Heartbreak in the classroom

A guest post from mom, who is currently teaching fourth grade in a public school (she's retiring in a few months!) . . . .

As a reflection of a microcosm of our culture, I thought I’d share a little of what I see in my students this year.

One student cries when she has to go home and makes sure she gives me at least 7 hugs before she leaves me each day. She’s been diagnosed with PSTD resulting from domestic violence and now lives with her grandmother.

Today, while waiting in line, one student told me that his head felt heavy. When I asked him why, he matter-of-factly told me that the cops took his father away last night. He was waiting for the cops to come to school to talk to him. He had been taking a reading test and was having trouble concentrating. When we returned to the classroom, a call came from the office asking me to send that student to the office.

One student regularly acts up in an underhanded, passive-aggressive manner. It escalated a couple of weeks back. I found out that he had been planning on seeing his parents. He’s living with his grandparents. But the mother did something she shouldn’t have, so the visit fell through.

One student, for two weeks straight, cried at everything she couldn’t do or at every little change. Her mother was moving with her and the two siblings to a school just over the bay. The girl knew she’d be leaving her friends and comfort zone and couldn’t handle it.

On the playground today, one girl told me she didn’t know why her stepmother was staying at her house. When I asked why, she said that the stepmother said she didn’t really like the girl’s father. But she needed papers to be able to stay in the U.S. and had to marry someone to get them.

In the same time frame, another girl told me she was going to visit her mother up north over the Thanksgiving break. She lives with her brother and father here. The mother is dying of cancer. There is no room in Indiana for them to stay because in the same house are the mother, her boyfriend, another daughter and her boyfriend, the daughter’s two children, and the grandparents.

I could go on, but it breaks my heart. Christ’s way of building functional relationships and functional families is the best way to live. What I see daily is the result of those who have chosen to live their own lives apart from Him.

My intern is getting married. She wants to stay married and has thanked me for offering a model of what marriage can be like. Her father wants nothing to do with her. Her mother and grandmother have raised her. The hurt of not having two parents in a loving relationship has made her want to succeed in her own relationship. I have given her hope that this can happen.

            

"If anyone causes one of these little ones--those who believe in me--to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” Matthew 18:6 

About That Fair Trade Sale . . .

Several years ago, we began attending a new church. And, of course, with that comes new friends . . . on Facebook. Shortly after we started attending, one of my new church friends started posting something called (at that time) the “International Fair Trade Expo.” I really had no idea what it was about and ignored the first few posts about it. It seemed like another craft-type fair, and if you know me well, you know that I’m not really a craft-type person. After awhile, and I don’t remember exactly how (either through talking to my friend or from an announcement at church and subsequent personal research), I found out what the (now-called) International Fair Trade Sale is all about. And this is what I learned.

Call me naive, but I had no idea that 30 million people live in slavery today. They are slaves to property owners, to mine owners, to traffickers. They live in poverty so deep that they (the whole family--from children the ages of my boys to parents) jump at the chance to make $1.00 a day, risking their lives by crushing rocks in a quarry or mining for gold in South America. Instead of attending school because they have no money to pay for books or uniforms, children work alongside their parents in dangerous and toxic environments. They are at the mercy (or lack thereof) of the owners of these places, who pay wages on a whim and withhold them at their pleasure, using threats (and acts) of violence to keep their workers in line. 

Call me sheltered, but it never even crossed my mind that young girls, 9 and 10 years old, are sold today by their parents who can't afford to feed them and are offered the promise of a better life by traffickers. Instead of the promised better life, these girls (and boys) are taken far from their homes in Nepal and made to work in brothels in cities in India, selling their little bodies for someone else's pleasure. They receive little pay but constant oppression and degradation. 

Call me a typical American focused on my own problems, but I never thought about what the wars in the various African countries did to those who are trying to escape them. The refugee camps that hold them are cesspools of despair where unimaginable (for you and me) things happen and those in them are forced to beg for what they needed . . . or to sell themselves to feed their families. 

Call me blind, but before Kieran came along, I didn't give much thought to how people with disabilities were treated around the world. We have been thankful for a supportive family and access to some of the best doctors in the country. Elsewhere, people with disabilities are often marginalized and lack access to good care. In Kenya, an estimated 85% of deaf people are unemployed because employers are unwilling to learn how to communicate with those who can’t hear. Throughout Africa (and the rest of the world), children with special needs are hidden away because of the shame and stigma that accompanies disability. Often, the father will leave the mother of a disabled child, unwilling to live with a societal “outcast” or unable to provide the necessary care. When that happens, the mother is left without a way to support herself and her child because her care for her child is so constant she can’t leave to find work. She has no way to provide food for her family, let alone the necessary therapies and doctor visits that would improve their quality of life. Individuals with disabilities are often considered outcasts, subject to abuse, ostracized from their community, and unable to find meaningful work.

