A Long-Term Investment

Eight weeks of fun, laughter, learning English, reading, math games, art projects, science experiments, Bible stories, songs, prizes, soccer, field trips, and swimming lessons have finally come to a close for Summer 2018!

One of my highlights was teaching the story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation for our littlest children from Burma in the afternoons. At our final field trip, they compared the wave pool to the time Jesus calmed the storm - it made me so proud! Kids remember what they learn.💗

Even got to teach a little science :)

God has been teaching me that investing in a child's life is always a long-term investment, and with it there are long-term costs and rewards. Getting to know my new-to-America 11-to-15-year-olds in the morning session provided me with plenty of rewards and challenges. As volunteers came and went throughout the summer, it was truly a privilege to be the one teacher to walk alongside each of them through the whole summer and beyond. But this also means that sooner or later, I start seeing scars of trauma they've experienced. Sometimes, as was the case with Aisha* (one of my teenage girls from Afghanistan), it manifests as unacceptable racism and aggressive behavior. It's not normal and it's not fun. Neither is it something you can shake from your mind after work. But it's an important reminder of the horrible, multi-generational effects that decades of war can have on a family. In spite of this as well as academic challenges, she persevered and made significant reading progress this summer! She also displayed exceptional artistic talent. Please pray for Aisha, her family, and several other families suffering from emotional & physical effects of trauma, that they will open their hardened hearts to the only One who can heal their deep wounds. Also pray for wisdom as we come alongside them in their many challenges.

But then I had students like twelve-year-old Ali* (another new arrival from Afghanistan). The boy is brilliant: he speaks 6 languages (my invaluable translator!), is obsessed with maps and geography, and loves math and science (his favorite movie is Hidden Figures). More importantly, he became best friends with Mike* (a Congolese boy who doesn't even live at the same apartment complex!). The two were inseparable and called each other mubarey which means "my friend, my boy" in Swahili. They were joined later in the summer by Sayed* from Sudan. Sometimes I felt like I had to drag my kids to Bible class, but then Ali would answer questions like "why did Jesus have to die?" with answers like "because He doesn't have sin like us, He's totally God and totally man" (like many others, he still has a bit of a disconnect between what he accepts as truth and personal identification with that truth). Today's kids are tomorrow's leaders. This summer, Ali was the kid who melted the anger & racism and held my team together, and I pray that God will continue to work in his life and grow him into a leader for the Kingdom.

"The Three Mubareys"

A final prayer request: my friend Maryam* (mentioned in a previous post) just lost her father to an unexpected heart attack. She is taking it very hard and cannot go to be with her family in Afghanistan. When I visited her, she cried and cried, but was very grateful to have me pray with her in Jesus' name. Pray that in her grief she will discover God to be her loving Father.

Thank you for supporting & praying for me through the summer! It has been a blessing to get together with some of you recently. My infrequent newsletters are a poor substitute for catching up in person, so if you'd like to meet up for coffee this August, let me know and we'll put it on the calendar. I have a 2-week break before staff get together to arrange classrooms in our new building (see below). Thank you, Lord, for this beautiful facility!

Join me! *Names changed for privacy reasons. To respect the privacy of individuals mentioned in this post, please do not share this information in a public setting or on social media.*