How Can I Stand Here ... and Not be Moved by You?

Forty nine kids stood up that day, walked to the front of a room, picked up a notecard, scribbled some secret sin and placed it on a card table “altar.”  As Mr. Dixon strummed Hillsong United’s “The Stand,” from a corner of the stage, a room filled with middle and high school students were invited to turn to the Lord and worship.  I’ll stand, with arms high and heart abandoned.  The words that had gripped some deep place in me this summer were filling the little chapel’s walls and spilling out through windows opened to a sun-washed yard.  In awe, of the one who gave it all.  A few tentative hands climbed into the air and one voice after another rose in offering.  I’ll stand, my soul, Lord, to you surrendered.  All I am is yours.

I’d felt anxious all day, shrugging off a dull pain in my stomach and pinching the bridge of my nose between my eyes in between classes.  I’m no stranger to public speaking, but leading our middle and high school chapel still seems to cause me some psychological stress.  My second-year theatre students had been working for weeks on a skit for me--the “Lifehouse” skit I’m sure many of you have seen at a youth conference or on youtube.  It’s all pantomimed (no spoken lines), and tells the story of Christ and a Girl set against the lyrics to Lifehouse’s song, “Everything.”  Christ creates the Girl, breathes life into her, and shows her the world He’s created for her to enjoy.  But they’re soon interrupted by the first of a series of “Worldly Influences,” Romance.  As the verses swell, Romance, Greed, Escape, Beauty, Self-Destruction and, ultimately, Death offer the Girl something to attempt to fill the void that’s been left inside of her.  Nothing satisfies.  Relationships, money, drugs and alcohol, bulimia, cutting herself...nothing works.  But when Death offers her a gun to end her suffering, the Girl looks back at Christ (who’s been calling out to her all along), throws the gun aside, and fights her way back through the Wall that has formed between her and the God who made, loves, and wants her back.  It’s a pretty powerful little drama.  

So after a video to the song “Sweetly Broken” by Jeremy Riddle, my theatre kids took the stage.  As students watched their friends walk across the stage drunk, tossing money around, and dipping one another with a rose between their teeth, I could tell that many didn’t really understand the significance at first.  Some serious giggle fits burst out at certain moments, and I worried that the impact of the message would be lost in their immaturity.  But when the actress playing the Girl chucked that gun offstage and rushed at the human barrier, falling to the ground, but immediately rushing back to fight her way furiously through that spiritual battle and the actor playing Christ pulled an invisible rope, drawing her closer and closer, the giggles evaporated.  At the most climactic moment of the song, the Girl collapses in exhaustion.  The Worldly Influences seem triumphant, pushing her down and hurtling imaginary stones.  It’s then that Christ pushes His way through and holds them off, protecting the Girl, His arms outstretched, pain etched on His face, braving the cross.  The Girl kneels, arms stretched high above her head, relieved and thankful.  Finally, the battle’s won.  Christ gives one last powerful gesture and the Worldly Influences fall to the ground.  Christ pulls the Girl to her feet, brushes her off gently, and pulls her into a warm embrace.

I spent the next half hour or so resurrecting a message I’d first given as a camp counselor years ago.  Using the breaking of a horse as a central image and metaphor for our brokenness in and surrender to Christ, I appealed to our middle and high school students to take stock of their lives, reminding them of the Gospel and encouraging them to see what more God’s offering to us.  It was Awareness Week at WNS, which meant that students arrived each day wearing a different color to promote the cause of the day--black on Monday for violence and corruption, green on Tuesday for environmental awareness (coincidentally the same day that our grounds staff dug up a huge island filled with bushes and flowers in the parking lot to make room for more parking spaces), white on Wednesday for substance abuse, and red on Thursday for Cancer/AIDS.  The audience was awash in white that afternoon.  I reminded them that mere “awareness” is worth very little.  Awareness, in and of itself, is simple acknowledgement of a fact.  No gutsy moves there.  Awareness means nothing unless it leads to change.  Our awareness of the environment or the negative effects of substance abuse or the dangers of self-destructive behaviors is worthless unless we allow that knowledge to change our hearts and actions.  True “brokenness” requires sacrifice.  And just as a wild, unbroken horse is good for little else than pleasing itself, once that horse has submitted to the breaking process and it develops trust in its Master, it can enjoy pleasure, peace, and purpose.

