Category: Other Page 6 of 184

You Were Right, Dad

I picked up our Round Table pizza last night, and I thought about Frank.

The summer I was sixteen, my dad declared that I would be getting a summer job. He helped me write a resume, and one Saturday morning, drove me around to local businesses, stopped the car, and forced me to get out and introduce myself to managers. I was not an outgoing person, but my dad believed in throwing me in the deep end.

One of those places was Copy Plus, a small store owned by Frank, which was just a few blocks away from my home in California. I got the job that same week. (It was either that or the candy store at the mall. Given these options, I figured a copy store was going to be better than any mall job. I was right.)

Frank was my first boss. He was from Philly, and he often told me the story of the gunshot wound on his elbow. One of my first lessons from him was that if anyone ever came into the store with a gun, I should open the cash register and back away. My wide-eyed little sixteen-year-old suburban self wondered what I had gotten myself into. After all, this was my neighborhood shopping center, not the ghetto.

Frank had a big laugh and an even bigger heart. He looked after me like a daughter, and he shared his business and his life with me. Every morning, he would tell me how much money we made the day before. We weren’t Kinko’s, he would tell me, but Copy Plus always went the extra mile.

It was just making copies, I thought–but with Frank, it wasn’t just making copies. Frank taught me how to run and service his giant, high speed copy machines, and I learned the thrill of getting them all working at the same time. The rhythmic chanting of those machines were the background noise as he taught me how to make our customers happy. I learned how to smile at strangers, how to solve people’s problems, how to meet deadlines. I experienced the exhilaration of handing a satisfied customer a nice, neat box of a job well done.

Frank showed me what good business looks like. What a good boss looks like.

Now that I think about it, I learned a lot about life at Copy Plus. Parts of Frank are indelibly a part of who I am.

Over the next several years, I quit that job four times–to go back to high school, to go to college, to be a camp counselor, to be a student teacher. Whenever I visited home, I would visit Frank, and every time, he asked me if I wanted my job back. He hired me back–four times. Copy Plus became a part of my history.

Round Table Pizza was just two doors down from Copy Plus. Round Table is still there, but there’s a UPS store where Copy Plus used to be. My parents have lived in the same house since I was two years old (minus the years in Africa), so when we visit, we order our pizza from the same Round Table. Last night, picking up the pizza, I lingered in front of that UPS store, and I remembered Frank. And I remembered that day my dad forced me out of that car with my resume. He told me that one day when I was older, I would thank him for it. He was right.

Four Continents in a Week

When your flight plan takes you through Istanbul, Turkey, why not go ahead and just hang out for a few days?

And while you’re at it, why not just head over to Greece too? I mean, as long as you’re in the neighborhood. 

Why not? Well, visiting Greece involved missing the last few days of school, so just Grace and her Daddy got to be the lucky ones to do that part. Pretty awesome experience for my 13-year-old Percy Jackson fan. The rest of us left the day after HOPAC finished (Which, yes, this did mean that I departed Dar es Salaam by myself at 3 a.m. with my three remaining children. But no worries–only two of them threw up on the plane. That was totally fun.) Ahem. But hey–Greece for my daughter and husband: Worth it.

We met up in Istanbul, which we explored as a family for four days. We visited the famous Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia–the church turned mosque turned museum, and the massive underground Basilica Cisterns. We visited museums full of ancient statues, thousands of years old, and other pieces pillaged from Egypt and the middle east during the reign of Constantinople. We traveled by ferry and tram and bus and suspended trolley.

But our kids’ favorite part was probably the food, especially since they had been inculcated by Mark Weins’ food videos for a few weeks before the trip (who happens to be the son of a friend of ours). America sells nachos and hotdogs in their park stands, but Istanbul sells corn-on-the-cob and chestnuts. We never got tired of the thinly sliced meat and the piles and piles of Turkish delight. And of course, the ice cream sellers who always tease their customers with lavish performances before finally handing them a cone.

Since Istanbul has the distinction of being part of two continents, we were all pretty impressed that we went through four continents in a week: Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. 

She’s a runner, and now she’s run in the original Olympic stadium. How cool is that?

Back together again in Istanbul

He went through four continents in a week, and I think his favorite part was this kitten. 

All I Knew Was That I Didn’t Want to be Michael Scott

I’m so used to processing my thinking in this space. These past two years, It has been odd for me to do a job for 45+ hours a week and yet write so little about it. And now that I’m in America (did you know that? I’m in
America for the summer–surprise!), people ask me, “So how is it being
principal?” And I open my mouth and I smile and nothing comes out. How do I even start? How do I begin to describe an experience that I haven’t really processed yet?

