For our ministry this month, my team and I worked with 2 other teams from our squad, at an orphanage called El Shaddai, in Mbabane, Swaziland. The children at El Shaddai, are here because their parents have AIDS, they have been abandoned, or their families are unable to take care of them.
The different ministiries consisted of digging a 9ft hole for a septic tank, working at the baby house (a daycare for toddlers, babies and the kids that live at El Shaddai to go to after pre-school), pre-school, and helping out in the kitchen where they prepare the food for the kids and those who work at El Shaddai. Between the three teams, there were women three who had degrees in education and one who is in school to be a nurse. Those who had teaching degrees worked at the high school and the one studying to be a nurse, worked at a clinic 2 days a week.
While I had a chance to work in every area of ministry accept the high school, I was most impacted by the pre-school. There were 40 kids from El Shaddai and those living locally, for 1 teacher and a teacher’s assistant. Imagine having little to no training when it comes to teaching and ending up teaching 40 kids! These kids are between the ages of 4 and 7. They are all at different learning levels and some of them are dyslexic. They are taught the same things everyday: the ABC’s, 123’s, and shapes. Every now and then they are taught colors and fruits and veggitables.
My heart broke for these kids because of the lack variety of things they were learning. I’m not saying that the teacher wasn’t doing her best. She may have been. She may have been using all she was given and doing what she could with it. Given the materials they had, there was only so much one could do.
Being with the preschool kids helped me learn a very important lesson: kids will be kids. I have a tendency to be more of a disciplinarian than I need to be. While I love those kids, I wasn’t SHOWING them what it means to be loved. I was only showing them what it means to be disciplined. To me it was obvious that they don’t get much discipline at home. Because of that, I wanted to show them what it means to be disciplined when you don’t obey. Kids are going to disobey, they are going to hit and kick each other no matter what you tell them. My team reminded me that while it’s ok to put them in time-out, they are still not going to listen. They reminded me that I can only do so much in the 3 weeks we were there.
There needed to be a balance between love and discipline. It took some time before I found that balance. It’s not that I didn’t love them. But there’s a difference between how much you love them through discipline and how much you love them through affection. When I found that balance, the last week was much better. There were still days when I wanted to pull my hair out!
