The Class of 2025 is Leaving (me)

It’s the week when I’m feeling all the feels, when my heart is being squeezed by a giant fist, when my eyes constantly leak my emotions. Okay, enough of the cliched phrases to date myself. It’s Grad Week. That says it all.

It’s been a good one, too. Tuesday was the last day of MS classes/exams, and we traditionally end with a half hour of yearbook signing and goodbye hugs. This year the kids struck the right balance of being sad at the loss of friends without heavy sobbing and being excited for summer break without rebelling. Honestly, they were such a great group of students this year, and I’m a bit sad that we did have to say “Hope to see you again some day” to some quality Middle Schoolers. 

Wednesday was the last day of HS exams followed by the annual Alumni Games. The alumni who are in town play against the senior class athletes in volleyball, basketball, and soccer. The last game in particular was made more exciting by one ball that broke the Head of School’s car windshield, another ball to the face of the goalie which resulted in stitches, and a random brush fire a Science teacher discovered and put out with two alumni. Crazy day!

On Thursday it started to get hot. Really hot. We cleaned the campus and set up everything for graduation. The evening contained the highlight of the week for me personally: the HS Awards Ceremony. Half of girls got called up on stage for either academic, athletic, performance, or character awards. This is when the tears started for real.

The commencement ceremony on Friday was absolutely wonderful, and not just because I had a front row seat for the first time ever. Each graduate was honored with a personalized tribute, and one of my very own got to give the Valedictorian Speech in which she declared that only God was worthy of anything and everything that the Class of 2025 could dream of. That’s my prayer as we say goodbye to these wonderful students - that they would exalt above all things God’s name and God’s word. What a gift they’ve been to me, especially the eight who graced my couch every Tuesday, and I really am going to miss them very much!

My Eight!

Tanzania in the Fall

They had told me it was the rainy season. I half believed them and threw in my umbrella at the last minute. What a necessity it was on those first days, full of cloud and mud, the tight, frizzy curls on my head bearing witness to the humidity of northern Tanzania in the autumn. It was a unique rainy season to me as well - alternating between dark thunderstorms with heavy rains, an entire morning of mere mist, and then bursts of blue sky before going back to a soaking of grass and ground. It was a delight and fortunately never detracted from the deep thinking that was going on in the classroom. 

The PSI launch in Tanzania was an absolute success. The trainees arrived ready to absorb anything and everything they could, enhancing the materials with their own experience and rich theology. Even as I taught them about Biblical Worldview Integration, they revealed to me gaps in my own understanding and filled in their insights and love for God’s Word. It was a beautiful coming together of educators for the good of their country, united by a vision to see more children be reached with the good news of Jesus. I left with a newfound respect for the challenges they will face and a hope for the future of their nation.

But not before an unplanned and thoroughly wonderful side trip to Tarangire National Park, where I saw elephants rough-housing in more mud, lions sleeping in a tree, and lost part of my lunch to a thieving monkey. What a treat!

trainers and trainees

Safari!

How fun to see such young elephants playing up close

Walking with Ellen

International living often means more hellos and good-byes than anyone would likely wish for. It's not exactly my favorite aspect, but sometimes God is kind and gives you a friend who walks alongside you for more than just a year or two, but a whole season. Such a person is Ellen to me. And this weekend is a time for celebrating her!

A few months ago, I finally wrote the manifesto I'd been joking that I would write for years. Largely it was due to Ellen's support of it. So, in honor of Ellen, here is a sample from my work, "How to Walk in Public." To show my further appreciation of her, here it is in orange. 😄 Enjoy

How to Walk in Public: A Manifesto

by Katrina Custer

Dedication

To Ellen, who quoted from this work frequently, even before a single word was written.
My gratitude also goes to Suzanne and Heather, who made it better.

Introduction

As long as humans have existed, they have walked places. It was essential to survival as fire and food couldn’t exactly walk themselves into our homes. Over the centuries, we have devised all kinds of creative ways to walk less, including domestication of horses, chariots, steam-engine locomotives, airplanes, electric scooters, and the like. Yet none has ever negated the need, at times, to walk. It is a skill still celebrated worldwide by parents with their toddlers and Fit-Bit-wearers who achieve digitized fireworks.

What this manifesto seeks to address is specifically the skill of walking in public. Perhaps it is better labeled an art form, a silent dialogue between our own bodies and the environment around us. The goals of this writing are to illuminate basic principles of walking in the presence of others, thereby raising awareness of each individual’s responsibilities in the shared effort of moving ourselves from point A to point B.

General Principles

Largely the ideas laid out in this manifesto can be boiled down to one objective: having respect for those around you. However, there are some specific principles that can guide us in our quest to walk in public well, led solidly by our own goal to get where we are going and to be mindful of the purposes that guide others as well.

Happy Birthday, Ellen!

Seek First the King

It’s spring break, and yet every morning I’ve been waking up before the sun, which is early now that we’re past the solstice and fully into Spring. Annoyed, most mornings, I simply turned over and willed my body back to sleep. Not this morning, however. The instant I crack my eyes open and see that it’s only 6:02, I hear the whisper. “Come away with me,” and the image of Hochblauen swims into my mind.

