I am a teacher. When I came on the Race, I figured there would probably be some teaching involved, mostly teaching English. And I figured right. I’ve taught English to adults in Rwanda, teens in Ethiopia and Thailand, and preschoolers and elementary school kids in Cambodia and Thailand. Sometimes those English lessons were short and sweet, and we met only one time. Other times we met daily or weekly for lessons of 1-3 hours. Teaching venues have included school classrooms, community centers, and churches. So teaching has been a part of my Race the whole time – but never more so than this month.
This month is different because teaching is our focus, our only “official” ministry. We eat, sleep, and work in the school. The daily schedule looks a lot like my life before the Race – wake up before the sun, eat breakfast, go to school, take a half hour lunch, go back to school, go home (or in this case, upstairs.) At home, I would usually work late at school and arrive home around 6, where I would then make something for supper and eat it while watching The Big Bang Theory and/or texting my mom. Here, I talk over the day with my teammates, go get something for supper (usually Chinese), have Team Time, and read. Go to bed, wake up, repeat.
So the daily schedule is pretty much Same Same – but everything else is different. The teaching methods. The behavior management strategies. My role in the classroom.
I am a teacher. But here, I am a helper. It’s not my room or my lesson plans or my kids. I’m not responsible for anyone’s ultimate success or failure in the classroom. This month, I have the opportunity to take a step back, to observe, to learn a new way of doing things, to support the regular teacher, and, perhaps most importantly, to get to know the kids as people. To sit with Yan Yi and watch her make watercolors out of colored pencils. To talk with Inshara about her family. To read The Rescuers Down Under to Tofil. To eat Seng Hkwan’s birthday cake. To help Yasmine understand the instructions on her pre-test when she only speaks minimal English. To draw pictures with Mirna.
I am a teacher…or perhaps, I am a person who teaches. At church this past Sunday, the message was about identity, and part of it was about how so many people get their identity all wrapped up in what they do for a living. It’s really easy to do that with a job like teaching. To make teaching your main focus, because you are a teacher, and little lives are depending on you to mold them and help them grow. There’s no doubt in my mind that teaching is a special and important job. But (and it makes me uncomfortable to say this, probably because my identity is so wrapped up in it) it’s still a job. There’s more to life than teaching – there’s friends, and family, and music, and sunsets, and ice cream, and God.
I believe God placed me here this month because He wants to begin to show me what abundant life looks like in a life like mine. I can find abundance in my work day by creating relationships with kids instead of just trying to get them to Accomplish A Task. I can also have a life apart from my profession. Is it really necessary for me to stay two to three hours after school every night? Or would that time be better spent meeting up with a friend to go for a walk, or calling one of my siblings, or spending time alone with Jesus, or visiting my neighbors? I think I know the right answer. I hope when I get home my workaholic self will remember.
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UPDATE: Two of the preschoolers who I worked with at Sarah’s Covenant Homes in India have recently been ADOPTED!!! Praise that these precious little girls are now with their forever families!
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WE NEED YOUR HELP!!! BY THIS SUNDAY!!!!
The Dignity for Children Foundation is all about giving children a chance to break the cycle of poverty through education. The school brings together local and refugee children. The teachers and the staff care a great deal about these kids, not just their education but their safety outside of school as well.
There are some students that live in a dangerous area and whose home is not safe. The staff wants to help out this particular family which is new to Dignity, but they need support. The family has 6 children (from infancy to teenagers), the parents, and a grandmother who needs constant care. That’s nine people. They live in a single bedroom apartment in a government housing complex.
It’s a dangerous living situation for the children. The bathroom and kitchen window that lead to hallway are missing glass and are haphazardly boarded up. Though all other apartments on the floor can be seen with a security grill on the windows and doors, only the remains of a door grill can be seen here. The main door has no handle or locks anymore. Instead a chain wraps through the door around the door frame through a hole in the cement wall. The cement around the door frame is breaking away so the entire frame moves a little when you open the door.
The bedroom has no bed frames, just a few mattresses strewn across the floor. The remnants of electrical switches and lights are still dangling in place though serve no purpose anymore. The walls of the entire place are peeling back multiple layers of paint and the floor is chipped cement.
The kids are grateful to get to start school. The family is extremely sweet and very exited to meet us, though we don’t even share a common language.
Help us to give this family some peace of mind for security! Help us give them a place to lay their heads at night and a space they can call home. We have the people to do repairs and we are able to start making small improvements right away. Everything you donate will help this family and possibly more just like them! Even if you can only donate a little, it may be enough for a pane of glass for the windows or a new lock on the door. Every little bit will help make an improvement to this family’s home.