How Professor Dave Fared
Hello to the readers of this blog. I am obviously rather poor at completing any timely updates to my blog. I would love to offer a cool and creative excuse but I also want to be honest. Simply put, I have been overwhelmed with EVERYTHING in the past several months. It’s not all been bad but it’s also not all been good. Overall, God has continued to bless me continually and His riches continue to be lavished upon this unworthy person. I will never be able to list all of the blessings that God has delivered in recent months but I think that I can summarize enough that you all get the idea.
Since I last shared anything here, I have started and completed my first ever teaching assignment with Liberty University. To say that it was an experience would not do it anywhere near enough justice. I can definitely say that is a rewarding (though sometimes humbling) experience to be an instructor. It’s an even higher honor and privilege to serve as an instructor at a Christian university. Despite this awesome potential, when you combine higher education and Christianity, it can sometimes cause strange results. Overall, the interactions I had with my students were quite positive. I got to pray with students, encourage them in their education and their walk with Christ, and be privy to some of their wonderful faith stories. On the other hand, the demand on my students to be biblical in their thoughts and actions did not always go well and the Enemy used some of my attempts at bolstering faith through encouragement into corrupted messages to my students. I can’t really go much deeper than that, but suffice to say that one of the biggest lessons I have learned from this first experience as a college instructor, is that no matter how much you try to be positive, impacting and helpful, some students will simply never agree with you and will argue with you until they are blue in the face…er…email text. Despite these challenges. my final rankings from the end-of-course survey reflect me quite well. Almost all of the students strongly agreed that I was a good professor and that I was always willing to help them with their needs. One of the biggest things I noticed was that the students did not feel that some of the instructions for the work were very clear. I am looking at how to change that. Also… I get to teach the same course in the coming Fall D Term. I have certainly learned a few ways that I can improve my own performance for the next term so I am looking forward to doing this all again in October.
The next big change is that we have officially moved! That’s correct, after staying in our house for over 5 years and adding 4 more children to the home since we moved in (the boys and the twins came after we moved), we finally moved on. Where? Well, one of the most amazing places we could ever have as our home. We bought an existing house in Noble, not far away from Norman. The house has 5 full bedrooms, plus an office, 3 car garage, a shop, AND it sits on almost 5 acres. Even when I lived with my parents in SE OK, the biggest land I had available was about 1 acre at my mom’s house. My wife and I both love the fact that the house is far enough from the city that we feel like the area is peaceful and disconnected from urban life while still being close to most things in civilization (it only takes me about 15 minutes to get to work and 10 minutes to get to our church). The house is still pretty chaotic and largely still packed, but we are slowly getting through things and organizing as we go. We have already installed a Merry-Go-Round and a jungle gym for the kids to enjoy and will be installing a swing set once time (and weather) allows us to do so.
Lastly, my beloved wife has decided that after being out of the work force for over 2 years, she is now returning to work. She greatly enjoyed being able to stay home with the kids and especially to watch the twins grow but she also desires to have some professional life outside of the home and to earn some income. She accepted a position as a part time teacher at the daycare where our children currently attend but is only using that until some of the other positions she has applied to pan out. The director of the daycare is aware that my wife wants to do a full time position but she also didn’t want us to lose our spots for the twins and our oldest at the daycare if the other jobs take a while to get back to her. It’s not her favorite job to do but she is blessed to be able to work in the school and earn the paycheck while she waits for the other jobs to come along. I pray that God will deliver her the job that will let her use her gifts to the fullest extent.
Take Care all and Happy Fall!