Real vs. Ideal

When I arranged to stay in Peru for two and a half months to learn Spanish and be an assistant English teacher at a Christian school, I never dreamed of how it would turn out. In my idealistic mind, it would be a beautiful union of Christy and Anne of Green Gables. The children would be a little rebellious at first, but then I would win them over with my gracious spirit and we would sing and dance through fields of flowers. (Well, I didn't quite expect that, but I didn't expect a room full of running, screaming, hyperactive six-year-olds) I also expected to pick up the language in two weeks and be fluent by the end of two months. After looking at twenty-five chattering, bickering children, and glancing over the endless pages of my Spanish-English dictionary, my expectations have taken a serious beating.

After numerous failures of controlling my tongue around disobedient students and struggling through grammatically incorrect sentences, I've taken humility off the shelf and given it a good dusting. However through realizing that I'm not a child-charmer and I'm certainly not a fluent Spanish-speaker, I've learned that when things seem impossible, it's because I'm measuring my goals against my own abilities. It's not my own abilities that will give me the gentleness and patience I need to teach first graders, and it's not my own abilities that will help me memorize a Spanish-English dictionary. It's God's. When I try to do things in my own strength, I will always fail. Only through relying heavily on Christ can I know that even if the children scream and fight, and my brain won't absorb what I study, I can make a difference in one child's heart, and I can learn, word by word, to speak another language with the Lord's help. This is what gets me through every day. The knowledge that I don't have to do things in my own strength, but in the strength of Christ working through me.