GYC SE 2013: Called Apart

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GYC Southeast

GYC SE 2013: Called to Serve

Alyssa Williams

Christ in the Classroom

Before I begin, I'd like to start with a word of prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this Sabbath day that you are here with us and that you called us to rest and just reflect on you.

God, I pray that you speak through me and encourage all of us to serve wherever we are.

All right, so I'm excited to share with you guys my student missionary experience in Pohnpei.

I chose to be an SM not because God had this loud booming voice that said, Alyssa, go be a student missionary.

It was more of just a thought that would pass through my head like, you should go serve, go serve, go serve.

And after listening to that thought, I ended up in Panapé teaching second grade of 18 wild, crazy students that I loved, and I was there for 10 months.

If you guys don't know where Pohnpei is, it's an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Before I got to Pohnpei, I knew 2 things.

First, I knew that I was going to go away for 10 months and focus solely on serving God.

And the second thing I knew was that I wanted to teach second grade.

I had no clue the amount of patience that I would need, the amount of stress that I would be under, and how frustrating I would have to handle situations, frustrating situations.

I also had no clue the amount of love my heart could hold or the amount of joy my children would end up giving me or how much how much my students would end up teaching me.

The first day of school I had my lesson plans done, I had my classroom decorated, it was about to be filled up with students and I was ready to teach.

But I was also really nervous and so I went to morning worship and after morning worship I remember standing in the hallway with 2 of my new student missionary friends and holding shaking hands, we were praying that God would lead us through this day.

I got right to my classroom and all the butterflies went out the door and teacher Miss Williams came to life and I was able to greet the parents, assure them that their kids were safe with me and I was able to meet my kids.

We went right into getting to know each other and singing songs.

And it was when we were singing, Father Abraham, have many sons, that my heart just filled up with so much joy.

I could barely sing because I wanted to laugh.

And That kind of joy only comes from our Heavenly Father.

Well, I went through, I looked at my lesson plan, I got to know the kids, I went over my rules and procedures, we did some other activities, and then I looked at my watch and it was 930 and I was completely out of stuff to do.

I had just totally not lesson planned enough and so somehow I think I played heads up 7-up with the kids And we made it to our 10 o'clock PE.

And there I realized that I met up with the other elementary teachers and we all just had this look on our face, like what did I just get myself into?

And Somehow, with God, we made it through the day, and those next couple of weeks were just totally devoted to learning how to better lesson plan, how to discipline, how to manage our classrooms.

It was really a frustrating and stressful time for me because I had 18 kids and I was trying to teach them verbs It's what you do, but I couldn't get them to do anything, but just talk to each other and so it was a lot of trial and error and I laugh as I look back on that because after practice and just getting to know how to be a teacher, the next quarter was a lot more manageable for me.

There were times where I would walk up in front of my classroom and just look at them and be like, how do I get them to be quiet?

And I'd turn and face the chalkboard and just breathe.

And I knew that I could get through this.

I believe God uses the people around us to help us to get through difficult times.

And there were 20 other student missionaries with me on the island of Panape.

Now at first when we were in Hawaii for orientation and I saw how many other kids were going with me, I was like, oh, maybe I should not go, like, I'll go to another island with 1 or 2 people, I'm going to rough it up, you know, this year is for God.

But God knew what he was doing when he put 20 other missionaries on that island because we would have greeting parties where we would swap stories and just tell each other our school experiences.

And they really uplifted me and encouraged me and our stories would be something like this, like I was so tired that I just told my kids that if they had a question, just come see me at my desk so I could sit.

But then the next minute later, I would have 16 kids in my face saying, miss, I need help.

I loved that I had the opportunity to be an example of Jesus.

My kids came from homes of abusive fathers and that is something that is totally acceptable in Pohnpei.

And so even if I knew 1 of my kids was going through a rough situation at home, I couldn't do anything about it.

And that was something that was really hard for me to deal with.

And so that was why it was so important for me to show them Jesus in the classroom.

I had 1 student that had dropped a jar, a glass jar, in my classroom and it made a big noise and glasses everywhere and my kids just all paused and looked up like what is Miss Williams going to do?

And to me it's like okay mistakes happen like it's okay.

And so this was my turn to just say, you know what, it's okay, we all make mistakes.

I still love you and God still loves you too.

If you guys have ever talked to little kids and talked to them about Jesus, you know exactly what I mean.

We would talk about our angels and how our angels must be friends because they always see each other.

And there was 1 moment where I just briefly mentioned that when I pray I like to picture God at his heavenly throne.

And the next day after I prayed, after morning worship, my student Caitlin raises her hand and she says, Miss, Miss, I pictured Jesus at his heavenly throne when you prayed.

And it was just little moments like these that warmed my heart and just made all the hard stressful times worth it.

Every Friday for chapel, first through third grade would meet.

And chapel was a chaotic time, but it was really fun and our kids loved getting together and we would sing songs really loudly so that the whole school could hear us.

And after singing we usually had 1 of the teachers improv a Bible story or something like that.

And 1 time I actually had my kids act out a Bible story that I was telling.

They had so much fun on stage and just being goofballs.

And that was actually 1 of my favorite things, like, about teaching second grade was because I could just pull that, I'm a second grade teacher, I can be a goofball with you guys.

1 student that always made me smile was Norman.

