old and still learning

In October, when I went to see Becca in Vermont, besides the obvious amazing experience of spending a week with Becca, there was another thing I wanted to do. I've never taken a big trip by myself.

I got married when I was twenty, and although I think of myself as fairly independent, I guess maybe I'm not nearly as independent as many women are. I wanted to do something on my own, to prove to myself I could.

Navigating airports, catching buses, asking questions, getting answers, finding a coffee shop while dragging an uncooperative suitcase, hiking on unfamiliar trails while Becca was at work. These are a few of the things I did for the first time that Becca has already done many many times.

Beyond that, I got to kayak a river,

Becca gets photo credit

and take a class on making Danish with my daughter as my instructor.

I'm doing a few other new things as well right now.

I've begun teaching high school Sunday School. 

Although there used to be a woman in the rotation of teachers, currently all of the teachers were men. They are all pretty great teachers, but diversity is important. 

High school is intimidating. 

I remember being in high school, unlikely as that may seem.

I remember the teacher asking questions, and NO ONE answering them. 

On the other hand, I'd taught many of these young people during their grade school years. I'm adding a new stage of maturity to my teaching experience, but with friendly faces. 

And, before saying yes, I had the opportunity to sit in on a class and get advice from two of the teachers. I saw kids answering questions, believe it or not. And I got some good suggestions from the other teachers.
I knew I'd make mistakes. I have experience doing that.

And I knew I would learn from those mistakes.
I have experience with that as well.

One of the suggestions was to project the Bible passages from my computer to the screen, making it possible for everyone to be using the same version of the Bible, and to be focused on the same verses.

I thought that would be simple to learn.

My first time teaching came, and I arrived early. I was not successful in getting the computer and the projector to work together.

We survived. 

I asked some pretty stupid questions that the kids mercifully tried to answer, at least most of the time.

I ran out of material.

Tomorrow I teach again, so this week, I needed to learn how to make my computer work with the projector.  I decided to try to learn a program for making presentations as well. 

I've spent considerable time on this.

Figuring out how to add one line at a time to the slide as I make each new point.

Learning all the cords that connect to the projector, and how to make the blue tooth clicker work to advance the slides.

Adding 'speaker notes' that will show up on my computer screen but not on the bigger screen.

My lesson is not written down in a spiral notebook for the first time in my life.

If I forget how to make things work together, I'll just teach from my computer screen and hope the youth will offer me grace.

Hopefully it won't end up like this...