I feel so much despair when I hear these stories. And so overwhelmed with the numbers of people who need help and hope. And, yet, I'm motivated to do something by passages from the Bible such as these: 

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:17-18)

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1: 27)

Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him. (Proverbs 14:31)

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (Acts 20:35)

Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do. (Galatians 2:10)

Blessed is the one who considers the poor! (Psalm 41:1)

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. (Proverbs 31:8)

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’" (Matthew 25:34-40)

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. (Isaiah 1:17)

Jewelry made by a mother of
a child with disabilities. While
the mother works, the child
receives therapy and education
at an adjacent school. 

And I remind myself that each one of these people -- each one of the numbers and statistics -- is an image-bearer of the Creator. Each child in the mines, each girl trapped in the sex trade, each boy with a disability bears the image of the God of the universe and is precious and in need of a restored relationship with their Creator. And, in some cases, those who have received the gift of eternal life by repenting of their sin and believing that Jesus died and rose from the dead to take the punishment for their sin are brothers and sisters in Christ.

And that's where the International Fair Trade Sale comes in (see the Mission Statement).

The IFTS gathers items from individuals all over the world -- those who have escaped the sex trade, those with special needs, those who are struggling to break the cycle of deep poverty, those desperate to keep the traffickers at bay -- who have been offered meaningful work and, in exchange for their handicrafts, are paid a fair and living wage. A wage that helps them send their children to school, that keeps them from begging in the streets, that makes the marginalized feel useful, that lets them fulfill their God-given desire to work in a healthy environment to support their families.

A foldable trivet made by a man
from a marginalized tribe
deep in the Nicaraguan
countryside.

So there are recycled saris sewn into quilts and scarves by women in India, jewelry made by rescued girls and boys in Thailand, bags and purses handwoven by women in Guatemala, trivets hand carved by men in Nicaragua, kitchen items from sustainable materials created by individuals in Cameroon, textile products stitched by mothers in Kenya, baskets, pottery, food items . . . and more at the IFTS. And most of the vendors represented at the IFTS are gospel-based mercy missions, which means that they're bringing the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ to these sweet image-bearers in word and in deed.

A beach tote crocheted from
recycled plastic bags
by a woman in Zambia. 

When I discovered that about the IFTS, I jumped right in. Purchasing items for myself and gifts my family (I do our Christmas (and beyond!) shopping at the sale) is something tangible that I can do right now to fight the hopelessness. I consider it akin to giving a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus to the "least of these."

And encouraging others to come to the sale is something else I can do. I wrote these articles for our local newspaper to help advertise the sale.

Making a Living with Plastic Bags

Local Fair Trade Sale Can Make a Global Difference

What the IFTE is all About

If I can do something to fight trafficking and slavery by purchasing a gift I was going to purchase from somewhere anyway, why wouldn't I?

Photo courtesy of Destiny Rescue 

And now my question to you: did you know this was happening today? And, more importantly, now that you do know, what will you do with that knowledge?

Kieran is seven!

Somehow "seven" feels so much older than "six" (or five or four or three or two or one). In fact, when Cael woke up on Kieran's birthday, he looked at Kieran and said, "But, you don't look any bigger. I thought you turned 7 today."

He did, indeed, turn 7. And that seems so much more young boyish -- rather than childish -- to me.

He had his traditional peanut butter pie as his "cake" (he doesn't like cake).

We had a tractor-themed party for him with a few friends and family to help us celebrate.

And, believe or not, we got him a drone for his present. A friend had come over a few months ago for a visit and brought his. Drones are one of those love-hate things for him. The noise bothers his ears, but he's fixated on it. And so, for the past few months, all we've heard about it his steadfast belief that he wanted a drone for his birthday -- and that he would get one. I guess you could say he wore us down. We bought a somewhat-inexpensive one that was supposed to be kid-friendly and he was thrilled when he opened it. "I can't believe I got a drone!" he said. (Any one who has been around him in recent times probably could, in fact, believe he got a drone since that's been his primary topic of conversation lately.) And tonight, Seth helped him learn to fly it (after he got over his initial fright of the noise.)

I love his smile. I love the way he tells me he loves Jesus. I love it when he talks about going to heaven (but, necessarily, when he talks about going there "next week"). I love it when he tries something new and then congratulates himself, "I did it! I survived!" I love it when we're working on school things and I can see his brain chugging and learning and working things out. I love it when he encourages other people with a "Hi!" or a hug. I love it when he talks to the chickens. And I secretly love it when he freaks out when he sees a spider. I love his sense of humor and the way he laughs from deep in his belly without any reservations. I love it when he says, "Game on!" to Seth before a "wrestling" match (which inevitably turns into a tickle-fest). I love it when he throws in a Spanish or German word while he's talking and when he asks about other languages (he's recently started listening to a Hawaiian music CD and asking about Hawaiian words -- but that's a language that's completely out of my league).

In short, we love him. And, in the day-to-day sameness of raising children (one of whom is now SEVEN!), I want to remember that love more and more. Happy 7th birthday, buddy!