Yah-Ya Christian School
This is a place that is very dear to my heart. This Christian school is a shelter of peace and a light on a hill. They give students from kindergarten to seniors in high school an excellent education as well as raise them up and sharpen them to live in Christ’s image. The Lord made me better in my time with this school. he drew me in close and challenged me and taught me so much. This is a week that I have prayed to never forget.
The Accidental meeting with all the Important People
One morning, my team and I packed up our things and headed out to a school thinking we would be going to a high school assembly. We had decided on a few songs to sing and we had a few words prepared to say to the students. An hour and a half, tops. A light day of ministry, easy peasy. When we arrive at the school, we are pulled into a conference room and asked to sit. As teachers and administrators and principals begin to file in and not a single student enters the room, I began to realize that we’re getting into something bigger than we thought, but that thought was pushed to the side when they sat a box of Indonesian snacks in front of us (typical Indonesian courtesy). While we’re enjoying the snacks provided to us, the leaders of be school asked each of us questions. Who, what, when, where and why. They genuinely wanted to know us and why we’re doing what we’re doing. Now this was a Christian school, so we did have the luxury of being completely transparent about our heart for mission and intentions to lead people to Christ and help others in any way possible. They loved this answer. They began to talk about guest teaching and things we could do with our specific skill sets and different age groups we could work with. A woman named Ms. Sunshine was doing all the directing of our time with Yah-Ya. Five days, she said. They could get us in the school for five days to guest teach and get to know the students. We would start the following day to observe classes and after the weekend, we would be teaching classes for hour and a half each. They asked our team lead and our host for confirmation on the schedule to see if it would work for us…. and to my demise at the time, they confirmed. I was trapped in my own narrative of “So that’s it. This is where my life ends, creating lesson plans, teaching, in front of people, not trying to make people laugh, hoping to be taken seriously, public speaking, goodbye world, it was nice to know you.”
Kindi
The next morning, Shea, Tito and I arrived at the school and Ms. Sunshine gave us a tour around the campus. The other people on our team did ministry at a clinic that day. We walked through the kindergarten, primary, junior high and senior high schools. She introduced us to the classes and told them that we would be around for the next few days to guest teach. She told them to make us feel welcome, and to be kind and to greet us anytime they see us. Fortunately, most of the adults and all of the students spoke English. The junior high and senior high students were curious and interested, but too cool to show excitement. All of the younger students were so giddy and squealing and jumping around in their seats. AMERICANS!! At THEIR school, teaching THEIR class!!! Their little bodies couldn’t contain their excitement. After the grand tour, they tossed us into classes. I was sent to observe kindergarten (kindi, as they call it), Shea went with fifth grade and Tito, bless him, went to highschool where he was immediately thrown into the fire and taught biology that day!!
By the end of the day I was exhausted, but my heart was so full and excited. I got to play and sing songs with four, five and six year olds all day!! They were so sweet and they loved hugs. For lunch, I went to the Cantine (the cafeteria where they had multiple little shops that had different food options and snacks) with a teacher named Tia. We took our food back to kindi and ate and talked about everything. We talked about life and dreams and what God has in store for each of us. She talked about how she wishes she could do something like what I’m doing, but her parents would never allow it. Hearing that made me so thankful for my parents love and support for me to be out here pursuing God’s call to my life. After lunch with Tia, I met up again with Shea and Tito and we all exchanged stories and talked about each other’s day and how excited we all were to be here at Yah-Ya. While I was still glad to be here, there was still one thought that plagued the back of my mind. This was only the observation day. We still have to teach.
Fourth Grade
The night before our first true teaching day, I was overcome with anxious thoughts and doubts. I scrounged for information that was valuable to give to the kids. I needed to find something that the teacher would find worthwhile to pause their curriculum for. I knew the content needed to match the standard for the teacher and I knew that delivery needed to be up to par to keep the students attention. I knew I was going to teach fourth graders, and I decided to talk to them about the armor of God. The morning of, I felt sick to my stomach. I prayed all morning for God to take it all from my hands and to guide every word and to just use me as a vessel. I prayed and handed over any doubt or anxiety I had about teaching, and He gave me a supernatural peace that day. And so I taught. I told them my story and I told them about the armor of God. I was honest and I talked about the battle we’re in as Christians, I told them how even though they were young, they needed to be equipped for battle. I ended up going OVER TIME, and I don’t believe I said “um” once. Don’t get me wrong, I still sweat like a pig at the hands of nerves and lack of a/c. But even then, each class I taught got better and easier. The students were attentive, they wanted to hear what I was saying. By the grace of God, they actually understood what I was telling them. By the end of the day, I just sat in awe of our Father and what He had done for me. I couldn’t wrap my head around what I was able to do through Him, facing fears with a supernatural peace, the most perfect gift.
