Incredible Spirits

Monday, we began our 8th year of homeschooling at The Academy.

It’s been a tough week of trying to get back into the swing of things – for all of us, not just the kids.

This was the first time during our homeschooling journey, that I have allowed myself a true sabbatical. Not that I was diligent in holding office hours and planning sessions during the other summers. I just never allowed myself to pack up all the school stuff and completely shelve it for the summer.

During June and July, I didn’t even THINK about school.

The reward is that this has been a great summer . . . full of lazy days at the beach and in the mountains, children laughing and playing games and lots of lemonade!

Forcing ourselves back into the schedule of “real life” has been difficult, at best.

I’m reading Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Mortenson is a mountaineer-turned-humanitarian who has spent the last 15 years building more that 55 schools for impoverished Pakistan and Afghan villages. It is quite an amazing chronicle of Mortenson’s journey.

I’m only two-thirds of the way through the book, but something I read last night, on page 151, really struck me:

“Predictably, the jeeps carrying the wood [for the school] to Korphe were halted by another landslide that cut the track, eighteen miles shy of their destination. ‘The next morning, while Parvi and I were discussing what to do, we saw this great big dust cloud coming down the valley,’ Mortenson says. ‘Haji Ali [the village of Korphe’s chief] somehow heard about our problem, and the men of Korphe had walked all night. They arrived clapping and singing and in incredible spirits for people who hadn’t slept.’”

I’m reminded of the villagers in Chiapas, Mexico where Phillip and I have gone on several missions to help construct churches.

It’s not easy work.

For the Americans, the work day lasts from about 6:30 am until about 12:30 pm – then we have lunch and prepare for VBS with the village children. The villagers arrive at the site before daybreak. The husbands escort the wives to the community kitchen where they spend all day bent over open fires cooking beans, tortillas and chicken soup for their men and for us. The men spend all day tirelessly moving dirt, mixing cement, installing rafters and metal roofs.

It’s not easy work – but it is good work.

And everyone is happy.

As Mortenson said, there are “incredible spirits.”

There are incredible spirits because everyone knows what a blessing it is to have a school or church . . . to have a safe, warm, dry place and the freedom to learn and worship.

In our country, we’ve turned these blessings into expectations . . . and we take them for granted.

As my family begins this new school year, it is my fervent hope and prayer that we can remember what an honor and privilege it is to have the freedom to learn at home - that we can face each day with “incredible spirits.”

Photo: Building a church in Colote'el, Chiapas, Mexico, 2006 - with approaching thunderstorm.