I'm a little bit excited, just took last final for the semester today and my brain is happy to be free of the stress-overload. I loved this semester and I am thrilled with where God has me, but I am happy for the break.
I've been at a point where as working on papers and projects and notecards and trudging through hypothetical classroom situations and thinking about all of the hours I am going to work my first year of teaching and how often I'll be sick and blahblahblah... and you just have to stop and think "Do I really want to do this?" It's like... if I reeeaaalllyyyyy think about it and break it down to the fact that my life will be crazy busy and the paycheck wont be glamorous and not all of my students are going to like me, and not all of the parents will agree with me, and I'll probably cry sometimes from stress. Is this something that sounds like fun to me?!?!
No. The answer is no.
When I look at it from that view, I want to hike my CCC-appropriate length skirt up and run as quickly as possible.
But then I have to stop myself and think: Is it worth it?
And the answer is most definitely yes. And to come to this conclusion I have to remind myself of a few things. So this blog entry here is a bit of a reminder to me and maybe an encouragement to some of you out there, no matter what your major/career may be.
What made me choose this major?
Okay so to answer this question we have to go back to little me and ask "Christina, what are you playing?" to which I would answer SCHOOL AND I'M THE TEACHER YOU NEED TO SIT DOWN. Okay I don't know if little me was as abrasive as all that but I was very much into my teacher character. I was homeschooled and had no idea what real classes were like and honestly the thought enthralled me and I felt like it was some big mysterious world to be discovered. But, even from a young age I had an interest in being a teacher.
But that interest soon died.
I got older. Being a teacher became less "cool" than it once was. I also went to school and fell into the whole "teachers make life hard" type of opinion that seems to spread through a class like wildfire. Like literally, it's the most stupid thing ever, I had some really amazing teachers in my academic career and I took them for granted because it wasn't "cool" to appreciate your teachers for actually TEACHING you something. I am not a smart woman.
So we'll fast forward to the summer of 2010. I'm graduated, thinking about pursuing a career in marketing, or dentistry (long story with no point) and preparing to go on my first missions trip to Central America. I had always desired to go on a missions trip, so when my church's youth group announced they were going, even though I wasn't in the ministry at the time, I decided to jump on the chance to go. I'd never really committed to anything like that before, I just filled out the paperwork and handed it in with a prayer that if God wanted me to go He'd make it happen. Then I get contacted to come to a meeting and next thing I know we're planning and doing fundraisers and we're all set to go. It was crazy really, but God is so good and knows exactly what I needed.
I don't know exactly what I expected, but I didn't expect to have my whole life turned around because of one 10-day trip, but it happened. A lot of things happened which I can talk about in another post, but specifically the Lord blossomed a deep love for the kids there and a desire to work with them more. There's a small school right next door to the church plant in El Salvador and I fell in love with the kids. I can't explain it any other way than the Lord created a love in me that I didn't know that I had and it was the kids in Central America that helped me to see that.
It was crazy and fast and I knew that Central America would always be a part of my life in some way. I knew I wanted to go back and I wanted to be with the kids and be able to see them. Then, the Lord being as faithful as He is brought the idea of teaching back into my life. It seemed to fit perfectly! They're still in school during the summers, are looking for English teachers, especially from America, and I would have a place to stay with SOS. There's was a lot more to the decision than just all that, but it was all too perfect and turned my life to decide to become a teacher.
The two weeks trip something awesome happened that just further solidified my decision to be a teacher. Hours before our team was ready to leave we're informed that we are going to need to come up with a week long VBS presentation to do with the kids in the village we were going to be working in. OKAY! No problem! We decide to grab whatever materials we can and then just put together a program on the plane ride over!
