Monday, October 10, 2011

seeking growth

In my time here, and really for months before returning to Haiti I have been struggling with transforming my faith.  Moving from a Sunday school faith to a more mature faith that really reflects who I am in Christ. I have been struggling with this because there are certain changes that I know need to be made in my heart and in my daily walk with God, but I have become comfortable in my sin and changing those habits is undesirable.

I recently took a walk with a friend and discussed this issue and others.  I told him that it was ridiculous to me that I know the path I should take, I feel I know why I should take it, and I have evidence in my own life that choosing God's path over my own produces a richer life; yet still I stubbornly cling to worldly things and tell myself I'm 'not ready' to make this change.  This is just laziness on my part and fear.  That age old fear that changing will produce a 'new me' who may come with responsibilities and behavior that I either view as boring, or fear others will view in that way.  So, essentially what I have made myself to believe is that if I follow the one who died for me - who has created me for His pleasure and joy - if I follow Him instead of the world, the world may reject me.

Hasn't the Bible told us this is so?  Didn't we sign up for this when we chose Christ?  Doesn't the Bible repeatedly proclaim that the world will reject us, and we will face hardships and persecution, but that we will not be alone?  I often find myself in these one-sided conversations with myself, knowing the answers to all the questions I pose, but wanting a new truth to arise, one that will not call me outside of my place of comfort and allow me to have my cake and eat it too.

I have been attending a church body that is made up of mostly QCS associated folks, and the sermons have been a video series.  Yesterday's sermon was about living our lives for the glory of God and not for our own glory.  The pastors addressed our tendency to reject ideas about Christ that make us uncomfortable, like the truth that God's ultimate agenda is His Glory when our idea of God is this humble, meek loving God who would never have such a selfish agenda.  This is a very difficult thing for me to accept, that God is out for His own glory, but when I look at it after hearing this sermon and pondering this topic for the past 24 hours I wonder why it makes me uncomfortable?  This God who's ultimate agenda is His own glory, this is the same God who created the Earth in all it's sinless splendor to to be good as He saw it, He created Man and Woman to be in harmony with Him so that He could come down to earth and walk among the things that reminded Him of His glory and brought Him joy.  When that creation failed Him, he guided it, reprimanding it as was necessary, but still desiring whole union with it so that His glory could once again be seen by all.  Through the many hundreds of years this same God has shepherded/guided/parented this world and the people in it, sending His only Son to be a presence among the people, so they might learn from Him, and essentially that they may learn from his death on the cross and glorious resurrection, that He Is God.  All things, the ultimate agenda is for God's glory, but why not?!  What else would be worth living for?  If our lives are to be lived striving to please God, striving to BRING HIM GLORY why would it make us (me) uncomfortable to know that this same God I want to bring glory to also desires that glory?  God calls ME to be meek, not himself.  He calls ME to be humble, not Him, knowing that I learn better in humility than in pride.  He wants me to be patient and kind, because if I am these things I can be a better witness of HIS love, so that more and more people may discover the glory of God, and His Kingdom may grow!

I spent part of my afternoon yesterday on skype chat, discussing this sermon and this very thing.  Confiding in a friend that this truth about myself is disappointing and frustrating to me.  He agreed that he has dealt with similar things, and directed me to James 4:1-10.  These verses discuss our stubbornness to walk away from our sin, the evil desires of our flesh, but how Christ has called us out of our sin to save us, to redeem us from ourselves, from this world of destruction.  These verses are uncomfortable for me to read because they apply.  Because the truth of this passage rings in my ears and calls to me do what I know if right, to turn from the things that bring me momentary pleasure, turn from them towards the One Thing that can bring me ultimate Joy.  What is so difficult about that choice?  Especially when I know that it is the right choice, and I know it is Truth.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

my first weeks in review

It has been three and a half weeks since i have arrived in Port and I've only been teaching two and half weeks.  I am learning so much, mostly about myself and being a teacher, but also about those around me; my colleagues, students and neighbors.  I have been inspired, humbled, challenged, and frustrated in some degree or another every single day.  I have also been absolutely filled with joy on numerous occasions.

