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.)

Indable Teaches Class 5 English

Indable is one of my former Tirrim Secondary School English students with whom I always had a wonderful working relationship and good rapport. His English is delightfully advanced as well, which allowed him to communicate very well with me, sharing details about Rendille culture, acting as my translator, and even writing out his autobiography for me to read!

Indable is now in the midst of the ambiguous year following graduation from secondary school. During this year the Form Four graduates must wait around for months for their national exam results to come in. Many of these students use this time to take computer or driving classes in more modern towns, while some choose instead to stay around home doing odd jobs. Indable was originally planning to attend a Christian discipleship program with another AIM missionary in a Northern Kenya town, but when that fell through, he was offered a position as the Class 4 and 5 English teacher at Tirrim Primary School.

I walked up to the primary school this morning to observe my protégé at work. (Just kidding! I only taught the kid for a year…) I was immediately impressed with Indable’s classroom management skills! His students were so calm, attentive, and respectful, which is a shocker if you’ve been in hearing distance of a Kenyan primary school classroom. Indable was also very attune to involving his pupils in the lesson, inviting them up to the board to put quotation marks around direct speech and asking them to stand and give a sentence that used an adverb of manner. I was so proud of “my” student now working with his own. He is not only in an honorable position, but he is doing honorable work in that position.

I asked Indable later what he now thinks about being a teacher instead of a student and he said, “Madame, it is very different,” with a slightly exasperated smile on his face. Good man. J

Avocado

 

What the what?! Somebody had avocados shipped in to Korr! Mr. Wanga showed up at school during lunchtime with an avocado he reported to have purchased in town, so in the afternoon I roamed Main Street seeking out the scent of elusive fruit. Two shops and one very helpful church momma later and I had my pick from two boxes worth! Here are the “fruits” of my labor. (I also found tomatoes.)

Prayers Answered and Pending

It was an answer to prayer to have such a massive “Claire’s To Do” list from Laura Propst when I arrived in Korr. I knew that I would have no trouble being social (I never do), but I desperately wanted to be able to really serve and be useful as well. The Lord created me with an insatiable desire to be doing and He has been good to provide an outlet for this desire during my time with the kids at Tirrim Secondary School.  So, right now I’m working to balance all the registration fees from the beginning of the school term. These records are an absolute disaster. For some reason students were let into school without paying their full tuition, so our expected and actual fee collections are lopsided. Then, some of the teachers started to pay school bills out of the registration money pot without waiting for the records to be balanced, wreaking havoc with my numbers. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying it’s a big job to get this all sorted out, but I’m delighted at the prospect of presenting Laura with perfectly sorted Kenyan shillings and spreadsheets by tomorrow!

 

My accountant work.

However, there is a situation at school with which I am not delighted. A year and a half ago I had a student named Diba who gave me lots of grief in and out of class. Sass-mouthing, not getting work done, being out rightly defiant… He has never had a father (I believe that the father passed away) and he’s not from a Christian home, so this kid carries bags of hurt and anger around on his shoulders wherever he goes. In his attempt to cope with a burden only Jesus can carry, Diba tries to protect himself by lashing out at those in his path and never forgetting a perceived offense. I have been in his path and I have been perceived as offensive, so I am on Diba’s “list.” It breaks my heart, but the kid won’t even look at me. There have been three times in the past few days when our paths have directly crossed, and Diba has put on a frown a mile wide and cut a path around me just as large.

This morning I prayed about my relationship with this boy, asking how I might proactively pursue even a simple greeting with him. I thought my chance had come this afternoon when I was invited to sit with a certain group of boys during lunch. As my student Meshak led the way around the corner, I saw Diba sitting in the shade with the gang I was to join. He hesitated only for a moment, perhaps wondering if his bad luck would continue and I would actually sit down, before abruptly standing and taking his food, and our chance for civility, with him. Blast. I do wonder what I should now pray for regarding Diba himself and our relationship… Do I tackle the kid in the schoolyard and say, “Hi”? Should I slip him a note? Would it send him over the edge if I sat in on one of his classes and conveniently chose the seat right next to him?