Slow

Slow.  Just slow.  I am realizing more and more that I am always in a hurry.  I walk fast.  I eat fast.  I shower fast.  What for?  Why am I always rushing?  Hurry hurts people.  Hurry hurts kids.  Here in Africa everything is slow.  Or at least it seems like everything is slow.  The kids walk so slow!  The lines take an eternity.  Mail takes weeks.  It takes forever to get places because of the traffic.  It drives me nuts!  But I am realizing it is so good for me  It is Sunday morning and I was in the shower and I was rushing.  As I realized what I was doing I just started to laugh at myself.  It is a Sunday morning.  I have no appointments today.  Nowhere that I really have to be and while I do have several things I want to get accomplished today, I have more than enough time to get them all done.  So why am I rushing?  How much do I miss out on because I am always in a hurry and always trying to get to the next thing.  

School Days

A note taken from two of my students in class the other day:  Excuse the spelling.  I copied it exactly. 

Student 1: Hey, did you see the look on (that other student’s) face?  I wonder what is wrong with her?

Student 2: No, but she was arguing with Mrs. MacCle and Mrs. MacCle said she shoud stop it.

Student 1: I know.  I think she wants excuses to not do her math or math is too hard for her.

Student 2: Eh, I don’t think that

Student 1: Whatever.  Anywho, lets continue working.  And I think you mean didn’t I think that.

Student 2:  don’t use that word Anywho Arg and don’t tell me that I am using your arg ok I am using my own arg.

Student 1: Ok Ok. Lets continue.

Student 2: Continue what!

Student 1:  CONTINUE INDEPENDENT!  Arg.  We don’t want much homework do we?

Student 2: I did not say we do! Arg.

Student 1:  (Name of student), just continue if you don’t want homework.

Student 2: ok ok ok so never mind!!!!

Student 1: whatever

Student 2: You said we should continue so lets continue ok!

Student 1: ok ok. Don’t give notes back then, ok?

Student 2: ok, you don’t give notes back.  Keep this not ok

Student 1: That’s what I said!  Don’t send notes this time!

Student 2 Hey, I said don’t give note

Student 1: I said it first when I went on this part of the paper L

Student 2: ok ok! Don’t give note and what does this L mean?  And don’t give note answer this when you are done.

Student 1: L means mad and it is made with !! and a (( ok?  Don’t send notes BACK!!!!!!

Student 2: hey didn’t you see what I wrote don’t send notes!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok!

Student 1: too bad.  I said it first.  HeHeHe

Student 2: toooooooooo bad I also said it

Student 1: too bad too too much bad.  I said it first

Student 2: OK it math time

And the note ends there.  Sometimes these kids are so entertaining!   In the last few days I have had to explain to a student that it is not a good idea to pick your nose and eat your boogers, especially in public.  I had a 2^nd grader in the middle of his English homework look up and ask me randomly and ask what the purpose of life is.  Today after assigning homework to my 5^th and 6^th graders one of my 6^th graders said that this was the best Thursday of her life!  Then I had a 5^th grader who was singing his “Thursday blues” because he had more homework than he would have liked.

11/03/12

Before I left for Africa a friend and returning SM said to me that, “mission work really is just life in another country.”  I did not really think much of the comment then, but in the last few months it has come to mind several times.  The truth in that statement hits me occasionally and I just have to laugh.  It is amazing to me how quickly we adapt and how quickly things become normal.  The novelty of something new and different quickly becomes normal, and what was once foreign becomes so typical. 

Now here at Maxwell, we have it pretty good.  I have hot, running water (as long as I remember to turn on the water heater).  I live in a gated and guarded community about a half an hour from the largest city in East Africa.  I eat most of my meals in the school cafeteria and spend a good portion of my days in my little classroom that is hardly a three-minute walk from my house.

