Homecoming

Of all the things a missionary ought to learn, saying good goodbyes is rather important. After a month separation from Malawi, I am feeling the irony of saying farewell as an afterthought, including the lapse in a final blog entry. So here it is.

The week before my departure, I did anything but reflect on leaving, perhaps because a person can’t process some things by articulation until a bit distanced from the overwhelming thing. But my friends Jody and Danny and I spent a whirlwind couple of days dining, laughing, and visiting with everyone around the community before I left. And the words of wisdom people spoke to me in farewell are still fresh in my mind and worth more to me than I realized when receiving them. Those wise words have helped me articulate the seemingly inarticulable and acclimate to the jarringly familiar yet foreign life here in Georgia.

Evening descends upon Lilongwe early-around 5:30 each day, the sky (which is much more vibrant in color any time of day than the Georgia horizon, muted either with humid heat or automobile exhaust) turns pinkish fading to green which melts into corn blue that deepens into a tangible velvet. Sometimes Charisa would call me to our little porch where she liked to sit in the corner of a wicker chair, and we would watch the sunset just over the west wall of the campus. The one advantage of our house was the sunset-best on campus. Otherwise, we were known as the black hole, ABC anomaly, spider house, etc. Our water cistern was often dry, leaving us the first house on campus without running water since gravity or the grace of God ensured other houses water before ours, our phone landline didn’t function after February despite multiple attempts at repair, our washer and dryer made scary noises when running, our wireless internet antennae on top of the roof became home to a hive of bees, and our phone line died three months before the end of the school year, never again to be revived, despite repeated attempts. Anyway, in our beloved, bit-of-a-disaster house one night, Charisa and I paused on the porch on our way to the car to watch the sun grasp at the little hill that often looked like a picture of Virginian countryside (a bit dried out) just beyond our wall. As we neared the bottom of the hill in our little academy car, we were discussing something or other in the manner which Charisa has…few words but well chosen. The guard saluted us as he opened the gate, and then Charisa said something that really hit me, as if I felt the words move those three little bones in my ears whose names I used to know and as if I felt letters sink into the gray matter just past my thick skull and translate into my soul. Really, it won’t seem so profound to others, and ironically, I can’t remember EXACTLY what she said, only that I translated it to mean that goodbyes are periods at the end of our life experiences. Without periods, we can understand the meaning of things, we just have to work much harder and reflect more after we’ve read a passage. But add those little specks, like pepper on a page, and suddenly, understanding becomes easier and the reading more meaningful.

The greatest frustration with spending ten months in that strange place which became home, more familiar and beautiful to me than any city with 5 billion CVS stores that have more variety of product in them than the nicest grocery in Lilongwe, is that I am afraid of losing the experience. I fear the sand has run through the glass without being captured at the other end. I long to be changed, and to remember, to capture the grains so one only has to tilt the glass in the other direction for the grains to resume their motion. So I needed periods to conclude the ten months. But it seems so insignificant to merely dot. I wanted an exclamation point, or several, and yet, I barely even trailed off an ending. My desire to maintain normalcy in life there until the last possible moment perhaps perpetuated attitude and actions of denial about leaving. Just two nights before I left, I had dinner with the Byerlys. A fly on the wall would never have guessed I might depart the country indefinitely in less than 48 hours (if a fly could cognate such a thought). We discussed problems we wanted to help solve around campus and in the community, students we enjoyed during the year, drama of missionaries on campus, and other plans, but not plans to leave Lilongwe.

But Charisa came to the rescue again. She asked me about packing, insisting I send a couple of bags home with the short term team visiting from Arizona. As I turned my back on her chopping at a pepper on the kitchen counter so she couldn’t see the tears welling in my eyes, I heard her remind me that missionaries don’t leave the mission field, they simply exchange one for the other. Perhaps these pearls seem trivial now or less revolutionary as they did then, but they are familiar sort of sayings because they’ve been so helpful to others along the way also. In the end, I realize one important aspect of Jesus’ Great Commission: he commands us to go equally for the benefit of those carrying the gospel to a place foreign to themselves as for the benefit of those receiving the stranger with God’s message. I went to benefit those in Lilongwe with the Good News and I reaped so much joy and sanctification in the process.

