Welcome to the Classroom

One of my favorite parts about this month is working with the children. At least once a week, my team, Rayos, along with team Dar Vida, get to join classrooms during their mornings at the little school down the road. From day one at this school, I joined the 7 and 8 year olds. This class is full of 17 excitable, sweet, funny, playful, smart, loving children. I was immediately received with hugs and smiles.

The first day we were there, my teacher team consisted of Allison, Patrick, and yours truly. We introduced our time with spanish songs about Jesus, a little pato-pato-ganzo fun (duck-duck-goose), and Allison told the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The children were very receptive to the message and two of them even raised their hands to accept Jesus in their hearts. I know some of you may be skeptical as to whether or not their prayers were sincere. I can say that I am a firm believer in the prayers of children. I remember praying to the Lord when I was 6 years old, and I understood full well what I was praying. Nonetheless, their prayers are between them and God, and only He knows the heart. But, I do believe that our impact in this school will continue on after we have gone.

On our second visit, we lost Allison (our fluent translator), as she was requested to teach in another classroom. At first, it was intimidating. I was now the “head teacher” and main communicator. My confidence in my Spanish-speaking abilities is definitely lacking. What would happen if a child had a question that I could not answer? What if I misunderstood and missed an important conversation because of the language barrier? But, I decided to teach them introductions in English, and it went really well. Not only did the children have fun learning, but I got to learn their names in the process. We had no difficulty understanding each other.

Our third visit: my squad had been told the night before that the teachers wanted more from us than what we had been doing. Our time with the children was filled with songs about Jesus, games, and interactive learning. The teachers wanted more structure for their class rooms, probably to encourage as least curricular disruptions as possible while we visited. Again, my insecurities popped up and I ran around trying to find ideas of what and how to teach my class.

The next morning, I peeked my head into the classroom and immediately the room was filled with chanting: “Mely! Mely! Mely!”. It made me laugh, and yes, it made me feel good. Although I was happy to see them before this fantastic welcome, their excitement was contagious. Patrick and I walked in with several unprepared ideas, but in seeing the children my stresses left me. I still didn’t really know what we were going to teach them, but I remembered the sweetness, and the passion of these little ones. Children are so gracious with language barriers. They are just as excited to teach their language as I am to teach mine–if not more.

We ended up spending our morning sitting and talking with them about various things–teaching them English words as they taught us those words in Spanish. We, then, had them draw their favorite animal on the white board and we taught them the names of the animals in English. It was a great morning!

 

Looking back, I’m not really sure why I was worried. I have been a teacher for the majority of my life. I started teaching Sunday school over 12 years ago and since then I have educated numerous little ones. Not only that, but I have had many successful conversations in Spanish. My squad had full confidence in me, my class had full confidence in me. Why do I lack confidence in myself? I don’t yet have the answer to that question, but what I do know is that the Lord has been revealing insecurities in me, peeling back the layers, and speaking truth over me. I am surrounded by encouraging and uplifting people, and I could not be more thankful for that. I have asked the Lord to use me, and He has been presenting the opportunities. I need not approach them with fear, but with full confidence that God has equipped me, and will continue to equip me for my calling.

To those of you who struggle with self-doubt, I want to encourage you. Ask the Lord for boldness. He will give to those who ask (Matthew 7:7-11). Believe that God knows what He is doing when He asks you to do something. He has full confidence in you. Remember that our strength is found in Him, our abilities come from Him, and if God is for us (and He is), we cannot fail.