Loveology

The study of love. Last week was our school's annual "Week Without Walls." A week dedicated to stepping outside of the walls of our school and serving the local community. This year's theme was "Loveology." We were on a mission to study love. What does it mean to love our neighbors? What would it look like for us to do that? Practically... not just in theory. So all 207 BAIS students and all 40 BAIS teachers and staff left the building, stepped outside of the walls of our school and tried to tear down the walls we put up inside of our hearts. I led a group of 12 high school students that went to a local school in the kampung (local neighborhood) to teach English. The school was down a muddy dirt path off the main road where no cars could drive to. The school has 210 students and only 9 teachers. The building is small with 6 classrooms (one for each grade). My high school students created lessons to teach English words for simple things like colors, body parts, animals, etc. They sang songs, acted out motions, did some coloring, and passed out candy. When it was all over we stuck around to play with the kids and a few of our guys started up a game of soccer. My favorite part of our time at the school was on our last day when we were about to leave. We told them we wanted to say goodbye, so they gathered all the kids out on the courtyard. I gave a little speech and thanked the principle for letting us come. We gave some gifts- donations we had collected for the school (basic school supplies, books, colored pencils, etc.). The principle gave a short speech and thanked us for coming. Then our group sang a couple of songs. The second one was in Indonesian and all the kids joined along in singing with us. It was a beautiful moment all of us there, singing together. And the goodbye ended with them singing an impromptu song to us. We took a group picture and then shook hands and went our separate ways. When it was all over we walked away with some simple reflections. Here are some things my group learned about love: -loving others means serving them -love is something we give away once we ourselves have received it -love takes relationships, relationships take time -love must be sincere -love is puzzling to those who do not often receive it Such beautiful stories came from each group in our time scattered across the community. One of the things I took away from the experience is how incredibly blessed we are to be living the life we do. Each of us lives a life far better than most. Yet in the midst of our thankfulness and rejoicing that we are blessed, we must not forget that we are therefore called to be a blessing to others because we have been blessed with so much. There are many pictures to share, but I just chose a few. Enjoy!