A silly story.

Just a silly story that will (hopefully) put a smile on your face.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a constant stream of kids coming to me after school. "Miss Kristen, staple this!" "Miss Kristen, I need a band-aid!" "Miss Kristen, lend me a pencil!" "Miss Kristen, I want to do my homework in your room!" "Miss Kristen!" Miss Kristen!" "Miss Kristen!"

I love these children. I do, with all my heart. But I have to tell you, this gets exasperating.

Our story takes place after school, with the typical gaggle of children elbowing their way into my personal space. (Did I mention I love them? Because I do.) I'm listening to one of them explain what he needs from me, when, from out of nowhere, one of the others reaches up and, I kid you not, whacks me on the forehead with his notebook. Not sure whether to laugh or be horrified, I looked at him in shock. As did the other kids. One of the older students even proceeded to chastise him for his unprovoked behavior.

At this, he shrunk back a little bit and looked around shyly. And all he said was...

"There was a mosquito."




So, a big thank you is owed to my small friend who rescued me from what probably was a vile, malaria-carrying creature. Hero of the day, everybody!

Here's my little hero at our end-of-summer beach trip (sorry, it's the most recent photo I've got). 

This picture cracks me up every time...what a goofball!

I'm dreaming of my Christmas break!

It is a rainy Sunday morning, and I confess, I am not at church. I've been fighting a cold, and though I only have eleven (!) days until I go home, they are a very full, potentially stress-filled 11 days, and I'm not particularly eager to add sickness to that mix. And so I chose this morning to get a little extra sleep and then worship from home.

I've got lots of thoughts swirling around in my head, stuff that I'd like to fill you in on and stories I'd like to share, and so I will apologize in advance that this post will not be particularly cohesive. But here are the thoughts, in bullet point format, for your reading pleasure:

• I just downloaded and listened to last week's sermon from the church I attended in college, Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, IL. The speaker observed that last week was the last Sunday of the liturgical year, and that Advent marks the beginning of a new church year. I love the intentionality that comes with certain seasons of the church calendar, particularly Lent and Advent. Haiti is not exactly the ho-ho-ho-full-of-Christmas-cheeriest of places, and so if I want some Christmas spirit around here, I've got to bring it myself. Christmas music playing, pine-scented candle burning, trying not to sweat as I watch Elf and drink hot cocoa :). But Advent encourages intentionality in my spiritual preparedness for Christmas, both looking back to the first coming of Christ, and looking forward with anticipation to His second coming. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8: 22-25) I love that. Waiting with patience and hope for adoption as sons and the redemption of our bodies, and indeed the whole world, at Christ's coming.

• School has been going SO much better, and I heartily thank those of you who have been praying about that. There are still daily challenges, but I'm seeing marked progress in my students and am feeling reassured that yes, this is in fact where I have been placed and where I'm supposed to be. But if I can confess something to you, I will tell you frankly that I am TIRED. I'm ready for a break from long days of lesson planning, lesson delivering, tutoring, and students who really try my patience. But in reading through Mark's Gospel (where I've been lately), I stumbled upon something that really surprised me. All over the place, Jesus is healing people and performing miracles, and he consistently tells the recipients, "Tell no one" or "Go home but do not enter the village". I've always wondered about that - why wouldn't Jesus want people to shout from the rooftops that He was the Messiah? But this week it occurred to me: brother was TIRED! People were badgering him, all the time all the time all the time, to heal them, speak to them, provide for them. I'm not suggesting that this was the only reason he wanted them to stay hush-hush, but I felt myself understanding, soul-deep, a certain measure of what he was feeling. But inevitably, the people do go and tell - they want everyone to know that they were blind and now they see, they were sick and now they're well. And that, inevitably, leads to a large crowd of people, pressing in on Jesus, begging him to help them. I feel stressed just thinking about that, and I almost want him to yell, "NO! Just no. Go away and leave me alone for awhile! Maybe next week you can come, but right now, just...no." But he never does. He always welcomes them, he always listens to them, he always makes time for them. That was the challenge to me - I'd like to yell at the constant stream of kids who come to me after school, ostensibly needing pencils, paper, a staple or two (but really just wanting to be loved...) and preventing me from getting anything accomplished ever, to just leave me alone for awhile! I've said to God, "I'm just too tired! I can't deal with it anymore, so please don't ask me to!" and He has basically said to me, "Right. I know you can't deal with it on your own strength, but will you accept it with My strength, which is sufficient for you and made perfect in weakness?" I won't lie, I don't want to. I want to close and lock my door and keep all that crazy out. And sometimes I do, out of necessity (otherwise I really would not EVER get anything accomplished). But will I allow my attitude to be one of invitation, of receiving these children, despite my tiredness and frustration? Only in His strength.

