As we come to the end of the year, how can we intentionally look back and look ahead? Consider these five questions for reflection from TeachBeyond’s Brian Delamont, Heather Brown, and Keane Fine. Happy New Year!

• 5 Reflection Questions:
• What are you proud of? What do you want to celebrate?
• What do you want to carry with you from 2023? What are you hoping to leave behind?
• What matters this year?
• What feels familiar and different this year?
• What do you hope this will look like at the end of next year?
• Leviticus 23 and 7 Feasts that Point to Christ
• Emily P. Freeman’s The Next Right Thing Guided Journal

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Finishing a journal and beginning a new one
• Heather: Heating pad
• Brian: This podcast!

Weekly Spotlight: Christian Academy Mozambique

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

This week we’re sharing Advent episodes from past seasons! You can find show notes for this episode and other past episodes here. Merry Christmas!

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

This week we’re sharing Advent episodes from past seasons! You can find show notes for this episode and other past episodes here. Merry Christmas!

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

This week we’re sharing Advent episodes from past seasons! You can find show notes for this episode and other past episodes here. Merry Christmas!

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

This week we’re sharing Advent episodes from past seasons! You can find show notes for this episode and other past episodes here. Merry Christmas!

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

This week we’re sharing Advent episodes from past seasons! You can find show notes for this episode and other past episodes here. Merry Christmas!

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

Olivia Bomgardner, TeachBeyond music teacher in Spain, shares why Christmas music is special, what it’s like to be a music teacher at Christmastime, and how she became a missionary teacher.

• “Singing is a huge part of my life, but singing about something so significant as Christ’s birth definitely brings a difference in comparison to other parts of the year.”
• “Music has this ability to draw out emotions and speak to us in a different way. It’s a gift.”
• “How far will you go to trust that My plan is better than yours?”
• “When someone asks me who I am, before I went to college, I probably would have said that I’m a musician, I play the piano, and I love that about myself. But after this struggle in my life, I learned to say I’m a child of God.”
• “What can we learn in this waiting season about what the Lord has for us?”
• “The Lord is good – always. His plan is not going to be ours, as He tells us in His Word, but also I would say that the waiting is a good time to focus on Him. As we do that, we are growing in our relationship to Him.”

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Celebrating Hanukkah
• Heather: Receiving Christmas cards
• Olivia: Dark chocolate-covered cookies from Trader Joe’s

Weekly Spotlight: Evangelical Christian Academy 

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

TeachBeyond teachers Tami and Savana join Heather for a round table discussion about Christmas in the classroom. From book recommendations to classroom activities, this conversation is filled with enthusiastic laughter and the truth of the Gospel.

• “I love to really keep what I do in the classroom centered on the kids and allowing them to be a part of it.” - Savana
• “We’ve had some kids really ask such great questions after singing these songs and hearing these words.” - Savana
• “I always have to think about my students. What is going to be the most impactful for me to reach them on a spiritual level?” - Tami
• Book suggestions: The Tale of Three Trees by Angela Elwell Hunt, The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg, They Followed the Star by A. E. Dingee, Song of the Stars by Sally Lloyd-Jones, Little Lamb from Bethlehem by Christine Stevens Mower, This Is the Stable by Cynthia Cotten, and Angel, Angel, What Do You See? By Cheri Pless Dittmer 
• “What goals do we already have? How could those be accomplished in a way that is fun and meaningful in this season?” - Heather
• “That’s a big thing for me - making it as real to them as possible in different ways, while mixing in the fun stuff.” - Savana
• “For them to really see God through His Son and why He loved us enough to send Him to rescue us is a big deal.” - Tami
• “Jesus is the light of the world. When we put these lights on our Christmas tree every year, we can remember He is the light of the world.” - Tami
• “God’s Word transforms us [...] I get the privilege to see my students take that in.” - Tami
• 1 John 3:8
• “Christ came to expose the darkness. Baby Jesus raged war against sin and against our enemy to conquer him [...] We get to share the beauty of the season because our King has come!” - Tami

What’s changing our lives:

• Heather: Video chatting with nephews
• Savana: Processing how to handle emotions
• Tami: Driving in East Africa

Weekly Spotlight: Belize Christian Academy

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

Naturally, we view our faith through our own cultural lenses. There is so much to learn from the theological perspectives of other cultures. Our guest for this episode, author and professor Steve Pardue, shares from his experience growing up cross-culturally, teaching at the university level, and building friendships with people from many different countries.

