A life less mediocre

In only three weeks our year long stint at Keranse School will be over- actually a year and three months, though I have to say time has absolutely flown. In November our student teachers will all move from their respective training schools to Arusha for a month. They’ll live on base at The Joshua Foundation and study for their end of year exams. Then next year they’re on to new and exciting places and adventures for their final three month block practice, government final exams in May, then life as the newest Tanzanian teacher graduates. Us mentors will continue to be in schools every other week for that teaching practice, but will rotate through the six different schools rather than the one we’ve been in. It feels a little like the end of a long uphill battle to get our students through the challenging theory and practice part of their course, but the view from the top is worth it. This week especially I have been so encouraged by what I’ve seen them achieving in the classroom. I’ve seen dramatisation, science experiments, composing songs, cooperation games, cooking classes, field trips to the local market and countless other excellent teaching strategies, always made doubly impressive by the minimal resources available and less-than-seamless syllabus they have to work within.

Us mentors often find ourselves reminding our student teachers as they work through their course that it is God who gives us wisdom. But when I stop to listen to what I tell my students I have to confess I often forget this very thing myself. Over the last year and a half I have constantly been pushed out of my comfort zone, teaching an unfamiliar syllabus in an unfamiliar country to people with very different upbringings to my own. So many times I have found myself completely at the end of my own abilities and crying out to God to give me wisdom. I think that’s exactly where God wants me to be- at the end of my abilities and crying out for his! I pray and hope that I’ll never fall into the trap of being too satisfied in my own abilities. I think that sitting still in that place is really not so different from moving backwards. What a waste when I serve a God who so willingly pushes us out of our comfort zone and then shocks us by staying right there and walking with us.

I know at least 6 young Tanzanian men who are at the start of that journey and who are going to make a huge difference in the years to come as teachers. They have chosen not to settle for the status quo and I have to say that I’m inspired to do the same. So here’s to a lack of comfort zones and a life less mediocre.