We are back for season 5! Author and artist Ruth Chou Simons joins Heather and Keane for this first episode of the season focused on finding our home in Christ, wherever He leads us.

• “I care about words as art.”
• “‘The heaven declare the glory of the Lord,’ the Bible says. Ultimately, we are not just believing that God is on high and He is sovereign and He’s the ruler of all and Creator God; we don’t just think that and believe it, we experience it when we see the sunrise and the sunset.”
• “The more we know that God is God and we are not, the more we start really being able to worship Him for who He is.”
• “When you make your home with God, you’ll never be far from home.”
• “Sometimes we associate home with location or environment or kind of furniture or the smells… Nothing can truly satisfy the way my relationship with Jesus can.”
• “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” C.S. Lewis
• “God offers to all of us a sense of belonging, home, and absolute security, regardless of where you live… It doesn’t matter where God takes you, if He’s the one that you’re walking with, you actually have access to your true home.”
• “The first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day is to have my soul happy in the Lord.” George Mueller
• “Everything that is scary out there, I’m sheltered from ultimately by the blood of Christ, but also I have safety and comfort under the shelter of God’s wing. And that shelter is true home.”
• “Throughout Scripture, when we see God pursuing His people, when we’re being offered a relationship with Jesus, it’s always through presence.”
• “He is our shepherd as in He is caring for us, He holds us, we are close to Him.”
• Hebrews 11:16

Learn more about Ruth Chou Simons here and find her new book here!

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Community photography class
• Heather: Changes to her church small group
• Ruth: FaceTiming her sons in other states and ginger turmeric shots

Weekly Spotlight: Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center

We’d love to hear from you! podcast@teachbeyond.org
Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast
Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

Looking for practical suggestions for beginning the school year well? Megan Randolph, TeachBeyond’s Director of School Services, shares doable tips to prepare for the year logistically and spiritually. This is a great episode to share with your friends in education!

• “The rhythm of an academic year is necessary for the longevity of teachers.”
• “At the end of the first week of school, what do we want our students or our learners that are in our care to know? We want them to know that we care about them, we want them to know that we value excellence, and we want them to know that we’re passionate about our work - the content and also the work of education.”
• “If you can do that bigger picture planning now at the start of the school year, I think that will save so much time and allow you freedom later on to pivot as you need.”
• “Plan, put effort into it, pray about it, approach it in a positive manner, and then just make the best with what you can and with what you have because, at the end of the day, actually how you approach the first day of school is really going to set the tone for your students.”
• Tips from past guests:
• • Linda: Have a plan for classroom management
  • Esther: Have students share a special item from home
  • Anna: Give each student a fresh start and view them as children of God
  • Jonathan: Keep the students the main focus over the lesson plan
  • Lindsay: Welcome each student personally as they enter the room
  • Tosca: Take time to reflect and remember that God is writing your story

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Sons back in school
• Heather: Watching the Olympics
• Megan: Packr app

Weekly Spotlight: Belize Christian Academy

We’d love to hear from you! podcast@teachbeyond.org
Podcast Website: https://teachbeyond.org/podcast
Learn about TeachBeyond: https://teachbeyond.org/

• “Passport culture plus adoptive culture(s) equals Third Culture Kid (TCK).”
• “Because I have those two cultures in me, my closest sense of belonging is with others who are, like me, multiculturally formed in their formative years. There’s a misconception that third culture is actually my individual third culture that I form out of the two that shaped me [...] but actually the term means that we find belonging with others who are also third cultured.”
• “My differences were similar to their differences, and that I wasn’t weird; I was a TCK.”
• “Mostly belonging in multiple places increases their skillset; it makes them bridge builders.”
• “To ask them to figure out what is uniquely one culture and uniquely another in the way they think and in the way they think, even in the way they speak, is going to be a real challenge for them.”
• “Something that feels fairly minor to a monocultural adult who has lived multiculturally for a while might feel like this tidal wave of all of these emotions coming back to the TCK or MK.”
• Article: Nine Tips for Living Well in a Season of Grief
• “The enormity of the blessing and the strength that comes from growing up as a TCK is immeasurable. You have blessed them in ways that you probably won’t ever be able to fully realize.”
• “Generalizations about TCKs are not always entirely helpful, but knowing what the majority of them tend toward I think can be a really helpful thing in mentoring them and walking with them.”
• “Because of our experience seeing things done differently in other parts of the world [...] we can start to draw people from their highly selective clusters toward each other.”
• Learn more about Michèle’s ministry here!

• Keane: Reading more than one book at a time
• Heather: The Next Right Thing Journal by Emily P. Freeman
• Michèle: Four Tiny-Small Questions for the Quarantine-Weary
  • What small thing can I do that will make me feel alive in this moment?
  • What small thing can I do to take some sting out of this day?
  • What small thing can I do to make today feel purposeful?
  • What small thing can I do today that will connect me with God?