Flags and Butterflies and Screaming Children

The "Day of Screaming Children" began exactly as it had every previous year at BFA: me, lying awake in bed half an hour before my alarm, previewing in my mind all the day’s events and wondering how they could all fit in. This moniker for the Opening Ceremony came from my first principal because our students - after 11 weeks apart over the summer - usually run screaming at each other followed either by a long embrace or a giddy jumping up and down. Though medical masks muffled some of the sound and kept long hugs at bay this year, the enthusiasm was still palpable. The Senior class eagerly grabbed their favorite flags or those that represented one of their best friends and lined up for pictures while parents yelled, “Smile! Yes, with your eyes!”

Due to regulations, most of the staff had to watch Opening Ceremonies on the big screen in the Student Center. We laughed together over the transmission delay every time we could hear cheering from across campus moments before our visual showed us why. The students were literally cheering for everything. Every flag (from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe), every speaker, every sip of water. We were simply grateful in the allowance of being together in person. 

The day carried me through get-to-know-you games with the Grade 8 boys, an Assembly in which I demonstrated proper German recycling, lunch in the sunshine with some Grade 6 girls, Homeroom time going over rules and procedures, and a whole-school activity coloring parts of multiple butterflies that will decorate our hallways. And it was that last activity that got me thinking about the journeys our students and staff go through to get here. In some ways it is ridiculous that a hoard of expats descends on this unassuming German village every year to do school, but it’s also beautiful. Much like the 2,500-mile trek a monarch butterfly can undertake in just one migration, our people aren’t native to here. Whether we come eagerly or dragging our feet, the colors of the flags adorn our hallways as visible reminders that we all had to travel to get here. Our children scream on this day because, if they have to be 2,500 miles from “home,” it seems best to do that among a flutter of other butterflies who can relate.

This day will quickly give way to the habitual, dare we say the mundane. Eventually it will be my alarm clock waking me up again instead of the other way around. Homework will break into reality, and my guess is by next weekend, we’ll have our first students pushing back on some of those rules and procedures. Still, as we inhale deeply and dive into another year, I'm grateful for visual tokens and days that have names. They remind us that some things should be set apart, that our lives are colorful and our calling holy. It's a day worth remembering.

My unique view of the Seniors with the Flags (Aug 25, 2021)

Messy Mercies

Transition is messy. I’ve cried more times than I’d like to admit in the three weeks I’ve been back, mostly in private and just a tear or two before something beautiful bursts the bubble again, like the sound of church bells or the smell of flowers I hand-picked in a field. At work I’ve been moved to a new classroom. Half of me is mourning the old one that holds so many memories, and the other half of me is excited for an escape to this much cozier-feeling room. Getting to hang out with friends I’ve missed over the past year is a boon to my soul, but then I miss those I got to know better this past year, like my small group and Amanda’s family. Thorsen and Eva no longer call me to dinner with their sweet giggles. Plus, there are giant holes all over town where people left, and even though I said a “proper” good-bye to many of them before I left last summer, I still somehow felt swindled out of their presence in my life. See? Messy.

I found this verse in Mark 5:19 this morning, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.” My first thought was wishing I had seen it a year ago because it could’ve been a great anthem for Home Assignment. My second thought was how much I looked forward to returning to this home here in Germany and how here too I have friends who should be hearing about what God has done for me. His mercies, though often hidden in the mess, are new every morning.

So how has the Lord shown me mercy in this transition? I see evidence in the friend who has walked the same road as I have for the last 12 months, so she gets my tears and I understand hers. His mercy showed up in an email from a former student about to enter high school, asking if I would consider a mentoring relationship with her. (We’re getting together tomorrow to talk about it.) The arms of a long-time Kanderner who has walked her own transitions over the years gave me a touch of his mercy. I tasted it on Thursday when my prayer group gathered around my table for the first time since before the Pandemic, and we read Psalms together and prayed for our hearts, our school, and the world. His mercy is humming right now under the window in the form of an air conditioner, keeping the sweltering humidity out of at least one room in my house. 

In no way do I mean to negate any of the hard or rotten or terrible aspects of transition. They stink, and often there is no way around them; in the wise words of the Bear Hunt song, sometimes you have to go through it. But in my constant struggle to develop thick skins and soft hearts (see my blog from a year ago), it’s useful to remind my heart of “how much the Lord has done for me.”

a Saturday stroll through the vineyards after a picnic with friends