Today was a day that my heart cried out to Cambodia and Guatemala. Upon returning from The World Race, I have had many days where my heart cries out for a certain country. Lately it has been Cambodia. In Cambodia, God gave me a place that I called my utopia. It was a preschool that was run by the organization we were with. All I had to do was go to preschool every morning and play with children it was great.
Every morning I wake up at 5:00am to wait for a job. It is one of the joys of substitute teaching. This morning I saw a job for a preschool teacher.(I need to interject here that preschool and kindergarten age scare me. I make at least one child cry when I am in either classroom setting.) I debated for the longest time if I wanted to take the job. Is it worthwhile to go, when I could get a high school position? I did take the job. As soon as I got there, I was flooded of memories from Cambodia. I instantly missed the preschool I helped teach at. I could not believe how much I had changed since that point in my life.
Cambodia was my second country and my second month. It was where God started to put the desire for me to teach back in my heart. While in Cambodia, my team struggled and I struggled. I do not tell many people that Cambodia was my breaking point. When I left Cambodia, I did not really want to be on the race anymore. If quitting were an option for me, I probably would have. The thing is God had called me for 11 months and I could not just give up on what he had in store.
I now look back at that time in my life and I am so thankful for the struggle I went through. Without God placing me in Cambodia at that point in the race, I would not have started the growth and the change I needed to have go through in order for God to show me what He wanted in my life. I am now in Colorado Springs and God has given me a huge desire. I want to teach again. I want to influence students in order for them to achieve their best in whatever they choose to do.
I may not be doing what my heart’s desire wants to do, but God is teaching me everyday I accept an assignment. Even if the assignment is in preschool. I look at those children and my heart breaks. The preschool children are the same as high school students and even the same as us. They just want to be loved and cared by someone.
The reason I thought of Guatemala was a student in the classroom was in a wheelchair. The school believes that he will never be able to do anything. He was born in Africa with water on his brain. Since it was not treated until he was 3 years old, he may never be able to talk or write or even play. My heart broke to think of the hospital run orphanage in Guatemala and how so many of the people there will never get the chance this boy gets. The children in Guatemala will just lie in a crib or a bed for the rest of their lives. The little boy I met today gets to have the privilege of improving because his family came to the United States as refugees. I don’t understand why God lets some people have the privilege of great health care and others none.
Guatemala was my second to last country and my 10th month. I had seen the rest of the world, but my heart was broken by the hospital we helped at. I fell in love with Rafina and my true love for helping other people by putting joy in their lives by being silly started. God showed me that He loves us all, just in different ways. We need to be available to just say hi and give a smile.
I am not sure from day to day where I will be. I just pray that God will give me a job everyday. God has already started to put plans for what I will do this summer. Nothing is finalized, but many things are already starting to work out. I am just praying that God gives me the perfect teaching job for the fall. I know he has already planned it out, I just can’t wait to see what it is and how he will use me through it.