• And finally, I just have to tell you about the Christmasy things I'm dreaming about, dreams that will hopefully be a reality in 11 days or so: A Starbucks Peppermint mocha (in a Christmas cup). Wearing sweaters and scarves. Taking an unnecessary number of hot showers and baths. Putting up and decorating a Christmas tree (I'm thinking, like, the night that I get home. Mom? Dad? Can we arrange this?). Sitting by said glowy Christmas tree in the early morning. And undoubtedly at the top of the list, spending sweet time with loved ones, particularly my wonderful nephew and brand-new (so new I haven't met her yet!) niece! Yes, I am definitely ready to get this Christmas show on the road. Christmas break, please come quick but pass by slowly :).

Thanks for putting up with this long, weird, pictureless post. I'll try to work on getting you some pictures in the near future! In the meantime, a happy and meaningful Advent season to you!

You are the first.

I read this quote from Soren Kierkegaard a few weeks ago, and it's been on my mind a lot. I hope it speaks to you as we enter into this Thanksgiving week.

Father in Heaven! You have loved us first, help us never to forget that You are love so that this sure conviction might triumph in our hearts over the seduction of the world, over the inquietude of the soul, over the anxiety for the future, over the fright of the past, over the distress of the moment. But grant also that this conviction might discipline our soul so that our heart might remain faithful and sincere in the love which we bear to all those whom You have commanded us to love as we love ourselves. 

You have loved us first, O God, alas! We speak of it in terms of history as if You have only loved us first but a single time, rather than that without ceasing You have loved us first many times and every day and our whole life through. When we wake up in the morning and turn our soul toward You - You are the first - You have loved us first; if I rise at dawn and at the same second turn my soul toward You in prayer, You are there ahead of me, You have loved me first. When I withdraw from the distractions of the day and turn my soul toward You, You are the first and thus forever. And yet we always speak ungratefully as if You have loved us first only once.

Many times and every day and our whole life through.

Help me to be grateful for such a gift.

In which I gain some perspective on rain.

Today is the third school day in the past three weeks that has been cancelled due to rain. When I find out, inevitably at the last minute (one of the days I was outside, in my raincoat, waiting for the bus, going "...hmmm, these streets sure are empty!" when my roommate came outside and yelled at me from the porch to come back inside), here are the thoughts that run through my head, generally in this order:

a) This is ridiculous! It's RAIN! Since when did a little rain ever keep anyone from going to school?!?

b) Yeahhhh!!!! Bring on the comfy pants/reading-for-fun/movie-watching!

So this morning I got up, forced myself into the shower (the weather is FINALLY cooling down, which is great, but it makes that cold shower a rough one), and went about my normal routine. I was doing my quiet time and drinking my coffee when I got the call from my friend Toto: no school. So I asked him, "Toto, why?!? Why no school?"
He responded like I was maybe a bit of an idiot. "Kristen, there's so much rain!"
"Yeah, but it's just rain! Just water. That's all it is."
"But there's tons of it in the streets. Someone's house collapsed. Someone died."

Oh.

Well that has a way of sobering you up.

It's not like I didn't know that rain can be really troublesome around here. Last night as it was pouring, I  said a prayer for the community (non-residential) children in our program. Some of them live in houses made of cement, but others live in stick-and-mud houses. Some of them probably have very leaky roofs. Staying warm and dry is undoubtedly a challenge.

A look at the rain from my porch

And I knew that there had been a spike in cholera cases in Haiti post-Sandy. It's likely there will be even more cases as a result of this deluge. Not to mention that our community kids in their cement houses have it great compared to the thousands of people still living in tents in Port au Prince post-earthquake.

Yet here I sit, warm and dry and comfortable in my apartment. I thought about trying to go out to the area where our community kids live, but even if I could get out there, what could I do for them?

So I'm praying. It doesn't seem like very much, but it's important. And I guess I wanted you all to know too, so you could pray - for our community kids, for Cap Haitien, for Haiti. For the rain to stop. For no more lives lost, no more houses destroyed, no more cholera.

The Creole word for misery or suffering is traka. People around here often say, Gen anpil traka nan peyi a (there is much suffering in this country) - they talk about it so matter-of-factly. It's just part of life.

Which is kind of heartbreaking. And yet, also a testament to the spirit and determination of these people. They know it, they accept it, they deal with it the best they can.

So please pray for relief from the rain, for God's Spirit to descend on Haiti, and for Him to reveal to me how I can best respond to all the suffering. I can't fix it all, but I can't ignore it either.

Thank you for praying. Lord, have mercy on Haiti.

A proud teacher moment.

It's exam week.

A fretful time for a new teacher, right?

Well I am proud and happy to report that, after grading my 2nd grade math exams (for my learning support students), the principal and I looked at the grades and decided, "This one doesn't need learning support anymore. Neither does this one, neither does this one." That's right, three of my kids are going back to regular ed math! They can handle the work!

This is NOT me saying I had anything to do with it. These kids have been capable all along. But it sure felt good to look at their scores today and say, "Why, look at these bright kids!"

Maybe I'm working myself out of a job, but it sure feels good. This girl is a proud teacher today.

The only place I can love Him.

