In the work I find myself, one of the great privileges is that I have the wonderful opportunity of travelling to schools in the rural areas. For years I have driven the Old Main road that heads straight past the turn off which is the entrance to an area of beauty, community, peace, families, hidden agendas, alterior motives and selfish ambition.
As I head into this valley, the sweeping views and glistening of water in the dam take my breath away. It is beautiful.
The schools I visit have no shortage of these incredible landscapes themselves. Some of their classrooms are rooms with a view, and a stunning one!
Entering the school campuses share a different story. Their sandy playgrouds and courtyards, simple structures and bathrooms with no basic essentials like toilet paper can be a sight for sore eyes. My heart dreams of basic gardens, green grass and trees to provide shade for the children to enjoy during break time. And a dream it remains.
And then, I walk into the classrooms of the junior primary classes. With bare walls, little equipment, half painted areas, recently re-done new concrete floors, lighting still waiting to be fitted and un-maintained windows. The cupboard in the corner is broken and the shelves don’t fit. Piles of tatty-edged textbooks fill the space from the base to the crooked shelf, which is the resting place for a mis-matched, un-laced pair of school shoes, bits of stationery and a packet housing other things. Any more would probably cause the shelf to collapse. As I step in, I am welcomed by the broad smiles of children, packed like sardines into the room. Some have shoes that fit them, some don’t. Some boys have trousers too small. Some girls have buttons missing on their uniform dresses. Their joy is contagious and the delight in their eyes to see my team and I is tangible. Each child is a sponge waiting to absorb more knowledge, more learning, more tools for their bright future.
As I sat in the back of a classroom this week, I caught myself noticing the view from the windows. Directly outside the one window was a large refuse bin. If I looked a bit further, I could see the dusty courtyard. Scanning deeper into the canvas of the landscape, the few green plants and shrubs outside the school office caught my gaze. A large SUV car was parked close to the office building. And then I lifted my eyes to the rolling hills on the other side of the valley embracing this primary school and surrounding it with beauty, majesty, grandeur, and colour. Natural colour, pinning the school down with peace and stability, that only being in nature provides. When I lifted my view to the stretching blue skies, I noticed the power lines, and the human need for basic essentials to live and move, eat and survive, dream and do, learn and laugh. The constant eternity of the blue skies brought surety, calm, stability and assurance to my heart. It. Is. Always. There.
When I glanced back and forth between the stark classroom building, filled with life-infused learners and the landscape outside scaling from bare sand to awesome hills, I found myself pondering, what is my perspective? What am I forced to see, and what do I choose to see? When I am trapped in bare, life-less, blank circumstances of life, do I choose to display life, the life-giving hope of Christ within me? Do I choose to be delighted by opportunities that step into the dryness? When I gaze through the window of this despondent situation, do I only see the dry, sandy, dusty courtyard, the hopelessness of the place I’m in? Or the big rubbish bin outside the door, and all the troubles I face? Or do I shift my gaze towards the grandeur, majesty and awesomeness of the creator of the universe, the one who knows the stars by name, and calls me by name too? The one who stretches out the skies and is always there.
What is my perspective? And dear friend, what is yours?
hope of heart 