Voice Of The Voiceless

Back in the day, I used to be the Journalism Club tutor at Tirrim Secondary School. Twice a week I would sit down with the kids and plan out potential news stories to cover, edit the kids’ written results, type it all up in a fancy Word Publisher document, and then have my pupils present their “Voice of The Voiceless” newsletter at the school assembly. Well, the tradition continues! I have included here a few excerpts from this week’s ever enlightening “Voice of The Voiceless.”

 

Note: The following article describes the students’ viewpoint on the heightened discipline brought about this week by the Teacher On Duty, Mr. John. Mr. John always takes his job very seriously, and when it is his turn to “be on duty,” (regulate school functions for the week) the students are inevitably more committed to their studies and far more punctual. For the pupils, school is no longer just a place to get good meals (hence the “feeding camp” comment), but a place to really get involved in a disciplined academic culture.

 

School Insider: Real Moments in Tirrim High School

Written by: Reporter Thomas Idi

Wow! “Wonders will never cease to happen!” is a common saying among all TSS students and teachers who are generalizing what has happened during the remarkable week of the 26th-30th of May. It has been a unique and active moment in Tirrim High. “Army training in the camp” gives a picture of what I mean exactly. The week was a super display of what school should look like. The rumor, “School is a feeding camp,” should be erased and completely buried if coming T.O.D.s (Teachers On Duty) will be acting likewise. Time consciousness was the big activity that teachers demanded students to observe. Early in the dawn the classes were as silent as a cemetery with a uniformed and busy army. Therefore, time management should be observed in school and coming weeks should be like this particular week.

Thomas Idi reads his report to the school at assembly on Monday morning.

 

Making Your Day A Little Brighter

    When things go wrong, when the road you are treading seems all uphill, when friends disappear and enemies increase, when you are alone and all seems hopeless, or when friends discourage you,  keep your heart pure and devoted to Jesus Christ and He promises always to be with you.

Words to live by: “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you REST.” Matthew 11:28           

 

My Girls

Tirrim Secondary Ladies: (From Top Left) Naiseku, Catherine, Esther, Janet. (Bottom Left) Justina, Ann. I'm the white lady in the middle.

Intentionality and Growth

Friends and I have been praying for me to be able to have really intentional times and conversations with my former female students while in Kenya, and yesterday I had the coolest chat with two of them, Naiseku and Catherine. We were meant to have a girls’ football game, but the coach had to run off and deal with a medical emergency, so Naiseku, Catherine, and I parked on the sidelines of the football field, watching the boys kick around the ball, and dust. I asked both of them, “Can you tell me one thing the Lord has been teaching you during the past year?” and they both had ready responses!



Catherine and I at Tirrim Secondary

Catherine is a young lady who actually got pregnant her first term of secondary school (my first year of teaching at Tirrim.) We had to send her home on a one year probation, but I kept up with her quite frequently throughout the rest of my time in Korr. (Her son, Gideon, was eventually born on my birthday, January 30^th! I got to visit mother and child a couple of times out in their hometown of Logologo.) So, as you might imagine, Catherine has been learning quite a bit about God’s grace through her early years of motherhood. She says that she has become keenly aware of how many blessings the Lord has given her and what an incredible and joyful responsibility she now has to live for Him! Catherine also explained how she has taken it upon herself to counsel other young ladies about physical relationships with “those boys” (spoken disdainfully) outside of marriage. Both she and Naiseku tell me that they remember the Bible studies we did together and how I told them that every time you sleep with a boy, pieces of your heart get connected to theirs like the wires of the chain-link fence around our schoolyard. Catherine now uses her perspective as a single mother, “who has done a mistake in the past,” to advise her peers to shut out the lies of evil men and to keep oneself pure before the Lord.

Naiseku and I at Tirrim Secondary

Naiseku then explained to me the extreme grief she suffered during her father’s battle with cancer and his later death. She told me how hard she tried to keep herself together, not sharing her anguish with her friends or even to the Lord, but how it is too much to bear the burden of death alone. We then talked about her baba being a Believer, and that while death is still massively sorrowful event, it is only so for those left behind, not the Christian in Heaven. She smiled when she thought of her father currently in Paradise and no longer in pain. Death is never right, but Naiseku now sees how the family of Believers in the Church and in her school can be a valuable ally with their weapon of prayer and admonishments to remember the eternal comfort Christ offers. She concluded that the Lord allows trials, even as excruciating as death, but that He provides the strength to not only survive, but move on and thrive.

Amin! (As the Rendille say.)