I know what he wants, the surrender he’s going to ask of me. It’s going to be both a physical and a spiritual 5-hour journey up and down a mountain because he and I both know that my mind and heart have been swirling with impending anxiety. Again. That I’m dwelling on the forthcoming applications and cuts I’ll have to make. That I absolutely dread disappointing people.

How fitting that I’m sitting now in a castle ruin. Earlier this week, I got to witness a Shakespearian castle on the stage as the setting where King Richard II held up a literal mirror to his face. In fiction at least, he was a king who valued the glory of his kingdom over the reality and well-being of his subjects; he sought the praise of men more than true intimacy. Ellen I both noticed the acting choice of the king to consistently pull back from human touch. Friends, family, his own wife would reach out a hand to him, and he’d recoil. Until he was in the castle prison, alone, and the only person who visited him was a stablehand. The dethroned Richard, curled up like a little boy and fell into the poor man’s arms for an awkward hug, but it was too late for the kind of intimacy he clearly craved. I don’t know what he saw in that mirror, but here in my little castle and with my Bible splayed in front of me, I see my own fear of rejection, my own desire for the praise of others. If I’m honest, I long to hear all my self-love come out of other people’s mouths.

I feel gross admitting it. Shallow. Pathetic. That’s when I hear his voice again, a prompt to a question I was asked earlier in the week of whether or not Jesus ever disappointed people. (Often, I had replied.) As a follow-up, he asks now, “What is the praise or the disappointment of man compared to pleasing me?” I write in my journal, “And what does please you?” A poster that hangs in the Middle school student center floats into my mind. “To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” There it is: the surrender. The reframing of the decision ahead of me. Will I act justly in interviews and in the way I talk about these applicants? Will I love mercy as I make cuts? Will I walk humbly with God in all my communication and in all my prayers? Then all else is forfeit. All striving for approval is vain unless I’m seeking the heart of my King.

I summit Hochblauen in the euphoria of accomplishment, as usual, before returning to the valley floor once more. There’s no doubt the surrender was genuine, even if I will have to repeat it again tomorrow. Yet in the end, the truth that brings the most comfort as I haul my sore body into bed is the one that is the greatest difference between Richard II and myself: I will never be alone and forgotten, shunned by all but a stableboy. My King values the glory of his kingdom AND the well-being of his subjects; my King is an intimate one - who calls me awake as well as granting sleep, who tends to my heart, mind, and body with equal care, and who desires good for me all the days of my life.

Sausenburg Castle

Dry Spaghetti

Chaos reigned. Balloons and dry spaghetti noodles were everywhere, kids were squealing, and adults darted in and out of the mess with instructions and cameras. We were midway through the annual Mega Relay at High School Retreat.

Having become an annual tradition for this weekend, the Mega Relay is a crazy 12-course relay, in which you run all the relay challenges back to back without pause. Every year, Lance outdoes himself with creativity, such as making us transport pasta in our hair. But the kids’ favorite part is rarely the relay itself; it’s the fact that Small Groups come dressed up in some kind of matching costumes. This year, for example, my senior girls came as superheroes with capes we designed ourselves using stickers and coordinated masks. Another group came in prison uniforms while their leader was dressed as a cop. One girls group dressed like senior citizens, complete with wigs and curlers and canes; every few minutes their leaders handed them tic tacs and told them to “take their medicine.” The favorite group of the night, however, was the boys group who looked like hot dogs, and their leader was the chef and fashioned himself a person-sized spatula.

And so it was that we found ourselves midway through the relay, having completed all 12 games, and sitting at the center line waiting for other groups to wrap up. They girls were busy picking noodles out of our hair when MG gasped sharply and slapped two of her peers on the knees. “Guys, I just had the best costume idea for next year! We should --” but we never got to hear her idea, for at that moment it hit her that they were seniors. There is no “next year.” This had just been their final Mega Relay. As her face fell and her lip quivered, seven arms reached around her for a collective “awww” and a hug. 

I was both thrilled that she would be excited about a next year with this group and crushed at the thought that it’s quickly coming to an end. I pray that wherever my girls find themselves next year on High School Retreat weekend, that it’s a place of friendship, laughter, and dry spaghetti noodles. That it’s a place where Jesus’ name is spoken often and joyously worshiped. That they’ll find themselves to be known and loved.

Mega Relay costumes

Photos courtesy of BFA Communications

Analogies of Game Time

It was beautiful. I was standing in the gym for game time amidst blaring music and flying dodgeballs, and I had to fight back a swell of emotions because in front of me, kids were playing “Protect the President.” A Middle Schooler stood in the center, and one of their Senior leaders was attempting to take all the hits of the dodgeballs being thrown at their kid. Every time someone from the edge successfully hit the Middle School “President,” they got to run to the middle to become the new target, and the best part for me was watching their Senior leader in the moment he/she recognized the new president was one of theirs. Without fail, they launched themselves into the center as well and started diving in front of dodgeballs and wrapping their young protege behind themselves. One of them nearly fell on top of his kid in an attempt to protect the guy from ball-shaped ammunition.

