another week, come and gone

This week has me completely worn out. Tonight, we had our girls’ night with the staff and by 8 o’clock, we were all ready to call it quits and go home to our comfortable beds! Today marks the end of our FOURTH week of school! It’s hard to believe that so many days have passed by since we first opened our doors on October 6… It’s been a good week, though very draining. I feel like I’m finally making some academic headway with my kids, now that I’m figuring out how to work with the varied age and ability levels in my classroom. And I think that my students are figuring out our routines, despite the constant language barrier. I thank God every day for my dear little Woodeline, the 5^th grader in my group of 5 students, as she serves as my translator off and on throughout the day. I am trying to do most of the teaching in straight English, but when I’m telling a story, teaching a Bible lesson, or trying explain the meaning of a new word or idea, her Creole translating forms a vital bridge for my students to actually comprehend what’s going on. Good listening skills are hard to come by in our classrooms right now. It seems to be a very pervasive problem – one that has deep cultural and spiritual roots in this nation. Last week, during our time of prayer for girls’ night, Rhodes shared a scripture passage from Isaiah that God had put on her heart to be praying over her group of preschoolers (who, big surprise … don’t know how to listen). The passage describes a people who have worshiped idols for much of their life, becoming LIKE those idols – having eyes, but not being able to see, having ears, but not being able to hear. I can’t tell you how frustrating, discouraging, and even angering it can become to try teaching and explaining things to a group of kids whose eyes are glazed over, whose heads are turned every which way, whose hands are continually playing with something, and who don’t even begin to grasp the idea of reading or following directions. Even in week four of school, I have children who don’t know to keep their mouth shut when the teacher is talking, who don’t know how to wait their turn to do or say something, who don’t know how to do a worksheet … I gave my two youngest boys a worksheet to help review their colors this past Monday, for their morning work. It was a worksheet they had done once before, but struggled with, so I thought it would be a fun one for them to repeat, perhaps with more success. It had about 6 rows of little fish, each one with a two-color pattern going on. Blue, green, blue, green, blue, green, etc. Or orange, purple, orange, purple … I helped them do the first row just to get them started, and I could tell they remembered doing the sheet. But by the time I got back to check on their progress, I saw two worksheets that were covered with a rainbow of colored fish. No rhyme or reason to anything they had done! And they knew it. I asked them why they didn’t follow the directions, but they didn’t seem to comprehend my question (even with the translation). Honestly, I think these children just like doing their own thing and they don’t know what it means to do what is asked of them, to follow someone else’s lead or guidance. This isn’t true all the time, but it certainly seems to be the norm. And not just with the children. I see it all around us. It really seems to be a cultural and spiritual stronghold … It reminds me of some of the reading I did before coming down here. On the history of this nation, and specifically the history of education. So much of the Haitian population is uneducated, and those who are have been educated in a system that only cares about rote memorization and drill & practice. The people are taught to regurgitate information, but never to think for themselves. And honestly, many of the upper class, the elite who rule this nation, like it that way. Makes the masses easier to control. Keep the people in ignorance, and they won’t cause trouble, right? But this also means that they will never contribute anything of value to their nation either! It’s a problem that goes so much further than the four walls of a classroom…

So I just ask you to pray. Please pray for wisdom for me, and for all the other teachers here at the Liberty Academy. That we would know how to battle this ‘deafness’ of mind and heart that we face day in and day out with our students. It can be very disheartening. Also, please pray for God to open the ears and the eyes of the people all across this nation – that they will no longer be bound by fear and ignorance. Fear of death (stemming from the voodoo religion), fear of generational curses, and ignorance of God’s truth and the freedom he longs to bring to them!