My G’Daddy (Grandfather Holliday) held the belief that fiction didn’t bear much truth on reality, but I’ve found that fiction often magnifies truths that we would never see as clearly without imaginative authors. At the expense of being cliché, one my favorite work of fiction is Lord of the Rings, which speaks volumes of helpful truth about traveling through life. Tolkien expressed homecoming beautifully when, in response to Merry’s comment, “Well here we are, just the four of us that started out together…it seems like a dream that has slowly faded,” Frodo says, “Not to me…to me it feels more like falling asleep again.” Everything in Malawi seemed so stark, simple, clear. It’s returning to Macon and the hurricane speed of life here that seems to lull me back into blindness toward some things and people that I was so lovingly awakened to in Africa. But I trust in God’s sovereign plan that Macon, Georgia is to be my home for now. At the end of all their journeys as ring bearers, poor Sam wanted to go to Rivendell with Frodo but also stay in the Shire with sweet Rosie, his wife, or feel “torn in two.” Frodo’s wise response speaks to my heart: “You were meant to be solid and whole, and you will be.” I won’t long for those friends and relationships I had there forever or be forced to leave Macon in order to be reunited. One day, I’ll be in the place God has prepared for me and can truly feel “whole,” and enjoy the blessings more richly of having met so many people in Malawi for part of my journey on Earth.

Last days and Goodbyes

About three weekends ago, the middle school and its teachers (including yours truly) spent two nights camping on Nkhoma Mountain. We honestly had a blast. Despite no sleep the first night (the four ninth grade girls in my tent ate enough sugar to fuel an all night gab session), the trip was one of my ten month highlights. It's amazing how much students confide in an adult they trust. I felt privileged to struggle with their theological questions and personal doubts while sunbathing (fully clothed-it was FREEZING up there) on the rocks, cleaning dishes with well water, and cooking over a dutch oven (imagine a metal bucket full of glowing coals with a grate on top). Lorliee MacLean, my co-teacher, sits left of me as does Nate Leboff (Blue shirt further left, and Kellen Hiroto, history teacher in black tank top far left behind red and white shirt). Jake Bray, science and math teacher, is hiding behind the boys in the back (which is hard to do considering his at least 6'2'' frame). This picture was taken immediately before hauling all our camping gear back down the mountain, which took about an hour. As you can see, the bamboo polls in the left of the picture were used as levying devices to carry the coolers and other awkward items. Kudos to the men who hauled 40 liters of potable water up the mountain side. The middle schoolers who decided not to bring any water for a 48 hour hiking trip were particularly grateful as well. The planning of the trip alone at the end of the school year was a feat, much less the physical enactment. I am still in awe of the teachers and parents that organized it.
At left are two of my favorite Navigator missionaries, Pam Forster, from Ireland, and Danny Neumann of Colorado. We were enjoying coffee at Buchanan's the night before Pam left around May 17th.


Gail Goncalves, the boisterous second grade teacher from South Africa, and I are enjoying a moment together at the farewell banquet for several of the staff, including myself. You can see a few of the teachers in the background, behind Gail, sitting on our beautiful benches in the garden of the Academy. Just to the right of Gail, out of the picture was the lovely spread of food catered by a Lilongwe expatriot. As you can see, the sun here is intense. And I'm even in my winter clothes for this country! (Note the long sleeves). Dan Linsz helped organize the lovely lunch and surprised me with a Malawian survival pack consisting of a wooden sugar canister, bug spray, hot sauce made locally, coffee, tea, and a map. It's ironic that I received it after having survived ten months here, but appropriate that the "tools" were presented in the sugar carafe. Malawians can't live without sugar. I've never seen coffee or tea taken as it is here. They literally have about 4 heaping spoonfuls of sugar with each cup of tea. And if a Malawian must define tea in its minimalistic state, he would not reduce the condiments in it, but rather would consider a cup of hot water with milk and sugar tea before a cup of hot water soaked with tea leaves minus the milk and sugar!

