Transition

Our second graders get to try their hands at making a mandala under the mango tree, and, like children everywhere, they run off without question, already certain of where to find the brightest flowers and the greenest leaves, even in the midst of this cool, dry season.

Some of them kick their shoes off to run through the short grass, while others collect fistfuls of just the right sized rocks, bringing them to the art teacher with far more care than what they use to keep track of pencils and notebooks.

Kids are kids are kids, some days focused in like laser beams and some days wiggly and talkative and doing their unintentional best to drive their teachers up the wall.

Two of the first graders act up just enough to get themselves sent out of class and then run down the road to buy cookies and toys that are quickly confiscated when they return. Because, they are eight years old, and, without the popsicle lady at her normal place by the gate, the money is burning holes in their pockets.

The third graders are reading through books faster than we can get our hands on them and they laughingly race to beat the American on their geography quiz, not the least bit flustered when we borrow their teacher to talk through the technology (three Am*zon Fire tablets for the school) that we are slowly adding into the classrooms.

And, we're all very human and all very messy, and the teachers are gracious enough to wait a few extra days for their supplies when the airline neglects to put my bags onto the same flight as my person -- because both of our governments are in a bit of a quagmire over how, exactly money should be spent.

It's a quick trip, just long enough to join in on the filling out of report cards and the giving out of a hundred hugs and share bites of a dozen popsicles. Just long enough to wrestle with contact paper on the kitchen floor and put up new blackboard paper over the middle bit that is too slippery to really be used. To sit with one of our school grandpas while his grandson picks moringa from the tree, and to rest in the shade with some of the staff when the preschoolers leave and the afternoon fades into relative quiet.

Long enough to take part in the gluing and the cutting and the constant scheming of ways to make it better -- because, these rockstar teachers, like rockstar teachers everywhere, are constantly full of ideas to make it better. Long enough to share cinnamon tea or hot chocolate with a dozen kids at once and for my water bottle to be used as a communal cup. 

Long enough for all of the jokes about how, exactly, the four year old is getting back to the States with me. And, long enough to watch him change his mind when he hears that, in the United States, we have ice on the ground!

Long enough to be very certain that, as much as I love these people, these kids, this school -- and as nice as it is to be warm for a few days -- my season here is finished.

There are other hands and minds and hearts that are better suited to this part of the task, other adults who are ready to take this school and continue to mold it into the best that it can be. Teachers and a director who have the power to take this so much farther than I ever could. This is their time.

This is a season where I focus instead on a crew of equally incredible kids in the States. Kids who find beauty in unexpected places. Kids who are some days laser focused and some days drive their teachers up the wall. Kids who read and study and play and laugh and sing. Kids who are preparing for and in the midst of trips and transitions of their own.

And, y'all, I am just as excited for that adventure as I was for this one.

Renew

Mid January, I get to spend the weekend hanging out in the snow with some of my favorite humans.

Or, more accurately, I get to spend the weekend hanging out near the fire with some of my favorite humans, while occasionally venturing out into the cold -- because, Winter and Snow and No-Longer-Living-in-the-Tropics and Jessica-is-a-Wimp.

But, God is gracious and these high schoolers are gracious, and, even from my semi permanent spot by the fire, I got to be consistently blown away by the way that these kids Love.

No longer the tinies who ran around climbing trees and jumping into recycling bins during Sunday School or the middle schoolers who we drug out of their cabins for a sleep fogged knighting ceremony, they have held onto that fierce, gentle love that has always driven them and surrounded them.

It has been molded and changed by time, by shifting realities, by the individual battles that they fight in their own hearts and heads, but these kids love each other uniquely and they love each other well. There are stories that I have missed in the past year and a half, victories and hurts that I am only beginning to make sense of. And, yet, when we are conscious enough to let it -- when I am conscious enough to let it -- their gentleness spills over onto us old people as well.

When we are fiercely protective, when we hold careful space, when we chase after God and let God chase after us, it is enough.

Enough to spend an hour in silence and solitude, followed by a half eaten lunch...and then a forty-five minute snowball fight that leaves them dripping and breathless just in time for chapel. Enough to sit quietly on the couches and talk about the future or the past or what it is that is happening right now, this weekend, this moment.

Enough to spend what totals up to a couple of hours in corporate prayer and a few additional hours of private time with Jesus, rather than going for stage theatrics or noisy, messy, destructive types of games. Not because those things are bad, but, because, this year, we might just need a quieter, gentler sort of space to heal.

A space where the kids can tell us when they are going to opt out of a moment or an activity that makes them uncomfortable, and where games of screaming ninja and fooseball can still send shrieks echoing through the space that we occupy. Where dance parties and odd traditions and the watching of The Little Mermaid mingle with watching the stars and taking goofy pictures around the fire pit. Where we curl close together to pray and they flop over the tops of each other on the couches.

Where we ground each other in stories, and where God is present. Maybe not always in the spectacular kinds of ways that we like to ask for, but present, nonetheless. Present in just the right kind of snow that is too wet for snowballs but perfect for being dropped over another person in chunks, so that the playing field for their snow battle is leveled, and they come back laughing and uninjured.

Present in arranging vehicles for the ride up and back, and in the quiet space that couches create in the midst of the hubbub of meals. In brilliant stars and in the whir of a kitchen dishwasher. In endless cups of coco and in cabin snacks for kids who skip meals but find themselves still hungry. In quiet, honest conversations, and in The One Who Hears every broken, hopeful word that we pray. Love that wraps around us in the places where we are wounded.

Here we celebrate when they are brave, sometimes with a glance and sometimes by loud applause. Because, in so many more ways than I could count, and in a thousand stories that are not mine to share, these kids are brave. Brave enough to come. Brave enough to keep trying. Brave enough to want to forgive.

For now, these ones aren't endless theology questions or wild energy. Instead, we have kids who scurry off to find paper towels for a spill without being asked; who show up in the kitchen as if it were the most natural place to be. Who watch each other so carefully that I can learn paragraphs simply by following their gaze. We have the ones who shield with church answers but let the truth slip out when they think that we might not be looking. The types of kids who are talking about boot camp one minute and their favorite poets the next.

Freshmen and Seniors who show us what it is to love without condition or expectation. Sophomores who who carry quiet wisdom and a stubborn refusal to be seen as anything but what they are. Juniors who hold our systems and our traditions, curate them for us so that we have proof, proof that we were here when God showed up.

Fiercely protective, holding careful space, chasing after God and letting God chase after us.

In some wild, messy, beautiful way, while we were all sleep deprived and tumbling all over each other like a pack of lion cubs let loose in a park, something Holy washed over our weekend with a gentle, subtle sort of Grace.

And, like all things Holy, it might not have been easy, but it was Good.