Book Character Day at Haven of Peace Academy. I can’t think of a better way to introduce you to the extraordinary people I get to work with every day.
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These memes make me realize I live an odd life.
For missionaries, salary has never been connected to quantity or type of work. In fact, we don’t technically receive a salary, but a stipend that comes from church donations. Since most of my adult life has been spent as a missionary, this is normal to me, but sometimes I remember that it’s actually rather odd.
Haven of Peace Academy, where I am now serving as elementary school principal, is an extremely high quality institution. I would argue that we offer the best education in Tanzania (admittedly I am biased!). We have almost 400 students (K-12), three full science labs, a 25-meter swimming pool, a huge new library, and just broke ground on a performing arts center.
HOPAC has 500 students on waiting lists. This week, I am in the process of giving assessments to children who want to start kindergarten in August. We have over 60 applications for a class of 23, and there would have been more, but we made December 31 the application deadline. Other schools similar to HOPAC have huge billboards around the city, but HOPAC never needs to do a speck of advertising.
But what’s odd about all of this is that HOPAC doesn’t pay most of their teachers. In fact, because it’s a non-profit school, it’s not legally allowed to pay anyone except Tanzanian citizens. Most of the teaching staff are missionaries. We get some help with housing, but no salary.
So that means that when I took this giant job, Gil and I knew that we would still be living on the same stipend as before. Our standard of living wouldn’t be increasing. But that wasn’t an issue, because our work here has never been connected to our salary.
Most of the staff I work with are living the same way. In fact, for couples where both spouses are on staff, it actually costs them to work at HOPAC, since two-parent working families tend to have more expenses. Even those teachers who are Tanzanian, and thus allowed to receive a salary, could be earning a lot more if they were working somewhere else.
So all of this begs the question, Why on earth are we doing this? Why did I apply for this position when salary wasn’t a part of it? Why are most of the teachers I supervise volunteering for this job?
It’s because mankind was created for work.
Work came before the Fall of Man, not after. Adam was given a job in the Garden. And there’s no reason to believe that in Heaven we’re going to sit around on clouds all day. We’ll be working. Indeed, the sweat and pressure of work is a result of sin, but not work itself.
True, many times we need to understand the value of rest–that’s another conversation. But often, we also need to understand the value of work. And not just because work is how we eat and pay the mortgage, but the intrinsic value of work–even work we are not paid for.
I lean towards capitalism, so I understand the value of getting paid for a job well done. I know that for the vast majority of the world, if you want to eat, you need a salary. Volunteering usually is not an option. But there is something incredibly freeing about working in a job where salary isn’t connected to work, and it’s taught me a lot about work’s value.
Perhaps part of the reason why it was no big deal to take this position, knowing there was no salary, is because I’ve been working without a salary for years now. Isn’t that what a stay-at-home-mom does? Raising children, volunteering in ministry, creating a home–all of those things are most definitely work, but none receive a salary.
As Christians, should we be equating the value of work with the salary that goes with it? Or can we see work as God meant it to be?
Work is Redemption. Creating music, feeding children, sweeping the floor, caring for the sick, fixing the leaky pipe, plowing the field, cutting hair, coaching the team. All are ways that we redeem a broken world. All are a privilege.
Yet our culture communicates to us that the only purpose of work is to earn money. And that the real goal of life is to earn enough money so that we can entertain ourselves with vacations and Netflix and baseball games and retire as soon as possible.
So often we forget that we have been created for work.
I think that embracing this is what makes HOPAC such an extraordinary place. Of course, on a very practical note, volunteer staff are what make HOPAC so affordable for so many families. It’s the reason why our fees are half to a third less than any other comparable school in Tanzania. But probably more important is that the staff knows that there is a greater purpose in what we are doing. None of us are in it for money, power, or position–because it’s just not there. We are called to love and serve Jesus–and that makes all of us incredibly devoted to our jobs and students.
I’m especially privileged right now because I get to do a job that I adore. Of course, sometimes work is drudgery, and I’ve been there too. But as Christ-followers who are corporately working together to redeem this world, should we try to do the least amount of work we can get away with? Should it always be about money? Can we instead see work as a way to use our talents, a way to serve others, and a way to bring redemption to the world?