Full Circle yet Still Progressing

Malawi has finally entered its winter season. Three days ago, I saw my breath in the morning chill, and the swimming pool is now out of the question by even the most dedicated users. Reminiscing of sleeping with a space heater by my bed a few months ago is like looking into the wrong end of a telescope. My first experiences of Malawi can’t be as far away as they seem! Yet, the time where I felt so lost here which is synonymous to me with the cold weather in Africa really is about 7 months behind me.

I’ve now been in Malawi for 9 months, and life here seems just that-ordinary life rather than the adventure and novelty I felt for the first 6 months. The missionaries on campus have become family to me, the classroom a familiar and fun work home, and driving on the left side of the road a norm. But the Malawian government and powers-that-be must feel for my loss of sense of adventure, because they’ve ensured I remember I’m not in Kansas any more. For the past three weeks, people of Lilongwe (particularly within a three mile radius of me) have had serious water shortages, not from lack of water, but from lack of electricity. Apparently, a large part of the local power company machinery has been malfunctioning and won’t be repaired for another three months. While those of us living on campus are completely spoiled with our generator, we have no recourse against the effects on our running water. My first thoughts in the morning are no longer hopes for water long enough to take a shower at complete leisure, but I wake up wondering if anything at all will come out of the faucet enough to put in a bottle so I can simply wash my face with it. I suppose I’ve had good practice with the ’94 flood in Georgia which was considered a national crisis where waters supplies were shipped in across the country. And I also went a month without a shower while hiking in Wyoming after my Sophomore year in college. But I had hoped that time of my life was at an end. Honestly, I suppose I’m glad to have this one little hardship considering I feel I ought to be “roughing it” to earn my title as missionary. Showers are overrated anyway, right? Good perfume and a headscarf work just as well, and I now save all those body oils that soap companies are constantly claiming their products don’t eliminate! As the Ingalls family says, “With any loss comes some gain,” or as my nana says, “there’s a silver lining to every dark cloud.”

Aside from the adventure of our water (electricity) shortage, I’ve been preparing mentally to say goodbye (at least temporarily) to Pam Forster, a missionary here who’s been a mentor and become one of my dearest friends. She flies to Ireland for her summer furlough next Thursday. It’s odd to think of staying behind without her since she’s been in the country for four and a half years now and has shepherded me through the learning curve of missionary life. I feel like I’m graduating from Malawi 101 with her leaving. In fact, to carry the graduation simile a bit further, I feel the same sadness about the end of this year as I did when I graduated from college. Each day, I try to enjoy the sounds of the birds, the sun and horizon, my students, the community, and all the peculiarities of this place that I know I’ll desperately miss when I leave.

Along with the upcoming changes of long-term missionaries beginning to take their furloughs and short-term teams arriving for the summer, this week has been a bit of a mile stone in the classroom. My seventh graders are the only language arts group that I teach solo so their approval and performance matters a great deal to me (Lorliee MacLean and I teach either two or three days each of sixth, eighth, and tenth grade language arts). But Tuesday was an all time low for me in with the seventh grade; I felt discouraged with class discipline and my own efforts and abilities to teach. But yesterday was a breakthrough. For the first time in my short teaching career, I saw light bulbs going on everywhere as I reviewed (for what seemed like the billionth time) the parts of speech in a sentence, and in particular, verbs. The class was so excited about catching on. Literally, I felt the energy and response all over the room. Students were calling out answers and asking questions in an orderly fashion. We finally came to an understanding of what they didn’t know that I could help teach. And at the end of the lecture, they actually clapped! Of course, I’ll find out today with their grammar exam the true retention and impact of that hour. But I now know what it’s like to bond with a class. I feel like a mother of teenagers! And I’m just 26! How fun to have the best of both worlds-having the energy to encourage and discipline in love these young adults with insecurities and hormones since and yet not having to LIVE with them.

Yet another development has brought me closer to my seventh grade girls. Despite the brevity of our time left in the academic year, several students expressed interest in a women’s Bible study. Two girls from the seventh grade class, Jessie and Bronwyn, have been studying Ephesians with me for the past three weeks. God answered our prayers to grow the study, and we had two new additions this afternoon, Sunny and Sidney (pronounced Shinie), sisters from the tenth and ninth grades respectively. God does bless our efforts! Those girls are precious to me and I feel tremendously privileged to share in their growth of understanding in the scriptures. I see all the talent each young woman possesses intermingled with their unique personalities and I just can’t WAIT to see what God’s going to do with and in their lives!

