Kat Burcham can't wait to see her kids' faces when they arrive to school Aug. 15.
"I can't wait to get started," Burcham, a new teacher at Kingdom Christian Academy, said. "I love little kids."
The Fulton school has an enrollment of about 160 kids, and Burcham's are all starting in kindergarten, she said.
She and her husband, John Burcham, recently moved to Holts Summit from North Carolina. He is the new youth pastor at Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church.
"We had teenagers over for Christmas in July last Monday," she said. "Our church is like a big family. I love it because everybody knows everybody."
The two are newlyweds, just married on June 18.
"We met in college," she said. "He was studying for the church ministry."
Kat and John worked in the kitchen of their college, West Coast Baptist College in Lancaster, California.
"I know the exact date we met - January 27, 2012," she said. "He showed up for work; I was co-supervisor of the kitchen that day. I was washing dishes when he came in. He's 6-foot-5, so he's hard to miss."
Kat said John is two years younger than her, and while he showed interest in dating her, she put him off.
"Once, he asked me, 'Who should I ask out?' and I said, 'Angela,'" she said, adding he hoped she would recommend herself. "They went out, but it didn't work out."
For several years, Kat and John kept running into each other. He kept asking her out. She kept saying no.
"In 2015, he asked me out for Super Bowl Sunday, and I said yes," she said. "He was really persistent. I was really mean to him, and I just kept telling him no. Now he's my best friend."
Burcham's last teaching gig was in Perris, California, working with fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students. She moved home to North Carolina to prepare for her wedding, and the couple moved to Holts Summit just weeks ago.
Teaching is a career that blends well with her faith, Burcham said.
"I had a lot of teachers that were inspirational," she said. "It was the inspirational and loving part of it that I like."
She remembers being a student at Greenville Christian Academy in North Carolina.
"At my Christian school, I wasn't just a number," she said.
Burcham said she's expecting eight students in her classroom.
"The best thing about teaching is the molding - you get to mold a life," she said. "Reading is my favorite thing to teach. When you read, you can be a pirate. You can go anywhere. The book that's helped me the most in life is the Bible. And I love history."
Her grandmother was one of her biggest inspirations, she said.
"My grandmother ran the library at Newport, North Carolina. She died, and they dedicated the children's library to her," Burcham said. "My mom inspired me, too. She has been through a lot. She has a lot of health issues because she had a heart attack when I was in sixth grade. She just turned 60, and she said she didn't know if she would live to come to my wedding."
Burcham added her mom, Mary Van Cleave, is a registered nurse who still works full time.
"She works harder than anybody I know," Burcham said. "She just loves people. She's such a giver."
When her new students meet her on the first day of school or at the school's introductory ice cream social Aug. 9, Burcham wants them to know she'll be there for them.
"I want them to see I have a genuine love for the Lord, and I want them to see how that can make you as a person," she said. "And I want them to know they can be what they want to be."
After all, Burcham is walking in the footsteps of the teachers who nurtured her as a child.
"I want my students to know that I love them," she added. "I know what it's like to be in school and have teachers that love you - and I want to do that."