Three more reasons that I Teach For America: K, K and K

Another School Year

Another school year is just around the bend--Monday of next week. Today in-service began for all teachers.

You would think that with a very successful year under my belt I would feel calm and confident about the year ahead. But the truth is, I think I am far more nervous about this year than last year. My program director says it is because I realize this year what I don't know. I think that is true to an extent. However, I think there is more to it. I think I currently am in the midst of an ugly spiritual battle.

There are indeed a lot of reasons for me to be anxious about this year, or even terrified. At the last minute I was switched from teaching Social Studies to Science, a subject I hated all throughout school. I can't even get started in planning it as the curriculum order got lost and wasn't placed. In addition, I am teaching Math this year which was undoubtedly the most difficult subject for me during my formal education. I also had a very bad experience in teaching it at Institute in Houston last year. Furthermore, the new group of third graders has more than a few children who in the past have struggled behaviorally. I also have a new TFA program director whom I am adjusting to. In addition, we also got three new TFA teachers in the elementary school. Though this is truly wonderful news as more students will receive an excellent education, I am insecure and intimidated and feel like they have it more together than I do. Finally, the bar for me and my children has been set extremely high because of last year's success. It almost seems unattainable. So, these are the reasons why I have been fighting back terror.

Today as I sat in my newly arranged classroom, tears streaming down my face, I realize something: I will most certainly fail. That is, I will most certainly fail if I attempt to repeat last year's success apart from the Lord. You see, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my babies learned so much and we were so blessed last year because the Lord was moving in my classroom. I was willing and so He used me. Last year I was praying for months for my future children. This year, all I can think about is how these won't be my first babies and I can't possibly love them as much as my first children. Last year I prayed as I/God picked my class. This year I have been fighting back the impulse to avoid having those students with behavioral challenges in my class. In other words, thus far this year I have relied on my own strength--a recipe for disaster.

And so, I would like to confess my sin and repent and seek God. Please pray with me:

Daddy,

Before the foundation of the earth was formed, you knew that I would one day be a teacher in Kyle, South Dakota. You knew the names of each of the children I would be so fortunate to teach and you always have their best interest at heart. Father I ask that you would forgive me for not remaining in You and seeking your will for this year. Abba I give this year back into your loving hands. I trust you and give the future of every one of my children--your children--to you. I pray that every desire and dream that you have for this year would be fulfilled through me. I ask that I would be obedient without question and faithful when I feel like surrendering. I pray that I would not look to human wisdom, but your wisdom. Oh God, I pray that the children would make supernatural academic growth. But even more than that, I pray that your children would tangibly feel your love this year. Walls will be broken down, deep wounds healed, lies banished. Instead of death, despair and deceit, Love will be poured out, Truth will be spoken and Hope firmly planted in the hearts of your babies. I ask Father is that you would use me this year, even when I don't want to be used. Move in a way that I have never seen before.

In You alone,

By the way...

I have posted the link to Abby's blog on the right hand side of this page. I encourage you to read it and post encouraging comments for her. If we get any news on the boys, I will post that on my blog too.

Looking Back

Today was an interesting day. I went to my classroom fulling intending on getting so much work done as school starts the Monday after next and orientation begins this Monday. I, however, made the tragic mistake of bringing a book. As you may have guessed, I ended up reading the entire book instead of working. I wasn't too worried about it as I had arranged to meet my literacy coach at 4:00 to work on improving my teaching this year. However, I ended up spending the next five hours learning to cook (more on that later) than working. During that time at my friend's house, one of the new Teach For America corps members came over. I like her very much and have done everything I can to help smooth this transition for her. However, I have over the last few days become increasingly unnerved by her progress in planning and my decided lack of progress.

It is past 10:00 pm right now and I am sitting in my classroom feeling just like a first-year-teacher. I feel inadequate and unprepared. I feel terrified that I am not going to be successful this year, as the bar set last year was so high. This new teacher is going to be amazing and she is so on top of things. I am honestly overjoyed by this and have done everything I can to get her to that place, but in comparing myself to her, I find myself lacking.