We have 4 weeks of class left. Please pray that the words of my mouth would be encouraging to the students, and the teachers and I would finish with a flourish. Also, I covet your prayers for a weekend retreat the middle school teachers and I are organizing for the ninth and tenth graders. We will hike Nkhoma mountain again but spend two nights at the foot of the peak rather than simply make a day trip of it. Please pray that God will speak to the hearts of these young adults. They struggle with so many things: insecurity, frustration with Malawi as a developing country, identity as missionary children, and the complications of being children of parents who chose to leave their country of citizenship for whatever reason. As I’ve seen in my life, God often uses our struggles to reveal himself to us when we’re honest with him. My prayer is that the students will understand that God isn’t just something we study about and abstractly discuss to create a morality with which to live. I want them to taste and see that He is good. And lastly, pray for our talent show occuring Friday, May 18th. This may seem like a silly request, but any time students perform, they leave themselves vulnerable to feelings of rejection and anxiety. We want this to be a safe-haven for their expressions, not a stunting, inhibiting popularity contest. A ninth grader, Mitch Easter, approached me about three days ago. With a serious countenance, he said “Ms. Holliday, um (glance down, flip long, frat-boy hair), we’re hosting a talent show to raise money for the new classrooms. Would you be a judge?” Relieved that his request was much more light-hearted than his demeanor indicated, I replied in the affirmative. Then, out of the manila envelope with which he had been fiddling, he pulled the flier with my name already printed as a judge! Frighteningly, I see myself in them. And I realize I sound like my parents when I say that. Yikes. Maybe it is time to come home.

Spring Break

Two weeks of travel and relaxation has been blissful. My college classmate, Susan Kearns Settles, flew into the Lilongwe airport Thursday, March 29, to accompany me on my exploration of the country and only departed this afternoon. After four nights in the city, we hiked Nkoma mountain, my now-default hike. The length and difficulty of the walk up the mountain makes it perfect for a day trip. I keep returning, enjoying it as much each time as the previous, and hope to hike it again before leaving the country. We then persuaded Lisa Kowalski, a missionary from the San Diego area to take a beach trip with us to Livinstonia and Nkhotakota pottery. The bungalow at Livinstonia was so neat (and the air conditioning was really welcome). But Nkhotakota pottery was magical. The night we arrived, we enjoyed dinner on our brick condi (porch) watching the moon rise over the lake framed by the hibiscus bushes and trees just in front of us. The flat tire on the trip home added an adventure. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach as I saw the rubber of our tire flying behind us in my rear view mirror. Luckily, within 10 minutes of the flat, Georgina (a woman from England who’s taught here 10 years now) and her passengers stopped to help us. We might have accomplished the change of tires ourselves, but the spare tire was flat as well. Thankfully, Georgina’s passengers drove the tire in their truck to the nearest village to have it pumped and we made it home without further incident. AAA never seemed like such a luxury service until that afternoon!

Easter weekend in Africa wasn’t very “eastery”. Somehow, being outside my familiar culture makes it hard to realize what holidays I’m missing at home. Ethough I have celebrated holidays here, I don’t feel that the holidays which have passed actually happened because the celebrations aren’t traditional to me. Being here is rather like what I imagine Narnia must have been to the Pevensie children-time seems to go on here while it must be standing still at home since I’m not with my family, keeping track of the year with all the things we normall do. I keep thinking I’ll go home and nothing will have changed! Unfortunately, the electricity went out while we were in Easter service so that we couldn’t read all the worship hymns on power point. But one of the missionary couples on campus, the Leboffes, sang a beautiful duet of Amazing Grace and reminded me of Johnny Cash and June Carter (a comparison that popped to mind particularly since I saw Walk the Line the night before). Their voices wove together with a soft twang that the cloudy sky and breeze we saw and felt through the levered windows of our octagonal church on campus seemed to compliment.