• Check out the book by Steve Pardue: Why Evangelical Theology Needs the Global Church
• International Graduate School of Leadership
• Asia Graduate School of Theology
• “If you want to look at where the next generation of theological discourse is really emerging and where the church is vital and producing really interesting reflection on Scripture, look toward the majority world.”
• Majority World Theology by Gene Green, Stephen Pardue, and K. Yeo
• “How does culture matter for theology? And why is that not necessarily a threat, but actually a gift from God for God’s people to use as a Church from every tribe and tongue and nation gets together, worships, proclaims the Gospel, and perceives the Gospel in really deep and rich ways, but very different ways?”
• “Majority world is a way of describing where most people in the world actually live – Asia, Africa, and Latin America.”
• “Christianity has actually always been a global faith.”
• “Even in redeemed humanity, our cultural distinction persists. That’s part of how we worship God.”
• “To the degree we can, we want to encourage authentic partnership and fellowship across the nationals, and that is something that is uniquely Christian.”
• “God comes to earth and speaks with an accent.”
• Langham Literature
• “Be intentional about asking questions, and I think it’ll unfold from there.”

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: Visiting with a college friend
• Heather: Let’s Read the Gospels podcast with friends
• Steve: Remembering the value of relationships in ministry

Weekly Spotlight: Ukarumpa International School

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

What does Biblical excellence look like? Brian Delamont walks us through Scriptures about the difference between performance-based perfectionism as compared to Christ-honoring stewardship as we continue in our series on TeachBeyond’s core values.

• TeachBeyond’s Core Value of Excellence: “Acknowledging that God deserves glory in all that we do, we undertake everything wholeheartedly and to the best of our ability. We approach our calling to excellence with creativity, committing ourselves as stewards of God’s resources.”
• A Call to Excellence: Understanding Excellence God’s Way by Gary Inrig
• “This Biblical view of excellence isn’t rooted in my performance, but it’s rooted in the character and nature of God, who is excellent in every way and who is fully integrated in His nature as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
• 1 Corinthians 12:31
• Philippians 4:8
• Titus 3:8
• Colossians 3:23-24 
• “Yes, it is the Lord Christ we are serving, and we do want to bring our very best offering to Him every time, all the time. But, we receive an inheritance from the Lord… And you never, ever have to work to receive an inheritance. I receive an inheritance because someone else has done all of the work, and I am the beneficiary of their love and their generosity. That’s the beauty and power of the Gospel.”
• 1 Peter 1:3-4
• “The best course correction for a false standard of excellence is to look to what God says about Himself and about ourselves.”
• Psalm 18:30
• Psalm 19:7
• “God isn’t insisting on perfection or a twisted sense of my life being excellent or good enough before I can come to Him. He gives me His excellent wisdom by His Word. For me, and I think for all of us, that shifts the weight of responsibility for excellence to the place where it was always intended to be - to have God be the source and sustainer of excellence. He is able, and I am blessed to be His child. ”
• “It’s all about God’s glory. He’s the one who deserves the praise and honor in all that we do. It’s not about me, it’s not about how well a certain school scores in testing, it’s not about whether TeachBeyond is known around the world or not. We recognize that God deserves all glory.”
• Mark 12:41-44
• Matthew 5:43-48
• “It’s not that He’s demanding perfection because Jesus actually came to show us that we could never fulfill the Law; only He would be the perfect offering, the perfect sacrifice.”
• Psalm 33:2-4
• “Doing something well reflects the God we love.”
• Psalm 78:72
• “Excellent leadership flows from a heart of integrity, and it’s done skillfully.”

We are unpacking TeachBeyond’s four core values each month. Listen to the first one here: Episode 121: Following in Humility

November Reflection: What’s your own standard for evaluating excellence?

What’s changing our lives:

• Keane: A season of his family being sick
• Heather: High-top tables
• Brian: Updates to Microsoft Teams

Weekly Spotlight: Bucharest Christian Academy

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