Sep 4, 2024 Finding the Reason for the Chaos

“What’s behind the chaotic behavior of these kids?” thought Paula after their first night doing the kid’s program in Ghana.

Paula shared her thoughts about how her past teaching experience prepared her for this unique mission trip:

“I’m normally a high school science teacher. And it’s not that high school kids are perfectly behaved people, but if they’re at school, that’s where they want to be.

“The processes for dealing with bad behavior in high school are pretty well managed, so you didn’t have to deal with bad behavior and kids every day, all the time.

“However, my last teaching assignment was in a middle school, and I was re-introduced to a whole different mindset and attitudes from the younger students.

“For me, the level of disrespect and disruption from the kids was difficult. Many of the kids who had emotional issues weren’t on Individualized Education Plans, but they needed to be on one.

“When the support from the school was lacking and inconsistent I had to call on the Lord constantly and pray. I prayed at my desk and anointed the desks of my students. As I drove home, I would mention them by name as I prayed out loud. I did a lot of prayer and anointing.

“And the Holy Spirit did come through. He did.

“I got better at managing them. I got better at being settled and wading through their noise and not being affected so much by the cursing and violence.

“On our mission, at our site in Lamashegu, the children were not like my school’s children at all, but compared to the other sites, ours were not as orderly.

“Unlike the other sites, we didn’t have local adults managing them. It was just me, Evelyn, and Peggy, plus our interpreter was also a stranger to them. They had no one they viewed as an authority to get them to behave.

“They were excited, but they weren’t malicious. They weren’t just terribly disruptive or acting up in a way that I’m used to.

“But it just so happens that my classroom experience this past year and a half prepared me to be able to see through what seemed to be chaos and identify it as just passion.

“They’re noisy. But that’s all it is.

“We were put in the best place for us to use our skills, and God knows what we were capable of. We weren’t placed at that site by accident.”

Paula wasn’t sure a year and a half ago why she had been placed in a middle school classroom, there was confusion and hesitation, but God had a plan—these precious kids at Lamashegu was the plan.

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” Proverbs 19:21