Month 7 – Zambia
We read the website for Butterfly Space, the ministry site we would live at in Nkhata Bay. We were ecstatic to be on Lake Malawi with so many opportunities, but one line stood out from the page: “We are excited for highly-qualified teachers to come to our classrooms, demonstrating new ideas and teaching our children.” I’m a teacher. This is my gift. I should be excited. Instead, I am filled with dread. “Highly qualified.” That’s what my certificate says. But after last year I feel anything but qualified – I feel like a failure. The anxiety that plagued me the entire school year returned in that instant. I know this is the month where I will truly have to face everything. This is the month of redemption I have been praying for. Why was I so terrified?
I was scared to find out that I wasn’t actually highly-qualified. I was scared of the imagined expectations of others. I was equally as scared to know that God might call me back to the classroom. I had lost faith in my gift and faith in myself. Doubts and lies filled my head. “You were a teacher,” they say, “but you aren’t anymore. God took your gift back. You put it on His altar and you are not good enough for Him to return it. He took it back for good.”
The funny thing about redemption and refinement is that it doesn’t come “quick and easy.” It is slow. It is painful. And it requires you to walk head first into the fire daily. When I told God He could transform my gift, return it to His glory, I knew it would be difficult and would require refinement and healing in myself, as well.
The first week here, I volunteered to teach in a kindergarten classroom. I did not want to, but I was acting in obedience. God kept putting challenges in front of me: helping, teaching, working one-on-one with children. Sometimes, the biggest challenge was just walking to the room each day. On Tuesday, I kept stalling, having no desire to walk up the hill. Then a little boy, Ophanuel, ran out of the classroom, looked down to our campsite, and pointed right at me. “DEB-LAH!” he yelled, smiling and laughing, beckoning me up the hill.
“Okay, God. I get it, I’ll go.“
In His faithfulness, God showed me a little more of what I loved in teaching, a little more joy, everyday. By the end of the week, I was by no means loving the idea of teaching, but I was sad to see the kids go home – I was excited to be with them.
The second week we lived in a remote village at the top of the mountain. Our main ministry was teaching at preschool every morning. There are over 60 kids, ranging from age 2 to 8. And you know what my unpredictable, big mouth did on Monday? It volunteered to take over…for the entire week.
My team and I have taught the children (and teachers), every day this week. I can honestly say I have loved it. I am exhausted, I have no voice, and I love it. I am remembering why I love teaching, I am remembering the good it does. I am remembering that being highly-qualified isn’t about a test score or achievement level. It means that I am loving these children to the best of my ability every day, showing them the love Jesus has for them, and teaching them so they have a key to success and freedom.
I thought God used my first year teaching and the World Race to strip me of my gifts and passions. Instead, I think He is using the World Race and my gift and passion for teaching to strip me of that first year.
I don’t know where the next part of this story leads. Maybe I’ll be back In a classroom one day, and that idea doesn’t completely terrify me anymore. Maybe I’ll be an interventionist or a tutor or a nanny. Maybe I will be a principal or open a mission school. Maybe I’ll travel the world, helping teachers in schools everywhere. Maybe I’ll just be a mom or a Sunday school teacher (though just never describes those things). But the point isn’t to see the ending of the path. It’s about trusting God with the journey, knowing that no matter how twisted and confusing it looks to me now, He is leading me on the road He knows is best for me. He is leading me to safe ground.
God is not an Indian-Giver. He did not take my gift back.
And I am a teacher. A highly-qualified one, at that.