But then I began to read some of the first posts I wrote last year on this blog about my experience moving here and my feelings those first days before school. In doing so, I have been so encouraged. You see, I will undoubtedly fail this year if I try to be successful in my own strength. I have been forgetting that the only reason that we met with such success last year was because I relied on God. He empowered me to make a difference and blessed my classroom beyond all I could ever hope for or imagine. And you know what, I choose not live in fear. I choose to cling to hope and the nature of God. I know that He loves the children even more than I do and I know that He is not done with me yet. And so, I begin this next year the same way as I did last year, crying out to God for strength and wisdom. He is my sustainer, my hope, my everything.

Lord, this is your year.

B

A Message From Abby

Dear friends and family,

Thank you SO much for all of your prayers, support and encouragement. I am sorry that I have not responded to most of your emails, I have simply had no time to get on the internet (because here I have to go to an internet cafe and pay for it) but know that I have appreciated all of the emails you have sent me, they have encouraged me so much!

Yesterday as I was walking with some of the kids William (who everyone thougt was one of the boys kidnapped, although Sharrif our major source of information was the least sure about him although he WATCHED Nicholas and Mukenya be taken) came walking up to me. All the kids went crazy showing him to me and getting all excited. When we told him that we thought he had been one of the boys taken he gave a bit of an off reply saying that he had been sick. Jessie and I are not exactly sure that his story matches up or sounds completely rightso she is going to talk with him more today to see if there is anything else that he wants to tell us.

We know 4 boys were taken, 2 for sure (mukenya and Nicholas, the youngest) that have not been seen or heard of since and 1 who we thought was kidnapped but seems not to be. There is a streetboy named Fupi (another very young street boy) who saw everything happen and knows the names of all the kids but we have yet to be able to track him down in Kisenyi to find out the names of the other boys although we have been trying everyday.

What we do know is that Friday nioght at 3 in the morning 2 westerners,1 man and 1 female (which makes it seem even more like a set up to steal kids) and 1 Ugandan came into Kisenyi (one of the largest and most dangerous slums in Kampala). They were new to the community (which is also dangerous, you are not allowed to go into Kisenyi without the chairmans consent if you are not with someone who is living/involved there) and the kids said that they had never seen them before. I wish you guys could see Kisenyi, especially lately it has gotten so much worse, it is a place that even Ugandans do not go in the middle of the day. It is a very violent and oppressive night. POlice officers do not even go there in small groups at night because they get beaten up. Anyways, they gave out candy and bread to the kids (yes in the middle of the night) and then tried to snatch one of our 5 or 6 year olds, Sharrif. Sharrif is incredibly scrappy and a huge fighter, he fought them off and ran but watched as they carried off his sleeping best friend Nicholas. Nicholas is around 6 years old and a huge sweetheart. He is perpetually sick or tired and is very timid and shy. He is a sweet boy and not someone who would even be able to resist someone taking him because he has about the same amount of strength as a rabbit. He was one of the boys who was supposed to move into our house just 11 hours later. The other boy who was taken was a boy named Mukenya (Who was going to be in our house until we didn't see him in our programs and we had to give his spot away sense we never saw him). Mukenya is another boy who is so sweet and endearing. He is very smart and has a huge fear of abandonment and being left behind. I love him so much and was very close to him. It is especially hard for me that he was taken because Mukenya was a boy that I was very, very close to until he got, "too" close to me and got scared that I would leave him. There was a few times that he had misunderstood something that was said and thought that I was leaving, and he would begin to cry and get upset until it was explained to him that he had misunderstood./ Without any reason he stopped coming to our programs and being really moody. I gave him space because I just knew that eventually he would come around and see that I had never left him and was still right there for him as I had always been. But he was taken before that could happen. I wont get to restore the relationship with this boy that I love so much. There were 2 other boys that were also taken. They were put into a car and driven away. We have yet to discover who the other 2 boys are although we are sure that we know them and that they are in our programs. There are hundreds of street children that sleep in that slum and because we have so man kids in our programs and because street kids are constantly put into prison, moving around, getting sick and holing up somewhere for sometime and simply going missing there is no way for us to guess which kids they were simply by looking at which kids are not around anymore.

