Over the years at WCS, we've refined the way we collect the change the students collect in their bottles for our Honduras project, which is now the Honduras-Haiti project. The kids basically used to come to my classroom and dump the pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters into receptacles from which we would sort and count. A number of years ago, I began sitting in the high school lobby where all the middle and high school kids can see me. We've brought the receptacles to them! This is a voluntary program- we hand out the bank bottles in January with most of our kids accepting the challenge of helping the less fortunate in nearby poverty stricken nations. We put a blurb in the announcements during the last two regular weeks of the year as a reminder that I will be awaiting them, along with members of my basketball team. (We forfeit a few minutes of our workouts each morning.) So, for ten school days, from 7 AM to 7:42 AM, I'm the first person many of our kids see at school. I park myself right in front of the door with clear intentions. Most forget especially in the early days but they have a stock response for me:
"TOMORROW!"
Over the years, it's become a running punch line! Sometimes, I'll kid the kids with, "That's what you said yesterday!" It's in fun and my guess is we usually return about about 75% from the high school students. But just in case someone doesn't understand, we've started posting a marker board beside me with tomorrow spelled out in a number of languages, as our school family includes many nationalities. As you might guess, we get a lot of smiles..... and hopefully some unconscious reminders to bring us some pennies!
But you know what tomorrow is? The last day. No more tomorrows after tomorrow. Then they'll have to come find me as we'll be on a completely different schedule for the remaining four days of testing. That's not all. It's the last day of basketball together for this team I love so much. It's the last time classes will meet. Finals are not administered by the teacher and in high school, the testing sites are alphabetically arranged. It's the last day of junior high for 8th graders, the last day of high school for seniors, and the last day for many parents to have a child enrolled in the education system mandated by society. The problem is, though, that not everything runs its predicted course. I ask my students what they are doing after school today and they give some answer but the truth is, none of us know. That's what makes life so great and maddening simultaneously.
Several days ago, I read the FACEBOOK post of a former student in Georgia who spoke of a second grade child she knew from school who drowned on Mother's Day this past Sunday. No way her family ever dreamed they would be burying their baby this week. Life has no guarantees of tomorrow. James wrote in the fourth chapter of his epistle that we should always say, "If it's the Lord's will,..." when referring to the future- we just don't know what it will bring. The question for us then becomes;
"Who have I wronged and not corrected it?"
"Who do I love that haven't I told I love lately?"
"Who am I still in debt to?""Who hasn't heard the good news about Jesus Christ?"
Like it or not, those are time and chance issues if we let them be. Make the time, and don't take the chance of letting the clock run out on your opportunity. And, don't forget! Bring your bottles since tomorrow, in ten hours, I'll be out there picking up pennies for the last time this school year! Let me add a PS- Lord willing.
Applicable quote of the day:
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.
Charles M. Schulz
Gd bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
www.hawleybooks.com
E-mail me at steve@hawleybooks.com
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