Hello again and
happy new year!
The past two weeks
have been filled with lots of activity at school. Form I students
arrived one week before Forms II, III and IV for orientation and a
chance to adjust to life at a boarding school before the older
students could flaunt their experience. Now, the students at St.
Peter Claver have all arrived and are preparing for classes to begin
on Monday. Originally the plan was to start school a week earlier,
on January 13th, but Sunday was Zanzibar's Independence
day and that night the President made an announcement that the public
holiday would extend into Monday. Tuesday was another public
holiday, the Islamic holiday of Maulid Day, and so school was delayed
again. That same day the teachers were informed of a seminar we were
to attend on Wednesday and Thursday, so our opening day with the
students was moved to Friday and classes are assumed to begin on
Monday. This change of events has reminded me of the importance of
being flexible!
There is much
excitement and activity among the teachers and administration as we
prepare for the first year of graduation. With St. Peter Claver
being so young there are many opportunities for growth and
improvement in what has begun. Last year many students struggled
academically and with disciplinary issues and it was realized that in
order for students to do well in school, their whole selves
(psychological, emotional, social, spiritual, physical) must be
nurtured. Thus came the creation of the all-encompassing Campus
Ministry department that oversees all clubs, sports, guidance and
counseling, service-learning, and faith and spirituality programs. I
have joined the Campus Ministry team in the guidance and counseling
department and the service-learning department. For guidance, I will
meet with four different streams of students each week and lead
discussion on topics like peer pressure, relationships, family issues
and being homesick, identity, and discerning vocations. The
service-learning program was started three years ago by another JV,
and has been carried on by other teachers. I have joined the team
and will lead sessions on community service before the students go
out to the villages to do service.
As I prepare for
these sessions I have been reflecting on the differences of doing
community service in the U.S. compared to doing community service
here in Tanzania. The service-learning team has gathered feedback
from the older students on their experience of tutoring in a nearby
village and now we sit with the recognized challenges of doing
service in places where the restraints on resources, time, and
abilities are confounded with things like a lack of chalkboards,
textbooks and other teaching aids, language barriers between students
who have been taught in English but now must teach in KiSwahili, and
inconsistencies of bringing a different group of students every week
due to limited transport. When the resources are few and the need
is great and the students think that charity is the only way to be of
service, how can they gain an understanding of social justice? I
have been told that we teachers are shaping the future leaders of
Tanzania. How can they learn about social justice and acts of
service in a way that they will be able to incorporate them into
their daily actions now, so that later it will be reflected in their
decisions? How can this be taught to 11, 12 and up to 18-year olds?
Will the students even understand the message of justice that St.
Peter Claver is imparting on them? When they graduate will they
leave fully embracing the school's motto “To Learn, To Love, To
Serve” that they have drilled into their heads and repeat at least
a dozen times every day?
This week for
spirituality night my community reflected on this Sunday's gospel
reading (John 1:18-34). In the reading, the Pharisees challenge John
the Baptist when he speaks of Jesus' coming for Baptism. They ask
him, if he is not the Messiah then why he is baptizing people? John
the Baptist, such a humble and faith-filled man, denies any such
title and recognizes that his being is just one of many in the world,
and he is there only to serve the Lord. His humility grants him the
grace to accept that his work is not his own but the work of a
greater force. These readings come at a perfect time as I prepare to
teach.
Each of us are
servants under this same great force. Our work then, is not our own
but a continuation of something that was started by something
greater. We are here for a short time and our work will continue
beyond us. The teachers at St. Peter Claver seem to really get this.
Already I see how tirelessly they work day and night, putting all of
their energy into the lives of the students and their methods of
teaching. They are able to look past disciplinary issues to see that
each student is a child to be nurtured and loved. Their work is
overlooked by many and misunderstood by some, but they manage because
they embody the understanding that “we are workers, not master
builders” (words by Oscar Romero). They are my inspiration already
when I am troubled by the challenges of community service or the
fears of managing a classroom of forty some students on my own. They
are my living examples of John the Baptist and his humble ways of
accepting that the work he has been given is God's work, and his task
is to do his best with the work and trust that others after him will
carry it on.
Here is the quote I
referenced from Oscar Romero. It is a reminder for me to embrace my
time in Tanzania with an open heart and to have humility with the
work I have been given.
This is what are are about: We plant
seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promises. We lay foundations that will
need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far
beyond our capability.
We cannot do everything, and there
is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do
something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a
beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the lord's grace
to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the mater builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are
prophets of a future not our own.
Until next post,
MLS
