Like a child.

I think that I am getting good at teaching.

When I started working with youth alive, I got thrown into the possition of after school teaching for a couple hours, every day. Innicially I thought "wow, this is great! I will be a great teacher. I am super good with youth and I know a lot of awsome stuff plus I am just awsome and they will love me."

How terribly wrong I was.

Picture this: A dusty room of about 30 kids between the ages of 8 and 20 and classes from grade 2 to 8, which doesn't actually mean anything because they are all at different levels of litteracy. There is a major language barrier. I have an awkward Canadian accent. There is a major cultural barrier. I don't know any of their references and they laugh at my annalogies that don't make sence. They can't understand me. I can't understand them. I am NOT the right person for his job!

I am okay with the youth but am stuck teaching the young kids too because the other intern is sick in bed with Malaria for a week right after leaving me and traveling and the only staff with teaching experience is as flighty as a spring leaf. I am terrible with kids. And these kids have nothing- no pencils, no notebooks, no nothing. They have backpacks made out of old cornmeal sacks which I think are cool and trendy but also know are because of poverty. I tried to supply some books and pens, but different ones keep comming, at different times, and I somehow end up trying to explain what a 'con-SEN-ant' is at the front of a scribbled on black board while trying to sharpen a cheap wooden pencil with a swiss army knife.

Bottom line: Disaster.

But I am getting better. The other intern recovered well and I am learning how to manage the classes better too. I am no longer so hopeless with children, I am learning how to distill things into small morsels to eventually paint a bigger picture. I am learning to be patient and gentle and kind- to break up fights calmly, without screaming and yelling and I am okay with making a fool of myself in front of a classroom whilst maintaining respect (if not, at least, shocked and quiet bewilderment). I am learning how to speak with authority on things that I don't fully have a handel on. I am learning how to guide instead of push, how to water seeds instead of forcing them to grow.

But most of all I am starting to observe little things about my classes. How they love to devour knowledge, even more so when you do cool things and arn't too boreing. Which ones are good at reading, are charismatic, are bright but quiet and need a little push. And that they love to learn computers. I start to see them wispering to eachother about last week when I showed them how to make an email adress- how they long to learn technology and sometimes get bored with my explainations of tenses and pronouns. It made me think of when I was a kid- in kindergarden on the reading mat, sitting eagerly, anticipating, in my gym shorts, which I wore to school every day because I was just desperately and longingly waiting for the teacher to declare that it was my turn to play on the indoor wooden playground. I was crushed the day she took it down- just like my kids were crushed the day I told them we could not do IT because I didn't have an extension cord for my laptop.

And then I thought to think how beautiful it was- this child-like-ness. Even though some of the youth I teach are approaching 20 and are in JSS, because they havent had exposure to computers and technology, how cool everything still is to them, how new and awe-some.

I think there is something in this: this child-like-faith. In the bible, when the children tried to come to Jesus, the diciples shooed them off inicially. But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these."

What would the world be like if we maintained this childlike faith? this awe; If we woke up each day to the newness of everything, to the way the sun light danced across the trees or the way the birds' laughing song was never the same; if when we saw the homeless, it wouldnt seem normal but horrifically new, we wouldnt see the poor as a blind mass but as individuals- to love and them well and know their names. Life wouldn't be normal, and bland- it wolud be fresh and new eachday because with each new breath God reveals to us a little more of His kingdom come to this earth, in the joy of our relationships, in the hope of healing and in the excitment in knowing that nothing is just normal, because with Him, all things are possible- even the sun and the moon could change places in the sky and we could dance on the ocean waves.

I want to be like a child- like a little kid just gasping in awe and delight at the newness of everything. Because His mercies are new to us every day. Every, every day.