Sunday, June 24, 2012

Madam Malaika


         Summer. Oh, Sweet Summer.
The beach.
Tan.
Work out.
Make money.
Kiss Lillian.
Swim.
Eat ice cream.
Watch movies.
Those were my summer plans.
Good news and bad news.
Bad news: those things aren’t happening.
Good news: God's plan has not seemed to be affected much by my own.  Even more, God’s plan seems to be much much better than my own. I have to wonder, how much has God’s plan been affected by my lesser plan throughout my life?  Not to get into a heated dispute of predestination but how many times have I disobeyed or sinned when God has something better for me?

So here I am.
        Summer. Oh, Sweet Summer.
Dusty village.
Pasty white.
Getting fat.
Spending money.
Missing Lillian.
No pool.
No ice cream.
No movies.
Does it sound like I’m complaining?
I’m not.

You see, I’m really really thankful that the Lord has brought me here. He’s brought me here to give something to these people.  Not just to visit, not just to hand out food, not even to give money, but I’m here to educate.


Rafael caught either dozing off or being mesmerized by my beauty.  After asking me if I'd "wait 10 years and marry [him]" I'm beginning to think it might be the latter.
photo courtesy of Faith

Playing a matching game with paint chips!

I often wonder why I’m not majoring in business, marketing, or something else where I’ll actually make a little money with my profession.  I can work people, I’m well-spoken, I know how to manipulate (in a Godly way of course), I could definitely see myself climbing the corporate ladder in a fortune 500.

I have been talked out of teaching my whole life.  I have a family full of educators. Which makes for family friends full of educators.  Although most of them love it (like my father and my aunts and uncles) a lot of them never should have been teachers.  (Sorry if you’re reading this and realizing I’m talking about you).

But guess what? He hasn’t called me to be a business woman. He’s called me to be a teacher.
You know what, I love it.  I love that I can create a lesson off the top of my head that lasts for 2 hours and keeps the attention of each of my 23 eleven year olds (nearly) the whole time.  I love that I can use just the few paint chips I took from the Home Depot and come up with hundreds of uses for them during my English lessons. I love that when I walk into the room I have dozens of eyes and ears looking and listening because they’re ready to be poured into.




Want to know what a CD, tooth paste, a hair brush, and a necklace have to do with poetry? Come visit my class and find out!!


Synonyms!

I love that my students have taught me something that outweighs anything I’ll ever be able to teach them.

You see, in their love for me, their willingness to please and respect me, I see my own desire for Jesus.
In their dishonesty, when they get caught taking an answer from their neighbor, or in their disobedience when they do everything but listen to my words, I see my own sin- my unfaithfulness to the Lord.
When they proudly hand in their homework that they’ve spent an hour on and I can’t even read it, I see my life that I hand over to the Lord.  My hard work, or “righteous deeds” that the Lords looks at as filthy rags.  Just like their messy and incorrect homework for me, I hand over my life for him asking him to make it in to something, something spectacular.

They have nothing to offer and neither do I .  They are poor and sick and I am an inadequate sinner.  He loves me anyway and that’s why it’s so easy to love them.

However, some things have been hard. Like finding a student cheating. Or when I have to find the delicate balance of keeping the class at a pace where my slowest student doesn’t get overwhelmed by the curriculum but my brightest student doesn’t get bored and is still being challenged. Or not always calling on my favorite student who is polite and who knows all the right answers. Or not never calling on my favorite student who is polite and knows all the answers. It's sometimes hard not to yell at them, or break down in tears when no one is listening to the fun (but informative) lesson I spent two hours preparing the night before by dim candle light.

Like when my students don’t just need me as my teacher, they need me as their nurse, their cook, their judge, their mother, and their father.

A few posts ago expressed being a little discouraged.  I said my students would probably end up having to work in the fields just like their parents, and grandparents.  I want to slap myself in the face for that.  My students will get their secondary education, they will go to universities, and they will do great things with their lives.  I doubted them, I doubted myself, and I doubted the Lord. I won’t do that again. 
While teaching, particularly in Uganda – I’m beginning to be more and more okay with the understanding that I can’t save the world – I can’t teach the world.  The ones I can save, the ones I can teach – I better do it with everything I have.


I certainly can not change this village, this town, this country, and never this world.  I can not.  But they can.  They with educated minds and hearts that I get to cultivate and motivate can impact this world in ways I can’t even imagine. My students can change the world! On my way to school I pass by literally hundreds of children who won’t be attending school.  Not now, and probably not ever.  Why?  They have no money.  I have to completely trust that this is the way God intended for their lives to unfold and I fully understand that He is working all these things for their good. But I have to do something to help.  And so do you.

