As I stood on the tired concrete porch of a cramped house on the property of a home for women rescued from the sex trade near Kathmandu, Nepal, my thoughts drifted to this time almost exactly one year ago. What was I doing?
Most likely, I was in a high school classroom teaching freshman algebra to rowdy fourteen-year-olds. Last fall, I had been without a job for nearly six months after graduation. I had been trying to get some days as a substitute teacher at my high school, and on a Thursday, as I sat watching a bunch of juniors teach each other the Physics lessons I had forgotten in the last six years, my algebra teacher approached me.
“Peter, you did pretty well in algebra, didn’t you?”
Yes, I had done pretty well in algebra. Honestly, it was the only math class I ever felt like I was good at. Something equals something else, and there are some x’s and y’s thrown in there for good measure. No functions, no parabolas, no proofs. Just good ol’ fashioned arithmetic. But me being good at 2x + 7 = 21 eight years ago couldn’t possibly be enough to land me a job, could it?
But it was, and in a week, I found myself covering for an indefinite period time as my algebra teacher took leave from work. I had frantically read through the previous chapters in the textbook, trying to recall all the information that I hoped was still rattling around somewhere in the brain that had convinced itself it was a theologian/philosopher and had no need for any math beyond calculating how much change to hand the cashier at Taco Bell.
Long story short, I remembered a lot, I had a good amount of help from the other math teachers, the kids learned math, and no one died. Through those six weeks, however, I learned that I was pretty sure I didn’t want to pursue a career in teaching, and it opened me up to a multitude of other possibilities – it was a major step in bringing me to the World Race. And for the longest time I thought, “Man, I’m really glad God made me teach algebra so he could lead me to the World Race.”
But back on the porch in Nepal, I had suddenly learned that there was more for me to learn from my crash course in the American education system. Because I stood over a confused Nepali sixth grader, taking in the string of numbers and letters separated by a division sign.
Any time during college, I think I would have shrugged and apologized, willing but unable to help But because I learned some math that was “useless” for my career plans as a college professor of ethics, I reached for the young boy’s pen and walked him, step by step, through the math problem.
I felt like I had gleaned everything I needed to from my teaching experience, but God had more in store. And it is just another example of how he has been faithful in showing me the worth of those times when I felt like I was spinning my wheels, like there was nothing good happening. His plan is perfect – he doesn’t just work in big ideas like “I am breaking you of your prefabricated plans to do what you want with your life and replacing them with my plans.” He works in specifics, like “You need to relearn algebra so that a year from now, you can help a Nepali orphan with his math homework on the tired concrete porch of a tiny house in Kathmandu, Nepal.
And now, every time I hear a kid say of his math homework, “When are we ever going to usethis?” I’ll chuckle to myself and assure him or her that there is a reason for every trial we go through we go through, big or small.
Even long division.
