Today was Sabbath.  A year ago, on a day like today, I would get and get ready for church.  I would worry about what I should wear.  What we were going to do later that afternoon. I would be trying to get together the things that I was bringing for the potluck and wondering when my group of friends was going to decide whose house we were eating at and then what adventure we would be having that afternoon. 

Meet Obama. (Yes, that really is his name.)

            Today, however, was a different story.  Today I sat through church with a stranger in my lap.  Today I held a little one through church while he slept peacefully in my lap.  Today, I was not worried about what the person sitting next to me in the pew might be thinking.  Today, I was worried about whose little boy I was holding.  I was wondering if he is getting enough to eat.  I was worried that this little boy has someone to love him.  He was so hungry for attention, always wanting to be held.   I was thinking how can I really be making a difference here?  I held this little boy for a few hours.  I loved him for a few hours.

            Being here at Maxwell it’s sometimes easy to forget that I am living in a third world country.  We have it so nice inside the walls on our little hill overlooking the city.  But step outside the walls and there are children who are malnourished.  There are real people whose homes are being washed away by the rains this spring.  There is real poverty like many people in the states have never seen. 

I have a friend that always quotes to me that. “Life often beings right outside your comfort zone.”  I have found that to be true.  But I have also found that its also joy that begins outside your comfort zone.  Nothing makes me happier than being with these children who have next to nothing, but truly have everything.  They are willing to give so much love to anyone who will pay them any attention.  They find such joy in the simplest things.  Back home, we have it good.  We have it so easy.  But I think that we are missing the point.  What are the things that you are worried about today?  Are they things that really matter in the long run?  Why do we lack the joy that these children have?

I think that there are probably a lot of missionaries that could relate to what I am saying.  We come out to make a difference in peoples’ lives.  But really, the life that we change is our own.  I may only have a few hours with a particular child or, in some cases, a few months.  But it’s enough.  The small moments and the little things are the things that make the biggest difference.  I may not be doing a lot to change the world.  But maybe I can change the world for one child.  I am doing what I can, and in the process I find that I am the one changed.    

6 Weeks

           Its late.  I should be sleeping.  I have classes to teach in the morning.  But I cannot get to sleep.  My mind just keeps spinning.  Six weeks left.  Six weeks and I will be boarding a plane and flying back to the States.  Flying home.  But leaving home.  What is it going to be like when I get back?  I am heading right back to camp.  Camp has been home.  Then I am headed back to Tennessee.  Tennessee has been home.  But what will it be now? 

            I am registered for classes this fall.  I am set up to have an apartment in Southern Village with three other girls.  I am starting to look into lining up a job for the fall.  But how do I go from being the full-time teacher to being the full-time student?  How do I go from being an adult, responsible for so many kids back to being just a college student responsible for only me?   

            My students are so much of my world right now.  I cannot walk anywhere without having at least one of my kids calling out hello to me.  I have girls that will turn around and run back to school if they forgot to give me a hug on their way out the door.  I have kids that bring me flowers on a regular basis.  Almost every time I leave the house, there are some of my students in my guava tree trying to get the fruit that is currently in season.  If I am not in school with my kids, I am grading their papers or working on lesson plans or reading books about how to help them better. 

            In just six weeks, I am leaving everything that has become home to head back to what has always been home.  There are many things that I am so excited about!  But so many things I dread leaving.  I want these last few weeks to go so quickly but at the same time, there is just not enough time.  

April 10, 2013

I’m not sure what second graders talk about in the U.S. but today during art class the conversation I was listening in on was about the different countries my students were born in.  This lead to a discussion in which one second grader was explaining to the other that the U.S. and the U.K. are not the same place.  This is just one of the joys of working at a school with so much diversity!

The weeks have really been flying by, although sometimes days seem to take forever.  I have been staying very busy trying to figure out how to stay on top of all my kids in four different grades.  Every day, I am sure that I learn more than my kids.  Some days go really well!  My lessons flow well and they make sense.  The kids are engaged and they really seem to be getting it.  However, other days I really struggle just to get through with my sanity intact.  The lessons just do not go the way I planned.  The kids are not getting it.  The Internet is down (again) and so I am not able to show the video I planned to show.  My kids are all excited about something and so it is difficult to get them to focus.

In second grade right now we are working on writing descriptions.  Last week, I brought in some apples.  We made charts talking about what we saw, felt, smelled, felt, and tasted as we cut up the apples and ate them.  While we were doing this, the comment from one of my second graders was that I am a very strange teacher, but that they liked it.  After we were finished, the kids took their charts and wrote a paragraph description of their apple. 

This week for science we are talking about fossils.  So I made some clay and brought it with me to class. We took some leaves and pressed them into the clay making our own “fossils” and then talked about how fossils are made.  Later, one of the kids came up to me and told me that she was going to bury her plant.  I was a little confused what she was talking about at first.  It took a minute for the light bulb to turn on.  I asked if she was trying to make a fossil and she said yes.

At one point today one of my girls was reading in the loft.  She comes down and starts pointing to a word in the book that she was reading.  By the time I was able to get her to hold the book still so that I could read the word we were both laughing. She was excited because it was a word that she has found in the dictionary that morning as part of her vocabulary.  I think that one of the most exciting things about teaching is seeing my kids take the things that they are learning and apply them to their lives.

One last story.  As I am sitting here writing this there are four of my students outside playing in the playhouse.  I keep hearing my name as they are out their and so I go out to see what is going on.  They are playing that they are school teachers.  One of the girls is Melissa and the other is Katie (the other elementary teacher here).  The other girls are their students.