God's Sufficient Grace

"Getting to Know You"

Last summer when I taught conversational English classes as an intern with MTW, I remember thinking it incredibly ironic that the first lesson in our textbook was entitled "Getting To Know You." During class, I started singing the song from "The King and I" and Tiffany and I got a good laugh out of it (although I don't think any of the Thai students in the class understood the joke!).

I feel like these last few weeks have really been weeks of getting to know my students. It's been very neat to begin to remember their names when I see them (although I think I've played the "name game" about a hundred times now and still have to review before each class!) and to have some of the younger ones now wave and shout across the playground "Hello, Miss Catherine" (pronounced "Cat-tar-in"). They've begun to seem more comfortable during music classes, and we've shared lots of giggles with each other. And my heart nearly skipped a beat last Thursday when one student (the first since I've been here, although a few have since) gave me a hug!

But these have not just been weeks of learning their names or faces but learning a bit about who they are and how they think. Even though we're still getting to know one another - and I especially have a LOT more to learn! - I see God starting to plant a love for these children in my heart. It's growing slowly, but I think will be deeply rooted and strong - and perhaps even as Kim said: fierce.

I'm coming to see how differently these children are being brought up from how I was raised. One thing I loved about all the kids at Pinewood was that as I looked at them, I saw myself as a child and knew exactly (for most of them) what kinds of homes they came from, what their childhood was like. But the vast majority of the kids at ICS are nothing like me as a child and they don't come from homes like I did - and I'm discovering that fact also causes me to love them. The students here seem to have so many questions, and I really love how when I ask them questions, their answers are rarely the spit-back "Sunday school" answer I'm used to hearing, but a genuine observation or thought.

For example, one thing I've been doing in class is having a "hymn of the month," using the Hymn Treasures curriculum that I brought from home. The 2nd-4th Graders are working on "This Is My Father's World". It's been so cool to see them grow to love this hymn! They were a bit skeptical at first, I think, but now I have whole classes asking me for a copy of it to take home! And I've found so many things to teach them about God in just two verses of this hymn! The first week/verse, we discussed God as Creator and Owner of all things, which many students were pretty familiar with, but while teaching the second verse (in the HT book), we were able to discuss the Fall and its affect on EVERYTHING but how God is still the Ruler and will one day be "satisfied" or happy in His victory when all things are again how He designed them to be and when all things in heaven and on earth are worshipping Him. When we talked about the second verse, I asked them if all things were "good" or perfect when God created them. I received mixed answers. We went back to the Genesis account and I quoted God on saying that each thing was good and exactly how He wanted it to be after He spoke it into existence. But then I asked them if everything they saw around them today was "good" and to share what they saw wasn't good. Here's where their answers really caught me off guard at first: several talked about pollution and trash, some talked about traffic and wrecks, a few spoke of those "people who don't have an arm or a leg and sit outside the skytrain station holding out a cup [for money]" and even one or two said that in their home country/city some moms or dads would kick their children out of the house because they didn't want them anymore. This is what these kids are seeing, this is what their hearts are wrestling with - all so very different than what was on my mind in Elementary school. But as we discussed these things, it felt almost good to hurt and struggle with them about the "wrong [that] seems oft so strong" and to remember (and share with them) that our Savior is still in control, still the Winner, the "Ruler yet." And as we sang, it was even more rich to "rest in the thought...[that] this is my Father's world, the battle is not done; Jesus, who died, shall be satisfied and heaven and earth be one."

Please pray for these students. They have very real questions and are hearing many different answers from many different sources. I started crying just thinking about it as we prayed for them in a meeting about the older Elementary chapel this year (the theme of which is apologetics and the uniqueness of Christ - in attempt to answer a lot of their questions). And please continue to pray that I would love them deeply and speak the Word to them faithfully and without error.

posted by Catherine Rogers @ 6:35 AM