For Such a Time as This

As some of you know, there were some problems at Danube International School. When they agreed to take me on as a student teacher last year, they did not understand that the internship program requires me to do full-time teaching for at least 6 of the 12 weeks. Many international schools have a baccalaureate program for their secondary schools, and DISV did not want a student teacher to be involved in their 11th and 12th grade English classes, as they are preparing the students for the intense exams that go along with this program.

I only found out that they were only offering me 2 classes worth of teaching when I arrived here. I let Cedarville know right away, but between Cedarville and DISV, there was no obvious solution. I stayed for the first week of school at DISV not knowing what would happen. Apparently my supervisors at Cedarville had been busy contacting other schools in Vienna in addition to some in Budapest to see if they could take me on. If none of these schools worked out, they wanted me to fly back to the United States to complete my student teaching there. The only one they heard back from was the International Christian School of Vienna (ICSV), and we didn't hear from them until a full week into my internship at DISV. 

On Wednesday of this week I went to the Christian school after teaching at DISV and had an interview with the secondary principal and the school Director. They were very willing to help me, and even excited to have an extra set of hands at the school. Because of my unique situation, Cedarville is allowing me to do some literature-based ESL classes as part of my internship, and the Christian school is short-staffed for ESL teachers this year. They said that it was a "God thing" that I had contacted them. 

All of this change has been chaotic and confusing. After getting settled in one school only to uproot and go through the process at a new one, I was not sure why things were playing out as they were. It seemed pointless for me to put in 2 weeks of training and teaching at a school I had planned on interning at only to move to a completely new one. When I was expressing my frustration and anxieties to my mom on the phone, she ended our conversation by quoting a verse from Esther "for such a time as this." I still wasn't sure if all this was meant to be.

Friday was my first day at ICSV and the school does staff devotions every Friday. The director started off by introducing me and saying again that my internship was an answer to prayer for their school, and then went into the devotions. I was shocked to hear that their theme for the year is For Such a Time as This. It's amazing how God uses little things to tell us that we are right where he wants us, even if we don't understand his ways. 

Esther 4:14 For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom (or Vienna!) for such a time as this?”