A Different Life

Sometimes, I look around at my new office and I think about where I've come from. I listen to the children's voices echoing down the hallways and I think about the places that I've been before. I look at the faces of our teachers and think upon the faces of the dozens of teachers who have been a part of my life.

Sometimes, it's weird to think about where I've come from...and how I've gotten here.

After going to Kenya in 2004, I always knew that I'd return to Africa, but I don't think I ever imagined that I would be doing what I'm doing today. I remember the struggle of getting into my teacher credentialing program, of finding a job, of just the stress of the job once I found one. Even when I was considering coming to Ghana, I was unsure of how long I'd stay here.

And here I am...still in Ghana...doing something I never thought possible. I look around at my school sometimes and I'm amazed at how far we have come from last year. Last year, just three teachers and myself in a little blue school house. Last year, I taught with no curriculum...just assessing needs and filling holes. And this year, a building, 10 staff members, working toilets and running water. This year, an office, tutoring groups, 120 students. I look around so often and I'm simply AMAZED at what one year can do.

When John and Stacy told me we were putting together a school...this is so much bigger than what I had in mind.

And yet, so often, I think...what if my teacher friends were to come here. What would they see? Would they see our wooden desks...or unfinished buildings...or our lack of electricity? I think about the 15 BOXES of supplies and books that I packed up from my classroom in EPA...my bins...my stools...my supplemental materials...and I see such a difference from where I came from to where I am now.

I miss the relationships from that time, and sometimes I wish that I had some of my materials here to help aid in the process of learning (what I could do with some bulletin boards and some sound/spelling cards), but I love what we are doing here.

Since I returned...well even before that...but since I returned in August, it has been a busy and overwhelming road and so often I have said to myself (and sometimes to other people), "I don't think I can do this!". But, here we are and for the first time, today I felt like this is all possible. I know that it's a difficult road (starting up a school in a country that is so different from my own), but it is possible. We will make this thing work! We will see it through to the end and we will be successful! This is possible! Not on my strength alone...if it had just been me, I would have stayed with the one-room school house model as I was too overwhelmed with the project to dream any bigger...but God is working in His mighty way to see this thing through.

And I keep thinking, I'm pretty glad that God dreams up bigger things for myself than I would have thought possible because this life is pretty amazing. Beneath the struggle and stress, there is this blessed, amazing promise...God is FOR ME.

And so I leave you with this song, by one of my favorite singer/songwriters/worshippers:
So faithful, so constant
So loving and so true, so powerful in all you do
You fill me, You see me
You know my every move, You love for me to sing to You

I know that you are for me, I know that you are for me
I know that You will never forsake me in my weakness
And I know that You have come now even if to write upon my heart
To remind me who you are

So patient, so gracious
SO merciful and true
So wonderful in all you do
You fill me, You see me
You know my every move and you love for me to sing to You

I know that you are for me, I know that you are for me
I know that Yow will never forsake me in my weakness
And I know that You have come now even if to write upon my heart
To remind me who you are