Spiritual Emphasis Week, Me, and Lydia

This week has been Elementary Spiritual Emphasis Week at VCS. You may be thinking, don't you emphasize spiritual things always, hence the name Vienna CHRISTIAN School? Yes. We have chapel weekly, we teach Bible daily, and are "supposed" to incorporate faith into as many areas of our curriculum as we can. Honestly, that's a hard thing for me. I can't just force a "biblical" comment into my lesson on rocks and minerals or how to do multidigit multiplication. It's often a stretch for me. Curriculum guides give all kinds of cheesy ways to drop a God line into your lesson...LAME. When those things come out of my mouth, I want them to be real. I want them to come from something deep in my heart. I want comments or questions I raise to my students to be meaningful not obligatory. I do often talk about following Jesus in my class, yes, because I have learned in my limited life experience that following Him is THE way I want to live...bottom line. Not because my math problems are about kids who are sinners. So it's hard for me to accept it when people throw fluffy spiritual comments at kids and expect them to praise God and get excited about something. The whole time I'm wondering if this is really doing any good. Will it stick when the kids are 15 and are making bigger decisions without guidance? Who knows. Yes, they have heard God loves them but do they really believe He still loves them when something hugely terrible happens? Not sure. So the battle rages on in my head, and Spiritual Emphasis Week to me comes with the territory of a Chrisitan school.
This week Jerry Jacoby, from Michigan, has been at our school doing chapels each day for the elementary kids. He's hilarious. He's real. He's just short of amazing. Wow. He captures kids attention like no one I've ever seen, and doesn't present the fluff. Go Jerry!
Today was the day when Jerry presented the truth of Jesus's death and asked the kids if they wanted to choose to accept His free gift of eternal life. Altar call, kind of. He did it in a really great way through this story, and then asked kids to stick around and talk with him after school. One of my Austrian students who stayed, Lydia, told me something interesting after she came down to class, and I thought it was super. Know, though, that Lydia's parents are Christians, she's gone to VCS since she started school, and knows a significant amount of knowledge about the Bible and Christianity. Sweet sweet girl. So she came downstairs with tears in her eyes, so I asked her if she was okay. She said to me: "I know my mom and dad believe in Jesus, but I've never been sure. Now I'm sure." Simple comment, and then left to go home for the afternoon. Lydia is not a kid you'd think, "ooh, I hope she really listens today" or "she is the one I'd love to find Jesus." She's just a normal great kid who probably thinks about deeper things than anyone would ever know. I'm thankful she shared just that small comment with me today. It's worth it to teach here. It's worth it to teach period. Thanks for allowing me to do that at VCS.