February 22nd:
Walked to school this morning (two mornings this week I've been picked up on the way by a parent and then by the "school bus"). I brought my orange date bread (Great Grandma Grace's recipe) to the teacher room and encouraged a few of the teachers to try it. They seemed to like it. It wasn't until later in the day that one teacher told me he had five or six pieces and thanked me for bringing it. Encouraged that God may continue to bless this endeavor and help me connect with the teachers.
I noticed an overall theme throughout the day. Our last few class assignments have been very insignificant - the most recent being to "draw three kinds of weather and how they make you feel." The majority of the students turned in their best drawings so far based on this assignment. I was really encouraged that they were making major improvements and that classroom management was going much better. In the back of my mind, I wanted to take the kids back to drawing concepts from Scripture. Yesterday (with the rowdy class) was the first day to try drawing out the parable of the sower. It was really difficult - the students were back to bad behaviors from the first week of school; I had to explain the "story" repeatedly; and the students who had made the most progress turned in sloppy drawings. During each of my classes today I saw the same problems. Even though the entire class would become silent as I told the "story," the moment I tried to explain what they needed to draw, disruption would ensue in some part of the room. By the time school had ended, I was exhausted (I've not been sleeping well the past few nights anyway) and discouraged. As I reflected on the day, I was finally able to see that it was all spiritual opposition I had faced in trying to present biblical concepts. Even though I was in some ways discouraged by the students' behavior, I was also encouraged in realizing that our work at the school is obviously a threat to the enemy and he will do what it takes to keep us from bringing truth into our students' lives.
After school, I made apple spice oatmeal bread for our team meeting. We had another great meal and enjoyed celebrating Dan's birthday. After our Skype call with Dave and Lisa, we had a good time focused on worshiping God, specifically for His works of creation. For prayer requests, we have been writing them on a slip of paper and then exchanging them, keeping the ladies' separate from the men's. Last night, the guys mentioned that they would like to know what was going on with the entire group and so we shared our requests verbally, going around the circle. By the time we were done, almost all the women were in tears. We laughed later that the guys need to be careful what they ask for. :)
When I got home, I was able to Skype with Grandma and Mom. It was good to catch up with Grandma and hear about daily life back home (she is faithful to send emails too so that I don't seem quite so out of the loop). Mom and I had a good heart-to-heart and I told her about my struggles of the week. I asked her to take some prayer requests to Bible Study, praying specifically for the enemy to be restrained and for the students' hearts to be opened. Went to bed comforted, knowing that the church would bring these petitions before the Lord.
February 23rd:
Still slept a little fitfully, but didn't get up until 8. Had a good time of prayer and devotions. I spent most of the morning catching up on emails and then wrote in my journal. At 11:45, I visited with Mary over a cup of tea and then met with Julie at a juice shop around the corner. It was nice to have some one-on-one time with each of them.
Hurried to my afternoon class, praying ardently the entire way as I wanted to present Part 2 of the parable. Throughout the class, I could see the enemy trying to create distractions. There were moments when the students wouldn't be listening and I couldn't speak over them, so I just prayed silently. Afterwards, when I would speak, everyone would get really quiet! One student in particular kept acting up, but God enabled me to just continue through the lesson and work with the other students. In the end, over half the class drew really good pictures about which part of the parable they are most like. Some drew pictures about how their friends "eat" up the truth that is in their mind by telling them not to listen, others drew pictures about having hearts like rocks, and others drew pictures about how they were upset because a relative died and then they went and got something new and that helped them feel happy. It was very hopeful and I was given eyes of faith to see beyond the indifferent students and look at the ones who were actively thinking about the assignment. One in particular has not been motivated to draw at all and I've been worried about cultivating a relationship with him. God did the work and brought him around because today he really listened and drew a thoughtful picture about loving his neighbors even though others say to him, "You should hate your neighbors." There are a lot of prejudices here and it is hard to see the pressure placed on the kids to adopt the same prejudices. I was thanking the Lord the entire time knowing that others had been praying faithfully for me last night! [Got an email from Dad telling me that the Lord woke him up at 2:30am or 1:30pm my time and had him pray for me!]
A good afternoon at home, then went to visit one of our neighbor boys who was recently diagnosed with leukemia (he doesn't know the extent of his illness, as his family is keeping it from him). Later, went to John and Mary's for dinner, a movie, and some popcorn.
