Plank vs. Speck

Wait, wait I think I see something in your eye...

I have begun to lose my focus. In trying to create a better school, I have failed to remove my plank, and the scene is quite comical!

Through rules, regulations, and regime I have tried to legislate a sense of Western Order...

AHHHHHH!

I think that is #1 on the DON’T DO LIST in the Ghana Tourism Handbook! My bad Ghana!

The irony amidst all this nonsense is I don’t even like rules, and I am asking other people follow them?

Why... (confession) I am a pharisee... Once again, something I am working on!

Rewind...The backstory.

In hopes to create the best school in my community I began complying a list of rules and duties that would create some order out of chaos. Now, don’t get me wrong, my God loves order, but He also IS love, and His love comes to us without the strings of rules and regulations attached. In other words, you don’t have to be a good person for God to love you... He loves me right? And I refuse to eat fufu while living in the land of fufu, so enough said!

Back to the story.

So then after the rules were in place I realized that a list of rules doesn’t make the world (or a school for that matter) a better place. It only creates room for judgement and supremacy.

Did King Nebuchadnezzar’s threaten of a fiery furnace inspire three Judaean boys to submit? NO, in fact they said,

“Hey Neb...Burn US UP!”

Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (and yes I am using their non-Babylonian names... since it was the chief official under King Neb who forced those names upon them) said to King Nebuchadnezzar,

“Go ahead. Attempt to domesticate us with your rules and regime, threaten us with a blazing fire, but wait and see... because OUR God will rescue us, and even if He chooses not to, we will NEVER serve your gods!”

I see the rules I created as little gods that need to be served, and I am the grand puppeteer absurdly disillusioned to the fact that there are NO strings attached to my puppet. So now I am walking around like a fool with a plank protruding from my eye. HA!

I can mention your speck.. I can point it out, I can laugh at you for rubbing your eye and causing such a disturbance... but until I remove my plank it’s all quite comical!

in the shower with cabbage...

a weekly ritual... sanitizing my produce in the shower... capful of bleach and a 20 minute soak, apparently this kills typhoid... so far so good!

in a hole...

I walked across the road to buy some bread and I was stopped in my tracks when I spotted three small boys playing in a water main hole.... I hid behind a building.... I stood and watched them laugh, giggle, and speak to each other for several minutes before they took notice of me... Then I ran back to my house to collect my camera....a good moment!

when things get tough...

I have reached my half way point in this journey... except 200 days in Africa will actually become more like 300 by the time I depart... and this is when things get tough...

So at this climatic median I have a crucial decision to make... do I stay for the next 150 days, or do I pat myself on the back and say, “You did a good work” and go home?

Both ideas twist through my mind at night as I lay in my bed. It would be easy for me to go home because, I am a natural born (confession) quitter. When things get tough I want to bail... and (another confession) many times I do, so more recently I have been trying to change that terribly “human” flaw within me.

The terribly “human” flaw that tells me,

“It’s okay to quit... you gave it a fair try, you made an effort, it just wasn’t for you.”

More recently, when I get to that momentary fork in the road I don’t choose one direction or another, not immediately at least, I stop and I am still.

This moment happened for me yesterday while at school. Between two of my classes I walked into the supply closet, locked the door and cried out for God to give me strength... I sat on the floor and was absolutely STILL. I think He must have heard me because I made it through the day!

Then today I went online to read about the devastation in Haiti and I was literally sick in my soul. People who survived the disaster are now dying of dehydration, and suffocating under 10-20 feet or rubble because the entire country is in shambles. One news website estimated that the effects of this tragedy will impact the lives of over 3 million people. 3 MILLION PEOPLE... that is nearly a third of their population.

and this is when things get tough...

Today I watched a homeless man stumble down the street to beg for coins so he could eat.

Today I took the hand of a little boy who lives outside of my compound and he began to cry because his hand was cut and the wound was infected.

Today I hired a grown man to patrol my school campus who has never learned how to read or write.

