Tag: Haven of Peace Academy Page 5 of 23

Tomorrow is the first day of school at Haven of Peace Academy, and I get the privilege of being the elementary school principal.  This picture was taken on Thursday, and this is the incredible staff I get to work with this year.  We are from probably over a dozen different countries, and together we get to create an amazing community of learners for almost 400 students.

When I was at my parents’ house in July, I was going through old papers and I found this:

The letter is dated April 4, 1999, and it’s the original invitation HOPAC sent me to come and teach.  

I didn’t make it here until August of 2001, but I eventually did arrive, and I taught this wonderful group of kids for two years.  

In 2005, Gil and I came back to Tanzania, this time with him as chaplain and Bible teacher, and HOPAC became our entire life for 8 years.  We ate, slept, and breathed HOPAC.  If you cut us open, HOPAC blood would have run out.  

Then we left in 2013, and I thought that was the end.  

We would be returning to Tanzania, and our kids would be attending the school, but I knew it wouldn’t be our life anymore.  

I joined the board as a parent volunteer.  

Pictures of board meeting aren’t very exciting.  The meetings themselves weren’t very exciting either, but they sure were interesting.  My devotion to this school just continued to grow.

So when it became apparent that God was leading me back to working at HOPAC, and I applied and was granted the position of primary school (elementary) principal, well, it just seemed to good to be true.  Truly,far more than I imagined.

But it is true. And it’s happening, and here I am again, immersing my life into this place which I dearly adore.  My cup overflows.  I can’t think of any place I would rather be.  

These last two weeks have been crammed with all the things that are needed to open a school year–orientation sessions, organizing, scheduling, helping new teachers.  And though my first week was rough as I struggled through jetlag and an abundance of nerves, I love this job more and more with each passing day.  Which is pretty cool considering that the school year hasn’t even started yet.  

This is a new season for me.  And one thing many friends asked me while I was in the States was, “Are you going to be able to keep blogging?”  I sure hope so.  That’s my plan.  But it might be different.  I won’t have as much time to write and I won’t have as much mental space to think about writing.  There might be a lot more things in my life that I won’t be at liberty to share publicly.  But I hope you’ll stick with me anyway, because this a journey I will want to share.  

I will sing the Lord’s praises, for he has been good to me.

Psalm 13:6

2015 was a tough year.

Our ministry was struggling as we tried to recruit students.  Gil hurt his knee and had to stay away from sports for nine months (at the time, we thought it would be forever), which was a huge loss in his life.  Gil spent most of his days in front of a computer, writing curriculum for our training program.  It was a very, very quiet life, completely different from our previously vibrant ministry at Haven of Peace Academy (HOPAC).

And I could not find my place.

For 10 years, Gil and I had served at HOPAC.  I had started out as an elementary school teacher, but when we began our family, I looked for part-time ways to serve.  Yet HOPAC was still my entire life:  My community, my ministry, the place where my children felt most at home.  I assisted Gil in his ministry as chaplain, but my love of education got me involved in a wide variety of other programs, from coordinating after-school activities to strategic planning committees.  For the most part, those were golden years.

My sixth grade class, 2003

We left that ministry in 2013 and I had determined in my heart to move on.  I had deeply loved HOPAC, but I was also passionate about Gil’s new calling into pastoral training.  Our kids would still be attending the school, so I planned to be involved only as a parent.  Since we returned to Tanzania in 2014, I have been a board member and a parent classroom volunteer.  That’s all.  Only stuff that parents would do.

I was surprised by how deeply I grieved the loss of HOPAC in my life.  A big part of that was because I simply couldn’t find a place in our new ministry.  I willingly worked on the administrative and recruiting tasks at hand, and I absolutely adore our partners in this ministry.  Mark and Alyssa are some of our very best friends.

But I was incredibly restless.  The struggles of our ministry multiplied in my heart. (Of course, the difficulties didn’t last forever and the ministry is now thriving.)  But at the time, I wondered if we should even be in Tanzania.  I wondered if I wanted to be here.  Ironically, though he was discouraged at times, Gil never struggled like I did.  He knew his place and his calling, so working through the challenges were not a problem for him.  Knowing that I am a teacher, Alyssa kept trying to convince me to teach in the training program.  But I have never had a desire to theologically train adults.  My heart just wouldn’t be in it.

We brought home Johnny in there, so that was an enormous joy, and took up a lot of my time.  But I knew that I only had another year or so before Johnny would start school.  A new season of life was looming before me, and I had no direction.

I diligently studied Swahili during that time, hoping that would open up more ministry options for me.  But as much as I prayed that God would show me what the next steps would be in my life, there was nothing.

In early 2016–almost exactly a year ago, the thought made its way up into my heart:  Why not go back to HOPAC?  It was a thought I had pushed away for two years, because I had closed the door on that chapter of my life and I figured it was slammed shut.  I thought I was supposed to move on from HOPAC, and I was deliberately doing that.

But I eventually asked myself:  Why am I fighting this so much?  I am a trained elementary school teacher.  Education is what I love.  It’s what I’m good at.  HOPAC is my favorite school in the world, and I am passionate about its mission and vision.  And they need me.

So it was a year ago that I made the decision that in August of 2017, I would go back on staff at HOPAC.  It was amazing how freeing that decision was, how my outlook on life completely changed.   It was still a year and a half away, but the thought of going back to HOPAC made my heart sing.

I figured I would teach elementary school, or maybe middle school English.  There were always needs, so it wouldn’t be hard to find a place for me to teach.  But in September, all my expectations were tipped upside down when the (very loved) elementary school principal announced that her family would be leaving at the end of this school year.

And suddenly, I had all these friends whisper in my ear:  Amy, you need to apply to be principal!  