My first week here at Quisqueya Christian school I spent my time with my roommate, Amber, wandering campus familiarizing myself with the facilities here, and trying not to think about the fact that I had no idea what I was doing.  I didn't begin teaching until the wednesday after I arrived, which gave me almost an entire week to act like I was preparing, without actually knowing what that would look like.  I found out the resources available to me here are much more than I had believed, causing my great joy and also giving me something to do, as most of those resources were absolutely filthy.  I was awarded an office amongst my resources and even a desk all my own!  It was a momentous occasion for me (o:

As Wednesday approached I found myself feeling more and more like, "Ok, here goes nothing!"  I have not pretended to know the first thing about teaching, and was very clear about my lack of teaching experience when I applied to QCS, but our director Steve Hersey said something that made me confident he was comfortable with my skill level when he said he had prayed for weeks over the decision to hire me or not.  And I have every aspiration to become the best teacher I can possibly be.  So far I have been consistently surprised with my ability to fill thirty minutes of time with relevant, skill level appropriate material.  It's been very encouraging and surprisingly exhilarating!  Here is my weekly schedule as it was given to me:

Monday begins at 7:15 with an elementary/high school staff meeting.  At 8 I grade papers for the 6th grade teacher Mrs. Mattenley and at 9 I help with Miss Rutz's low readers in her 2nd grade class.  I teach my first class at 12:30, 5th grade for a half hour.  There are 23 students in the 5th grade. Then I have the 6th grade class for a half hour at 2, and there are 25 of them. My scheduled day ends at 2:30.
Tuesday is my biggest day.  I start at 8 again helping in 6th grade, and then at 9 in 2nd grade.  My first music class is at 11:15, I have kindergarten (19 of them!) for a half hour.  I then scoot on over to 4th grade at 12:15 and teach the 18 of them for a half hour (so far my best behaved class and so eager to learn!). At 1:30 I have 2nd grade (25 students), and at 2 I have the 1st grade class (17 of them).  My day again ends at 2:30.
Wednesday is a light day, beginning at 7:15 with the elementary staff meeting and my two classes I help out, but it isn't until 1:15 that I have my first class of my own.  5th grade has another half hour music class, followed very closely by a half hour with 1st grade, and my day is over, once again, at 2:30.
Thursday finds me heading to chapel at 8:15, then helping in Miss. Rutz's 2nd grade class, and then grading for 6th and beginning teaching my own classes at 1 straight through until 2:55.  This is my least favorite schedule simply because of the closeness of the classes, it seems that my last class of the day is always shorted at least 5 sometimes ten minutes of their lesson because it is often difficult to get out of the first two classes on time.  Thursdays I have 2nd and 6th grade each for a half hour, and then I get to spend about 55 minutes with the 18 3rd graders.
And then of course Friday closes out my week with by far my easiest day.  We have our 7:15 staff devotional time and then I'm off to 6th grade to help out, but usually 2nd grade doesn't need me, so I'm free until 11:15 when I have the pre-k class (all 11 of them) for a half hour.  Then at 12:15 I have 5th grade for their second half hour slot for the week, and I am finished with my work week at 12:45, allowing me plenty of evaluation and prep time for the week and the next week approaching.

My biggest challenge has been learning students' names.  I came about 6 weeks after the year began and need to learn the names of some 156 students' names, not to mention that next semester I will be teaching high school choir as well, which will add at least another hundred students to my list of names to memorize.  I would give quite a bit for a large poster with pictures and names of all the students for me to study in all my free time!  Other than this I have been quite pleased with how things are going.  Every single one of my classes has a majority of students that are thrilled to have music.  There are quite a few who are so thrilled they sometimes forget to speak at reasonable decibels, or to ever cease speaking, but eagerness is a shame to squelch (o;

Aside from school I have many other things going on.  There is a bible study available everyday it seems.  I currently attend one on Wednesday, one on Thursday, and have contemplated taking up a second thursday evening one, if the scheduling allows.  I think I have found a church to attend, along with what I would like to be monthly visits to Park Chretien Methodist Libre, but transportation is difficult with that one, and I prefer to go to the 6am service over the insanely hot 9am service, so that makes transportation even more difficult as I know few people willing to get up at 5am to sit hip-to-hip with strangers while listening to a French and Creole service for three hours... so we will see how often I make it to that church.

I have had many adventures, hikes, beach trips, tap-tap rides (Haiti's local transportation, which is often a pickup truck with the bed of the truck remodeled to provide passenger seating and some sort of canopy so one is not at the mercy of the elements) and many opportunities for frisbee and volleyball.

There is also an unwanted house guest in our apartment who we have attempted to poison a few times but who seems reluctant to perish.  I saw him scurry across the floor from the bathroom into the kitchen about twenty minutes ago.