I think I watched way too much of The Office before I became an administrator. Michael Scott gave me the impression that bosses just prowled around all day, looking over people’s shoulders and distracting
them from doing their jobs. I knew I didn’t want to be him, but I wasn’t
exactly sure what a good boss did do. 

I had spent almost 20 years involved in education, so I had worked for principals before, of course, but I really hadn’t the foggiest idea of what a day in the life of a principal actually looked like. How would I figure out what I was supposed to do all day? It’s probably a good thing I didn’t admit this two years ago. You might have wondered why on earth I was qualified for the job. I actually wondered that myself, honestly. I just blindly trusted the people around me who assured me that they knew I could do it.

It took me approximately five minutes to realize that I didn’t
need to worry about figuring out what I was supposed to do. It’s like a
game of Whack-a-Mole. The first mole popped up, and as soon as I whacked it, five more took it’s place. And from that first day, I just kept whacking moles for the next two years. They just never stopped popping up. If this had been Chuck E. Cheese’s, I definitely would have earned 20 bazillion prize tickets.
(Don’t worry; no children are actually whacked.)

So. Other than being really busy, how is it being principal?

I love it. Yes, I love it. I say that with no hesitation. This is a school that Gil and I helped to build, how could I not love it? I get to be a part of the 100+ staff from all over the world that make up Haven of Peace Academy. I supervise about twenty of them and work alongside the rest. The level of love and trust we have for each other, despite occasional conflicts, is extraordinary. We are not just a work place, we are a community.

I love these kids. Oh my gosh, I love these kids. Some of them crack me up. They come up to talk to me and I start laughing before they even
speak, because I know it will be hilarious. Lots of them make me
cry. There’s the ones who are struggling to read but then win every race
on Sports Day. The ones who are struggling to speak English but create
masterpieces in art class. And the ones who are very familiar with my office. I think those ones hold the deepest places in my heart.

I read and commented on 150 report cards during the last week of
school. It made my head spin and drove my stress up to an unhealthy level but I felt like a proud parent. So much progress evidenced on those ordinary pieces of paper. Evidence of teachers who poured their very souls into
children–countless hours of energy and love. Evidence of children who read and calculated and imagined for 180 days, who allowed their minds to be expanded and their responsibility to be stretched. I’m so proud of
my school. 

That’s the easy part to talk about. Yes, I love it. But this job, these past two years, have been so much more complex than that. I love it, and it is intense. That intensity is the part that I haven’t really processed, nor can I really write about in detail. Teachers struggling through anxiety or depression. Kids with learning disabilities that we don’t know how to handle,
nor are there better options available in Tanzania. Kids coming to school with emotional needs that we can’t meet but suck us dry. Countless parents desperate to get their kids into our school, and I have to break their hearts.

And the recruiting: Not enough teachers. Never enough teachers. A teacher who says yes and then has to back out due to medical concerns. Will God provide? He always does. Somehow. But still I am anxious. It all is a weight I fight to cast off my shoulders and onto His.

And then there’s me: Will I be enough? Can I be enough? Every time
I think I’m ahead, another five moles pop up. I’m a task-driven person, and
this is a job full of tasks, but I worry, constantly, that I’m choosing tasks
over people. In working with teachers/parents/students, I straddle the line between grace and policy, forgiveness and law. Am I getting it right? I second guess myself often. Did I say the right thing in that email? Did I handle that discipline situation correctly? Well, no time to ponder that, because I’m off onto the next thing. Make me enough, I pray. But I won’t ever be. It’s only God who is enough. So let the stress go, Amy.

Two years down. Have I succeeded? Well, at least I know I’m not
Michael Scott. At least there’s that. And that’s something, right?

My core Primary (Elementary) teachers this year. We’ve been through thick and thin, we seven. I am so grateful for them.
HOPAC Primary Team
My “other” team….the office staff: Principals, operations, procurement, finance, counseling and other admin
Our brand new beautiful Performing Arts Centre
This is why I love Primary: First grade teacher asked her students to copy down their favorite Bible verse….and this is what one of them gave her. Now I just made your day, didn’t I? You’re welcome.
My heart.

Only God Sees Around Corners

Several years ago, when we had just begun our year-long home assignment in California, Gil and I found out about a ministry opportunity that would have provided us with free housing and a stipend for the time we were in the States.

It seemed absolutely perfect to us. We were incredibly excited by the opportunity, and it seemed like an exact fit with our passion and experience. But we were too late. We didn’t find out about it in time, and by the time we applied, they decided not to keep the position open.