We arrive in El Salvador and get ready to drive over to Honduras the next day. Our main goal was to serve in Honduras by building a house for a sister in the church over there whose husband had passed away leaving her pregnant and with young children. When we arrived in Honduras the group of us, including some people from other churches, sat on the back porch and talked about the next day's activities. This included door-to-door ministry to be headed up by Paul, and building the house, which we had a gentleman on our team who was good in construction so he was heading that project up. ike was talking about who was in charge and to choose where you were going to go, and for the VBS and program for the kids if you wanted to be apart of that, well Christina is in charge of that one.
My brain came to a slow stop and I just looked at him and I think the next word out of my mouth was "What?". Basically I felt like I had no idea what I was doing but I knew I didn't want to back down. Okay, if I'm in charge... I'm in charge. It was daunting, but I was ready to take on the challenge. We came up with an idea for activities and a Bible story to act out. We had a translator assigned to us and chose a person to give the gospel. We set up people ready to act out the skit and filled out bags with candy, toys and bubbles.
The experience was unlike any other I've had. Kids would come to this large field with soccer goals and swarm around us ready to play Mica or Shuca (tag) and other various games. Also they went NUTS over the bubbles. Literally we'd all stand at one end of the field and blow the bubbles so they caught in the wind and the kids would chase them everywhere and GO CRAZY. I've never seen kids react like that to bubbles, it was fantastic.
We would play games and then have them sit down to present them with a skit and with the gospel and it was awesome to see how intently they would listen. As the days went on we noticed more and more of the parents would stand or sit in the field to hear the stories and the gospel shared. It was such a great experience. We gained more and more kids each day and we would always play crazy games and share the gospel and just love them. One of the last days we were there it started to pour, but instead of leaving the field we just turned it into a muddy game of futbol and had fun just being kids with them all.
Our last day was one of the hardest days ever for me. It was breaking my heart to know that maybe some of these kids I would never see again. They weren't church kids so there was no guarantee that we would be reunited, and I had loved every one of them. It still hurts to think about, because some of those kids I haven't seen since, but I'll never forget them. I pray the Lord grabbed a hold of their hearts and has drawn them to Himself.
This may sound like an advertisement/endorsement for Central America... well maybe it is, but it's so worth it to go! It changed my life. God uses missions to serve the missionary as well and He has definitely served me through it.
These trips encouraged me to become a teacher, join my church's youth ministry as a leader, which has been a great blessing in itself, and to work with kids in any way shape or form.
The Lord has planted a love for children that not everybody understands, and I get that and that's okay. The typical response when I tell people that I want to teach, and that I want to teach young children is "Oh I'd never be able to handle kids that young. I'd go crazy." Or something of the like. And I simply smile and tell people that I understand, but that sometimes I prefer the company of children rather than adults.
I think it's of the greatest importance to give the gospel and to be encouraging our younger nation for Christ! They won't be children forever, while neglect them in their youth? The Lord will choose when to move someone's heart, being young does not mean faith cannot be real to them. The experiences I have had so far in studying to be an elementary teacher have been some of the greatest! I have loved every moment of it, even the hard ones.
When a child looks up at you and with a bright smile hands you a handmade bunny on a stick and hugs you telling you that they love you, you cant help but smile as your heart melts and you hug them back. They're so trusting, so sweet. I know they can be terrors, but it comes with the territory. I think we neglect the younger generation because we see them as being incapable of understand or comprehending complex situations. Sure, they're growing in cognitive abilities (I should know my exam today is ALL ABOUT it) but they're capable of so much more than we challenge them to. They can fully grasp and accept the gospel, these are still little souls that need to be saved and if one way I can give them the gospel is through a classroom, I will do it. I want to challenge kids to believe more in themselves than the rest of the world does. If it's going to take one person in their corner telling them they can do it, I want it to be me.
This is how we build a stronger generation. Not by simply pushing them through classes because they "need to pass the state test" but because I know every child has an ability, a gift, that God has given them and they can find that talent that they have a build on it. I want to be a teacher because I know the crazy college classes, the long nights and times I want to cry are worth it in the end if I can be an example of Christ to some classroom at least once in my life.
I just needed to encourage myself and thought I'd post about it.
Love Always,
Christina
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