Forty :)

Everyday when the mail arrives I check it quite extensively.  I'll sort through it two or three times.  Each time I'm looking and hoping to see an envelope with a return address from the Spanish consulate.  I look fervently each day for notification that my visa has been approved.  And so far each day I sigh a little after I finish going through the mail for the third time; reminding myself that God is in control and it will arrive in His perfect timing.

When the mail arrived today it was no different.  I sorted through it and when I came to the end I saw something addressed to me.  It looked quite official and for about the fourth of a second it took my eyes to dart from my name to the return address, I thought it may have been what I had been hoping and praying for over two months.  But it wasn't my visa.

I would have quite disappointed seeing as my hopes had gotten quite with the receiving of this letter.  However, when I looked at the return address I realized this letter was something I should be just as thankful for.  With the Great Seal of North Carolina beside it the return address announced I was receiving something from the Public Schools of North Carolina...Licensure Section.

My Teaching Licensure had finally arrived!!

Last May I completed my student teaching.  It was by far the hardest semester of my college career.  But also the most rewarding.  It was a challenge, but it the greatest learning experience.  I earned the grade I had hope for and when the final seminar came around I felt confident that I had all of papers filled out, signed, in order, and ready to turn in.  But when we began to sort double check them at our final seminar, in turned out I was missing a needed signature.  With graduation just a few days away, family coming in the next day, and school I had student taught at being about 45 minutes away, my advisor graciously agreed to go and get the signature for me since she had to go over that way the next week.  I was told to turn in the papers I had.

A few days later I received a voicemail from the secretary in the Education Department about the paper and that it was missing.  I called and left her a message to tell her my advisor would be turning it in a few days.  That was all I heard about it.  Until October.

In October I received another phone call.  She said she had turned into the state what she had but had just received notice that they couldn't grant me a license until I turned in another paper.  The paper needed? The one my advisor was supposed to get signed and turned in for.  I got quite frustrated upon receiving this news, especially since I was in Florida.  I e-mailed my advisor about the issue and she claimed to have turned it in.  I e-mailed the secretary who claimed to have never received it.  Again more frustration.

Long story short I had the paper I needed faxed to me, I filled it out, sent it to my cooperating teacher - who graciously agreed to sign it for me and have it signed for me by the others who needed to sign it, and mail it to Gardner-Webb.

Last week (I'm telling you this has been quite a process haha) I had another voicemail from the secretary from the GWU School of Education.  She had found the original form.  She had already faxed it to the NC Dept. of Education.

And today it arrived in my mailbox with everything on it that needed to be on it :)

I'm thankful that it arrived.  I'm even more thankful for people who went out of their way for me when they definitely didn't have to.