My Stomach Sinks but My Heart Swells

            Parent-teacher conferences, especially for a young teacher, were always a bit daunting. Though I got to know the students very well, it was usually the first time meeting the parents, and I never knew what exactly to expect. I was surprised one night when a burly man with a gruff voice introduced himself impatiently, looking like this was the last place he wanted to be.

“You Miss Martin?” he asked but it sounded more like an accusation.

“Yes?” I should have been more confident, but I wasn’t. When he shared whose father he was, my insides quivered because I had just reprimanded his step-son, who was always a bit naughty, the other day.

“My son says you told him he has a good reading voice,” he cut into my thoughts. “That’s the first time he’s come home to tell me he had a good time at school. And that a teacher complimented him.” I couldn’t believe it, and yet I could. He seemed to hate school. “That meant a lot to him. Just wanted to say thank you.” He turned and left me with my jaw half open.

“My son says he likes you as a teacher because you don’t have favorites,” a mother wrote me over email while apologizing for not making the conferences. “That’s the best compliment I think a teacher could get.” I was surprised, again, by who the son was. He was quiet, reserved, hardly got any attention in class because he was content in the background. Apparently, my praising him for his high reading scores made him feel seen and valued just as much as the others who talked and volunteered and soaked up classroom attention.

“You’re the reason my daughter wakes up in the morning to go to school,” a shy mother said with a shaky voice. With an intense look in my eyes, it’s like she was communicating something beyond words. Tears welled in my eyes at her intense gratitude, and I felt more seen and appreciated in that moment than maybe ever.

So it was to my utter dismay that in February 2014, I got the phone call that changed it all.

“Kate, this is a house, not a home. There is no heart here.” A friend in Swazi had called me about the challenges we had been facing from the NGO we had partnered with in running the home. They had opposite ideals, money was going missing, the girls were going without food and school shoes, and they were all still without a mother.

When I hung up the phone, I began sobbing. Not because I didn’t want to go. I’ve always wanted to be in Swazi. But my La Crescent students and parents, staff and community, had changed my life. It was my dream job, and I was more than content staying in it. I had poured my life into my students, loving them into life and providing more than just an education; I wanted to be a light, to be Hope in the flesh, and resurrect self-worth wherever it lacked in those I taught/coached/mentored. I had actually started believing I could live in both worlds; I even secretly had talked to the Superintendent and asked if it was possible that I teach half a year and do my other half in Swazi. He actually gave me his blessing, no joke. 

But when the call came, it wasn’t about half here, half there. It was all and it was now. They deserved a mother, not just a bed to sleep on (the first bed some of them ever had); they deserved the home I dreamt for them.

“Ms. Martin, do you have to leave us?” one of the shortest boys in the back of the room had raised his hand. He was smart but pretending not to be and was very shy, rarely speaking in class. I was actually shocked to see his hand go up. And devastated at his question. It wasn’t long, though, until the students got on board and supported my move to Swazi. They actually threw a goodbye party for me. They filled a notebook (that I STILL have) with notes and encouragements to me. They sent packages once I moved and sent Christmas letters. My basketball girls sent videos and kept me updated on all their happenings.

And now, ten years later, I can’t help but wish I could hug and thank EVERY single one of them AND their parents. They changed me. They charged me. They enabled me to do what I was called to do. God knew what He was doing, and He knew why He had me at La Crescent for those few short years. Few but mighty. Unforgettable.

In fact, I still have all their class pictures on my wall in my War Room. I pray for them. I think of them. And my spirit lifts. They gave me the greatest gift: an eternal smile.  

And in celebration of this eternal smile, I could write about all the incredible students I had, from my student teaching group with Ms. Sandy, to my seventh graders, eleventh graders, and ninth graders, but the one pinnacle moment to symbolize my career at La Crescent would be my “last act” with the freshmen I had in 2014: the English Oscars.

You wouldn’t believe what a group of 15-year-olds did. But I believed. I believed in them from the beginning. I believe that our world can be changed by the youth of these young teenagers who have so much to offer our world. And they didn’t just prove me right, they blew me away. When we began planning this huge end of year production, some of my colleagues even laughed behind closed doors. “They say it’s going to be a trainwreck, Ms. Martin,” one kid told me one day of his teacher’s remarks about our big production. “Don’t worry,” I smiled. “They won’t know what hit them until it does,” I winked.

And it was a smashing success. So wildly incredible, that after it ended, I sat on the auditorium stage and cried. I was so depressed it was over.

Do you know what they did?

These 100 FIFTEEN YEAR OLDS planned and executed an entire production THEMSELVES: they manned the stage lights, the audio and microphones, the decorations, the video and presentations, they made the video clips for “And the Nominees are…” in each category, some of the guys hand-made the awards in their welding class, they were the MCs, the speakers, the performers (dancers, musicians, spoken word artists), the red carpet models strutting down the aisle, the stage crew, and the program and production crew. 

They were REMARKABLE. It still amazes me. How did a bunch of 15-year-olds pull that off? AND they packed the auditorium with their family and friends who witnessed the most memorable event of my teaching career. (Where are they now that I need a production crew for our Scars: Up from Ashes dance and vocal crew in Swazi, 😉)

They left me devastated. How ironic. While it was the best moment of my professional career, it marked a depressing moment of my personal life. I had to say goodbye to my dream life. What awaited me in Swazi, I will never regret. It was the right time and the right move. But it still came with pain, with a cost. Probably one that most won’t know or understand. For, while my students moved on and in the past ten years have grown and graduated college, started families, moved, or pursuing other goals, my heart is still with them. I think of them and pray for them. I am still their biggest fan. Even if they don’t know it ten years later.

Ah, Lord. What a decade. Tomorrow we will celebrate my arrival in Swazi, what You’ve done in the last ten years, but today. Today is for my students. Today is for the sinking feeling in my stomach as I reread my journals and look back on the life I had in La Crescent. My colleagues who were my besties, my colleagues who I looked up to, my colleague whose daughter had become my very best friend and I frequented their house as if I were a member of their family. You can’t make this stuff up. Today is to count the cost and honor the ones who live in my heart forever. To you, La Crescent community, Danita, Amy, Shelley, Peggy, Melanie and Colleen and Janet, Rick Walter my principal, and the whole LaC staff, the Conways, Kelly, Sarah, and all my students, my student-teaching ones who were barely younger than I was at the time, my seventh graders who drove me crazy but were still so lovable, my eleventh graders who tested me but made me better, to my basketball girls, and to the Classes of 2015, 2016, and 2017: Cheers to an incredible next decade of your lives, that you may be filled with the fullness of Hope, Love, Mercy, and memories of a life once lived as a teenager in LaC. God bless you all.