November has come and gone. We played in the leaves with our kids, had a Spanish speaking family over for dinner for the first time, had a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner/weekend, and now we only have a few more weeks left in the first third of our year here!
This month I want to talk about my Kindergarten class, and the things I have been learning from them.
It is surprising to me how much I have changed in my attitude towards kids and my comfort level with them since I’ve been here teaching these children. Anyone who knows me pretty well knows that I am not super good with kids. I love them and have always wanted to have a large family of my own someday, but I’m not high energy and fun with large groups of children… or teenagers or adults I guess haha. But I LOVE these Kindergarteners and I’ve gotten better at working with them, even though I am still not great at interacting with a classroom of kids (Praise God that Rachael is basically destined to teach Kindergarten. I don’t even want to think about what our class would be like if I was teaching by myself!). The situation of our students is so different from what mine was when I was young. Our kids start out with an academic disadvantage because of the language barrier. I remember my mom teaching me to read and my dad reading to my sister and me every night. Their parents can’t do that, at least not in English, and they also can’t help them with their homework. One of my students’ moms works every night and sees her kids mostly on the weekends. Another’s father was deported back to Mexico last year and she told us that her mom cries all the time… Things like that break my heart for these kids and make me want to give them as much of myself as I can. It is hard for me to pray for them without crying. They deserve to have everything I had and everything I can give them. And I fail to do that sometimes. I forget that I had such a privileged childhood and how big of an impact I can have for good in my students’ lives. I get tired and lazy and sick and annoyed… and I forget. I am constantly learning that I can’t love and serve them without Gods grace.
Soon I’ll be coming home for Christmas break. I am excited to be back for my birthday and Christmas, but I will also miss my housemates and work sites and church, our little house and our neighborhood, and all our students. It feels weird to be leaving them and coming back to a place where I am comfortable and spoiled. A big theme of our Mission Year is solidarity. Solidarity means living alongside someone, walking alongside them in whatever they are experiencing. It’s hard to know how to live that out here, let alone when I go home for Christmas. Does my solidarity with my neighbors end when I get on the plane to Seattle and then begin again when I return to Atlanta in January? My neighbors don’t get to take this kind of break and go home to family and friends who will spoil them and take care of them. They are going to stay here and have the holidays with the same resources they have now. This break will be nice and refreshing for me, but I don’t want to lose my perspective on poverty and what it means to be content with little and to really live in solidarity with my neighbors… The battle between wants and needs is highlighted in this season and the contrast I will be experiencing between my trailer park and my parents neighborhood is hard to reconcile. I guess this is always going to be a learning experience; I’ll never be at a place where I don’t have questions about how I should best live with poverty and simplicity and love for others in mind. It’s something that I will always need to consider and wrestle. And that is good for me.
Thank you so much for your support and prayers through this first trimester of my year. If you are considering giving, Mission Year has received a matching grant so that all gifts given in December will be matched, so it would be a great time to donate! I have raised most of my support goal, but many of my team members have not, and our fundraising is shared communally. I love you all and hope you have a great Christmas with people you love!
Love and Peace,
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