Home Life

I feel like working in the environment I do, I've been very sheltered from many of the things public school teachers in the States have to deal with. Almost none of my students come from broken homes. None are in foster care or wards of the state. Yeah, we have the occasional student who thinks it's cool to smoke or have a drink. Kids are kids. But I've never had a student come to school drunk. I've never caught a student smoking on campus. None of my students have a drug dependency. I've been here five years, and in that time, we have not had a single teen pregnancy. None of my students work, and so they get to focus on school and extra-curriculars, and for the most part, they all maintain above average grades. Last year, we had 4 valedictorians, because all four of them maintained a 4.0 every quarter for all 4 years of high school. Over half of high school students take AP courses. An overwhelming majority play at least one sport and at least one musical instrument. Nearly all of them are at least bilingual - some speak up to 4 languages fluently.

Sounds like I died and went to teacher heaven, right?

I felt very sheltered. Up until this year. I don't know what is different about this year, but so many things have happened recently that I've never had to deal with before. I see so many struggling families in our community and so many hurting students. This week has been especially rough. One particular student was very ill in my class on Monday, and as I questioned him about what was going on - because I could tell something was not right - he started to open up to me.

The things he has been facing at home these past two months are things that I would be legally obligated to report to CPS if I were teaching in America. The police would probably be involved as well.

When I talked to this student Monday, I learned that the reason he was sick was because he hadn't slept for three days or eaten for almost 24 hours. His parents, in a drunken rage, had kicked him out of the house on Friday, and he'd been wandering the streets since. He didn't know where to go or who to trust for help. He had a little money, and because of that, he was afraid to sleep anywhere for fear a beggar would steal it. He had made the money last until Sunday before it ran out. He hadn't showered or changed clothes for three days. He is 15.

In this country, we don't have any kind of organization for protecting children. There is nobody that we can report this to. Protecting children is the job of the family first, and then of the community. And we may be foreigners in this country, but we still have community. Oh, do we have community...

I found a place for him to stay Monday night. And it was EASY. The people I work with are so loving, so caring, and so willing to give of what they have. It took less than 5 minutes to find a family willing to give him a home cooked dinner and a place to shower and sleep - without knowing a single detail of why he wasn't staying at his own home. They provided breakfast, lunch, and a change of clothes for him on Tuesday and brought him to school. And they told him he could stay for as long as he liked.

Every day this week, he's come to my room after school to talk. He's been telling me more and more details about his home life, about a past I never knew he had.

As I listen, all I can think is that God is writing such an amazing story in his life. I told him that yesterday, and he laughed at me and said, "This doesn't feel amazing."

And  I told him, "God isn't finished writing the story yet".

I really believe this is true. Already, I see so many things working together for good in this young man's life. And I believe that so much more good can come from this story. I hate that he's in this place, where no 15 year old should ever be. But I'm so excited to know how the story ends.