Today I welcomed a new student into my fifth grade class because at her previous school she was flogged for forgetting her veil.

and this is when things get tough...

I am reminded of Paul and his amazing endurance “when things get tough”.

To the church in Corinth he writes;

...Well now is the right time to listen, the day to be helped. Don’t put it off; don’t frustrate God’s work by showing up late, throwing a question mark over everything we are doing. Our work as God’s servants gets validated- or not- in the details. People are watching us as we stay at our post, alertly, unswervingly... in hard times, tough times, bad times, when we’re beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late, working without eating; with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love; when we’re telling the truth, and when God’s showing His power; when we’re doing our best settling things right; when we’re praised, and when we’re blamed; slandered, and honored; true to our word, though distrusted; ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive, though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die; immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many; having nothing, having it all.

when things get tough...

Currently, my thoughts turn to these words written by a man who, through the tough stuff decided to choose the road of perseverance.

You see, Paul was a wise, wise man who knew that the journey was not to reach a prize, but in fact the journey was the prize!

I am dead yet terrifically alive.

I am immersed in tears and possessing deep joy.

I am living on handouts yet enriching many.

I am having nothing, and having it all...

...and this is when things get tough, so I choose the journey not the prize!

Continue to pray for me and the lives I am blessed to encounter on this journey.

stimulants... a teacher's best friend!

I never thought myself to be a morning person... then I began teaching, now I love the morning... it's like another day within the day... it is AMAZING what one can accomplish when they quit sleeping until noon (HA!).

One time while teaching (in the U.S.A.) I was walking down the hallway to greet my students for the day when a parent walked by me and held up his travel coffee mug to motion "cheers". I looked down at my coffee mug and raised it in response...

"Here's to coffee," he said, "My Life Blood!"

Since then I have never looked back... let's just say coffee has become my lifeblood, even in Ghana!

"Cheers to 2010, and my travel coffee mug!"

****New Term Begins Tuesday, January 12th... Time to dust off the ol' travel coffee mug!***

completely off topic...

I know it’s a security precaution but seriously?

I am soooo OVER the “secret messages” I have to type just to send an email and this is why... I can’t do it! No lie, EVERY time one of those encrypted strands of random letters and numbers appears on my screen I have to hit the handicap button! By the way... does having a handicap button offend anyone... Perhaps those who are handicapped? I wanna know because it certainly offends me!

Just an impulsive thought I was having as I was sending emails this afternoon... thought I would put in the blog universe!

fufu...okay i did it!

Okay some of you who know me well might understand how "monumental" this post is for me... but for those of you who don't know me, let me explain myself (or perhaps defend my insanity).

I am not only a girl with "huge" and I mean "HUGE" food issues, but still haunting me in the back of my mind are childhood memories of restaurant tantrums and grocery store meltdowns all incidents having one underlying nucleus, FOOD...

One time, and I can recall this instance well, I was at a restaurant with my mom (God bless her soul...LOL) when the head chef decided to jazz up my order of plain butter noodles by adding a garnish of herbs... I think the waitress actually had to run for cover after she put the plate in front of me... I was eight!

Another time, and this was in high school, I was dating a boy who had so conveniently forgotten to mention to his mom that I was a vegetarian, she (his mom) had asked me to stay for dinner and I was cautious to accept, but knew it was kind of a lose lose situation if you know what I mean. Anyway, dinner was spaghetti which I thought would be safe because growing up in New York spaghetti meant meatballs and meatballs could be easily avoided... However, I was not in New York anymore, and meatballs are an uncommon phenomenon south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Let me just say I sat and ate meat infested spaghetti sauce for that boy! This was the beginning of many forced feedings... and rightly so, I have begun a long and exasperating battle against the fickle eater inside of me. Every mealtime she really wants to rear her capricious, troublesome, only-child nature, but I hold her back for the public safety and welfare of all humanity (okay sometimes I slip and she wins the battle, but we won't talk about that in public)!

My Christmas present to the Republic of Ghana (I hope she understands the mere significance of it all)... Eating fufu with light soup (and goat meat).