The second week of break was just as busy as the first. Susan and I headed to Liwonde for safari, staying at Chinguni Hills Lodge, an experience in itself. The owner, one Daron, was a character straight out of Dickens, born and raised in Malawi, of South African and British descent. His stories of living in the bush helped me understand how different it is to grow up in a place truly undeveloped-when he says he ran away from home as a boy when he was mad with his parents into the wild he doesn’t just mean hiding in the garden in the back yard until the parents found him! He means he literally lived like a little Tarzan until he decided to return. We enjoyed the activities of the lodge as well such as the canoe trip on the Shire (pronounced “Shiry”, NOT named for the home of the hobbits in JRR Tolkien’s books :) river with the hippos, paddled by a Malawian guide, and a walking tour into the park where we saw water buck, impala, warthog, and various birds. So after being regaled with excellent food and good stories by all the guests and the host not the least, we packed our bags and headed an hour south to the Zomba plateau for three nights. If we thought we were reliving memories of camp in North Carolina at the lodge with our beds covered in mosquito nets in the cabin-ish rooms, we certainly were flooded with memories at the smell of the long needled pines and cool, moist mountain air of Zomba. Charisa planned fabulous meals for the chef of the house, Elson, to prepare each night and we woke to sip our Kenyan coffee on the porch overlooking the mist and winding, hard packed clay roads of the mountain side. We also enjoyed berries brought to our gate by vendors who picked them wild in the woods-Himalayan raspberries and strawberries which won’t be available in the city until the season starts here in August or a little earlier.

One morning, Susan and I traveled the windy road back into Zomba town in search of the botanical garden there. After nearly thirty minutes of touring the city, we finally found the garden tucked off the side of the road, behind a rather obscure entrance behind the local college and other buildings built in the South African Dutch style. After parking, we walked through a little nursery with sinking hopes, thinking the guide book confused a nursery with a garden, unlike what we’d expected. But we had a true Secret Garden moment when we walked through a little gate behind the two ratty looking green houses at the back of the nursery. The garden extended through beautiful palms,tropical flowers, and poinsettias in bloom, as we followed the sound of the water fall. Apparently, children in the area go to the garden with Sunday school teachers to act out Bible stories and be in a beautiful, peaceful part of God’s earth. After seeing the garden, we understood why-it looked a bit like a garden of Eden. We were honestly amazed at the mixture of manicured grounds with overgrown tropical plants and moss, but unfortunately, neither of us remembered our cameras-one reason to return to the area, I suppose!

Pam joined Susan and me on the trip home with a through-stop at Mua Mission, a mission begun about 100 years ago by a catholic priest to integrate the Malawian culture with Catholicism. The museum there was beautifully decorated on the outside with traditional African paintings and displayed all kinds of African masks and models of the Malawian ceremonies. Altogether, we had a blast hiking, relaxing, conversing and challenging each other on our observations of the beauty and sorrow of this developing nation! Monday starts the 4th and last quarter of the year. As much as I am glad to have the opportunity to see my students again, I am looking forward to the end of this school year!

(Having trouble posting pictures but will get to it)

School Update

Hiking Mt. Nkoma

(At left, each student from my hiking group made it to the top of the mountain with me).

This Friday ended the third quarter at school. Is that possible? I remember arriving in Africa not believing I’d actually make it more than a few weeks. I certainly didn’t have any expectations of integrating myself in the community here other than polite, shallow relationships. But how good it is that God had other plans for me!!! Even after the first 10 weeks seemingly passing like molasses spreading in a pan, and the difficulties of teaching kindergarteners, I can see how God has blessed me richly by placing me on this continent, in this poor little country of Malawi for a time. Just last night, about 9 missionaries and I celebrated my good friend, Pam Forster’s, birthday. As we were sitting at the dinner table, which I might add was an incredible first world experience in the middle of a city where quality control is nigh impossible (every table was filled with happy guests chatting away, creating normal restaurant din that just isn’t a part of most dining experiences here for one reason or another), I realized how each person at the table has seen me at my worst and best and truly has become a brother or sister in Christ.

Teaching for an entire year also seemed an impossibility in the first few months. But the students and I have a mere seven weeks of school until summer break! The last term passed with studying Shakespeare and finishing various portfolios of writing including business letters, persuasive essays, humorous essays on pet peeves, and fiction pieces. The sixth graders knocked my socks off with their first essay exam which I administered mid-quarter. Of course, there are days when I think someone distributed sugar at the entrance of the school before classes started judging by the behavior of the students. But for the most part, the kids teach me a great deal and hopefully are learning from me as well.