We had our first meeting with the parents after school today – in the midst of a downpour. TIH (this is Haiti). I think it went well, but it was hard to tell, as Illioney conducted it entirely in Creole. I guess there were too many parents there whose English wasn’t quite up to par… thus the challenge we face in trying to help our children learn the English language. Many of them aren’t even hearing it at home! But one of the things he really wanted to bring home to these parents was the importance of their relationship with their children. Especially their words and their discipline. We’ve been hearing many stories from our kids in the last several weeks – some that really break our hearts. I think that most of the children at the Liberty Academy have at least one immediate family member (for many, it is a parent!) living in the states. And you can tell they are grieving this loss every day, whether their young minds and hearts would recognize it or not. I think most of the behavior problems I see among these students stem from this brokenness in the homes. Many of these young children haven’t seen their mother (or father) for a year or more! Sometimes it is only a few months, but that is not much better! During the second week of school, many of Mr. Illioney’s middle school students started opening up to him about some of these things, and he could see the sharp pain in their eyes, in their countenance… the next week, Miss B’s (Shakinah) class of 3 boys ended up crying and praying for over an hour, after a Bible lesson about God’s promises sparked some of the pain and hopelessness they felt in not having parents that were present to love, affirm and guide them into adulthood. Of my five students, one has neither of his parents at home (they both work in Miami), one lives with her grandmother, and one has to say goodbye to her mom every year because she works in New York City. My heart grieves for them! They are a fatherless and motherless generation who need to experience the love that God has for them, because they certainly aren’t finding it in the home.

Last week, as I was praying about this problem, and specifically for my students, God led me to pick up a book by Walter Wangerin Jr. off the bookshelf here at the Nettles’ home (where we’re currently housesitting). It was called Ragman, and it was a collection of short stories – the first of which is a VERY powerful metaphor of the transformation that Christ wants to bring to the lives of his children. I was in tears as I read it, and I knew why God nudged me to pick it up. Our students NEEDED to hear this. So I talked to Illioney about it, and the very next day, we started our school day with some story time in Miss B’s room. I read the story and Mr. Illioney translated. It was powerful! We could see God speaking directly to the students through the words of this story, and following the story, we spent some time in prayer together. The prayers that some of those kids prayed … they took my breath away and left me weeping. For the pain they’ve had to experience in their young lives. For the ‘hope and a future’ that so many of them don’t think belongs to them… Eli, one of my guitar students, prayed first. And I was so glad he did. He’s a leader among the students. A quiet leader, but a leader none the less. He told God, “This story is so beautiful. Thank you for letting me hear this story. I want so much to be a part of it – it was just like … heaven! Please God, let me be in this story. Amen.” Oh God, please bring healing to this nation. Please bring healing to the aching hearts of these young students. Please use us to show them just how much you love them.

One of my little girls, Scheydline, spent all of her 45 minute PE class the other week crying on my shoulder. And not merely crying, she was sobbing, her entire body shaking uncontrollably as I held her on my lap in the purple bean bag in the back of my room. It took her until nearly 3pm to finally tell me why she was so sad (she hadn’t been herself all day, so I knew something was bothering her). It was because of her mom. And her dad. She told me that she never heard them tell her that they loved her. And when I tried encouraging her to start by loving THEM and telling THEM that she loves them, and seeing if God uses her to awaken THEIR hearts to his love, she started sobbing all the more. And then she told me that her mom wasn’t even home. She was in New York City and the dear little girl missed her terribly. So I told her that maybe God brought me here this year to be her mommy, and that she can always come to me for a hug or to cry on my shoulder when she needs to. She’s already taken me up on the offer to cry on me (this Tuesday again, because she apparently didn’t have any food to bring with her for lunch and her stomach hurt, and then again just this morning, because she felt badly about her spelling test). And I get hugs from her many times a day. They do me a lot of good too =)

But I beg of you to join me in praying for the lives of these children. That they would grow to understand God’s love for them, no matter what difficulties and pains life brings their way. And that God would use this school year to bring transformation to their little hearts and souls. My heart is often very heavy when I come to the end of a day. It fits in well with the wilted feeling I have after surviving six hours plus in the heat of our classrooms… but I know that the fatigue I am experiencing every day is just part of the package – part of the battle we’re engaged in for the lives of these young people. A battle for the future of a nation. A battle that will not fight itself. We MUST engage. We must get in there and do some warfare – with our prayers, with our determination to walk alongside these students and love them, encourage them, and open their minds to what God wants for them to see and learn. It’s the battle of a lifetime, and despite how often I feel like giving up and giving in, I know that I can’t. So I also ask that you pray for me. Please pray for strength to stand against the spirit of apathy and ignorance that surrounds us here in Haiti. Please pray for Godly wisdom – that I would NEVER rely on my own wisdom as I teach and interact with my students. And please pray for a complete and daily surrender of my will to God. Only HE can do what needs to be done. Only HE can bring the victory.