I am back home in Lake Charles, LA. The transition so far has been good, but I’ll share more about that later.
For those of you who know my pre-race story, I was teaching for 5 years before dropping life in Lake Charles, and traveling the world. The truth is that I had become bitter about teaching by the time I left and wasn’t interested in stepping one foot into a classroom for a long time. I worked at a great school with a supportive staff and awesome coworkers, and for the most part I had well behaved students who enjoyed learning. In those 5 years though, I had become restless and not ready to settle in one place, so going on the World Race was the obvious next step.
Throughout these last 11 months, anytime the word “classroom” or “teaching” was said, I cringed a little inside. I had no desire to teach English or be in a classroom, and especially the disorganized classrooms that I saw in a few different countries. I wanted to stay far away from anything related to “teaching”. I grew bitter towards the career and even the idea of being a teacher.
One day I was Skyping with my family and mentioned to my stepmom, “If God ever calls me back into the classroom, I’ll go kicking and screaming”. Her response was, “If God calls you back into the classroom, He’ll give you that desire and joy to teach.” I hadn’t really thought of that before because I know that God will give me the desires of my heart, and I’ve learned that my desires align with His desires. He would not call me to do something that I wasn’t prepared to do.
It wasn’t until month 10 in Cambodia that God began to soften my heart for teaching. I was no longer leading the squad, so for the last 3 months of the Race, it was just me and God…journeying into a deeper relationship. Our ministry in Kampong Speu, Cambodia was teaching English. I wasn’t too thrilled about it at first, but I realized that month, how much I do love teaching! I taught all different ages and loved that I was getting to teach again. Crazy!?!?!
Then we found out that we would be teaching yet again in Malaysia, month 11, final month of the Race…teaching again! Even though I had just walked into less bitterness towards teaching, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to spend another month teaching English.
Skip to ministry in Gua Musang, Malaysia…
I taught three home school classes to our contacts’ children and loved every minute of it. While teaching character, creative writing, and language arts, I also taught a little bit of French. There were a lot of side projects requested by our contacts, one of which being the creation of an Intermediate Level English language conversation class. I was the only person in our group who had experience with writing lesson plans, but I fought it because I know how much work would be involved. This was my last month and I didn’t want to spend it writing lesson plans. But, God said, “Do it” and I couldn’t argue with Him, so I raised my hand and volunteered with Amanda to write a unit plan.
For the next 3 weeks I worked hours on this unit plan. I am a bit of a perfectionist and when I work on a project I’m all in. After a while, I began to enjoy this project and remembered that there was a time a few years ago when I desired to create lessons and activities for teachers. I thought it would be cool to be like a teaching assistant and create the paperwork for teachers. All of a sudden, I fell in love with this project; so much so that my team had to make me stop so I could take breaks and do other fun things.
All I wanted to do was work on the unit plan…Crazy!?!?!?
At 7:00pm on Monday, November 26, I finished the project. Amanda and I wrote lesson plans and created activities, worksheets, and quizzes. Then I took all of the lessons and organized them by age group and difficulty level. Our contacts then printed the hundreds of pages, sent it to the bookshop, and had the unit plans bound into books. I was leaping (literally) for joy when I finished and my contacts were so excited with me. When I saw the unit plans in book form, I realized the extent of what I had just finished. It was so much bigger than me, and I felt honored to have been a part of a project with other world racers that would benefit this ministry long-term.
When I started working for the Lord, I began to enjoy what I was doing. It was no longer a burden, but a joy! God began to soften my heart towards teaching and reminding me of all the things I do love about teaching. If He calls me back into a classroom and teach teenagers, I will go back with a glad heart. I will go in and be a Jesus light to so many young people without hope, and I will teach from the overflow of my heart!
It’s amazing the redemption that came in just 11 months. I started the race with a bitter heart and ended with a heart full of joy. Would I teach again? Yes I would! I never thought I’d say those words with a smile on my face, but God is greater and knows how to provide the best!
