Endings: Legacy and Humility (Part 2)

I went to Honduras to fill a need; I wanted to serve through teaching.  I didn't go for the adventure or the experience (although those things were inevitable and wonderful), and I didn't go for the recognition.  I did, however, want to make a difference -- not by changing the system, but to hopefully leave something a little better than it was when I got there.

During my first year, it struck me that the preschoolers never really got to play outside.  My project, then, became building a playground.  With the administration's blessing and so many people's generosity, we made it happen.  That helped ease my grief a bit when I left the school at the end of the year.  I comforted myself with the thought that, even though I was gone, the playground was still there.

After I ended up back at the school a year later, I decided it was important to really stock the classroom with good quality materials that would last, rather than just making things out of paper and glue and hoping they'd make it through that day's activity, as I'd done the first year.  And, the next two years, friends and family from back home contributed generously.  As I made my decision not to come back to teach at the school the following year, I knew that I could leave the next teacher and group of students in a much better starting point.  Again, I felt like, even though I was leaving, the classroom was still there.

And as the boards on the playground began to rot and crack and I packed my Nursery materials into boxes for a new Nursery teacher that wasn't coming, my heart broke.

Even though I left, my students and coworkers and the school, culture and community will never leave me.  Not only will they continue to be on my heart and in my thoughts, but they have changed me in ways that are integral to who I am.  I interpret and interact with the world around me in a profoundly different way than I did five years ago.  I had hoped that, while certainly on a smaller scale, some part of me would stay with them, too.

While I didn't go for recognition, I also don't want to be forgotten.

This is where everyone tells you, "Teachers make such a difference in the lives of their students,"  and that is absolutely true.  The thing about two and three year olds, though, is that, they DO forget.  Even if I were able to fly down and visit sometime this upcoming school year, most of my students would probably have no idea who I was by that time.  I've worked with preschoolers for about nine years.  I know how that works.

In addition to that, the school is one that is used to teachers leaving on a regular basis.  While every teacher that has bumped their way up (and skid their way back down) the muddy mountain road has made an impact, the school has continued on just fine without them the next year.  I know.  I've seen it happen for years.

Tomorrow, another new group of teachers will make their way down to Gracias, and I won't be with them.  Even though I know it's selfish, I'm grieved by the idea that I'm just another former teacher now.  I'm no longer an active participant in the community.  The students, school, and returning teachers will continue on with the new faces and personalities, just like they've always done.  The new teachers will check out their new classrooms without any clue about the lessons and laughter and LOVE that filled that room before they got there.  When classes start, they'll walk away from faculty devotions without knowing that they need to slap the door frame as a reminder to teach like a champ that day.

And I'll be here, with my heart full of everything that's there, hoping that I'm still taking up a little space in people's hearts back there.

So for now, while I'm learning to be ok with all that and trying to refocus my attention on those I served rather than myself, I keep reminding myself of a song that one of my old teachers used to play for us:

Make me a servant
Humble and meek
Lord let me lift up
Those who are weak
And may the prayer
Of my heart always be
Make me a servant
Make me a servant
Make me a servant today

And, while I pray those words, I can smile at the thought that something a teacher taught me as a child can still be retrieved from my heart more than 20 years later.