One thing that constantly puzzles me about Africa are the apparent contradictions that I see all the time.  On the walk to Roungi I will see Land Rovers and BMWs go flying by me on one side and on the other side of me will be a little kid in tattered and dirty clothes walking to school.  I will see one person in a suit walking around talking on their I phone and then a few minutes later see an old man beating his donkey trying to get it to stop.  Yes, the beat the donkeys to make them go and to make them stop.  I am yet to figure out how the donkey knows what it is supposed to do.  The one that really gets me is when you pass by the grocery store and there are chickens wandering around the parking lot or cows just taking a nap in one of the parking spaces.  All of these things, when I first got here were just astounding to me and I was constantly shocked at some of the things that I saw.

Earlier this week there was an old man and his donkey walking with a cart full of water I am assuming for his family.  He was struggling to make it up the hill.  The water cart, the man, and the donkey were all sliding backwards down the hill.  I quickly ran over to help him push his cart up the hill.  As I was pushing and struggling to help him make it to the top of the hill I was thinking about how easy it is for me to get water.  Here at the school we have water filters built into the sinks and I am able to fill up my water bottle several times a day and yet within walking distance of my home this man is struggling to get water home.  These are some of the contradictions of Africa.

Yesterday was Friday and we had a half-day of classes.  So after classes Tanzi, Emily and I walked into Roungi to some of the markets there.  These markets are just so great!  They are extremely crowded and you never know what you will find there.  The stands are extremely close together.  At the various stands you will find fruits and veggies for very cheap.  Ever wonder what happens to all the clothes that people donate for kids in other countries?  Well, they a lot of them end up in the markets in Africa.  It is so funny to me to dig through some of these piles and find all kinds of brand name clothing from the states being sold. 

Now in the markets, if you are not really interested in buying something you better not stop for too long or you will be attacked.  Not literally.  But if you look at one thing for too long it means you are very interested and the person owning that particular stand or shop will take that as an encouragement.  They will pick up the object and start talking about how nice it is and how they will give you a good price (which if you are white is about three times what you should actually pay for it).  If it is an article of clothing watch out!  They will try to put it on you.  And if it does not go on easily, that is not much of a deterrent.  They can make it fit! This can be extremely entertaining, as long as you are not the one being shoved into a dress. 

It struck me again yesterday as we were riding a crowded Matatu (a form of public transportation in Kenya) back to the school how funny all of this is.  I have grown pretty accustomed to being stared at.  It hardly phases me anymore.  It does not surprise me to see animals in the most random places.  Seeing large spiders and lizards crawling around in my house is normal (although almost stepping on a tarantula in my room at 5 AM this week did phase me a bit).  My mom e-mailed me again and reminded me that I need to post.  I really struggled to figure out what to talk about because its just life.  I don’t have any amazing stories to tell right now.  I teach and I love it. These kids make me think and daily they teach me far more than I think I am able to teach them.  But then I remember what life was like back home and realize that while to me this is just life, but to my family and friends at home it is still foreign and strange.  So this is a little taste of  some of my adventures in Kenya.

Residency, gifts, and visitors.....

Officially a resident of Kenya!

Drawn by one of my third graders.  She also said, "I like you Ms. McCauley.  You are kind, loving, and when I do something wrong you forgive me.  You comfort me when I cry. That's why I like you.  (You are a bit strict)"

I lost my keys for the first time! Tanzi saved the day and wrote me this note.  If I am the tree, does that make Tanzi the squirrel? :)

Some of my classroom visitors.....

Brightest spider I have ever seen!

Now all I see is your face and your smile

A quiet reminder that we’re here just a while

And life is a fragile, dangerous thing

When you think of the pain and injustice it brings

When death shows us his disfigured face

It causes us sorrow, we start losing our faith

But really it’s placing us a little bit closer

To joining our creator, our heavenly father

Death, where is your power? 

