Redeeming a Slaughtering...

November 23, 2009
I can’t believe that it’s already the end of the second term here. We have 3 terms and this week and next week are term exams for term 2. Meaning, half days every day as the kids only take one exam per day, and then a 3 day weekend!!! I know, I know, you probably have a 5 day weekend coming up for Thanksgiving, but here in our 1 day typical weekend, 3 days is a whole half of an eternity!

So, the kids came home with their test order papers, and to my mounting dismay, every one of them had math on the first day of exams. Meaning, I was going to have to help 11 kids (the four younger ones don’t typically need help) at the same time. Well, at first I was beyond overwhelmed. In my mind I still have to shake the desire to have every kid understanding most of the material. Here, they have so much to learn in one year (most of which is just repeated the next year with one or two extra steps) and we go so fast that 40% is passing. So I’ve had to retrain my brain to think, “what can I get these kids to understand that will amount to at least 40%?!” Not that I don’t want them to score high- I’d just rather them have a strong foundation in a few things rather than hit and miss knowledge in everything. But then I realized that having all the math exams might mean that I was crazy busy for 3 days, wrestling through algebra, geometry, accounting and so much more with the kids, but then we would ALL get a week and a half off math! That is soooo worth the exhaustion!

So for the 3 days leading up to exams, I segmented my time between classes, flying between kids, spouting off formulas they should have learned 3 weeks ago, and scolding for not learning those same formulas! A square root here and a fraction there, here an x, there a y, math math everywhere! I knew I hit an all time high when 3 girls came to me in the same morning saying they had dreamed about me helping them with math. Now that takes talent to tutor kids from across the house in your sleep! I should charge... easiest money I’d ever make!

The day before exams, though, I had to go to school for a short teacher’s work day. It was like 2 hours long, and honestly, I didn’t want to be there because I knew I had so many kids at home needing help. But, I went, and God once again proved His will is supreme! Our assignment in those 2 hours: count your class tests, and paste the students numbers on their desks (we mix all the classes of students together so they can’t cheat off one another). The counting took all of 5 minutes, with an hour and a half break before we could do the pasting!

I was on the verge of being frustrated with having to sit and wait at the school when I could be at home teaching (I was a little impatient- I had been up till midnight tutoring my class 9 kids and then was back up tutoring the kids around 6!) when one of the other teachers sat down across from me and said, “You’re a Christian, right Miss?!” And my first thought was, “God, now?! I’m exhausted, and my brain isn’t even functioning correctly with all of this math!” And then God scolded me and reminded me that in a typical day I don’t have the chance to talk to my fellow teachers about much of anything, much less God and Jesus.

So, humbled and totally relying on the Holy Spirit to guide me as constructing intelligible sentences was becoming a chore, I smiled and assured him that I am a Christian. He was looking at a picture in the newspaper which spoke of how tens of thousands of animals were going to be sacrificed that day for a Hindu holiday (I think?!) and how futile that seemed. He then ventured to ask if Christians make sacrifices. What a beautiful lead into talking about Jesus as our sacrificed Lamb, right?! Something EVERYONE here understands, as they see sacrifices everyday! Real life (err, death?!), blood spilled sacrifices. Not something too common in America, yes? So we discussed Jesus as our sacrifice for our sins and how Jesus’ blood cleanses us before God. Pretty soon, there were several teachers sitting around, adding comments here and there as we discussed differences in religions and Christianity as a whole!

Crazy how God used a Hindu festival of sacrifices and blood to plant seeds in the hearts of some of my co-workers who are actively seeking a religion to follow. They’ve tried Hinduism and Buddhism, but said that they found them empty (so surprising?!) and are looking into other religions. And when I was most exhausted and most unwilling to do much of anything, God shook me up and said, “Now. I speak through you best when you don’t let yourself get in the way!” I guess you could say that God redeemed my day :).