To celebrate the end of the third term, the middle school teachers (Jake Bray-math and science, Kellen Hiroto-history, Lorilee MacLean-language arts, Mwizaso Khonje-Bible) and I took the students hiking up Mt. Nkomo. I’m not exactly sure we would have undertaken this endeavor in the States for liability reasons (envision packed buses without seatbelts zooping along the roads for an hour to the mountain and back the way most people drive in this country which is NOT the way people drive in the States, to say the least; also envision hiking straight up for the last hour of the two hour climb and ending at the tippy top on a rather precarious cliff with no railing whatsoever). But praise God we all made the trip safely and most students made it to the top! We had an absolute blast. And hiking shoulder to shoulder, or rather, pack to pack (we were all hauling our lunches and water up the mountain) helped me bond with the students and reflect on the new life perspective they’ve given me. (At left, Sidney, Mahalet, Santana, and Ashlie-middle school students hiking).

When I think about myself just a few months ago, I think of taking myself so seriously, with a sinking despair over career, self-worth wrapped in what legal firm might enlist me to pour over papers and a computer screen from 8am-7pm without much personal interaction. I don’t take myself less seriously now, but more seriously in a different manner. Despite the fact that I should probably have realized this at some point along the way of my somewhat extensive academic career, I feel I’ve just realized in a new light that excellence in everything matters. And it matters not because of the possibility I might become furniture in some office but so I can contribute to others’ lives in a meaningful way and can glorify God, taking pride in what I do. Strangely, it took being responsible for others’ education to realize this deeply. Excitement wells up inside me when I have students perform well and I am challenged to work hard for these students so I can encourage the same of them. Sometimes, when I’m sitting at my desk during a writing period, watching the students work, I realize how brief life is. I am watching them realizing that just a few years ago, teachers were watching over me in the same manner, hoping and praying I wouldn’t regret or waste the gifts God has given me. And I realize that when God says man’s life is but a breath, what he says is true!!! But how great that the little breath of my life does matter! It matters more and less than I thought it did: more because God cares more about my choices and actions and desires than I ever thought possible and less because His will is done and mine cannot change that.

Teaching has also helped me see the beauty of youthful perspective on life-the simplicity in which young adults (sometimes) put their trust in their elders and the beauty of their willingness to struggle openly before their teachers when they trust them. It seems easy to me to become too reliant upon our own strength as adults-particularly for those who have accomplished a great deal in their academic and professional lives. Yet, not one of us can number our own days or can change the circumstances to which we were born. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on yourown understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proversb 3:5-6. God is sovereign and I am taking joy in His challenge to seek Him (Matthew 13:44-46), serve Him with his strength for me (Isaiah 40: 29-31; Phil 4:13; 1 Cor 1:25-“the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength”), and relax in His sovereignty! (Above, left-cows walking past our buses directly after we stopped to begin the hike).

Please continue to pray that God would make his direction for me obvious. It is my prayer He will give me a job that will utilize those skills He’s given me. I’m clinging to “the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.” 1 John 5:14.

Comments

To those of you who've attempted to make comments on the blog-apologies! The comment section should work now so please feel free to write to me here as well as my email address: dzholliday@gmail.com

Part II

SA air transported me with three hours to spare from D.C. to Johannesburg on March 3-4th, and my flight on to Lilongwe the next day was smooth and clean as could be. God blessed my travels! Thank you for praying for me, and to those of you whom I got to see, thanks for meeting with me while I was in town!!!

I now know culture shock is a reality. Missionaries had warned me about shock at being in a grocery store with one isle containing as much diversity in product as an entire grocery here, but I wasn't prepared for how tall the trees would appear, how clean the bananas would look on my parents' kitchen counter, or how beautiful a matching set of dishes would seem in their cabinets.