You prowl around

seeking to devour

But we have a power much greater than yours,

we have a king who loves and restores

And on that day when he finally returns,

we will watch as your reign

crumbles and burns

For we are not subjects of your wrathful hand,

with GOD on our side we have courage

to stand

To the grave,

I’m not scared, you can roar all you like

And when it’s my turn, I won’t even fight

When you come to me, when you take my last breath

I will see the face of the one who conquered death

On October 18, 2012, one of our senior girls passed away.  She was in the hospital with an infection, she also had sickle cell anemia.  Everyone was expecting her to recover and come back to school in a couple of days.  That morning, however, it was announced that she didn’t make it.  The campus was completely drained of all joy, it was an eerie place.  Rest in Peace, Neema Ojwang, we can’t wait to see you again.  Hopefully it’s soon.

- Jacquie (Another SM here at Maxwell)

This last week it seems has been a week of loss.  Here at Maxwell one of our seniors passed away last Thursday morning.  She had been in the hospital for a few days because she had sickle cell anemia and was being treated for some kind of infection.  She had a beautiful smile and was loved by both the students and the teachers here at Maxwell.  Then I learned this morning that one of the young women that I grew up with was killed in a car accident last night.  This one struck a little closer to home for me.  I cant tell you how many late night conversations and pizza parties my sisters and I have had with her and how many times we all sat up talking.  Trying to make any sense of these things is useless.  The best thing that we can do here is learn.  Learn from this that life is short so don’t take it for granted.  Neither of these girls expected to die and we did not plan on losing them so soon.  We never plan on losing someone in his or her teens.  But the point is that we do not know how much time we will have.  So what are you doing with the time that you have been given?  Is it something that you would be proud of?  Are you just making it through each day, or are you really living it?  What will be said about you when you’re gone?  How much time do you have to make things right?  How much time do you have to truly live?

Now the sad thing is this.  How many will take this in?  Say it’s a sad story and then continue on as if it’s all insignificant.  What good is it is we listen to the sermon, but it does not affect the way that we live?  What good is it if we know the right thing to do, but we don’t do it?  How often do we hear an inspiring story or listen to a life changing truth, but then continue on with our lives the way we always have.  We are too busy. Too stressed out.  Too lazy.  We do not make the changes that we need to make in our own lives because we will get to it someday.  Unfortunately, we really cannot be sure that that someday will come.  So what are you doing with the time that you do have?

The Great Controversy and Glimpses of God

One of the classes that I am teaching here at Maxwell is 7^th and 8^th grade Bible.  For the last several weeks we have been using the Sabbath school quarterly lessons and going through them each week.  In the last few weeks though I had really been feeling like there had to be a better way to do Bible class.  I started looking into some other options and trying to figure out what to do.  I had the kids fill out surveys on what kinds of things they felt like they knew a lot about, what they felt like they had a lot to learn about, and what kinds of things that they had questions about. 

            Some of the kids, as you would expect from 7^th and 8^th graders, gave me some pretty ridiculous answers and treated the thing like it was a joke.  However, there were a lot of sincere answers there as well and some of them really surprised me.  There were a lot of questions about where sin came from and there were a lot of questions about the end of times and Jesus second coming.  So, I thought that going through the last several chapters of The Great Controversy might be a good idea.  I started to read it for myself starting in chapter 29. 

Once I made the decision to go through the book I was faced with a problem.  Where am I going to get 17 copies of the book?  Not really sure where to start I asked Hadassah and she sent me up to the office to ask about it.  On my walk up to the office I caught Roy just was he was leaving.  I asked him, expecting to possibly be sent on some wild goose chase to track down books, assuming that we even had that many copies readily available.  When I asked him about the books he says, “sure, no problem” and then leads me into the office and sitting there is a whole box of The Great Hope (a recent reprint of the book) which had just been dropped off for the students here at Maxwell.  I was so excited!  It had proved to be so much simpler than I was anticipating.  Talk about God knowing our needs before we need them. 

Over the last week we did a little bit of an introduction to the book and did a little research on who Ellen White was and talked about why we would be reading her book.  When we did get into some discussion these kids ask so hard but good questions!  I was amazed at some of the things that they brought up and had a difficult time trying to figure out how to answer some of the questions.  It is all so exciting!

