Substitute

For weeks (months) I watched my wife get up and go to work each day, while I asked God to fill my calendar and make me busy. He answered my prayers.

I've been a substitute teacher in our local public school district for three weeks now. I have substituted as an English teacher, a Drama teacher, and a Psychology teacher. I've been a para-educator for special education students, a reading specialist for Montessori students, and a PE teacher (where I made football players play "duck, duck, goose.") I even served a day as "office boy" for the nice ladies in the main office at one of our high schools.

It's a good gig, at least for me. I can pick and choose the days I work and the assignments I accept. I can also choose to be the sub desk lady's hero by taking jobs she is desperate to fill that day, even if I later regret doing so. I am learning to be flexible and patient. I am reminded that kids appreciate humor. And I am refining my skill to fake what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

And I am again aware of the pervasive brokenness in our world, how the entire Creation has been violated by sin and death (to quote a theologian I read this morning.) I've seen this specifically evidenced within the walls of our schools.

I've encountered kids who do not eat lunch, and not by choice. I've interacted with some students who do not bother to dream dreams or envision a positive future. I've shared a conversation with a student who is writing an essay entitled "Go to Hell, Dad." In this the student is bitterly rejecting his father who rejected him years ago.

I've come across educators who love what they do, care about the kids and gladly enter into their students' pain, on and even off the clock. And I am humbled that some of those teachers have added my name to their preferred sub lists.

So for now, part of my daytime church-planting endeavor is to be in the schools. The goal is to be an intentional peacemaker, even as a substitute, in a small way reflecting The Peacemaker. And in doing so I find myself praying, "Maranatha; Come Lord Jesus, Come!"