When the World is Bigger than Monte Plata

I share this blog a bit hesitantly. I didn't write this letter for you. I wrote this letter to my state senators, hoping to give them yet another reason, another petition, another motivation to act against ISIS. This morning's headline of 90 more captured Assyrian Christians was too much for me to handle. We have Kids Alive sites in the Middle East - our kids, our staff, too close for comfort to this fighting. After a conversation and time of prayer with my students here, Mick suggested that I write to my senators. If you read this letter and find yourself nodding your head in agreement, write to yours too. You can find out how at this website. All I can do from Monte Plata is pray and talk about what's going on. What can you do?

Senator,

I am writing to you today from a dusty little town called Monte Plata in the Dominican Republic. I was born and raised in Arizona, went to Arcadia High School and graduated in the top 1% of my class, graduated Summa Cum Laude from ASU in 2009, taught for 4 years at a Title I school in Glendale, and was a Rodel Exemplary Teacher Semi-Finalist. I now live in a town with limited electricity, inconsistent water supply, millions of mosquitoes, and the most abusive cycle of poverty I have ever seen. I work with Kids Alive International and we seek to rescue at-risk children and provide them with quality, holistic care in order to create a generation of Dominicans who are able to break the cycle of poverty that plagues this country and it's neighbor, Haiti. I work at a school in which 160 children learn, eat, bathe, cry, fight, and struggle each day.  Our children are abused, abandoned, orphaned, hungry, dirty, and unloved. They understand suffering more than most. They inspire me every day with their questions, their fight for maturity, and their drive to do their best despite all the odds being stacked against them. 

Can I tell you what they asked me today? I was in our 8th grade classroom getting ready to begin math class. We were praying and I mentioned that we need to pray for the situation with ISIS in Syria. I told them that 90 more men, women, and children had been abducted yesterday. They are aware of the situation in Syria because Kayla Mueller was my cousin's neighbor and childhood babysitter. My cousin visited me in Monte Plata last year so Kayla's story was something with which my students could tangibly relate. They understand that the victims of ISIS are real people with real families. One of my students raised her hand before we prayed and asked me, "But, Profe Kristin, why isn't anyone doing anything? They are killing children!" 

What a simple question. "Why isn't anyone doing anything?" When this question comes from the mouth of a young woman who has never had running water in her house, from the mouth of a young man who has never gone a day in his life without being left in the dark when the power goes out, from the mouth of a girl who lives with the pain of hunger is each and every weekend, from the mouth of a boy who has watched his mother die from cancer on a dirt floor with no medical care..."Why isn't anyone doing anything?" takes on a whole new meaning. My students could easily say the same about their situation - about their suffering - about their day-to-day life. But they're not asking you to do anything about their suffering. They are asking on behalf of their Christian brothers and sisters in Syria who are suffering for their faith, who are living in fear, who are being persecuted and killed every day. Why aren't we doing anything? 

My students know that I am not like them. They know that I am from America. They know that I have money with which I can travel on an airplane and buy food whenever I need it. They know that our lives are very, very different. And they know that America has power. They know that America can do something. They just don't understand why we haven't acted. I don't either. 

Please, on behalf of my students here in Monte Plata, on behalf of my Christian brothers and sisters in Syria and around the world, please do something. It is time to act. The suffering is too great. The excuses must end. 

Sincerely,

Kristin and her students in Monte Plata

A Bit of Honesty

The weeks roll on...one into another. Lesson plans are written and taught, children are disciplined, water runs out, electricity is turned on and off, over and over again, internet cuts out in the middle of important conversations, fourth grade boys get into fights, quizzes are graded with discouragement, sponsorship projects are done, letters are translated, and kids are loved for 8 hours a day and then sent home to the real world. Normal days, normal weeks. I used to say that "the only routine here is that there is no routine." I find it amazing that such a physically-uncomfortable place has become so comfortable, so routine, and so normal to me. 

It's very tempting for me to only share the good stories - the stories with the happy endings - the "smiling kids giving me hugs" pictures that make it seem like every day of ministry here is successful in human-terms. 

But reality is that it is hard. It is really, really hard. 

Juana Prenza, who began the ministry here in Monte Plata with her husband, is known for saying "If the kids at our school are behaving like angels, we don't need this school anymore." The fact is, we are working with many of the roughest, neediest, most abused, neglected, hungry, and abandoned kids in Monte Plata. There are going to be many, many difficult, challenging, make-you-want-to-give-up-and-go-home moments. That's the job. And for North-Americans, that's the job in your second language and second culture.

So the weeks roll on...one into another. The normal school stuff happens. Life happens. The days bleed into each other...

• And teachers cry because they feel helpless to inspire change in their students who come to school with absolutely no example of respectful or safe behavior. 
• And a school psychologist tears up as he talks to our staff about the reason our children behave so poorly in the lunch room - almost every single one of them had never eaten a meal at a table on a real plate before they came to our school. 
• And a 7th grade girl cries in your office as she tells you that her mother said "I wish you would have died when you were born."
• And another middle school girl can't get more than 2 words out at a time as she sits with you at your desk and tells you through her sobs how "heavy her heart feels" ever since her mom passed away unexpectedly last year. 
• And a student's mother comes to your house late at night asking for money, and you have to turn her away because you have already loaned her more than you know is wise.
• And you break up a fight between two young students in the street and lead them back to the school's office because even though they're uttering curse words under their breath at you, you know that discipline and consistency is the best thing for them. 
• And a 6th grade boy calls you some foul names in front of his friends, so you calmly wait until you can speak to him alone and explain that you hurt more for him and his future than you do for yourself after being called those names - because you know that he'll call the wrong person those names out in the street one day and end up in a horrible Dominican prison, or worse. 
• And the older sister of one of your students sits with you and describes how scared she is for her sister, because the internet makes it so easy for kids to find things they shouldn't be finding at younger and younger ages. 

And that's all in a "normal" week. That is the routine. And I sit in my house on Saturday night and think about it all starting over again on Monday and I feel helpless and tired and ineffective. I'm so tired that even leaving my house and having to live in my second culture seems too overwhelmingly exhausting that I'd rather not even try. I'm so hungry for spiritual community that listening to another online sermon by myself seems like it'd be more discouraging that soul-feeding at this point. It's not all smiling kids and adventure. It's a lot of monotonous, soul-wrenching days that leave you empty, exhausted, and confused. And those days are normal now. 

My prayer is not that the Lord would liberate me from days and weeks like this. My prayer is not that God would make things easier. My prayer it not that God would take me away from here.

Instead,

• I pray He would take me farther out of my comfort zone - even though my comfort zone is all the uncomfortable things described above - so that I depend more on Him.
• I pray He would make each moment special again, like they all were when I first got here and was still in the honeymoon phase of missionary life. 
• I pray He would give me renewed strength and renewed energy to continue in ministry. 
• I pray He would give me a heart of thankfulness that sees beauty in my host culture instead of only frustration.
• I pray He would keep bringing us the toughest, hardest kids that make me want to cry and run away every day, because they're the kids who need to be here the most.
• I pray He would show me His face in the reality and in the days and weeks that bleed into each other.