School and Stress

  This month, I learned that Preschoolers graduate, and that Kindergarteners have to have an IQ test before entering school.  Eleanor had her pre-K graduation a week ago.  It seems like only five months ago, we were enrolling her in Pre-K, and now she is moving on....oh wait.  It was just five months ago.  At any rate, she is sad to tell her favorite teacher goodbye, but happy to start a new adventure at a new school for Kindergarten.  Apparently, kids are tested before entering a new school (makes sense), so we went for her testing the other day.  She did great, except for a few questions.  The teacher asked her "Spring is warm, Fall is....." and Eleanor didn't know.  I told the teacher, "She hasn't lived through an entire year of seasons here in the States yet.  Maybe you could ask her 'Rainy season is muddy, Dry season is....'  She'll be able to answer that one!"  The teacher just moved on to another question.  The other mistake Eleanor made was not really a mistake at all.  The teacher told her to "Go over to that chair, sit down, and tap your head."  Eleanor went over to the chair, sat on the ground, and tapped her head.  The teacher didn't specify that she needed to sit IN the chair, so that wasn't a mistake in my book!  I think she'll do just fine in school.

  Another thing I learned this month was that my stress level in Haiti was about fifty times what it is here, and I didn't even realize it at the time.  People would come to me on short term trips and say, "Oh, man, you must be so exhausted all the time from all the stress of living here" and I wouldn't know how to respond, because I really didn't realize I was that stressed out.  I was exhausted all the time, but I figured that was just a combination of the heat and parenting toddlers.  But the other day, I was driving down the road here in Alabama, and saw a big bundle in the middle of the street.  My very first thought was, "Oh, no.  They were burning tires last night.  Wonder what the riot was about."  I immediately realized that it couldn't be a bundle of burnt tires, because people haven't burned tires in the streets of Alabama since the '60s.  Then my next thought was, "Oh, no.  It's a dead body.  I hope the kids don't look over there and see it."  Then I quickly realized that couldn't be right, because people don't let bodies rot in the streets here in the States.  As I got closer to the bundle, I saw that it was grass.  I big pile of dead grass that must have fallen off a truck.  Mystery solved.  My stress level plummeted from high alert to zero.  It got me thinking, though.  I lived daily in Haiti under the anxiety of not knowing what major drama the day might hold.  Would there be a food riot?  Would someone get kidnapped?  Would there be a coup d'etat?  Would someone I know get thrown in jail?  Would someone I know die from a tropical disease or preventable illness or accident on the road?  I have things to worry about here in the States, for sure, but they just aren't quite so extreme.  So, lately, I've been thinking about and praying for my friends, both missionaries and Haitians, that live in Haiti and have to deal with the extreme stressors every day, some of which they aren't even consciously aware.  Will you pray with me?  For those in other places, dangerous and chaotic places, where drama and tragedy are the norm?  Specifically, I ask for prayer concerning a new virus that has hit Haiti and is sweeping over it in an epidemic of high fever and pain.  It is a mosquito borne illness called Chickungunya fever, and it causes intense body pain and weakness, fever and rash.  Many of my friends in Haiti have contracted it.  There is no cure or medical treatment, save tylenol and fluids and letting it run its course.
  As always, Jesus has words of encouragement which apply both to our first world problems and to those of the developing world:  "Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. // Peace I leave with you.  My peace I give to you;  not as the world gives do I give to you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (Matt 6:34 and John 14:27)