some who do actually speak quite a bit of English but I have encouraged them to speak Russian with me so I can practice. [in fact las Sunday I spoke more Russian than I did English!]
However! I have slipped on my studies. Working till at least 8 ever night doesn't help but this is something I desperately want to set right as it is so vital to learn some of the essential words that I want to know. So that is my task for next month. Find at least 1 hour a week to really work on learning some new words and then test them out.
[in other news you may noticed I've added some Russian language blogs to the blog role]
6. I will write more songs.
I'd say this has been the biggest failure this month, I have been working on some songs but I am definitely suffering from writers block at the moment. I guess I will just have to put something up no matter how bad I think it is as that is the only way to move past it.
7. Host a weekly meal at my flat.
Not quite up too the weekly rate yet and with the longer working hours everyone has been experiencing it has been harder to organise meals. However I did recently cook a slightly improved version of my Borsh recipe which my Ukrainian guests said was better than theirs!
8. Regular and higher quality blogging.
The main change this month has been the restoration of a simpler theme and a de-cluttering of the sidebar to make the blog easier to use. Other than that postings have generally been pretty regular though I have decreased the number of TEFL based post this month. Having said that I did manager to upload a resource for teaching on the blog and I hope I will continue to do similar things in the future.
9. I will get involved with some form of charitable work in the Ukraine.
I have now gone along to an orphanage in Dnipropetrovsk a couple of times and taught guitar lessons to some of the kids there. It has been really enjoyable even though it obviously means I can't do other things that might be more relaxing on a Sunday afternoon.
10. I will make a Public video each month.
Well I uploaded the Why I believe video. It wasn't anything too fancy but it is a video, so enjoy.]
So there you go. That was March. Bring on April! Suggestions of activities/ways to improve are always welcome. I hope to Post the statistics and highlights of March tomorrow but due to travelling to my friends wedding this may not happen.
So there you go. That was March. Bring on April! Suggestions of activities/ways to improve are always welcome. I hope to Post the statistics and highlights of March tomorrow but due to travelling to my friends wedding this may not happen.
