Saturday, January 17, 2015

Quarter 3 Begins!! Students, New Students, Grades, Counseling Intern, Legs, Chapel, ASA!!!

Quarter Three has begun!  Students seemed to be eager and excited to be back after the 3-week Christmas Break!  We welcomed eight new students to the Elementary School!  Teachers and administrators finalized grades for Quarter Two and sent reports to parents! YISS welcomed an intern to work with our high school counseling department for most of Quarter Three!  Online registration for Quarter Three after school activities was completed successfully! I had the privilege of sharing in Chapels and OASIS Assembly on Friday!  We began some initial interviews for a few elementary positions for 2015-16!  I had a visit to Dr. Kim about some burning red rash-type stuff on my inner thighs!  It was quite a week!!

Not very many pictures for you this week because it was just a very busy week getting everyone back into the ministry of educating children!  Students were eager to return and it was so wonderful to greet them in the morning!  On Monday morning at 10:15 we welcomed eight new students to our elementary school at YISS!  They all seemed very eager to begin and I had the pleasure of taking a couple children from Taiwan on a brief tour and then to their classes where they were greeted so eagerly by our YISS students!  Each new student arriving to YISS receives some transition counseling from our Elementary Chaplain.  They are also introduced in Chapel and OASIS Assembly where they are given their own copy of the Bible.

Speaking of Chapel and OASIS, I was asked by Mrs. Franck to read a book, The Invisible Boy, for the next several Fridays to each of our Chapels and to the OASIS Assembly.  I would appreciate your prayers as I share concerning "being left out", bullying, and how one can use kindness to begin to change a group's attitude about a person who is being left out and ignored.  Students were so interested on Friday as I began sharing and reading.

Mrs. Franck also was able to give a final count of the money the elementary students and teachers raised for our Walk-A-Sock-A-Thon last October.  Because students are to bring in only 100 Won coins (each year there are a mixture of other coins in the huge collection), it takes the bank a long time to transport the coins to the bank and sort and count the coins.  The students were so excited to hear the totals!  The total raised by just the elementary school was 8,735,920 Won!!  That is $8,100 in USD!  Then the PTO said they would add 10% to whatever the elementary raised!  Plus there were a number of high school clubs who brought in coins to help as well.  The overall total with the PTO and High School gifts was 10,785,540 W!!!  The students were soooo excited that their 100 Won coins would be going to help eight different organizations who are working with various groups of needy people around the world.  This was the first time the Walk-A-Sock-A-Thon had a total over 10,000,000 W!  The total raised was about $10,000!!
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When I returned to YISS on Monday, I was surprised by a former SYME student and her mother in the lobby of YISS!  Last April, Erica Yim, one of the students I had at SYME back in 2009-10 had contacted me to see if she could do her internship in counseling at YISS.  Erica lives in Songtan, South Korea but was studying at Moody Bible Institute.  I put her in contact with our High School counseling department, but had never heard anything definite.  I was so excited to see Erica.  She told me that she would be doing her internship at YISS with Mr. Wingate during most of the 3rd Quarter. I know Erica is a bit nervous so I know she would value your prayers as she interns at YISS.

Above GGG is with Erica, a former SYME student, who is now serving her internship with the YISS High School Guidance Department.  I know she would value your prayers.  The picture was taken outside Elementary Chapel on Friday.  Erica is trying to get involved in all areas of the school.  Since our Elementary Chaplain does counseling with a number of our elementary students, it was felt she should be involved somewhat in our elementary program.
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Many of you were praying this past week for me as I made final preparations for the online registration for the Quarter Three After School Activities.  Thanks so much!  Through my friends in the Ed Tech department at YISS I discovered two Apps that Google had just developed that now allows me to have an automatic closing of an activity's registration.  One of these Apps also allows me to set up an automatically generated email of confirmation to the parents as soon as they submit their child's registration!  My helper, Abby Williamson, and I had spent many hours trouble shooting this before activating the After School Activities' website on Thursday morning, January 15.  Oh the Apps also allowed me to have a Waiting List registration available online once a class was closed. Everything went very smoothly!  It saved so much time because I did not have to go in and manually close 25 individual activities when each reached its limit of students. Often I could not close the classes quickly enough manually, but with this new App, I did not have to close any of them!  The Waiting List has been a great addition, too!  Thank you all for praying.  Please pray that all of the other things that need to happen during these next few days to have all of the classes ready by February 2 will be able to be accomplished.  Payment Slips, Liability Forms, Bus Lists, etc. need to be generated!
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During the past several weeks I have had some sort of burning red rash on my inner thighs.  The skin had a forest of red spots all over the inner thigh.  There was no itching; just burning!  I went to my doctor, Dr. Kim, and he said it was a fungus of some sort. He prescribed some cream and medicine which I took for 10 days and it brought relief.  Then last Sunday it came back.  I thought it would go away but by Tuesday I needed to go see Dr. Kim again.  He is not quite sure what the problem is, but again prescribed cream and meds which are helping.  There is no burning now and the redness seems to be going down.  I would appreciate your prayers that this will go away, but if not that Dr. Kim will be able to figure out what it actually is and what might be causing it.  (I will spare you from seeing pictures of this! Aren't you happy?  I did send some to my sister, Julee, the R.N. for her thoughts!)
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I thought I would leave you with a couple pictures that were just sent to me by some YISS parents. While I was working on After School Activities' thing on Saturday afternoon at YISS, I received an email from some of our elementary parents.  They had taken some candid pictures during one of the YISS Elementary Christmas concerts and thought I might enjoy them.  I am not sure what I think, but it looks like I am running for some political office. :-)  Enjoy!  You can make your own captions! Share them with me if you like. :-)



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As always, I just want to thank you for your prayers, love, notes, emails, and support.  It is hard to believe that we are past the halfway mark in January!  Going way too fast.  You can also be praying as we begin interviews for a few open elementary positions for the 2015-16 school year.  Enjoy a great week!

Love, Gregg


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