If you were a poor farmer in the Grassy Park area of Cape Town, South Africa (where I am) and your “boss” didn’t have enough money to pay you properly, do you know what your wage would be? A bottle of alcohol. If you were the child of these poor farmers, do you know what you would probably suffer from? Fetal alcohol syndrome. If you were a child at the missions school that I am serving at for two weeks here, do you know what you would live through and see, either currently or previously before taken out of your home and put into an orphanage? Abuse. Molestation. Rape. Fighting. Neglect. Stabbings. Because you come to the school, you would be guaranteed breakfast and lunch. Beyond that, you don’t know when you would eat. You may be the child who was raped four times. You might be the one molested by your father and had to testify when you were in kindergarten. You may be the one who watched your brother get stabbed to death. You might be 14 year old with the mind of an 8 year old… and molested just two days ago. You might be the one alone at home, with no one to care for you. Or since you are ten, you’re old enough to take care of your younger siblings while your parents are out. So you become the interim parent while they go out to drink. You and the others you live near in the farming village would walk about one and a half miles to school… and you’re in kindergarten.
(mine and Rebekah's 3rd grade class)
Now if you’re the teacher in this neighborhood, you might be the one who just got stabbed outside of her home a few months ago, simply because the gangs are taking over and you were standing outside. Oh, and you just had your home broken into a few weeks ago as well. Now, you must come to school to work where every day is a mental, emotional, and sometimes physical battle. Control of the class is by God’s grace alone. One class I push into to work on their English skills and teach about the Olympics is a mixture of 8-14 year olds, with mental functioning levels ranging between 1st grade to 5th grade. Most of them have FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) and live out at school what they do and see at home to survive… fight. Every two minutes someone is up hitting someone. Every single one. Their culture is one of fighting. Discipline is hard to be effective. Rational talking doesn’t really work when they lack the ability to do so. Punishment and fear is more effective. You may be thinking “send them to the counselor’s office. The principal’s office. Call their parents. Make them stay after school for detention. Suspend them to stay home.” But what counselor? What parents? And stay after school… they’d rather stay here than go home anyway, no matter what the punishment is. Suspend them to stay home… and lose the one safe place they have to go?
(my 4/5th grade class)
(my 6/7 grade class… a shed)
My individual ministry here is to push into three different age classrooms and teach English (their second language to Afrikaans) through teaching them about the Olympics and the SA city of Durban (where some of them will be going in a few months on a tour). For an hour each, I go into the 6/7 grade, 3rd grade, and 4/5 grades class. Frustration and anxiety. That’s what I slightly suffer from each day, and I’ve only been here for a little over a week. How am I going to teach in a manner and try to keep their attention and keep them busy long enough that they don’t go crazy and start fighting each other the whole hours? That’s the question I deal with every day when trying to plan for my next lesson.
The teachers here are tired. Out of ideas. Exhausted. Beyond frustrated. And I understand. But let me tell you one woman’s heart, the 3rd grade teacher and principal of the school… a tearful plea to the 18 of us who are here, “Please, don’t write these kids off.” Her plea brought tears to my eyes before it even brought tears to hers. It was then I remembered that these kids are made in the image of God. Created with His loving hand. And destined to the cycle they are a part of now if love, encouragement, discipline and grace do not invade them. I am not here to judge the teachers, parents, or children. I am here to love them. I am not here to fix a situation, to play Superman and solve the educational and discipline problems at the school. I am here to give the teachers a break so they can feel refreshed to get back into the class again when I leave. I am here to pray for them. I am here to hug the kid who has only been touched in abusive ways. I am here to show them patience when everyone else (for good reason) has lost theirs. I want to do so much more. Give the school money to hire more teachers so they can have smaller classes. Or hire classroom aides to help. Or to create music, art, PE, and dance classes that the kids can enjoy and do something active in (like the ones my squad mates are here teaching). To hire a school psychologist. A counselor. But that’s not my role. The school will have the same staff when I leave as when I arrived… 6 teachers, 3 cooks, and 1 life skills teacher. No more, no less. Hopefully, they will be refreshed and ready to continue the challenge that is their daily job. So much of these kids remind me of kids in America. I may be in South Africa, working with them and seeing their lives in action. But they’re there in the states, too. You can pray for them there, too. Strength, endurance, and patience for teachers. Love and encouragement and grace on the kids. Kids in America need the same love that these kids do. But as of today, these are the ones who’ve captured my heart.
