It wasn't until I was around 30 years-old that I identified one of my core values as commitment. If I had been paying close attention to my history, I would have named it early on in life, somewhere around Grade 9 and volleyball practices. Now I know it's hard to imagine, given my affinity for sweat and muscle cramps now, but at one time exercise and I were not the best of friends. As a child, the only things that could motivate me out of doors and away from a good book were friends, a body of water, my imagination, or parental compulsion. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that my primary reason for playing volleyball throughout high school was that it involved hanging out with most of my girlfriends after school or for road trips. And it also fulfilled my other great love in life: being part of a team. But, it came at great personal cost- physical activity. Running lines after school was not exactly my idea of a good time and every night after practice I'd drag my heaving lungs and tired body home crying and swearing to myself that I wasn't coming back tomorrow. The irksome thing was that my desire not to quit was greater than my disdain for exercise and burning lungs.
I'm not a quitter. If I say I'll do something, I usually will put aside my own personal comfort or desires in order to accomplish it. This has sometimes been to the detriment of my health and wellbeing when I overcommit to things. But, these last few weeks, I've been grateful that God hard-wired me this way.
I think before I came to Kenya, I had a naive view of living overseas and doing missions. I knew some things may be uncomfortable or lonely, but I never thought I'd have the urge to leave. I'm only here for 5 months and, logically, I can constantly remind myself of that but it's funny the things the mind can tell us when we keep hitting the same brick wall. That personal brick wall has been the differences in classroom management and discipline between home and here. Even though it has recently been outlawed to beat a child in school, it is still a common practice in most schools here. I found this out my first few weeks here, but since I had never seen a child being hit, I thought perhaps our teachers didn't do it.
But three weeks ago, I began to see the evidence of children who are struck in schools. I could hear children crying and protesting and began having conversations on alternatives to striking them. I saw the way the children treated each other, their aggression, sneakiness, and lack of unity as they are all too happy when someone else suffers a blow and not them. Unfortunately, I'm all-too-familiar with this kind of behaviour. I know the lack of character that can be developed when children are disciplined too harshly, instead of being discipled. And listening to the sound of children crying, being called names, and a stick hitting the soft flesh of palms several times throughout the day is my own personal form of hell.
The thing is, I like my coworkers. I can see the effective and good things they are doing in their classrooms. I enjoy talking with them and learning more about their culture. But I detest this aspect of their teaching practice and for the last week I've wanted to leave. Not just leave the school, but come back home to people who share more of my values, to my freedom and autonomy, to a classroom that is familiar in its joys and frustrations.
When I reached my lowest point this week, I texted my sister and got the most helpful reply anyone could have given me. God put the words in her mouth that I needed most then. They weren't words of comfort and understanding and they weren't harsh either. They were words of purpose. She reminded me that God had equipped me with what I needed for this season of my life, that it made sense to want to run from it, but this was the time to dig in deeper. She reminded me of the story of Esther. And it gave me the encouragement and empowerment to once again step back, invite God into this lonely, frustrating place and let him use me. I'm here for a reason and- not to go all Christy Huddleston on you- I would have given up if it weren't for the children: "I came here to teach, but everyday they show me that I'm here to learn."
I think the greatest thing that God has been teaching me the last three weeks is to live in the tension between loving people and hating what they do. That tension is, at times, uncomfortable because it involves not pulling away when you want to most. I had been so confident walking into week 4 that I was finally acclimating and connecting, but when things began to go awry, I allowed my distress and disappointment to get in the way. As the well-known maxim goes: You can't control everything that happens to you, but you can control how you react to it. And my reaction mid-week wasn't great. I finally had lost my patience with the same conversations and no change and I told a coworker who was joking about hitting the children to make them smile for a music performance that I was done. It needed to stop and it was making me want to leave. Then I left as soon as the bell rang, took the long way, and cried on my walk home. I asked God to please intervene.
And I ugly cried when I got home. I hate confrontation and that was the most confrontational that I usually get with people outside of my family. I was proud of finally being direct, but angry and dealing with shame at not just being able to grit my teeth and speak lovingly and gently when I was most frustrated. I felt my humanity acutely. But after I was done with my pity-party, I plugged in my phone and the first thing that popped up was a text from a stranger. She's a teacher in town who had been asked by two of my acquaintances to get in touch with me. In good melodramatic Jennifer fashion, I flopped back on my bed and cried tears of gratitude. God's timing is so perfect. I've been trying for weeks to connect with an ex-pat and to no avail. I knew that He was taking care of me, just like He has throughout this entire experience.
Maybe I'm here to encourage the teachers and maybe it's just the students I'm here to encourage. Maybe my mantra to them to not touch each others' bodies without permission will translate to treating their and others' bodies with respect. Perhaps all they will remember was one strange mzungu who told them that their stories mattered. And perhaps they'll never remember me, but hopefully I will be one quiet voice in the students' minds years from now that tells them that they are lovingly created and perfectly loved. After all, if I leave here without being the hands and feet of God, then why am I here?
So, this weekend I've taken a reprieve from overcommitment and have committed to rest and prayer and reading. I've listened to sermons that pointed me to my purpose. And I've had the privilege of finding free WIFI, drinking good coffee, and pouring my heart out through the written word once again.
Although the following portion from a sermon I listened to today is a bit out of context, I found myself applying it to my experiences of late. Hopefully it will offer you some encouragement too: "That's essentially the offence/the stumbling block of the gospel: to humble yourself before God...Paul writes that... the Gospel will be a stumbling block to people. But what he advocates and argues in this text [1 Corinthians11], as well as in many other texts...is outside of the stumbling block or offence of the gospel, if you can remove an obstacle, then do whatever you can to remove that obstacle so that others might see Jesus more clearly. Why would they see Jesus more clearly? In you removing obstacles? Because, in doing that, you are preferring one another. And isn't that what the gospel is all about? Jesus coming down- not out of self-preference- but out of preference for you and for me and for our world and preferring the needs of us sinners over Himself...It [means] dying to self. It [means] having to do some work. It means having to do something that you're not comfortable doing. It means having to be generous when you don't feel like being generous. It means having to kill a comfort area of your life that you don't want to get rid of. And, yet again, why on earth is that a good thing for you and for the gospel? Because that's exactly what Jesus did for us. The whole beauty, the whole goodness of the gospel is that He removed every single obstacle to Himself, except for one. The one thing that got us here in the first place; that is, the issue of pride. Of choosing self as god over Him" (Clint Nelson).
Feeling ungenerous: Check.
Tired: Check.
Uncomfortable: Check.
Feeling utterly human and in need of God's grace: Check.
I guess that means I'm in the right place. So, if you think of me this week, please pray. I have some digging in and staying to do.