This week has also been Week of Prayer and the theme was Glimpses of God.  Each of the speakers (which included all of the SMs and a few of the students) had a topic about a different character or personality of God.  Some of the topics included creator, leader, warrior, ect…. My topic was God as a healer.  So each talk was supposed to be fifteen to twenty minutes.  We decided on who was speaking about what and when last week. I had my talk written out by this past Sunday.  It was pretty straightforward.  I had three different stories of Jesus healing people in the New Testament that I was using and I pulled the same two points out of each one.

Thursday morning comes around and it was my turn to talk.  I woke up that morning and I knew that I would not be using what I had prepared.   It was 6:00 at this time and I was supposed to talk at 9:45.  It was strange that I was not worried about it at all.  I had no idea what I was going to be saying in just a few hours and I had no time really to think about it. I had classes to teach until it was time to speak.  I had a few minutes after breakfast and I jotted down a few notes that ended up being no use to me because I could not read my own writing.

I walked to the church still not entirely sure what I was going to say, but surprisingly calm about the whole thing.  When asked what my scripture reading was I laughed because I really had no idea.  I told him to used Ezekiel 36:26.  I got up there and I talked.  I know that I touched on the story of blind Bartemaeuos from Mark 10:46-53 and about the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years from Mark 5:23-34.  I made the point that in both cases Jesus healed these people and that he also spoke to their spiritual and emotional needs in the process.

In the story of the blind man, he called out to Jesus – even after being told to be quiet.  When Jesus stopped to talk to the man, he asked him what he wanted. As if God needs us to tell Him.  But I then quoted James 4:2 about how we do not receive because we do not ask.  After this Jesus tells the man, “go your way; your faith has made you well.”

Then I turned to the story about the woman with the bleeding problem.  She was desperate.  The Bible tells us that she had spent all of her money on doctors and that they had been no help to her.  Jesus was her only hope and she knew that. The woman had to recognize her need and then she had to push through the crowd to get to Jesus.  It could not have been easy.  Ellen White tells us that, “in that touch was concentrated the faith of her life.”  Now as she touches Jesus she is instantly healed!  End of story? No, Jesus does not let her just walk away.  He turns and asks who touched him.  She knew that she could not hide and she came forward and fell at Jesus feet and told him about what had happened.  He then says to her, “Daughter, your faith has make you well.  Go in peace and be healed of your affliction.”  Jesus did not let the woman walk away half healed. Though she first had to acknowledge what had been done for her – he acknowledged her and called her daughter. He told her that she was healed and to go in peace.

Then I pointed out what I think is the most important part of these two stories.  Sitting at home and feeling sorry for themselves did not heal these people.  They first had to recognize that they had a need.  Once they recognized that need they had to do something about it.  The blind man called out to Jesus and was told by the crowd to be quiet.  But he persisted in calling out to Jesus until Jesus turned to talk to him.  Then he had to ask for what he wanted! 

The sick woman had to fight her way through a crowd.  Now living in the states I don’t think that we really comprehend what this crowd was probably like.  Americans are pretty big on personal space.  It is not like that here in Africa.  There is no personal bubble.  When you are in a crowd, its like sardines.  There is no room for anything and I am truly amazed that anyone is able to get anywhere.  I like to imagine that this crowd was more like that, and we see this sick woman pushing her way through the crowd to get to Jesus.  She had to fight to get to Jesus! 

I told the kids that the point I was trying to make is that it was not enough to be in the crowd as Jesus walked by.  That was not how these people got the healing that they desperately needed.  They had to do something.  They had to reach out and they faced opposition in the process.  It is not enough to go to an Adventist school. It is not enough to go to church.  God wants to make you whole! But you have to reach out in order for Him to take hold of you.  

This is my house.

My room

More of my room.......

Here is the school.

This is what I do with most of my time.

My desk.

My classroom, busy working.

In the loft.

Our Thanks wall. The kids came up with
 their things  that they were thankful for and they named it!

I made it on the list!

Dad, this one is for you :)

Some of our Science projects.

Yes, there was a cat in my classroom.  Xander saved the day though!