CHAPTER 7 France the 2nd time. Entering the Emotional Crucible

Just as planned, I spent my 4th year (1997-98) as an English Teacher in Paris, France at an inner city middle school with a high Muslim immigrant population.

 

Until recently I would have said the difference between Aix-en-Provence in 91-91 and Paris in 97-98 was that I only went to church once in Aix but my faith exploded in Paris. But that’s a little unfair.

 

I couldn’t find a church in Aix where I could actually understand what they were saying. But God provided real life “church” in the love relationship with the Vivaldi family.

 

Paris , on the other hand, was extreme in all ways. I started the year all wrong. The city was so big and exciting and temptation was everywhere. I was still partying and sleeping around. Where was my determination to change? Before I arrived I had vowed o start fresh with God.

 

I should have known I would have to fight through adversity for my faith. The first week I was there two women died. Two women I greatly admired for their leadership in focusing the eyes of the world on the needy. Princess Diana and Mother Teresa.

 

The first week my students, their parents, 2 of Agnes’ fellow English teachers, and my new Principal all tried to get me to go back home. My supporters told me their colleagues were afraid my students might be significantly more successful than theirs. So they set out from day one to sabotage me in Paris and at home. After I cried I prayed. After I prayed I got serious about Jesus.

 

I found a church where I understood the words but also the worship and the call to discipleship. Paris is where I realized that when we accept Christ the journey is just beginning because it takes time, experience, and often adversity to become like Jesus. I had finally come to see how much of a babe in Christ I was and how much I needed God. I began to realize I could only be happy and at peace by living out His plan and purpose for me.

 

Things never got easier that year. In fact, in December my exchange partner Agnes threatened to come home after only one semester. She admitted she had been ill and had expected a change of scenery in an easy exchange. SC high school students are definitely not easy. Friends in the US and I convinced her to stay but our relationship never improved.

 

Eventually after getting advice from other teachers my performance teaching English improved. I had never before had to make up my own lesson plans and materials, homework, and tests from scratch. For 6th-10th graders! In a foreign language!

 

Then a month before the end of the exchange disaster struck. I had several problem students who were pretty much forced to be at school and took out their frustrations on me. The worst was a girl who was already repeating 7^th grade.

 

Embarrassed and uncomfortable in her own skin she lashed out at me daily. I often sent her away early to the Principal. She had even accused another teacher of hitting her a few weeks earlier but the other students testified to his innocence. This particular day I ejected her from class, sending her to the principal.

 

She showed him a bruised and said I had given it to her. He called me that night and explained her accusation. Then he forbade me to return to the school. I was undone. I was angry and embarrassed. I couldn’t believe I was being punished with no inquiry or opportunity to defend myself.

 

I learned from one of the other teacher that everyone knew I was innocent. The PE teacher had seen the child bruise herself in a fall earlier and the other students in my class testified to my innocence. The Principal had been looking for a way to get rid of me and this was his excuse. See, in France, Principals are held accountable for their students’ academic successes and failures. He was afraid I would cause him to be censured or punished if my students tested poorly at the end of the year.

No charges were ever filed and I was so hurt I didn’t insist he take me back.

 

Really I was just too worn down to fight for myself.

 

Agnes influenced my employers. I received my contract but it didn’t indicate a placement. I knew then they were trying to get rid of me based on the rumors and lies they had ‘heard’ from Agnes colleagues. So I found myself alone, jobless, homeless, and emotionally destroyed in a foreign country.

 

I clung to Jesus like never before. I had been attending Mass daily for months.

CHAPTER 8 Return Home - Fall 1998 Convert Becomes a Growing Disciple

I made it home bruised and battered to find I could still teach Spanish but not French. I was being sent to Middle School. 2 of them. For half a day each.

 

I lost my apartment but luckily I found one right in front of my morning school.

 

Could it get worse?

 

It did. While away my driver’s license had been suspended. Most days I had to walk from School#1 across town to School#2. Thankfully my lunch break and planning time were arranged so that I had time to travel.

But in both schools I was given a gray room with mismatched metal desks and a box of worn, written in, workbooks and told to create my own program. I would have students for each group of students for only 12 weeks. Every student. Whether they wanted to study Spanish or not. And there would be no academic accountability. No grades.

 

Was there a silver lining? A light at the end of the tunnel?

Not in the classroom. In fact, the 1998-1999 school year was so humiliating, tiresome, and negative that I retired from teaching rather than repeat the Hell I had just endured.

 

But something incredible did happen. In the fall after a particularly bad week I began to feel so sorry for myself I contemplated ways to pretend to attempt suicide. I wanted to get the support and attention without actually hurting myself. I wanted to end ‘ME’ without hurting me. So I called two of my former youth, now good friends, and dramatically said that if they wanted to see me alive they better show up before it was too late.

 

They did. In fact that stayed all night. Josh Dougherty and Jason Lambert really showed what true friends are that night. I was still in church and leading the High School Youth but I was burnt out.

 

Josh knew I was committed to Trinity UMC but he convinced me to attend a new church at Coastal Carolina University at 9:00. He promised I’d be able to arrive on time for the 11:00 service at Trinity.

