As an educator, I wish to create an environment of respect, love, and inclusivity. It is my personal mission to make every student feel valued. I’m not there to instruct but to support.
This statement has always been my go-to answer in every school-related interview. Looking back, I’ve always compartmentalized my goals and visions, depending on what area of my life I was experiencing. When I think of my life in the community and my life as an educator, I’ve always felt that both lifestyles were so different.
Recently, a few of us sisters came together to share our “crazy dreams” for the community. Everyone had great ideas and I remember just sweating from nervousness because I had no idea what my own crazy dream was. In all eleven years of being in this community, I don’t think I’ve ever had a crazy dream. Out of desperation, I thought of my own aspirations as an educator and how I could easily apply it to my service in the community. In the end, I shared my go-to “teacher answer” (see above lol), and soon after, I felt that I was very disingenuous in how I had answered the question. However, when I think of recent events, I realized that this experience was really just another way for God to expose my heart and place it in front of me.
At the recent NALS, I was given a glimpse of the “bigger picture” and what it was like to be one in the mission. In coming together as North America, I saw a true community; I saw a community that supported one another; I saw a community that truly valued one another in the mission, and I saw a community that was united through the love of the Lord. I hadn’t realized it, but my crazy dream was painted right before my eyes. I witnessed the loving, inclusive, and supportive community that I had always envisioned as an educator and saw it manifest in the mission.
In seeing this, I realized that there are still so many desires in my heart that the Lord is waiting to unveil. I thank the Lord for instilling me with the heart of an educator and revealing desires within my missionary heart – desires that were waiting to be discovered.
Be it as an educator or a missionary, I want nothing more than to spread the love of the Lord and to make every single person feel loved and valued <3