The Hardest Job you will ever Love.

Early this morning I was praying on the phone with Blake when I asked God to help me listen to the small inner voice inside me. It came up organically, unplanned, and completely, desperately true. The old adage that God answers those who ask has never seemed more applicable. 

I went on from that prayer to start my day. Today was my first day teaching English to the children at the SOS orphanage where I live. And as off as this may sound, the orphans here are more well off than most children in Morocco let alone the whole of Africa. Decked out in clothing that is not ripped and faded by the sun, and living in apartments that rival nice houses in the United States, these kids have a pretty amazing life laid out for them. The SOS orphanage is run by UNICEF and the children are brought up and educated at a first class level. Most of the children speak French fluently (that is also actually the language of preference even inside their homes) and Arabic and English, as I found out today. 

My students waltzed into class and I promptly proceeded to make a fool of myself as I slowly said "Hello. My name is Miss Bridget. I am 23 years old. I am from California which is in the United States of America." With dumbfounded faces, my students looked back at me and then one spoke up and said quite gracefully, "Ok. Cool. My name is Amen. So why are you here?" I was more than a little floored. Not to mention a tad scared because I was just beginning to realize that my whole lesson plan for today was shot. As I quickly learned, each one of these 10-12 year olds already spoke English quite well and as they also demonstrated to me, were completely and utterly uninterested in learning any more. They never once lifted their pens or opened their notebooks. Within an hour, the lesson that was originally intended to last 2 1/2 hours was over. 

I returned to my apartment and began working on my lesson for my English class at the Dar Chebab(D.C) later that evening. As I was planning, the thought crossed my mind that my students at my D.C are so much farther behind in their English skills and yet they really seemed to want to be there. That thought was such a pre-cursor to the rest of the day.

After my meeting with Croissant Rouge (the Moroccan version of Red Cross), I went to my D.C just a little earlier than normal so that I could set up for today's lesson. But much to my surprise, I walked in to a theater full of kids and teenagers waiting eagerly for me. As I approached the board, they all stood up and kissed me on the cheek and tripped over each other in their eagerness to ask me "HOW ARE YOU??? ARE YOU FINE???" Once I had assured them that I was in fact, quite well we reviewed our ABC's and moved on to our lesson on clothing vocabulary. I had cut out pieces of paper in the shapes of pants, shirts, dresses, etc. and I taped them to the board and wrote their English names on the top. The students had to pronounce the names and then once they got them, I eventually erased the names and they had to remember what each one was. Then each person had to come up and describe what they were wearing. 

As I watched each child, each teenager walk/run eagerly up to the front of the theater, I looked out at the rest of the students and saw the majority of them hastily writing down everything that I had said or bursting out of their seats to shout the names of their class mates clothing. It warmed my heart to see how eager they were to learn. 

At the end of the lesson, I was packing up my things when I turned around and noticed that no one was leaving. "Are we done for today, teacher?" one of the older ones asked. "Yes" I replied, glancing down at my phones clock and taking note of their crumbling faces. "But remember we have ballet tomorrow!" I said. And just like that, their faces were lifted into smiles. Two girls took my hands and soon I was being led out of the D.C and down the road into their neighborhood. It's significant to mention here that this is also the same neighborhood where I was assaulted and mugged. This is the place that my students come from. The poorest of the poor districts in El Jadida. The majority of my students live in concrete houses, wear the same clothes every day, and had to be sponsored by the D.C because they couldn't afford their own notebooks and pens. 

As I walked through that neighborhood with a swarm of children around me, I felt my heart growing lighter. We arrived at my families house and they each began to kiss me goodbye. I was just about to turn to go upstairs when I felt a tug on my shirt. I looked down and saw an unfamiliar face. It was the new boy in class named Ameen. He had been rather silent all day but was certainly nice enough. And now his lower lip was trembling as he tried to put on a strong face for me. He said in Arabic, "Miss Bridget, where do I go now? I followed the other kids home because I thought you were tutoring them and I want to learn more. But my Dad is walking me home from the Dar Chebab and I'm lost now." My friend pointed vaguely up the street that we had come home from and Ameen wiped away his tears and bravely set off on his own. Which is precisely the moment that I noticed that he had a profound limp to his gait. I set off after him and asked what was wrong. He told me that he had broken his foot earlier in the week but his family didn't have enough money to pay for it to be fixed. 

Which means that this precious little boy, this wonderful God sent child, WALKED from his house to the D.C to learn English with me, participated in all of the activities, and then walked me home only in his eagerness to learn more with a broken foot. 

I have never in my life been so deeply moved by a child. Or by God's profound grace. Here, embodied in Ameen and in the faces of all my other students was my prayer answered. I have only ever been here to give and receive more light. These children, these teenagers on the brinks of starting their own independent lives - these are the people that I serve. These are the people that WANT me to be here; that value education and a better life and actively pursue both. How do you NOT respond to that?

Yes, at times serving in Morocco can be physically and mentally challenging. But days like these - people like these are what makes every day, every moment of this service worth it.