In my opinion, God has a great sense of humor. Many years ago my mom was a teacher. I remember wanting to be many things growing up at different stages, an auto mechanic, a Tupperware Manager (they got a company car), a truck driver, thought about being a nurse as both my grandmothers trained in the field, (but I didn't want to deal with blood), however, I did not want to be a teacher.

Fast forward to college years, I changed my major three times as I initially wanted to be a professional counselor. I was a psychology major and then a sociology major. However the amount of schooling to reach my goal at that time was too much as far as I was concerned. So I re-evaluated, I remembered I loved history and thought I should be a history major, but in looking at what one can do with a history major it generally took two known paths...Law & the legal profession, which meant more school...no thank you, or become a history teacher, well I figured being a history teacher, if I was a good one, I'd get to do some informal counseling on the side so that's what I chose. I've since discovered that many history/social science majors end up working as a coffee barista, I might have invested in that future If I knew then what I know now...but I digress.

So I choose to train to be a secondary history teacher, so what will my minor be, well in order to make me marketable as a teacher, and prove my intelligence I choose Computer Science as a minor...this is all well & good until I realize that I'm going to work on campus with university students for the next several years of my life and not go into teaching after all and I still have a several Computer Science classes which involve many hours of staring at a computer screen documenting code that I've programed...AAAHHHH no good, so off to my advisor I go. After our talk I drop my computer science minor, and switch to a "Broad Area" History major...essentially it means taking every type of social science class known to man. Which gives me two endorsements that I will need to graduate and get my teaching certificate I'm convinced I will not be using.

Jump ahead 15 years, I've had experience working with university students and international students for more than a decade and I'm now living overseas and an opportunity to teach at an international school opens up. I make myself available and I now have the joy, yes it really is a joy, to teach 12th grade government classes and 2 Bible classes for both 9th & 11th grade, and I'll be teaching 12th grade economics next term.

This shows me a few things, God can & will use everything as we offer our lives & training and all we are too Him. He likes to take us on adventures we never dreamed of and it's better than we could have planned if left to our own devices. He also has a great sense of irony. I have been uniquely trained for the job I am currently doing thought my equipping for this task was not by my intention. This reveals to me another amazing facet of the incredible character, ability and knowledge of God and His work. I'm so grateful and I'm full of joy...

For the past several weeks I've had construction going on all around me. I live two buildings away from an intersection that has had drilling & digging and filling and re-digging and filling & re-digging and more drilling and cutting of asphalt and well you get the picture. At times the road has been closed, rather inconvenient when it's kinda the main road I use to go places, catch a taxi and what not. What have they been doing? I think laying new bigger water pipes for the two tower high-rise being built a few blocks up the hill.

Across the street from me they are building another floor onto the international school I will be teaching at in a month and a half or so. It has not been as noisy as the road work, but construction non-the-less. About a block and a half a way another residence is adding another floor, this is quite common for families to do here as the extended families live in the same buildings, often as a part of a different apartment, but all together. I haven't asked but I can imagine that one of the sons is getting married or something like that.

All the construction gets me thinking a bit at times. The construction is for a "constructive" purpose, at least one hopes it is. Otherwise it's just noise without purpose or worse yet, destructive noise. As I look at my life, I can spot "construction zones" Sometimes the "projects" lasted so long I wondered if they would ever get finished, or if I was always going be in that annoying, peace-less place of construction. I've discovered that when God is in charge of the construction projects, they end well, and truly make life better, but when I've selfishly initiated a construction project, the result isn't always so hot and sometimes it needs to be completely re-done by the Master Engineer, He truly can fix the messes I've made.

So am I eager for the construction to finish, most definitely. But I'm trying to use it as a tool to remind myself of the "construction sites" in my own life, perhaps it will make me even more appreciative of the results later.