In the last few minutes of the service, I offered an invitation.  In the center of our stage, I’d placed a card table.  The actors in the skit had laid down the symbols of their Influence- cigarettes and a beer bottle, wads of money, a measuring tape, a knife.  If they felt compelled to do so, students could come to the front of the room, take up a card and write down the behavior, preoccupation, issue, or relationship that’s kept them from knowing Christ and experiencing brokenness and offer it symbolically to the Lord by laying it on that “altar.”  I’d stood in the corner of the room, worshipping on my own- eyes closed, hands high.  I didn’t realize until after we’d dismissed the students just how many had responded to that invitation.  I probably completely breached their confidence in doing this, too, but I couldn’t help but lift a few of the folded and crumpled note cards from the pile and read their anonymous contents.  The words “boys” and “girls” appeared on many, and others had written “peer pressure,” “parties,” and “caring about what other people think.”  “Sports,” “Schoolwork,” “worrying about college” and other preoccupations littered the pile as well.  But the very first one I’d picked up had read, “I’m seriously struggling with every single thing in that skit in my life right now.”  

I’ve never fallen fully under the delusion that our students at this little international Christian school are little saints who never do anything wrong.  That notion was shot after my first week of teaching last year.  But this year, I’m finding out more about these students and their struggles and the lies they’re buying into.  I had no idea when I planned that chapel message in late October how relevant it would be, not necessarily to the students, but to how I go about my ministry of teaching and serving them.  I need to be keeping my students in prayer.  I need to be building into them every day- aware of my witness and ministry to them, even when I feel off my game.  I feel so aware right now of the considerable responsibility that's been given to me.  I don't want to fail them in that.

Turns out that these students even had an impact outside of our WNS community.  Last Tuesday, we were invited to perform the same skit at Africa Nazarene University during their chapel service.  One of the professors there has two daughters in my class and his wife had been present at our chapel service and had passed along to him the message of our skit.  We were to join Joelene, our WNS finance director's wife, who was to share her testimony.  Joelene has a powerful story, and the story my students told in their skit proved to be a beautiful complement to what she shared.  There were over 600 students and staff in attendance that morning (an opportunity I simply can't offer our students in our 120 seat music room, so that was a bonus) and after the service, all in attendance were asked to take the message of the morning to heart.  They were even invited to quietly raise their hands if they saw themselves in either the skit or Joelene's testimony- which many did. 

The next day, one of our office staff, Nancy, approached me in our copy room during my prep period.   She said that she'd heard great things about our trip to ANU and asked me, "Who do you think I heard that from?"  I smiled and asked, "Who?"  She replied that "Daniel the bus driver" had been talking her ear off earlier that day about the program.  He'd said that a whole bunch of people in the audience were emotional as they listened to your testimony, and that even though he could have cried, he didn't because he's "a man."  Nancy said he couldn't stop talking about how shocked he was at how much Joelene had been through, having thought (like many of our WNS staff, Nancy says) that all of us teachers have idyllic lives and no problems.  He told her he thought about raising his hand at the end of the service, but realized that she had been through so much more than he believes he has himself.  I asked Nancy if Daniel's a believer, and she said that "He's a Christian, but I don't think he knows the Lord."  She intimated that she felt that Daniel was changed by what he experienced that day.

Regardless of the stress and chaos in my life right now, I can't deny that big things are happening here in Nairobi and at our school and that the Lord seems to desire that I'm a part of them.  I honestly feel like so often, I'm not up to the challenge, and instead I find hundreds of things to complicate what I'm doing here and drag my attention away from where He wants me to be.  We just returned from our staff devotions where Linda, our music teacher, spoke about being "present."  Timely message in my life right now.  I'm constantly exhausted and discouraged when I insist upon planning ahead and working and working and finding no time for rest and no time to be here right now.   I fear that I'm missing out on things.  On people.  On what's right in front of me.  It's Thanksgiving this Thursday.  Makes sense that the Lord would want me to stand still, sit quietly, and thank Him for what's now.

Thankful for you,

Kate