Why you need a little frustration in your faith

He's in 2nd grade and usually sits at his desk sucking his thumb. One day, during mathematics class, he plopped his shabby composition notebook on my desk and said, "Ayudame, Maya." We were learning numerical seriations, so I put his small frame upon my lap and began to explain. With his pencil that's more stub and squished metal than pencil, he scrawls out his numbers, making random guesses at what comes next.

I try to explain the process of counting by 2's, but he doesn't seem to understand, and so I sit there, frustrated. Frustrated, because suddenly I'm back in my own second grade and I can see my blue-boardered number chart that I used for many years. There's sunlight streaming in from the school room window and my Mom is gently instructing us in the exercise of multiplication: we're learning. My belly was no doubt satisfied with breakfast, and pretty soon I would sit at our white countertop and observe her as she made our lunch. Perhaps, if it was a really special day, we'd have chips or chocolate milk to go along with our ham and cheese sandwiches. Maybe we'd then take a walk up the lane to study nature and get our Physical Education requirement filled, something that was a never a problem growing up in rural Pennsylvania, where you can roam about and not worry about being kidnapped or caught up in human trafficking (at least, back when I was a child).

Sitting there on that sun-warmed magellan blue tile floor, studying my numbers, I never fathomed that one day I'd be sitting in a stuffy class room, explaining math in Spanish to a child who has scars on his arms from who knows what, who comes hungry, because who knows when his parents last cooked a meal. Many kids come to school without food, not because there's not food at home, but because the parents don't think to prepare it. *As was the case with Zacarias.

Those days spent reading in trees, watching my Bob Jones science lessons, and tackling Jay Wiles Biology in my favorite corner of the sofa, I never fathomed that the education I had at home was the most precious treasure parents can impart to their children. I never fathomed the patience and work that it takes to bring up children who respect discipline, the environment, and the word, "no". I never fathomed that I would be holding Andre on my lap, that I would be reaching my wits' end many days and always finding God there.

I never fathomed I would feel frustrated for the need of a number chart.

He places his thumb in mouth and dazes off, so I zap my attention back to the present, flip to a page in my notebook, and grab my pen.
"Here," I explain, "help me write these numbers and then we'll count together." Sure, it's frustrating to not have what you need when you need it, yet you should not let the idea of future perfection frustrate what you can do with what you have in the present. I assess my quickly written number chart and we begin; he catches on and soon finds it enjoyable, looking up at me with a big smile on his beautiful boyish face once we've finished.

The next day it's the same, only we're counting by three's now. He comes up to me, "Maya..." and we get to work. I show him how to do it by five's as well. Little did I know that, in the process of teaching him his seriations, I was making a loyal friend. He's changed now, always helping me when I attempt to settle down the classroom, always catching onto the things I say and saying them for me in Spanish much faster and louder than mine. We were in the church for chapel on Thursday and he was sitting in the pew in front of me. He caught my hand and held it, staring up at my face as the sun streamed in and we sang glory to God.

I may be frustrated at times with the lack, frustrated with what could be but isn't, but when I think of how this ministry started, how one newly-married and sold-out-for-Jesus couple began teaching school to a few kids in their front porch, and how it now provides education to 423 students, I can only say, "Glory to God." Yes, glory to God in my frustration, glory to God in the fact that there is still work to be done, because He didn't stop at the front porch, He took up their whole house, and then He moved them to a plot of wild land and subdued it for the construction of a school. Yes, He has brought them far but He is far from done. So perhaps this frustration needs faith, faith to see that God is not finished, and faith to be thankful, recklessly thankful for all He has done, and all He will do. And perhaps faith needs a little frustration, because it's as we are frustrated that we turn to the only One who can really cause change in these lives, who can use me, use you, to be the love this world needs.

*The home lives of many of these children are worse than I'd like to say I know, so there are unfortunately lots of parents who are negligent with their sons and daughters. The vision here is to train the kids and the parents so that real change can be made in their lives. So that families are made whole. If you'd like to be involved in providing better, more hope-filled futures to the people here, please consider sponsoring a child for $25 a month, or making a donation to the school. I have seen the difference, I have seen the impact that is being made on the lives of those involved with the school, and I know that each donation is seen as the very provision of God for this place.