Tomorrow morning starts a new school week. And I fight an inner battle.

The first party fights for the right to believe that this could be a really good week. A great week. A grace-filled week.

The other party has already been convinced that this is another week I'll spend stressed, feeling like a bad teacher, questioning why I ever thought I could do this job.

School has been in session for a few weeks now, and I would be lying if I told you it has been anything but a rollercoaster. I have good moments, good class periods, times when I'm confident my students walked away from class having learned something they needed to know. Then there are times that I feel like a horrible teacher - lessons don't go as planned, I don't communicate well with my other teachers, kids are out of control and I just want to yell and scream or crumple into a heap and cry.

And of course the Enemy (Scripture calls him the Deceiver for good reason!) tricks me into forgetting about all the good and triumphant moments, the moments where God met me in my weakness and proved to me again that he is strong and he is able, and instead dwelling on my failures, my inconsistencies, my inability to measure up (admittedly, to my own, probably unreasonable, standard).

I've heard that this is par for the course for a first-year teacher, and that gives me some comfort. And I try to remind myself that being a first-year teacher in my second language is challenge upon challenge, thereby necessitating grace upon grace (God's grace to me, and mine to myself!).

This girl. A stinker, but I love her SO much :).

I've been working through a book for the past several weeks, and though I'm not yet even halfway through, I highly recommend it. The first 86 pages of my copy are marked up with underlines and notes and ways that God has spoken to me through it. The book, One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp, chronicles the writer's journey as she learns to cultivate thankfulness, recognizing it as an essential discipline of the believer in Christ.

I want to share two passages from this book that have spoken truth to me in the past week - God used them to speak to me in my weariness and discouragement, to remind me what it is He has called me to.

Here is the first:

How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering. The converse does. The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world. When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us? The clouds open when we mouth thanks.

I think that one pretty much speaks for itself. Here is the other one:

Here is the only place I can love Him.

Well, if that didn't knock me on my butt. Do you know how much time I spend dwelling on the past and worrying about the future? Too much. Waaay too much. But I can't love Him back there. And I can't love Him up ahead. I can only love Him now, and here. That has been a great reminder for me because, funny thing, you can't dwell on how terrible yesterday's math class was or think about how you're going to be inadequate with your first graders tomorrow when you're focused on this moment, and loving God in it.

That was last week's challenge, and it will be this week's too. I challenge you to it as well.

And also, please keep me in your prayers. I find it so easy to get discouraged, and weary. Pray that the Holy Spirit would minister grace to me, and that I would receive it willingly. Pray for successes and for eyes to see what my purpose here truly is. Pray for the ability to love God and love children now, in this moment.

Thankful for each of you! Be blessed, and enjoy something autumn-y for me this week :).

Love,
Kristen

Clean!

One of my favorite moments in my daily routine comes at the end of the day, just before bed, when I step into the shower.

It is still quite hot here (I weep inside a little at all the facebook statuses and blog posts about fall foliage and bonfires and warm beverages), and between the moment I get up in the morning and the moment my head hits the pillow at night (and sometimes even after that…) a LOT of sweating happens. So picture me, hanging out, sweating…and then compound that with all the sweaty kids in my class. Because they sweat just like I do, and then they go out and run around like banshees during recess. And then they bring all that sweaty stinkiness into my classroom. Suffice it to say that by the end of the school day, I usually smell pretty ripe. (Sorry if that’s a little too real for you!)

I get home from school around 3, but I don’t want to get my shower until bedtime, mostly so that it cools my body temperature down to help me fall asleep. That means I’ve got another 8 solid hours of smelliness – not cool. So, by the time I’m ready for my shower, I am more than ready to be clean. There’s the initial shock of the cool-going-on-cold water when I first get in, but that quickly turns to delight. The cool water feels good on my hot, sticky skin, and amazingly enough, in a few short minutes I have gone from smelling gross to smelling like shampoo and strawberry body wash. A nice exchange if you ask me.

It struck me today in the shower that this is a great metaphor for what Christ did for us. I know, it sounds trite and overused, and technically isn’t really a metaphor. Because I know him as Savior, Christ did actually “wash” me with his blood. But hear me out: showering in the States, at least for me, is not a hugely transformative thing. Unless I’ve just had a crazy workout, I’m not usually that smelly when I get in the shower. Here in Haiti, I’m gross, every day without fail. But by the time I step out of the shower, all of that putrescence is washed away. There’s a huge change in how I look, smell, and feel.

Washing is not a huge deal if you’re not that dirty. But when you’re as dirty as I get every day, it is a total transformation. Spiritually speaking, before I knew Christ, I was filthy. Gross. Not fit for anyone’s company. Even today, though I’ve trusted Christ, I’m still jacked up and sinful. I can be prideful and petty. I’m bad at trusting God to provide the things I need. But he gently and faithfully washes me clean with his grace and love.

[Neither] thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. – 1 Cor. 6: 10-12

Thanks be to God for His precious gift.