We were bitterly disappointed. And I wondered, Why would God show us an opportunity that seemed so perfect, only to take it away? What was even the point of letting us see it in the first place, if he wasn’t going to make it happen?

I’ve wondered that a lot of times since then.

As a principal at HOPAC, I am up close and personal with the recruiting process, which is gut-wrenching, to say the least. I’ve lost track now of how many times it’s happened: We interview someone amazing; everyone is ecstatic that such a cool person is interested in HOPAC; we all get our hopes up…..and then for some reason or another, it doesn’t work out. It happened to me twice in the last two weeks.

And I wonder, Why is God getting our hopes up if we’re just going to be disappointed in the end? Why dangle a carrot in front of our noses if he’s just going to yank it away?

And I don’t know why. So I sit here in a funk, kind of mad at God for making me think he’s answering my prayers when instead I imagine him saying, “Haha! Made you look!”

Except I am not God. And I don’t know what he’s thinking; I just need to trust he knows what he is doing. He’s got a million moving pieces; how dare I question him on what he’s doing with each one? Here I am focusing only on how I personally am affected by the disappointment–how God let me down. But what if the situation wasn’t about me? What if he needs me to trust him with this disappointment because it was a necessary part of what he is doing in another person’s life?

Or, what if that disappointment is, in the end, saving me from something far more tragic? What if that disappointment is actually an expression of God’s mercy, but I, like the screaming toddler, throw a fit when her mother yanks away the luscious-looking, but deadly poisonous berries?

Andree Seu Peterson writes, “Only God sees around corners, and therefore it is very wise to not try to figure out our own way to happiness and safety by relying on our own understanding and worldly wiles. The wise person will trust in God’s ways and stick to them, knowing that life can get messy in the middle, because the person who makes God his trust, the story will turn out well in the end, in the very, very end.”


Mad is Not Our Only Choice

As I recently described, a certain child of mine is prone to rages. It happened again at school this week on Sports Day, which meant I had to be mom and principal at the same time. It’s rough to be the principal’s kid, but personally, I think it’s even harder on the principal.

Of course, the chaos and exhaustion of Sports Day can bring out the worst in anybody, but this child made some pretty bad choices in the heat of an argument, leading to some extremely unkind things hurled at a good friend.

I led my scowling, glaring child to a picnic bench away from the din of children who were gleefully passing sponges over, under, over, under.

We worked on empathy. “How do you think you made your friend feel when you said those things?” I asked. “How would you feel if someone said those things to you?”

“I would feel mad.”

I tried again. “But your friend isn’t mad; your friend is hurt. How does that make you feel?”

My child glowered. “I’m just mad!”

Something clicked for me. “Honey,” I said, “I just realized something. I think that sometimes you choose feeling mad over feeling bad. You choose mad because that’s a more comfortable emotion than feeling sad or guilty. It’s really hard to admit when we do something wrong, and it’s a lot easier to be mad at someone who is mad back at you.”

And I get that, don’t I? It’s easier to feel anger than regret. It feels much better to point fingers or deflect blame or lie to myself than to deal with the harsh reality of my own failure. 

I looked into my child’s belligerent eyes and thought, My child just needs the gospel.



There, at the foot of the cross, we find freedom from shame and guilt. But the first step is kneeling there, acknowledging that we need freedom from shame and guilt. And that kneeling is the hardest part.

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Let a Bible story–just think of your favorite from Sunday School–run through your mind. Doesn’t every single one tell this story of pride and humility? Those who chose not to be humbled–well, their stories didn’t end well. We find them eating grass like an ox, swept away by a flood, aimlessly wandering in a desert. But those who submitted to it–in prison, in the belly of a fish, separated by the veil, flat-faced in the dust before a holy God–those are the ones we see restored, redeemed, made new by grace.

And of course, once you’ve been made new, nothing ever looks the same again. Mad is no longer the default emotion. It’s okay to feel shame and guilt, because you’ve found mercy. It’s okay to feel sadness and regret, because you’ve found a waterfall of Hope.

I look over the timeline of my life and I see the same recurring theme: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. How many times I have walked through fire–beleaguered, exhausted, depleted of everything in me, my face in the dust, and I’ve finally said, “Okay, God, you win.” Which was most likely the point all along.

Barbara Duguid writes, “You will never be able to find steady joy in this life until you understand, submit to, and even embrace the fact that you are weak and sinful.”

I look again into my child’s blazing eyes.My sweet child, may you come to embrace that mad is not your only choice. Let it go, and you’ll find everlasting grace on the other side.

And then I remind myself (again) of the same thing.

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