Oark, Arkansas

My new home is the small hill town of Oark, AR. I moved here in late july, as I am now the head boys and girls, jr and sr high basketball coach. I know I completely left all 2 of my readers lost halfway around the world in Finland when I never came back to finish my "first two days" story from over there... Sorry. time has past, about 3 months now. Here I am, I'm tired but I really do love it here. There has definately been a fair share of difficulty tied with my first coaching position, but the kids are great, school atmosphere is good. All in all I am really looking forward to what this year brings with these teams. I have lived in El Dorado, AR and lived there for most of my life. Except for a small time where I was in college for about 4 1/2 years in the great state of North Dakota. This move has been different. One it is the start of my career as a teacher/coach. Of that I am really honored to be here and am embarking on a lifelong dream of coaching basketball. I do not think I could have walked in to a more unique situation. God has a wonderful way of taking you places that allow you to be stretched and grow in Him e.g. North Dakota. I couldn't have set this up if I had wanted to. I have a lot responsibility, esp for a 1st yr coach. Coaching all the teams is proving to be stressful, in so much as the kids haven't ever been taught the game. But greatfully they are eager learners, esp my jr high kids. Suprisingly enough my sr high teams have been pretty good at listening and learning as well. I've been blessed to not have any of the kids that "know it all" or are uncoachable. Our first game is in 5 weeks... I believe we will ready and again I am looking forward to it. I'll hopefully be keeping up with this thing more often now that it is my only way to keep ppl posted on my status as now. I'm in USA and I feel more disconnected than I did when I was halfway around the world in Finland a few months ago... haha oh well it's all good!
I'm out...