The Substitute

What a long day! After several wonderful days of talking to recruits, inquirers and potential missionary colleagues, I was once again summed to the duty of substitute teaching. My assignment today was 8th grade history, Literature and Language Arts (this title is a little misleading because we didn't talk about one single individual who contributed anything to history, literature or language arts as an 8th grader).

Now that I have time to step back from everything that happened today, I am amazed that I didn't slap anyone...or get slapped myself. Some of the kids were jacking around during 2nd hour--so, I gave them a pop quiz. Yep, I'm that guy. You would have thought that I had cut off their left arm by all the weaping an gnashing of teeth that took place. One kid even went as far as to call me a liar. Did I mention that no one got slapped today?

I also came to the realization that these kids acted up because they are starving for attention. If I were a betting man, I would dare to venture to say that many of these kids get ignored on a frequent basis. You can just sort of tell by the way they keep screaming out for attention. At the same time, many of them are screaming for attention because they are in that stage of life when screaming seems like a perfectly rational choice for expressing one's self.

I don't know if this entry makes any sense. I just walk away from todays experience:

1) thankful to all the teachers who didn't beat me as a student. I see myself in a lot of those kids. I am amazed at how my teachers taught us on a daily basis.

2) I am thankful for guys like Sean Green, Jenn Reedy, Darren Hanson, SoeBeck Song, Jake Raymer, Mike Killebrew, Aaron Shirley and the rest of the folks who are out there ministering to kids of this age. You guys are heros.

3) I think understand a little bit more clearly why many of my teachers used to drink heavily...its all making more sense now.

4) I really missed talking to individuals about the Bibleless peoples of the world today. Each day I am away from my regular job, I am reminded by how I long to be in Dallas, TX doing this gig on a full-time basis. Just recently, I have been given 50 names of individuals to follow up with. Each time I call up one of these individuals, pray with them or answer their long list of questions, I feel like I am doing the thing God created me to do. Is there really any better feeling?