Somebody needs to create a meme about that.
By the way, Haven of Peace Academy is recruiting!
Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Nikky.
We met Nikky when we first arrived in Tanzania, way back in 2001. We had joined a church that came out of the Indian population of Dar es Salaam. Nikky, her mom, and her brother were a part of that church.
Nikky and her family were a big part of our lives for those two years. I was her Sunday School teacher.
And every Wednesday evening, we would go to her family’s house, where Gil would lead a Bible study. Her mom, Shital, is a wonderful cook, and each Wednesday we would eat her famous red sekala chicken and chips. It was our favorite meal in Tanzania.
We even had the privilege of being present when Nikky’s mom married her step dad.
When we left Tanzania in 2003, we lost touch with Nikky’s family. When we returned in 2005, we were living in a different part of the city and fully immersed in Haven of Peace Academy.
Meanwhile, Nikky and her family starting attending a different church. The pastor of that church happened to be the husband of HOPAC’s kindergarten teacher. So when the kindergarten class needed a new teacher’s assistant, she told Nikky to apply. So imagine my surprise when one day, a few years ago, I saw Nikky (all grown up) walking across the HOPAC campus.
It was a joyful reunion. We visited their church, where Shital was serving in leadership. Shital had always loved Gil’s teaching and jumped at the chance to join the Reach Tanzania Bible School. That was a year ago.
(Shital is front left)
In August, I began my new position as elementary principal at Haven of Peace Academy, where Nikky has continued to work as a teacher’s assistant. So I became her boss.
Last week, Nikky got married, and we got to be there.
This is Nikky with her HOPAC family.
And this is us with Nikky, her mom and dad, and Kajal, another wonderful friend from our old church days together.
(This was Kajal and me in 2002.)
Fifteen years. I stand in awe of how God has blessed us with such wonderful relationships.
And almost just as exciting, a few months ago, Shital opened a restaurant in our area. Where she is selling her red sekela chicken, of course. Our lives are now complete.
And we all lived happily ever after.
I love this job. It’s a big job and I keep discovering new things that I need to learn and explore and talk about. I love that. But I pray a lot because I often don’t know what to do. Like when there’s a deluge of rain and parents send you pictures of the road (or what used to be the road) where half of your buses travel home and the director of the school is out of town so you can’t make him figure out what to do.
And of course, there’s the kids who are hurting and act out and the upset parents and the teacher who had three family members die in one month. And four of my six class teachers are new to either HOPAC or their grade level, so we’re all struggling together to keep our heads above water.
But oh, there is so much joy. There is joy in struggling together. There’s the light in the new teacher’s eyes when she sees her kids’ progress from then till now. The discoveries in the storeroom: Oh, we do have that math manipulative and that resource DVD! The exhilaration of a problem solved. Toothless kindergarteners. Colorful artwork on bulletin boards. Exuberantly singing children. And truly, the most creative, faithful, persevering teachers in the world.
And of course, anyone who has worked with elementary school students knows about the amusing conversations. Here’s some good ones:
Fourth grade child: Mrs. Medina, will the snack bar ever serve sushi?
Me: No, no it will not.
Child: Why not?
Me: Ummm…well…because we don’t have a sushi chef…..
Kindergarten child: My mom doesn’t toot very often. But she does some of the time.
Me: [suppressed laugh] Yeah, everybody does sometimes.
Second grade student: Mrs. Medina! K hit E in the peanut!
Me: [suppressed laugh again] Oh…that’s not good….
Fourth grade girl [with much enthusiasm]: Mrs. Medina, can you make an explosion?
Me: Why?
Girl: Because I love explosions!
Me: And you want me to do it?
Girl: Yes, so that you will get in trouble and I won’t.
And one of the best advantages of being the principal of your kids’ school? They can’t pull any fast ones on you.
For example, you always win Mom versus Teacher arguments:
Me: Darling, go get your book. You can do your daily reading while I am fixing dinner.
Child: But Mom, my teacher says we are supposed to read before bed.
Me: Well, this is before bed. I used to be a teacher. I know what your teacher meant.
Child: No, Mom, she says we are supposed to read right before bed.