We have reported the incident to the police and chairman but know they are not going to do anything, police here don't care very much for a group of street children that end up missing.

All of the uncles we work with love the kids sooo much, and are always very optimistic about everything, they always believe anything is possible. When I asked them if they thought we would ever see Nicholas or Mukenya again, they just got really sad and said, "no... we wont..."

What is so hard for me is all of the uncertainty. I will never know what happened to them, whether they were sold, or sacrificed, or escaped. It is also so hard for me not knowing what other two boys were taken as well because we definitely knew them.

Every week we have kids that disapear from our programs, they are usually put in prison, they come everyday and then one day we never see them again.

Around the same time last week someone that lives in the community we work in said that there were 6 kids that had been grabbed by city council and were going to be put in prison that were crying out for me and asking me to come get them out. Jessie, Pastor Nelson, and Abbey (an amazing social we work with from Grace Church) went to the prison on Monday. The thing was that we had not been told the names of the kids that were asking for us and over the last two weeks we had SO many kids that had also disappeared. We went to the prison and found one boy and got a list of a few boys that had been taken to different places but we weren't able to figure out which boys they had in the prison and the man wouldn't tell us (because ALL the kids go by nicknames or different names, we know very few of the boys real FULL names which was what we needed, we have a list of them but the man wouldn't go through them and let us know). We knew that one of the boys as well was very young and had been asking for me, I could think of several boys that he could be. The kids go to sentencing at several different courts so we wouldn't have been able to know where they would be to speak for them because we wouldn't have known where they would be.

It hurt me so badly to know that there were kids that had been depending on me to get them out of prison and I completely failed them. I couldn't help but feel so discouraged when we were sitting on the car on the way back thinking of all the kids that I have fallen in love with since being here that have disappeared and I have no idea where they are. It made everything so real and final. All those kids that disappear I had just been hoping they would come back and telling myself that they were around and that they would return eventually when the reality is... they wont (and they don't). They are gone. I cant help but picture their faces in my mind... boys that just disappeared. I will never know what happened to Charles, and Robert, and Derek, and Mukenya, and Nicholas, and Sobote...

I appreciate so much the prayers of everyone for my kids that were kidnapped. I know that God can work miracles, and in fact He may have already done so with William, we are not sure yet. I am praying for it constantly that God will move in an incredible way. I am not giving up hope. it has just woken me up to the fact that the many, many kids that I had fallen in love with, noticed they were missing and was simply waiting for them to come back are most likely not coming. It is a grieving process for me for more than simply the kids that were stolen. It has been really hard for me. I know that God is a big God and that He is with them and experiences everything that they do. I do not feel hopeless just immensely sad and overwhelmed with the evil and suffering that I am surrounded by in my ministry to street kids.

Thank you so much for supporting me and for all of your encouragement, it has meant the world to me. I am so blessed by how many have come around me and my ministry and Jessie and our kids to pray

I love you all

Abby

Praying for Abby's Boys

My Lakota sister is having a math camp for girls, but they live very far out in the country so it is difficult for family's to get their children there. So, when I saw some girls walking on the street that were former students. I asked them if they wanted to come. When the quickly agreed, I spoke with their families and loaded them up into my truck and headed for the country. On our 45 minute journey, I heard such disturbing things about the lives of the three students in my truck. They have been exposed to such awful situations.


After we arrived, I stayed about an hour before deciding to head out. But before I could leave, I gathered his family and the rest of the girls into a circle. When all shuffled into place, there were 11 children standing a circle. He then quickly left and returned with the Prayer Staff.

