Davids and the Goliath

She was rich, sophisticated, and intelligent. Coming from an ultra modern city when she married to the local dentist, she was our school senior science teacher. Her passion and leadership helped our local school win the country’s science project many times. Being the movers and shakers of the town, she helped and inspired many of the students to achieve educational and career significant. If I were to as for one person of whom I will model as a good teacher, she is it.

There is only one indiscretion she had. She loves to run down Christianity in her classroom and Christians loudly in the staff room. I never found out why. Maybe as a biology teacher she has to hold on the evolutionary theory to that extent.

He is retarded. This may be due to the trauma at birth. I later found him to be gentle, friendly and always look at you with vulnerable eyes. I remembered when walking back from watching his favourite sport of football, where he named the players in the team, he asked me ‘who won the game?’. He was her sixteen years old child.

They were a bunch of youth, from fourteen to sixteen years. From just three of them, I and two others, managed to grow the group to about twenty. Other than the first three, the rest did not have any church background, and most came from incomplete or broken homes. Although there were engaging funs activities like picnics and games, the main regular activity was bible study and worship. They seem to enjoy the meeting and keep up to regular attendance. When the group was going past twenty, concerned about the dilution of care to each of them, I whispered a prayer that the group will not grow any larger.

Through another friend, she asked for her son to join this group of youth. She had tried with her influence and resources to fit him to many groups. Somehow he always came back with a sense of being rejected.

Happy with just my small corner of service, I was thinking of how to politely say no to the request. Anyway isn’t a more specialised skill is required to handle a retarded child? When I shared about the request to this bunch of youth, almost in unison they said, “Let him come, and we will take care of him.’  That was how he came to join this group. When I saw how the group really took care of him and helped him, I was both ashamed of my initial selfish reluctance, and proud of how far these youth came through. When he participated in the study discussion and contributed inadequately, he was not laughed at but was listened patiently by the youth. When they go out to play, he was included in the game and not blamed losing the team. I must remind myself that these a bunch of kids who are in their private world quite challenged as compared to his privileged home. Learning about the love of Jesus over the past six months had transformed them.  I remembered my transformation was nearly the same. Jesus’ love changes lives.

She was promoted to be the principle of the school. She never confessed to have changed her mind as to the Christian’s claim of belief, when she passed on due to cancer. But six months after observing how her son was well and respectfully treated by this bunch of church youth, not only she stopped castigating the Christian, but openly praised the Christianity, as represented by this group of youth, in the staff room. Since then the burning of Christians was off the menu in the staff room.