It was an analogy of my life. Me, the helpless little needy child clinging to the back of my Defender and Savior. Jesus, taking all the shots meant for me. And he doesn’t just do it because he has to or happens to be in the way. He’s throwing himself in front of death for me. Like I said: it was beautiful.

Gratitude made my heart swell. Gratitude for what Jesus has done for me, and gratitude for what these Seniors are doing for their Middle Schoolers. Let's do it again next week.

Defenders

It's a Love Story

After multiple days of coughing, sneezing, sleeping, fevering, and more nose-blowing than I thought possible, I was finally out of my house and among the living. It was tournament day after all, and I had committed to driving the Middle School teams to Bern. (Of course the coach said he could find an alternative driver, but I reasoned that my task would mostly involve sitting and either driving or cheering, so I’d be fine.) And what a first day back it was.

We started with back-to-back games for the girls and then immediate back-to-back games for the guys. After months of practice for these teams and only a sprinkling of scrimmages up to this point, it was fun to see them get to run strategies they’d been planning and put their trust in one another to the test. By lunchtime, the girls were undefeated, and the boys had 2 wins and 1 loss. It was beautiful to watch them rotate back and forth between the two courts, either fighting themselves or cheering on their classmates with loud rounds of “F-A. F-A-L. F-A-L-C-O-N-S! Let’s go Falcons!”

At one point in the afternoon, as the girls were heading into the playoffs, I noticed that the usual leading point scorers weren't shooting as much. Rather, they were passing the ball off to the younger, shall we say less experienced/skilled players and shouting “Shoot” at them. Diligently the younger ones always responded with an attempt at the basket, usually a bit short. But when 6th grader EW’s shot circled and dropped through the net, the entire bench lost their minds. When AW did it a few minutes later, the eruption was so loud that even the boys’ teams all had to look over to see what had happened. All they saw was the ear-to-ear grin of the shortest player on the court.

I teared up a little bit. The relentless way they spent the next game tossing it to ED and CD so that they could also count a basket among their successes of the day, the enthusiastic way the boys cheered for the girls’ 1st place trophy even though they themselves got the raw end of the three-way tie-breaker rules, the countless offers I got this week to drop off meals and tissues and ginger ale - it all spoke to me of the beauty when community lives as it should. When it seeks to lift others up, not tear them down for personal gain. It is a love story, a reflection of the greatest love story.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Look at that love

And yet more love

Fitting In versus Belonging

I’ve been listening to an audiobook by Lauren Wells, the founder of TCK Training and Unstacking Company. She has multiple books; this one is called Raising up a Generation of Healthy Third Culture Kids and is targeting mainly parents or those who work with TCK’s. So, as both a TCK and someone working with TCK’s, I thought I might as well give it a read.

Wow, have I been humbled. I still have so much to learn. As I listened this weekend, she touched on the differences between “belonging” and “fitting in.” Informally, she asked some TCK’s how they see the difference. Some answers included the following two ideas:

• Fitting in can be done anywhere or with anyone, but belonging is only in some places or with some groups.

• I change my behaviors and words to fit in, but I’m free to be myself when I belong.

It might be easy to look at those and think, “Okay, I know where you’re going: fitting in = bad; belonging = good.” But, that’s not the case. Fitting in is absolutely necessary. It’s a survival skill, and it often benefits not just the TCK, but others as well. Friends have commented that I’m really good at navigating transportation whenever we visit a new place. Honestly, I think it’s just a survival skill I’ve picked up along the way: the reading of maps, watching others to see how to buy or validate tickets, the hyper-awareness of every stop, etc. Fitting in is about more than avoiding the stares, about joining the natural flow of pace. It’s often a validation of how things are done, an appreciation for the differences with a willingness to learn and adapt to them.

Belonging isn’t automatically better, but it is a layer beyond, deeper. It’s connected to identity. If fitting in is your way of validating the new place, belonging is when you yourself feel validated, accepted. To belong somewhere is to know how a certain place impacted who you are have become, even if it's merely one aspect of your personality or character. You get to taste the notion of putting down roots in a place, of finding yourself to be wanted. You're adding to the beauty, not just navigating the chaos. Here in Kandern, for instance, fitting in was subtly learning that the most acceptable time for putting out your garbage can is between 7:30 and 8:00pm the night before. Belonging was being told that our neighborhood was having an evening grill-out and that I got to pick the date to make sure I could be there.

Of course, there’s a sadness in knowing I won’t ever have a place where my roots go deep, where I’ll belong forever and happily spend all the rest of my days. And I’ve come to peace with that. It’s why so many TCK’s find their belonging in relationships rather than in geography anyway, why I believe in this transitory-permanent place we call BFA in which our students’ roots become tangled with each other for a season before flying off again. We witness a lot of fitting in and hopefully also some belonging, even if it's temporary. But we hold to the hope for that one day. One day fitting in and belonging will both come easily because we'll all be home. Forever.

the day my team accidentally all wore the same hoodie