Teaching geography has been a wild experience. 
So at first I had the idea to help the teacher, Mr. Simbanda (blog about him coming at some point), and teach his material but quickly decided that I was not qualified to do that.
This made me doubt why I was here.
Why did I say I understood this subject, why didn’t I take into account things like, subject matter is different here than in the USA?
I was at a crossroads. Make ministry or be useless and let down my ministry host.
While I was at home after that first day I thought of doing a lesson on the geography of America. I ran through a list of things in my head and jotted them down.
I got to class the next day and ran the idea to Mr. Simbanda. He said it was great and I spent the day making lessons plans for the classes. The next day he took me to class introduced me quickly and walked out the class.
I, a foreigner, was there in a class room with 12th graders, slightly nervous, about to teach them.
This lesson was made up all by me from whatever I could remember about every region in America along with bits of politics, weather, pop culture, and big issues going on currently.
The class was loud and at first I had to be able to command respect from them. Waiting in silence worked for a bit but would only last 5 mins. My lesson, filled with witty jokes, and great info, wasn’t working.
I started to talk about racial relations in Baltimore and people straightened up really quick. They were waiting for me, a white guy to say the same things that apartheid members were saying up untill 1994. But when I began to talk about love for your fellow man and how we all come from the same father, people’s eyes looked at me differently.
I found a common bond, a talking point I used for the rest of my lessons.
This town is 95% black and even seeing an American is a scarce thing. I was the first one to talk and teach in school actually. Hopefully I won’t be last.
I don’t think anything I said or taught will make these students tests scores skyrocket. I was actually disrupting class and could have made it harder for them for a few weeks.
But I hope and believe that I was able to change their views just a little bit. I was able to plant seeds that someone else will come and water. I started relationships with the teachers and administrators in this school so the ministry here and future racers with be fruitful.
“Jesus told his first disciples, Come and follow me and I will send you out to fish for people.” Matthew 4:19
He never said I would catch a mahi mahi or some giant tuna. He never said it would just be little anchovies either. He said come and see what happens.
I am finding joy in the unknown that Jesus has everything planned out. I just have to follow. Come and do that with me. Follow my Journey, seek out your own, or do whatever you have to depend on what him. He wants that of you, he wants you to love him as he loved you.
May grace and peace follow you wherever you go.
