The weather is cooling rapidly here.
Cool enough that we sleep without fans and wake up cocooned in our sheets. Cool enough to go the day without sweating. Cool enough for the eleven year old to wander around in a sweatshirt on the morning that he stays home sick.
It rains often, and someone mentions that we are moving into tarantula season. So long as they stay out of my bed, I can be okay with that.
Because, it is also papaya season. Also time for the kids in the house to fall back into the rhythm of school after two weeks of exams and holiday. Time to set aside the sorting and begin to shape the outlines of this curriculum.
How fast can we go? Where do we need to start? How much learning can we pack into a hundred odd days of school? Enough to get them ready for the next grade? Enough to do this well?
A visiting team helps me to paint alphabet rocks and counting stones, two high school girls scouring the backyard for the perfect rocks and scrubbing them clean. Odds this color, evens that. Earth tones and brilliant primaries. Making the sorts of beautiful materials that encourage kids' desire to touch, to play, to find the patterns, to learn.
And, there are still a hundred miles to go, but it is a glimpse of what I am hoping, what I am dreaming for this school. That it will be a place for little people to play, to learn, to imagine. A place to fill with love and peace and bins and buckets full of books. A place that belongs to the teachers, but more so to the students, because, when you care about a place, you take care of it.
You learn to be responsible, to belong, to believe that you are loved.
Because, my prayers for them are so similar to my prayers for my kids in the States.
That they would know Love. That they would know Peace. That they would know Grace.
That there would be beauty in the midst of whatever mess might come. That the one who holds the Universe would whisper Truth about their identity, about their strength, about their gifts, would scream it from the rooftops, to combat the lies that try so hard to fill their heads.
That there would be healing for their hurts and shelter from their fears. That there would be an anchor in the midst of their storms. That there would be peace that passes understanding and a constant reminder that they are loved, that they are valued, that they are important.
That they would be marked with a prophetic imagination, and that they would believe that they are capable of accomplishing the things set before them.
That they would fall in love with words and numbers, with science and history and the things that fill our ancient, ever changing world. That their hearts would be captured by the Father of Lights and their spirits would be settled by the One who watches over them like a mother hen.
The One who Sees, One who Knows, One who Hears, and Remembers, and Acts. The One with more names than we could pretend to grasp.
That they would know that they are known by the Divine, and that everything else would flow from that knowing.
Because, kids who feel safe, kids who feel loved, kids who feel at peace? Those are the kids who grasp what is possible. Those are the kids who learn more quickly and retain more. Those are the kids who grow. Those are the kids who find the courage to change their world.
So, we'll study French and Creole and Art and Maths. We'll read and write and explore. But, when we hire teachers, we'll hire the sorts of adults who Love.
If you want to pray, pray for those things.
