School Days

School Days

The sun hadn’t come up yet when I pulled into the parking lot. Two bright-yellow school buses stood side by side near the building’s entrance, and the campus was quieter than it would be for the next fifteen hours or so. Despite the predawn darkness, classroom windows were already aglow with light as early arriving staff, teachers, and students began another school day.

More than three hundred pre-K through eighth-grade students come here each day to learn. But it’s more than a school. God’s love permeates every nook and cranny. I could give you numbers: 100 percent of the students live in poverty or extreme poverty; 93 percent come from single-parent homes; median household incomes are just over $8,000 a year . . . but somehow this place coaxes hope out of these grim realities.

I come to this school once a month with a small group of friends. In the wee hours, we move quietly from room to room, upstairs and down, and pray. We pray for the students whose lockers line the walls, whispering their names one by one. And we pray for the teachers who bear Herculean struggles with kids whose environments rarely support academic achievement. (It’s not unusual for students under the age of ten to get their younger siblings dressed for school and to the bus and to arrive breathless at having just made it one more day.)

One morning I lingered in the language/writing lab and in the upstairs hallway overlooking a city basketball court notorious for drug trafficking and violence. I prayed for C—— and his teacher, who are having a rough time. Tucking a small note inside her locker, I prayed for R——. I sat in the teacher’s lounge and whispered thanks for these heroes who could make more money (and face fewer struggles) elsewhere but who choose to teach at this school instead. My friends and I huddled before we left to share what God had shown us and to pray again together.

Does it make a difference? I believe it does. Because it doesn’t take a village. It takes an army on its knees. Draw these children to you, Father, with cords of love. Never let them go.

Show me your unfailing love in wonderful ways. By your mighty power you rescue those who seek refuge from their enemies.

Psalm 17:7