But the welcome I've received on my return to Lilongwe has been equally warm as the one at home, which makes me feel terribly selfisih for being homesick at all! One Malawian woman who cleans the school all day with a team of other women saw me in the library, preparing for class. She nearly lept for joy and the smile on her face was priceless-and this from a woman who hardly knows me! Perhaps if she did know me she wouldn't have been so excited. :) Another woman, the teacher of the Bible classes for middle school, noted that I had lost all my tan. :) It is amazing how sunny this country is despite the rain we get every day! I think they probably have a hard time understanding what it's like during winter in the US! But I can't tell you how much I enjoyed lighting a fire in my parents' fire place! What a treat.

My students were precious as well. Jordan, a 6th grader from South Africa, gave me my first hug of the morning with a simultaneous recitation of the Shakespearean sonnet Mrs. MacLean had them memorize. My classroom seems so much more doable with even the few things I picked up from home like a three ring binder, a clock, and markers for the board. I'm sure I could've gotten those things here, but it would have been exponentially more difficult than just zipping to Office Depot. The kindergarteners swarmed me with a group hug as well when I visited that end of the hall to tell Ari Lopez about the paper airplanes I brought back for them to construct. Hopefully she'll take pics of their faces when they do that project. It's amazing how simple things bring such joy when you're not bombarded by every form of entertainment vying for your attention. It's a battle in the States merely to get up in the morning and get to work without feeling tempted to read 5 newspapers and check email 3 times!

Thanks again to everyone who called and visited while I was home! The Bar went as well as can be expected, and if I have to retake it, I'll cross that bridge when it manifests itself. My flight home is June 15th, and I should arrive June 16th, Lord willing. Keep me in your prayers!

Words of comfort through a bit of craziness

“Welcome to wherever you are. You’ve got to believe, right here, right now you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. Welcome to wherever you are. Everyone’s a miracle in their own way. When it seems you’re lost, alone, and feelin’ down, remember, everybody’s different, just take a look around…When you wanna give up and your heart’s about to break, remember…God makes no mistakes.” -“Welcome to Wherever You Are,” Have a Nice Day, Bon Jovi.

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test an dapprove what God’s will is-his good, pleasing, and perfect will.” Romans 12:2

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not put out the Spirit’s fire…May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through…The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, 19, 23, 24.

“All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and
death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.”
-“Journey of the Magi”, TS Eliot

The fact is that there are always Christian people who are in difficulties for various reasons, and you cannot read the New Testament Epistles without seeing the truth of what I am saying. If simply to believe and to accept salvation is everything, then these New Testament Epistels would never have been needed, indeed, in a sense, you would not need the Church at all. People would just be saved and go on happily for the rest of their lives as Christians…yet it was necessary for the Apostles Paul and Peter and John and others to write letters to them because they were in trouble in one way or another. They were unhappy for various reasons, they were not enjoying their Christian life. Some were tempted to look back to the life out of which they had been saved; others were tempted severely, others persecuted cruelly. Thus, the very existence of the New Testament Epistels shows us that unhappiness is a condition which does afflict Christian people…For from the moment we become Christians we become the special objects of the attention of the devil. As he beseiged and attacked our Lord, so does he beseige and attack all the Lord’s people. It is because we belong to him that the devil will do his utmost to disturb and upset us. He cannot rob us of our salvation but he can make us miserable…O let us remembe that it is sin to doubt God’s word, it is sin to allow the past, which God has dealt with, to rob us of our joy and our usefulness in the present and in the future. Rejoice in this wondrous grace and mercy that has blotted out your since and made you a child of God. “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.”
-Spiritual Depression: It’s Causes and Cure, Lloyd-Jones, Chapter 5

“No man makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he knows it is not everything.” Edmund Burke

“Drudgery is the touchstone of character.” Oswald Chambers

“I’m lookin’ forward to lookin’ back on this day. I prayed last night, dear God, please, No. But I was never good at letting go; but I’m lookin’ forward to lookin’ back on this day. Good news can be so unkind when its everything you have to leave behind. I’m lookin’ forward to lookin’ back on this day…
-“Lookin’ Forward,” Over the Rhine, Drunkard’s Prayer

God’s inexplicable peace and the excitement of discovering his plan for my life has kept me from the depths of frustration and despair when I want to quit everything, curl in a ball, and sleep for days. Can’t wait to see some of your precious faces at home for a few days!!!