The cow ‘turds’ of my past are the compost of my future

As I rode my motorcycle to an orphanage a year or so ago I was petrified I wouldn’t have anything to say to the kid I was going to counsel. I had thoughts of listening to his story and not even understanding what he was saying as he was from Ambon and, even though my Indonesian is pretty good, I might simply not be able to understand what he was saying. Even if I managed to understand, I was filled with uncertainty about whether I would be able to be of any help to him whatsoever. Doubt tortured me and I wondered why I had volunteered myself to be an ear for these kids.

And then it happened. As the kid spoke I was filled with awe at how great God is. He shared his life story, growing up in Ambon and how his father had abandoned his family. His struggle with guilt because of the terrible model he had been for his younger brother and on and on…. It was all exactly the same or very close to the experiences I had during my childhood and teen years.

The next week I went through the exact same doubts and in a completely different context the next kid had experiences very similar to mine. And so, week after week, God sent teens for me to minister to and ironically He had prepared me to minister to them over a decade before through the experiences I went through during my childhood.

Not long after a minister was preaching and he said “Pupuk masa laluku menjadi pupuk untuk masa depanku” (the cow ‘turds’ of my past are the compost of my future) For me it all fit together as it only can when God is the orchestrator. I saw that all the pain and problems I had experienced with my father’s suicide, leaving home at 14 years old and almost 10 years of substance abuse and wandering, were partly preparation for the ministry I love doing these days.

I resolved to take a different perception of problems and always be (at least partly) pleased when trouble strikes as I trust that God has something in store for me. Amen

If you think of your spirit or ‘spiritual man’ as a physical being, what type of person are they ?

Is your spirit man malnourished and weak ? Is your spirit man fat, greedy and lazy ? Is your spirit man well trained and an example of a well tuned machine ?

If your spirit man is malnourished, FEED HIM !! You may be living in a body that gets a big hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, lunch of pizza and salad and a dinner of steak, potatoes, peas and carrots followed by ice cream and chocolate sauce BUT your spirit man has to starve or make do with a cold snack of bible reading, prayer or worship a couple of times a week.

If your spirit man is fat and lazy you are probably the sort of person who loves being blessed. You go to church or read the bible or pray knowing that you will get something out of it. The problem is you fail to give back (or give away). Look for opportunities to be a blessing. Take the Word of God as it is meant to be taken, literally, and feed the poor and widows.

If your spiritual man is well trained, good. Don’t loose your conditioning. The muscles of a body builder will turn to fat as soon as they stop working out. Keep growing and building in God and as you flex your spiritual muscles the Devil will be rebuked and people will see the good deeds you do and come to know your father in Heaven. Amen

Imagine you were on the spaceship in the picture above. The environment you had just been in was desolate but it was all you had ever known. You existed there and you knew how to survive, perhaps you had even found some happiness and contentment.

Then one day you realized there was another potential place to live. You set off on a journey to the place in the distance. If you looked at where you were going it would be small compared with the place you were coming from which would fill your perspective.

As you travelled you would reach the half way point and eventually the place you were going would fill more and more of your perspective. Eventually your new destination would be prominent and the place you came from would be small in the distance.

This is an analogy of our walk with God. The old environment is ourselves, our ego. We must leave it behind and take on more and more of His characteristics until the old self we once were is in the distance past and He fills all of our perspective.

God Bless You

Integrity

As a teacher I work very hard, planning and preparing classes to insure that the students are challenged, motivated, and engaged. It is not easy, many factors are working against me. The main one is that the students are so used to getting through their school day in a form of cognitive hibernation.

Einstein said “ It is a wonder that imagination survives formal education”

As education professionals we no longer have any excuse. Multiple intelligence theory, bloom’s taxonomy and the basic psychology of education has been well established for decades now. We understand the way children learn and the factors that affect the process.

Yet still, in classrooms all over the world (I am willing to bet) students are being bored senseless, not because they are a generation of hedonistic, pleasure seeking, MTV watching demons but because teachers fail to engage and inspire them.

There are a multiple number of reasons and factors that lead to this classroom genocide of our children :

1) The education system was not created for unique individuals to learn and discover the world around and within them. It was created to pigeon hole each member of society. This is by far the biggest obstacle. WHY do we send our children to school for 6 hours a day over a period of 12 – 20+ years ? What benefit can all that ‘preparation’ have when the ‘real life work’ they are being prepared for will last a mere decade longer than the education process ?
2) A lot of teachers are disenchanted with the profession, the conditions, the salary, the administration, the class sizes, the curriculum etc.
3) After 4,5,10 years of teaching generation after generation, some find it difficult to recreate the enthusiasm they found for their vocation.
4) And YES, children are changing. Society has changed. Kids today are used to MTV – images and sounds flicking and changing every 5 seconds or so. Even CNN and other news channels are sensory overloads. Monotone teachers and a couple of photocopies have the same effect on the student as shooting them with a strong tranquilizer. Text books full of pretty colored pictures of people in the 1980’s don’t compare to what these kids can access when they get home from school every day; the latest news + clips from all over the world as it happened just minutes ago, via the internet.

And yet I accept NONE of these excuses !! No principal or colleague may see. The students themselves may not even complain. You may have a million and one reasons why you go into a class and teach a mediocre lesson but God knows. He will reward you for what you do in secret. Not just give away money but going the extra mile because you know that if you inspire your students you are affecting them, their peers, their family and everyone they come into contact with in the future.

Study, learn, grow as a teacher, being inspiring, teach with passion, give 110%, do more than the administration expects of you, more than the students expect of you, more than you did yesterday. You are shaping the future generation.

Three quotes to finish.The first two are from famous people but I must appoligise as I have lost the names of the original authors. The 3rd is my own.

1. “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

2. “Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality.
It is the words that speak boldly of your intentions.
And the actions which speak louder than the words.
It is making the time when there is none.
Coming through time after time after time, year after year after year.
Commitment is the stuff character is made of; the power to change the face of things.
It is the daily triumph of integrity over skepticism.”

3. If you can’t commit, get out of the way and let someone who can do your job !!

God Bless You, especially if you’re one of those who go the extra mile, day after day.