The Prayer Staff is a staff that first came to IW in a vision several years ago. He was told in this vision to fashion a Prayer Staff which was to carry the prayers of the children to world leaders, that their voices may be heard regarding issues of peace and justice. This staff is wakan-sacred, and only he and the children may touch it. The staff has been all around the world and many little hands have touched it, but little hands alone for no adult may touch the children's staff.

Well, tonight, I saw the Prayer Staff for the first time after hearing about it for nearly a year. He brought it out so that the children whom I loved so deeply might pray for four boys whom they have never met, but have learned about this year and have come to call "Abby's Boys."

The smell of burning sage wafted in the air as I watched each of the children hold that staff and silently say a prayer. Almost instantly, a dam burst open within me and I began to weep. Tears streamed down my face, tears for innocence lost. As I cried, my 13 year-old niece silently but firmly slipped her arms around my waist and cradled me like a baby as I wept. My salty tears dampened her shirt but she just held me, her tears mixing with mine.

When the Prayer Staff came to another one of the children--the girl whom I have come to call Hannah Montana--I noticed that she too was weeping. Then I glanced over and saw that my nine-year-old niece was crying too. As I considered the children weeping around me for four boys they will likely never meet, my weeping soon became sobbing. And as my brother prayed and sang in Lakota, I could feel the Spirit of God.

When he was finished closing our prayer time, the girls who had cried with me, came to me. The four of just mourned in each other's arms. Again, I was struck and deeply moved by the compassion of my children. All they know of Abby and her boys is what I have told them and a few pictures they have seen. Yet they were weeping for those boys as if they were their own brothers. I soon realized that my heart was not only breaking for Abby and her precious babies, but for my precious babies. I felt moved to pray for them and for the calling God has on their lives. And so, I held each one of those girls, many of whom have had absolutely disastrous home lives, and spoke my love and God's love over them. I could feel hope just pouring over their hurt hearts and I was praising God inside.

As I drove off, three of the girls were still crying, perhaps for the boys, or perhaps for their own deep wounds. Either way, I witnessed a moment when Heaven touched earth tonight.

B

Note: I have no additional new from Abby except that they have filed a police report. I promise to pass on any and every detail I get. Your prayers mean so much to us.

Emergency Prayer Request

I received this email early this morning from one of my best friends. Abby works in Kampala, Uganda taking care of street children. She is one of the most incredible people I have ever met and the children she cares for are priceless beyond words. Here is the email--please forward it to your church, friends, etc. Pray.

Dear friends and family,

My heart today is absolutely breaking.

Yesterday, the opening of our house was a bittersweet day. We were
able to take 10 kids into our drop in center, and had a wonderful
celebration. However, we couldnt find two of the kids that were
supposed to come...

We found out that the night before at 3 in the morning 4 kids from our
programs were kidnapped in the middle of the night. Not just any 4
boys but dear, sweet, amazing young boys that I love sooo much.
William, Mukenya, Nicholas, and a 4th boy we have yet to figure out
who he is, although we can be sure we know him (because it was dark
and very crazy when it happened). They were forcibly took from the
slums in the middle of the night, put into a car and drove away. Of
all the boys in our programs they took some of our youngest and
absolutely sweetest kids (kids that would not fight back).

Child sacrifice is a huge problem here (the cover on a newspaper today
was about people convicted of sacrificing children) as well as child
trafficking (Uganda is on the US's child trafficing watch list). They
had tried to grab another one of our boys, Sharrif but he ran away and
so he watched them carry out his sleeping friend instead. He was
acting soooo badly the next day and towards the evening he finally
told us. There is no good reason that anyone would go into one of the
most dangerous slums in the middle of the night and grab children that
did not want to come, no reason at all. THey took our sweet precious
kids and we have no idea what they are doing to them.

PLEASE please please pray that God will return our kids to us and
that they will not be harmed. PLease pray


Abby