Of course, I was immediately intimidated by the thought, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  I had played with the idea of administration before, but I figured that was still a long ways away.  Yet I remembered all the various times when I was able to have a part in decision-making at HOPAC.  How much I loved interacting with staff and parents.  How thrilled I had been to work on teams that were making the school better.  How much I loved not just teaching, but the broader picture of education.  And how all of those things would be wrapped up in being a principal at HOPAC.

So I applied.  I went through two interviews with five people.  And about a week ago, I was offered the job.

In three weeks, we leave for the States. In August, I will return to Tanzania and become the elementary school principal at HOPAC.  In the meantime, I am cramming every bit of information I can stuff into my brain about this position.

It will be a huge change for me and for my family.  (Though I’ll probably be able to spend more time with my kids than I do now, since we’ll all be at the same place!)  But I am incredibly excited (and occasionally pretty nervous!) at this opportunity.  Honestly, I can’t think of anything I would rather do than this job at this place with these people.  

So when I think back to 2015, when my tears of discouragement would drip over my dinner cooking on the stove, when I wondered if we should even be here, I stand in awe at what God had in store for me.  It is far more than I ever could have imagined.

this year’s HOPAC staff

Like the Olympics, Haven of Peace Academy does their own “Parade of Nations” for their annual International Day.  This year it was 39 nations represented.

This year, for the first time, we had a representative from the nation of Israel.  Everyone clapped and cheered, because as you can see, she was an especially beautiful little representative.

But what was incredibly ironic and wonderful about our little Israeli parade was that it came directly after our Iranian representatives, and directly before our Pakistani representatives, proudly marched around the circle.  And everyone cheered just as loudly for them.

In that way, it was like the Olympics, where everyone throws off their country-bound grievances against each other and cheers for what we have in common and for the beauty in our differences.  The difference is that the Olympics lasts just a few weeks, but at Haven of Peace Academy, it’s life.

The Israeli and the Iranian, the American and the Tanzanian, the Spaniard and the South Korean, the Christian and the Muslim–we all work and play and eat and learn side by side.  Sometimes this life together is tricky and it’s not without bumps and hurts.  But the staff–who are almost as diverse as the students–have made Jesus the center and the purpose, and in the end, most days, something incredibly beautiful is being created.

HOPAC is recruiting teachers for next year.  There are a lot of openings, both for elementary teachers and all sorts of middle and high school teachers.  But there’s also openings in administration, in the library, in communications…and we need a new chaplain, who is basically like our own youth pastor.  So we need lots of teachers, but also some non-teachers who love the vision of HOPAC.

If you could be one of those people, I wish I could sit down and tell you what a remarkable place HOPAC really is.  Not just because of our diversity, but because it is more than just a place to work–it is a community.  A community that has ridiculous fun together, a place where teacher’s toddlers roam the playground after school and are doted on by dozens of children, and where staff members are genuinely friends and genuinely love every student.

“Nerd Day” during Pamoja Week (Spirit Week)

Superhero Day

everybody’s favorite superhero

HOPAC is a school with high academic standards but yet looks out for the artistic, musical, physical, social, and spiritual development of children, and where a biblical worldview is infused into everything we do.  Where classrooms are enriched by deep conversations from diverse young people who want to wrestle with poverty and privilege and God.  It’s a place where learning how to serve is a priority, where every secondary student has weekly opportunities to go serve in the community, and where almost every day local disadvantaged school children are invited to use our facilities alongside us.  

I can’t tell you how many teachers I’ve talked to, beleaguered by the politics and cynicism in other schools, who have told me, “I would have quit teaching if it wasn’t for HOPAC.”  

Maybe you’re feeling God’s call to leave this American mess.  So….want to join us?  I don’t know if you’ll ever find another school quite as wonderful.  Or as life-changing.

Facebook sends me helpful reminders when I haven’t posted anything recently.  I sincerely apologize to the 548 people who have had nothing better to do than anxiously await my next post.  

Just so you know I’m not a slacker, this post is all about what I’ve been doing the last 8 days that I have not been blogging.  I’ve also not been cooking, reading, sleeping, or controlling my stress levels very well either.  Instead, my entire life has been consumed by Haven of Peace Academy’s Christmas Family Fun Day.

It’s kind of ironic, actually, that I’m even writing about this event since I was insistent, for months, that I was not going to lead it.  But then I volunteered to lead the Parent Association for the elementary school, along with Heidi, who volunteered to lead it for the secondary school.  By the time October rolled around, we realized that it was either going to be us or no one taking on the Christmas Family Fun Day.  

Reluctantly, we decided it would be us.  

Thus, for the past two months, this event has occupied a great deal of my brain space.  And in the last week or so, it occupied pretty much everything in all my spaces. 

But finally December 9th came and went, and now I can breathe again.  And clear out my brain.  

Thankfully, it was smashing success.  We had the biggest attendance ever, we raised over $10,000 for HOPAC’s new library, and no one actually melted (even though that was a strong possibility in the sweltering tropical sun).  

So, whether or not you care about all of this, I figured I would post pictures anyway, just in case you really have been sitting around, wondering what I have been up to.

photo credit:  Rebecca Laarman

Josiah spent all of his game tickets on human foosball.  No surprise there.

photo credit:  Rebecca Laarman

Of course, we couldn’t have done any of it without Shelley, Beth, Doris, Rebecca and her seniors, Adrian and Student Council, Melissa (on the left) and especially Nisha (in the middle)….who single-handedly solicited thousands of dollars of raffle prizes.

….and Heidi, my co-leader, partner in crime, and raffle announcer extraordinaire.

(And Amy Ellis, you better get yourself back to Tanzania, because I am not doing this again next year!  No comments about how I said that last year too.)