Me: Darling child, I am the principal. I am your teacher’s boss. So if I say you need to read now, then you need to read now.
Bam. Win for Mom. End of discussion.
Here’s some of the joy in pictures. (All pictures below taken by Rebecca Laarman)
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| My fifth grade teacher and her middle-school-teacher husband. |
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| P.E. |
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| The charming face that greets me every morning in the office. |
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| Two other co-workers. We have fun around here. Enough said. |
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| One of our team of gardeners that keeps HOPAC a haven. |
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| Our new library, less than a year old. |
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| The outside of the new library. |
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| HOPAC kids are reading kids. |
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So I’m the Primary School (Elementary) Principal at Haven of Peace Academy. I officially started three weeks ago, and school has been open the last two weeks.
I’m still not over the weirdness of saying that. Yesterday I was at the mall eating lunch with a fellow teacher and my two girls, and I introduced myself to someone as the primary principal at HOPAC. The words still feel weird coming out of my mouth.
It’s interesting how much our work defines us. I remember when I left full-time teaching to stay home and take care of Grace, and how much of a crisis of identity I went through. What was I anymore? How would I define myself? But time went on and I grew comfortable in that role. I was a mom, but with a full-time housekeeper, so I had the time to do a lot more. I volunteered for dozens of endeavors and had the freedom to fill my time as I chose, on my terms.
Most of that volunteering was at HOPAC, since for so long that was Gil’s life, and then when he left, it was my kids’ life. So being at HOPAC daily is not strange for me–it feels like home. For sixteen years, HOPAC has felt like one of my children. I’ve seen it grown and stretched and go through really tough times–but I wasn’t just an idle spectator, I sweat through it like one of its limbs, often right in the thick of the joy or the pain.
But I always hung around in the background. And it was comfortable back there, because I could do my work and was under no one’s scrutiny. My responsibility was to myself alone, most of the time.
So this–this new official role–this is different. Because now I have an office and my name on a cubby hole and I have people looking to me to tell them what to do. So even though everything about this job feels familiar, the role feels strange, and my internal pressure to do it right has sent me down some anxious nights. Once again, my identity has changed. And I don’t always do change well.
But God has been good–as he always is–and is teaching me much about my own desire for control and the absolute necessity of trusting him instead. And when I am in that place of trust, I can’t believe the huge privilege I have of getting to do this job.
I love the children. Anyone who works with elementary school children knows this joy. Oh Mrs. Medina, I love your skirt. I love your shirt. I love you! The daily waist-high hugs, the light in their eyes, the tiny breakthroughs with the difficult student–ah, there is nothing quite like it.
I love my teachers. No one goes into teaching for the money, but especially not at HOPAC. Yet I’ve seen my teachers work twelve-hour days for three weeks straight–even on weekends, and their utter and complete dedication to these children is truly a sight to behold. They’ve shed some tears but mostly their faces are brimming with joy, because they are called to this and they love it so much. Who wouldn’t want to work with people like this?
And then there’s the larger staff of HOPAC. I’m just one small piece in this puzzle–one of three principals–both of whom were already my friends–and under a director who is like a brother. There’s about a hundred staff at HOPAC, if you count the gardeners and the cleaners and the snack bar ladies–and we are family. Over and over again, that’s what I hear people say. We love to sing together and pray together, and though we come from the full spectrum of the Christian faith and over a dozen nationalities, we are still a community–a family.
There’s this sense of the sacred that runs through HOPAC. Not just because we offer some of the highest-quality education in Tanzania, but because we’re unified by Jesus in our diversity. We all know we’re part of something really special. And it’s a little dizzying to remind myself that I get to be a part of it. To God be the glory.
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| First day of school for all of us! |
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| Josiah’s first day of 4th grade |
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| Lily’s first day of 3rd grade |
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| Johnny’s first day of kindergarten. Oh, he was so excited! |
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| Back-to-School Night |
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| The newly renovated Snack Bar had its grand opening at Back-to-School Night. |
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| Families could order a sampling of all that snack bar has to offer! |
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| Those of you who know HOPAC can see in this picture that there’s a second-story eating area being added to the (former) kindergarten building. Exciting times! |
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| Breaking ground for the new Performing Arts Building! |