Live and Love your Life

Through God’s immeasurable ways, the educational career chose me (Ephesians 1:4).  With undergraduate degrees in Business Administration and Marketing and the hopes of being a financial advisor for Northwestern Mutual in Milwaukee, WI, how did I end up in Phoenix, AZ, teaching 6^th, 7^th and 8^th graders?! 

God is truly amazing and always gives us abundantly more than we can ever ask or even think (Ephesians 3:20).  The journey from the summer of 2007 to now has been filled with challenges, tears, joy, sweat, mistakes, and changed lives: none of which I would change.  Currently, I am teaching 9^th grade English at HOPE Christian High School, and through God’s grace, I have grown beyond what I could ever imagine.  Yet, I have an incredible amount of learning and growing to do!  Here is something that I have learned that I would like to share with anyone who has the slightest urge, feeling, or knowing from the Holy Spirit to teach our future leaders. 

            The Word tells us that out of Faith (substance of things hoped for and believing in the things unseen), Hope (a confident expectation), and Love, the greatest of these is Love.  It is no coincidence that love is the formula for reaching our students, connecting with them, and ultimately helping them achieve success.  We add value to the lives of others when we care: as John C. Maxwell says, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” 

So how do you demonstrate that love?  Love is communicated through passionately serving others.  We must learn our students’ language, their love language.  We must be great listeners to their nonverbal actions.  We must have high expectations for our students—they’ll reach to wherever the bar is set.  We must inspire, through our passion, to move our students from knowing to doing because, “a true test of inspiration is action.”  All in all, caring for our students + knowing our students + listening to our students + high expectations for our students + inspiring our students = serving in love. 

Jesus said He didn’t come to be served, but He came to serve (Mark 10:45).  Are you willing to do the same?  If the greatest of virtues is Love and we become great by serving (Mark 10:43), then ask yourself earnestly, are you willing to live the life God has called YOU to live?   

Castenzio Venegas attended Carthage College in Kenosha, WI for his undergraduate education, receiving a dual major in Business Administration and Marketing.  While attending Carthage, Castenzio was recognized for the United States National Collegiate Award in Minority Leadership.  Upon graduating with his Bachelor’s degrees, Teach For America partnered with Arizona State University; Castenzio pursued a Master’s degree in Cross Categorical Special Education (K-12) in the College of Teacher Education & Leadership program (CTEL) while teaching 6-8^th graders in a Special Education setting in Phoenix, AZ.  Furthermore, in his third year teaching, Castenzio obtained a certification to teach English abroad in over 65 countries, enabling him to move to Italy and teach English as foreign language.  While in Italy, HOPE Christian Schools recruited Castenzio to teach 9th grade English at the High School.  Over the past academic school year (2011/2012), Castenzio was the recipient of the "Faith-In-Action" award at the HOPE Schools’ Fall Celebration.