Norman was like the Winnie Pooh of my classroom.

He had the biggest smile and he was a really smart boy.

But I would be teaching at the board, look over and Norman's off in his own other world.

It was like whatever he had, a water bottle, a pencil, he was making it a game.

And finally, he would wake up and realize that I was standing right there.

And he just gives me this little smile and I couldn't help but smile back.

And every time that Norman was sad, all I had to do was pull out the tickle spider and he would just smile again.

If you were a fly on the wall at the school, you would see a jungle gym of crazy kids.

I mean, these guys were running everywhere, always hanging on you.

By PE time, they were sweating, you were sweating, all the sweat was mixing, and it was just a lot of, go back to your desk go sit down be quiet and hearing miss Miss he hit me miss She pushed me and we went over the classroom rules a lot But this taught me how to be firm with them.

And that's something that a lot of them don't get in their home life is firm parents in the correct manner.

So it was a good opportunity for all of the teachers to have that in the classroom.

They would also have trouble focusing on school lessons.

I would normally teach my lessons up at the board and then we would do a couple examples on the homework together and then I'd give them time to work individually.

But it was right when I was done teaching and going back to my desk, miss I don't get it, miss.

So I'm like okay I'm the teacher, like I'm here to help.

I go over to their desk and nothing is written down on their paper.

So it just like really tried my patience.

And I would go back to my desk and kind of just pray, write out prayers to God.

Like, God, I am trying to teach, but they won't listen.

And there were so many times where I just hear this soft little voice, like, I am the same way.

Oh, what made it all worth it was those moments of Mark saying, aw, miss, I get it, or Kavika improving on his reading, or watching Makiva and Vitra at the chalkboard pretending to be Miss Williams.

Richard Maskelony

Answer Today and Q&A

And I taught primarily high school, well, only high school.

And so I'm just going to share 1 experience, start off 1 experience I faced.

It was 9 o'clock the day before the first day of school.

I was sweaty, tired, hungry, hadn't had dinner yet, just came from meeting a bunch of Filipino guys who live on the island, and together we had just played basketball for an hour or so.

I was viciously fouled as being about a foot taller than everyone there.

So I was a little bruised too, and so I just got out of the shower and I dried off and I was still wet.

I'm pretty sure it's around 100% humidity over there.

But then I hear a bunch of ruckus, a bunch of noise downstairs in the center of campus.

We lived on a campus compound that was pretty much entirely.

These are Alyssa's pictures right now by SM2, but these are entirely just, all the apartments are there, everyone's there, and in the middle I just heard all this noise.

And I looked out, and you can hear everything because there's no air conditioning.

And I was wondering, you know, what's happening?

And 1 of the guys I was rooming with came up and said, hey, the principal's niece is hurt.

And so I was like, okay, you know, I'm tired.

I'm like, okay, so how many people are going?

And most of the guys had already left, and 1 more truck was gonna go.

And so I was pretty much left with a choice.

My foot, 1 foot was literally out the door and the other was literally inside.

I have every excuse in the book to not go.

But I felt the spirit pull me and I went.

We're gonna start with, yeah, 36 through 38.

Jesus was performing a ministry of healing.

And as we read, as we heard earlier today, if you've been here at GYC, Jesus' main mode wasn't just going and doing everything himself, but instead involving as many people as possible.

But he wanted to heal, he wanted to restore.

And Luke 4, 18 and 19 were previously told that Jesus came to heal that which was broken.

And so that's why in verse 35 we read, and Jesus went through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

Why is Jesus telling them the harvest is plenty?

But the question is, why doesn't Jesus just do it?

He sees the great need, but instead he says to them, there is great need.

These people, let's look back to the verse describing them, their condition.

He saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless.

They're harassed and helpless, and they are like sheep without a shepherd.

No, the shepherd is there, personally guiding them, making sure they have everything they need.

Just as a shepherd is needed for sheep, the same is for people who need to be led to Jesus.

I'm sure each of us has been lost before.

I'm sure each of us has had the need to have Jesus shown to them.

And something else was shown to us as well.

Many people may, this weekend, have felt the call, heard it, understood that Jesus is calling them to ministry, but just like me in that doorway.

You could be saying, Oh, I'm probably, He doesn't need me though.

I ran up to the last vehicle and said, okay, okay, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go.

And so, we drove through roads that would later become very familiar to me and to the hospital, where we immediately found out that they, She needed 3 pints of blood, 3 units.

I don't know if that's actually pints or not, don't quote me, I'm not a nursing major, so...

So we all got our blood types tested, and I prayed, I said, "'Lord, please let there be at least 3 people.

I didn't know if she would survive without it.

And we waited for a grueling half an hour.

After this half an hour period, we found out exactly 3 people were there that had B positive blood, and I was 1 of them.

It's so easy for us to underestimate our own influence.

It's so easy for us to say, you know, because I've gone through hard times before, because I'm not perfect, I must not be that important.

But the reality is, it's because of your past sufferings, because of your past failures, because of your story that you are needed.

Because you can go to people and show them how Jesus has worked in you to bring them through what they're experiencing then.

Once I got there, it was so clear to me that it was God's will.

I would teach kids that struggled through anger like I struggled through, that didn't have a positive father figure like I do.

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GYC SE 2013: Called to Serve

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Christ in the Classroom

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