First Grade
The next day, we showed up to YahYa with more confidence thinking that we would be teaching the same lesson to the same age group. But we were surprised when we found out that we would be teaching different grades today. Shea and I were to start the day with third grade, then we were to split up for the rest of the day. I realized that I was heading to teach first grade and had to completely abandon my lesson plan from the day before. They wouldn’t understand the armor of God, and I wouldn’t be able to talk slow enough for them to get the big picture. That whole morning I was praying for some kind of clarity and guidance from the Lord. To my relief, one of the teachers provided me with animal puppets so I decided I would just tell a Bible story with them and pray that I can tell the story in a way that they would understand. Mind you, the school is bilingual, so half of their classes are actually taught in English, but as they are first graders who’s native language is certainly not English, I had to be extra mindful about my words. So I taught two classes, one class that was an hour and forty minutes and one class that was only forty minutes (they forgot to come get me in the first class, so I was stranded playing games and answering questions about whether or not I liked turtles or bunnies or Donald Trump, yes I was asked many questions about mr. president BY FIRST GRADERS). The classes went great, I told the story of Joseph and the coat of many colors in one class and David and Goliath in the next. I only had animal puppets to tell the story with, so it took a while for the students to understand that Joseph was not, in fact, a Koala bear and his brothers weren’t actually lambs, panda bears, monkeys, leopards, elephants, chickens, penguins or bunny rabbits. Once they got past that, it was smooth sailing. They loved the stories, they even asked questions! And they even wanted to hear more stories, but I was out of time. Once again, a day given completely over in the hands of God. And SURPRISE! I lived to tell the tale.
The Ceremony
On our final day, we bounced around to each of the classes we didn’t get to spend time with the past week. It was mostly second grade, and we got to talk to the classes and answer their questions. They asked about our families back home, whether or not we were homesick, our favorite foods, do we have boyfriends or girlfriends, our favorite superheroes, why we’re traveling and why we came to Indonesia. They asked a lot of profound questions that surprised us to come from second graders. After spending time with the kids we had a few hours for a break, so we walked to a cafe down the street that Ms. Sunshine recommended to us. We found the cafe and got settled in and ready to eat, sit, read our bibles and write a little bit. After a few minutes of us being there, we start to look at the menu. The food is so healthy and delicious here, we’ve been dying for vegetables and non-fried foods, but it’s a bit out of our price range. But God is a sweet father who loves to surprise His children, I look up and we see Ms. Sunshine and Nancy walk in. They explained that they wanted to pay for our meals and gave each of us a generous amount of money, and then left to go back to the school. As they left, we just sat there in shock, blown away by their generosity and hospitality. In awe of the Lord’s timing, we ate and rested for a while together before heading back to the school.
We arrive back to where they told us to meet them and are blown away once again. They have a whole ceremony prepared for us. All of the students and teachers were there to honor and thank us for our time. We spend the next hour and a half singing songs with the students, singing to the students, giving speeches, listening to speeches from teachers and students from each school. They even made a video compilation of each of us teaching and interacting with students. I was so overwhelmed with love, I felt like I could both laugh and cry the entire time. Before the ceremony was finished, the leaders of the school gave us gifts, traditional Indonesian necklaces for the ladies and traditional Indonesian hats for the men. But Shea and I got another bag that was quite heavy, we decided to wait to peek inside until later that day. Later, we find out that the bags are full of notes and letters from our students from the week. Over a hundred notes from all of our students, kindergarten to fourth grade and some extras sprinkled in the mix. In the letters they drew pictures and folded them into impressive shapes, they were thanking us for coming to visit, asking us to come back and a lot of funny notes as well.
Farewell Thoughts
I left Yah-Ya that day with just a tiny glimpse of how much God loves me. I felt it, it was so tangible through the way that He provided for me and held me up that week. He never left my side and He kept reminding me that I can do scary things. He showed me how precious I am to Him, simply by the way I felt about my students. He kept finding new ways to tell me that He loves me, whether it was through the ladies who provided our healthy cafe meal, or through the students who would bring me notes and gifts and give me hugs every day. The night before our ceremony, I asked for God to use someone to show me how much He truly loves me. And the next day I was overwhelmed with love, my heart was so tender I didn’t know what to do with myself. I still don’t know what to do with myself, even in hindsight, ask me about it when you see me next and you’ll understand what I mean. I walked away from that school dumbfounded by His sovereignty. Blown away how our time with Ya-Yah came to be, how it was just an accident, but ended up being some of the sweetest days where I truly felt God’s hand working. I still don’t fully understand, but that’s my favorite part about walking with the Lord, not having to understand but just being dumbfounded by His goodness.
