Haircuts and Hallelujahs

It has been a fantastic day today (for the obvious if somewhat contrived link to the song which will probably irritate you all day now follow the link below).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iYhw_5ehZ4

My continuing spiritual quest through starvation continues with, I’m glad to say, very encouraging results. I started today with a bit of an overwhelmed feeling again. Following on from a previous post the audacity of what we are aiming for with the expanding scope of our work is both exciting and terrifying. I am still convinced that we are doing the right thing and believe that we will be successful but it still feels like a very big ask occasionally.

The most challenging part of this visit is building up momentum again in our continuing quest to implement new approaches to teaching that will make the children’s experience in school more rewarding. It’s a global challenge but that doesn’t make it any less pressing out here in rural Kenya.

I’ve been reading a book called “Jesus on Leadership” today as part of my preparation for some training with our team of teachers in a couple of weeks time. It’s a book I picked up in Nairobi last February when I was killing time waiting for my work permit to be processed. I made a bit of a start on it but didn’t really get very far. I have frequently found that when I most need inspiration the resources are at hand. This year (almost exactly a year after buying the book) it is just what I need. Inspiring and challenging. Having started the day praying for inspiration and encouragement I find I am given inspiration and encouragement.

One of the perpetual roundabouts in work like ours is the thorny problem of what our mission is. You could be forgive for asking “Well if you don’t know by now what have you been doing?” but the issues is a bit more complex. My wife Judi and I have always believed that we were called to this work in Kenya. As we have understood the issues and problems that the community that we serve experience we have initiated a number of responses and have come to the point where our primary focus is education. I guess this makes sense as we are both teachers. Knowing what you are doing and why you are doing it are quite different things. I regularly reflect and pray to make sure we stay true to our purpose.

“Jesus on leadership” poses a number of questions throughout the text. One of the first questions really pulled me up short. “You know what your vision is by completing the statement ‘God called me to ……’. I think it is important to be able state your vision in this way because being that succinct really puts you on the spot. It’s a hard thing to do meaningfully. It’s easy to knock off some catch all ‘mission statement’ but very difficult to compose something that has real personal and organisational significance.

Accepting that this pre-supposes one overriding mission (which can be achieved through many actions over a lifetime) I started to think about my first decision to become a teacher, way back in the 1970s. I remember sitting on a bus going from Aylesbury to Oxford and looking out of the window at a large school. I was at a decision point in my life. I was working as an operating theatre porter and beginning to realise that I was unlikely to make much of a career as a guitarist and that being an operating theatre porter was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. As the bus drove past the school I felt a very strong urge to go to university, get a degree and then train to be a teacher. This was a somewhat unlikely course of action for me, having been expelled from one of the schools I attended. I still remember the drive behind this decision. The desire to ‘do something’ about what happens in classrooms and to make education more rewarding and exciting for children than my own experience had been. I duly went on to become a teacher and have pursued that goal over the years.

Reflecting on this long distant memory helped me to complete the sentence. ‘God called me to transform children’s experience of education’. Job done. In the context of our work as it goes on it was an important point to come to. I have found it difficult to state what I really believe our schools are about so simply before. This focus will, I am sure, make my job easier in the training I will be doing shortly and as we go forward this year. It was a eureka moment.

Believing, as I do, that our work is God given I was massively encouraged when I very quickly checked my email on my phone minutes after writing this simple statement down. I have a lot of respect for a Christian writer called John Maxwell. He has written a number of very good books on leadership. I receive a short video message from John Maxwell every day (like thousands of other people) in my inbox. It’s a short encouragement from John Maxwell which he provides free as part of his lifelong mission to equip leaders. He speaks for a couple of minutes about a word suggested by one of the many subscribers to the feed. The email was at the top of my inbox list. The word for today. TRANSFORM.

I have said to many people who have commented on these ‘coincidences’ that they happen most when I take my prayer life seriously and least when my prayers are flagging. The voyage of affirmation through the book today and the fresh ideas it has given me are sufficient proof for me that God takes my requests to heart. This morning I needed a lift. By this afternoon I’d received one.

 On a lighter note (returning to the 80’s pop link) our place has been a hive of haircutting activity today. We are having a smartness, discipline and good self-presentation drive in both schools at the moment so all of the kids have had a haircut. Quite a short one really. To show solidarity with their experience I decided I’d better pay attention to my own ‘neatness’ so had my hair done as well (a No. 2 cut which is one shorter than my usual preference). I don’t know what the kids made of it but they all seem to have recovered from the shock of losing their hair and really do look very good.