5/16/2015
Hello everyone! Before I begin this blog, I wanted to ask you all to pray into supporting me in this next month. I have to raise a little over 3 thousand more dollars to be fully funded, and the deadline is June 30th. Thank you to everyone who has given so generously so far, given of your money and your prayers. Thank you! If you could, please tell people about me and my race. If everyone donated $20, I would be fully funded! More specifically, if 150 people donated only $20, I would be fully funded. Please pray into it and please continue to pray for my team and the ministries that we are participating in.
I’m here in Swaziland, the only “kingdom” in Africa, and it is beautiful! We are on top of a mountain and get to wake up to the most amazing view of mountains, rivers, and hills that constantly remind my of Narnia, Middle Earth, and scenes from Pride and Prejudice. We are working at El Shaddai orphanage and it is an all squad month. Being an introvert, having an all squad month and being around so many people, all the time, can be physically and emotionally taxing–but my, am I fond of these people 😉 so that makes it easier.
The first night getting here, we were driving up the mountain in pitch blackness, with the van bumping and swaying this way and that, and I felt the need to pray. Not for our safety in the van, but for this next month. I could feel that this was going to be a month of spiritual warfare, and that the place that we were going to was full of battles–It would be a deep month and wearing month.
I was right.
The enemy has been on the prowl and has attacked each and every one of us in crazy ways. I have been praying over people individually on a daily basis and even felt called to lead payer for the whole squad against the spiritual warfare.
But God…(what wonderful two words 🙂 )
But God
Also has been showing me in the middle of our personal struggles, while facing the hard statistics of this ever shrinking kingdom full of aids and orphans, while teaching lonely, hardened, and poor children, that He also has the victory.
Someone shared with me lyrics from a song I had never heard of. Something about “All my life I had been told to put on the armor and get ready for battle, and then I found out
that Love already won.”
Next blog I will get more into it, but in the mean time, I have been placed as a fifth grade teacher at the school here, and was asked to write a short little bog about something that happened in my first week. It will be put on the El Shaddai blog site. Here it is:
“Thoughts from an El Shaddai 5th grade teacher”
“Nobody said it was easy…”
Cold Play’s irritatingly catchy lyrics played on in my head as my co-teacher and I stared at our new 5th grade class; helpless as we witnessed them seemingly act out a scene in their classroom that can only be described as part Ferris Bueller’s day off and part Hunger Games. When we entered the room, trying our best to be clothed in authority and love, the commotion died down a little, but their mischievous eyes followed us all the way to the front of the class, smiles widening as new jokes popped in their minds that would be prepared just for us, given at the just the right moment of class, where it would do the most harm.
Teaching isn’t easy for anyone, but it looks especially hiccup inducing when you only have three weeks to teach three classes with kids that are beautiful, bright, and creative, and use every one of their talents to mess with the new teachers.
However, underneath these playful and sometimes disrespectful eyes, are children who long to impress, long for someone to notice why they are special, long for someone to push them into achieving their goals, and long to be loved. Many of these kids are residents of the El Shaddai orphanage, and others come from around the mountain villages. All have stories that can (and have) induced me to tears; stories of abandonment, death, abuse, poverty, and AIDS–and all come back to school, day after day, striving to look at their future in hope.
That day, we had the students draw a picture of who they wanted to be when they grew up, and write down why. There were drawings of pilots, doctors, nurses, chefs, teachers, and policemen. The best was their description of WHY they wanted to be these things. One young man wrote down boldly that he wanted to be a “police” because he wanted to “stop thieves” and “walk children across the street.” This statement accompanied a grand picture of a little thief with an air bubble that said, “No! I want to steal! I am hungry and its fun!” and then a picture of a giant policeman with an air bubble in all caps stating, “NO! YOU WILL NOT STEAL BECAUSE I WILL NOT LET IT! I HAVE A GUN!!!”
However, most of the children were very shy in showing their pictures, or sharing any information at all. We tried to coax volunteers and only received little snickers or cast down eyes. One quiet young man, one of the older children, hesitantly raised his hand, and we pointed at him with relief. He cleared his throat and read his sentence in a loud mumble.
“I wish to be a father when I grow up.”
The class erupted in fake and jeering laughter which was immediately squashed by my co-teacher and I. The young man looked down at his paper.
“Go on,” I said. “So far it sounds amazing. What is your reason.”
This little bit of encouragement silenced the rest of the students and they all turned to look at their classmate. He looked up at me and smiled, and then read on.
“I wish to be a father when I grow up, because I believe that it is very important that a child has a father. So I will be a good father.”
I swallowed back some emotion in my throat. I knew that this student’s father died of AIDS, and I wasn’t sure about the rest of his family. I threw my hands up in the air and said with exuberance, “Wow! That is a FANTASTIC reason!!! Amazing! Thank you so much for sharing!”
His grin matched mine. He looked around the room and then back at me, pleased with himself.
That was all it took.
Suddenly every student’s hand shot up like they were catching a baseball in the World Series.
“Teacha! Teacha! Pick me! Look at my picture! This is what I want to be!”
All their faces radiated open hope that we would approve of them and praise them. That we would see them and tell them that they were special.
In the midst of the irritation and frustration, throughout the spit wads and paper airplanes, fights and literal bloody noses in the class, the heckling and the disrespectful tones, there are moments like these. Moments and opportunities to tell kids that they are loved, they are important, and that they have a future.
And we get to point them to the ultimate Father, the one that claims them, never leaves them, embraces them, and takes great delight in them. Every moment, every day.
Oh yes. It’s all well worth it.