Here, no school is free.  Most schools here are private schools but even the public schools charge a certain “school fee.”  From my own conversions, the local schools according to today’s exchange rate charge anywhere from $10-$45 to send a child to school for a term. (There are 3 terms in a school year).

These children are beautiful and have the potential to go far. I recently read that if only 8 percent of the Christians would care for one more child, there wouldn’t be any statistics left. I don’t want to sound like a commercial because these children are not statistics. These boys and girls are my friends.  So all this to say - think about sponsoring a child.  Do your research because there are great honorable organizations who do a lot of good work in developing countries like Uganda.  They need you. Just think - the roles could have easily been reversed.

So, it might be difficult for us to rise above this seemingly hopeless situation.  I will accept that some of these things are way beyond my control and way beyond my understanding, too. Instead, I have to focus on what I can understand, on what I can control. I have to teach my students to do the same.

I know that Jesus is what these children need.  In the long run, it is the only thing that they need.  It is He who will gain them eternal life and that is the goal.  I also know that right now, this is the life we are in and what these children need in this life (in addition to Jesus) is an education.

I have been extremely intentional to speak the name of Jesus at every opportunity I can in my classroom.  The other day I gave a quiz to my P7 class.  I said that anyone who makes a 75 or better gets a lollipop. (Which is like motivating them with gold). While they were taking their quiz I had a few minutes to think about how I could best show the love of Christ to my students.  If my students have never known what love is, I can not expect them to accept the love of their Savior Jesus Christ.  I’ve first had to make that love real, tangible.  For the past two summers, I have been able to do that.

I took up the quizzes only 8 out of 24 students got a 75. Ouch.  I first passed out the 8 lollipops.

“Good job! You all deserve these lollipops. …The rest of you, do not.”

I started passing out lollipops to everyone in the class, including the one girl who didn’t even take the quiz because I saw her writing answers on her leg before I handed out the quiz to start with.  They all got pretty confused, understanding the stipulations for our academic deal. 

“You don’t deserve these, just like you don’t deserve the gift of salvation.  But that’s exactly what it is.  A gift.  I’m giving it to you because I love you, and that’s exactly why he died. You can reject it or you can accept it.  I see you accepting these lollipops. Will you accept Him?”

I’m praying for more and more changes to speak His name whenever I can. Although I’m here to teach, my driving force is the gospel.

I was reading this book written by a 27 year old man who was born with out arms or legs.  I think it’s called, Life Without Limbs. In his book he writes, “You see, I don’t think we are ever given more than we can handle.  I promise you that for every disability you have, you are blessed with more than enough abilities to overcome your challenges.”  This is something I know I’ve even quoted myself once or twice in my life. Well, as inspiring and motivational as that may be, I think he’s wrong. 
As a teacher God is constantly giving me more than I can handle.  More than I can deal with alone.  More chaos, more kids throwing up, and more stress than is good for me.  But that’s just why he does it.  If he gave me just what I could handle then I wouldn’t need his help.  My desperate neediness as a teacher keeps me dependent on God-which is exactly where I need to be deriving not just some of my strength but all of my strength.

When my alarm clock yells loudly at me to get out of bed at 4:55 in the morning I think about how on a normal summer day ,if I were home, I would be just crawling into bed from a late night of escapades with my friends.  I selfishly turn over and hit snooze. Then I remember the 62 young minds who wait on me.  Starving for something for their brain to eat. I remember the assignments I have to grade and the one child that needs me a little more than the rest.  So—I roll out of bed, pick my granny-panty weggie from under my oversized t-shirt, wipe the drool from the corner of my mouth, wash the crusties out of my eyes, brush my rats-nest hair, and get ready to take on the day. …and sometimes what feels like the world.


I am not an extraordinary teacher.  But when I’m doing what God created me to do- I can work miracles with my life, and in these children.

Teaching is great. Learning is better. 

1 comment:

  1. Angelica, I am a young teacher at Walhalla High School and I found this very inspiring. I was wondering how long you were going to be in Uganda because I thought it would be really cool if my RAZOR students and your students could become pen pals. I figured that it would help your students with their English and it would allow my students the opportunity to connect with someone from a different culture. My students love doing the shoeboxes at Christmas and I feel like they would also really enjoy this--they're a great group of kids. I'm not sure how easy it is to receieve mail over there, but I would love for you to email me so that we could discuss this. My gmail account is efeaste@gmail.com or the school account is emilyfeaster@oconee.k12.sc.us
    I look forward to hearing from you,
    Emily Boatwright

    ReplyDelete