Sometimes

Sometimes I wonder how I ended up here. At SCS.  The exact school I specifically avoided because I didn't want to student teach at it. I didn't want to teach rich kids. Yet here I am. 

Sometimes its hard to explain how teaching rich kids is ministry. Especially when my mind is filled with images of Batey Lima or San Jose or walking the streets in Juan Dolio one night with the Lily House missionaries.  It doesn't seem like Santiago could be in same country as those towns.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm not living in the DR. Times when friends say they've been without power for 3 days. I have an inverter. When friends don't have running water for days. When friends can't get to church because of too much rain. 

I don't get me wrong, not for a second have I regretted taking a job at SCS. Not in the least. But I never expected this is were I would be. But this is exactly were God put me. And he's using it teach me so many things. Things I'm realizing 'on my own' and many things that come more indirectly. 

Over the past few weeks as I've begun to do develop relationships with my SST students I've noticed a shift in my perspectives. I haven't quite figured out a new perspective but I can see it beginning to form. 

As I've talked with my students and heard the stories I've learned that many times rich kids don't have anything. Their lives, families, or homes may be falling apart behind the fancy houses and expensive clothes. They need loving teachers to model Christ just as much as any of the 'poor' students I've worked with.  When I type that out it looks so straight forward. I'm sure if I'd read that a year ago I would have agreed with it, but now I really see it in a way I didn't before.  A way that, I think, with change the way I approach working with the 'poor'.

Now, I don't think that my passion has changed. I'm pretty confident God has plans for me to work among the materially poor one day. There aren't many days without thoughts of San Jose, Batey Lima, or somewhere like them.  But I'm leaning that this socio-economic thing is way bigger than I'd though and I'm just beginning to touch the edges. I'm learning that God's power to transform lives is way bigger than economic statues...even in a country were so much placed on that status. 

Last Thursday I began volunteering at a Christian school down the street for SCS, but worlds apart. I spent half an hour working with two 2nd grade barrio boys practice reading in Spanish. That's right I was helping them read in Spanish.  I'm hoping I didn't teach them wrong.  But in that half hour my heart was filled with a joy in a way that just doesn't happen at SCS. 

Sometimes I wonder how I ended up here. Living in the DR. Teaching in the exact country I've thought about teaching in since 2008. Where teaching rich kids and poor kids is a 5 minutes walk apart, so I'm able to do both. Because all kids need to see Christ's love and know that God is good.

Sometimes I imagine were I might be in the future. And sometimes I remember Ephesians 3:20 tells us God can do more than we could ever imagine.  I'm here now and that's more than I ever imagined.  

My Ephesians 3:20 t-shirt, given to me by a mission team just before moving to Santiago. It's one of my favs.