After a short tuk-tuk ride to the public school, I hop out onto the dusty ground.
The children swarm around me yelling, “Teacher, what is your name?”
I walk to my classroom with my teammate, Greg, and translator.
After I introduce myself and Greg begins, another translator comes and takes Greg to a different classroom.
My experience with teaching English consists of one lesson in Bulgaria and the lesson I taught the previous day with two of my teammates beside me.
I am now alone.
A quick prayer later and I dive in.
It’s been a week since I started teaching and I continue to fall more in love with it. I teach with two of my teammates at the school where we live and I teach alone at the public school. 37 students who are all mine. That first day was a little nerve-wracking, but I had total peace as I taught whatever came to mind. Despite children talking in corners and the countless students who walked in and out, I fell in love.
I fell in love with the toothless nine year old boy who is always the last to finish what I’m writing but never hesitates to tell me so.
I fell in love with the know-it-all who speaks better than anyone else, yet still understands very little of what I say.
I fell in love with the girls who squeeze me hard every day before I leave.
I fell in love with a class who showers me with flowers and pictures.
And in return, I fell in love with who I am in that classroom. I am confident, loved, and respected. I am free to do whatever I want. In that classroom nothing going on outside matters. It is because of those children’s love that I am who I am. That’s precisely how it is with Jesus. Because of His love for us, we are made new. We are blameless and holy in His sight. His love gives us the freedom to be who we were made to be.
God is beginning to open me up and teach me about identity, about being secure in Him. This is just the beginning and He’s already teaching me so much through ministry in Cambodia.