 

I remember distinctly how everyone I passed spoke to me and smiled, welcoming me to the service. I remember how the praise music encouraged everyone to participate the way I had been raised. At Trinity rarely did the congregation actually join in the singing.

 

And the young minister oozed charisma. He was inspiring and funny and I wanted to follow where he was leading. So eventually I began to attend Christ United Methodist Full-time. By the Spring I had transferred my member ship. I went with Trinity’s blessing because, after all, Trinity was my new Pastor’s home church as well.

 

The church, almost from the beginning has had 4 services that reach out to people in all walks and stages of life. They were intentional about loving each other and about loving non-Christians as an expression of their love for God.

 

I volunteered in youth, young adult, and worship ministries as I had at Trinity but the crucible of my recent trials caused me to invest myself with sincerity, dependence, and faith I had lacked before. Suddenly I was changing and learning more about real life ministry than all the years of bible study and singing had taught me. I was so at home there, that when I moved home in 1999 to regroup I would still commute on weekends to attend services as part of the worship team.

 

I eventually moved back to Myrtle Beach in 2001 to teach Spanish to preschoolers and to work in an Afterschool and Summer Program. That’s where I learned everything I know about teacing, from the 1-4 year olds.

 

Growing was surprising, especially with the High School Youth and with the Young Adults from “Refuge”.

 

I was still stubborn and rebellious but I was learning how to be a disciple of Christ every moment. Then in 2003 an invitation caused me to re-evaluate my actions for Christ. A friend challenged me on the selfishness of my extensive world travels. He helped me to realize I had never once travelled for any higher purpose than my own pleasure. That got me thinking.

In fact it led me to participate in Mission Trips every other year.

Honduras in 2003

France in 2005

Uganda, Africa in 2007

The Dominican Republic in 2009

Each trip highlighted more and more the unique purpose for which I believe I am called. I speak French pretty well already, I've lived there twice and understand the culture. And I love discipling new believers and just doing life with them while God teaches them how to become more like His Son!

What I'M Reading-Pagan Christianity-Grade F-

So I stopped at Barnes and Noble on the way home tonight. I couldn't find anything new that really tickled my fancy. I usually grab a mystery or fantasy that takes my mind far away from all the tasks I've yet to do. Sometimes I'll grab a Christian leadership book or a biography. 

Tonight is was an indictment against the cultural manifestation the the Bride of Christ as unbiblical in execution.

I can acknowledge the positives. There was constructive criticism about how The Church as an institution has assimilated traditions not found in scripture. I can also acknowledge that The Church has modified considerably since the first century believers first began to assemble.

But grace for the authors ends there. Barna is one of the most widely known sources of statistics comparing the behaviors and attitudes of secular society to those same behaviors and attitudes among "churchgoers." 

First, I always take issue with those stats for one reason. Being a churchgoer neither requires nor indicates being an actual follower of Christ. Now I think Barna may have been trying to show The Church as a body that the people partipating in the programs, services, and small groups aren't rally changing. Or not enough to measure. And in many ways I can see this.

Second is methodology and interpretation of results. Instead of comparing churchgoers to unchurched I would compare those who Believe ...

[there is a God, only one God, who created all, is 3 in 1, loves all people enough send His Son Jesus as the only way to reconcile man to himself] 

to everyone else.

Make that question one. Filter number one. Because the same people he includes in the churchgoer statistics are divorcing, cheating on their spouses, addicted to porn or prescription drugs, think all ways lead to God/Heaven, believe in Evolution, and have abortions. Just like the unchurched. Weed them out of the churched population and you get a whole different CORE of behavior and attitudes that all hinge on who God is and what His Son did and continues to do through his life, death, and resurrection.

3. The book actually takes traditions that do have roots in other traditions, or seem to, and says definitively that every wrong tradition came the Greco-Roman Empire and from her temples and pantheistic worship practices.  They actually sort of re-write history and ignore the pre-existing influences of Israel's psalmistic praise, the Tabernacle itself , and Temple Worship. practices. The few times they acknowledge these sources as potential rivals for Greco-Roman influence they immediately dismiss them as part of the Law from which Christ freed New Testament believers.

4. What they offer instead is  the small house church model with minimal central leadership. Leadership roles are acknowledged (pastor, teacher, deacon, etc) but with an emphasis on shared responsibility, authority, and input, by all members of the "congregation/church". Anyone can sing, or share a teaching. No one is paid to facilitate. No one person is even "the leader".  The authors insist that only this model is representative of how the first century believers worshipped. 

5. They do make the following token concession...don't change...IF your model for "church" actually transforms lives and is consistently spontaneous and allows all members to contribute instead of enabling them as pew-sitters. However they are clear in their analysis that no large, building/service/programs oriented model currently in existence really works or allows those things.

Conclusion:

Pagan Christianity offers a sobering indictment of the Bride of Christ and her failure to transform as many lives as she ought. However the propaganda overpowers the wisdom leaving a crticizing anti-building and anti-organized manifesto.