Keeping up with the Joneses in Germany: Now I know the secret...

Some of you have already discovered the secret. Some of you tried to tell me before I left. While I was nervous...wondering what they would be like, some of you already knew that middle school students are awesome.

My students are incredible. Though they aren't necessarily like typical middle school students in America. They seem more innocent...naïve in a good way. They also have incredible people skills. Most of them interact with adults as easily as they do their peers. Many of them have grown up in 3 or 4 different countries where their parents have been involved in various ministries. I have students who have lived in Sweden, Afganistan, Thailand, Brazil, Russia, Yemen, Peru, Korea, and Bulgaria...to name a few. On the whole, their lives have been full of transitions. Some of these students are here, not because their parents are missionaries, but because their parents have jobs oversees. Several of them live with their families and commute from Switzerland or France each day.

Last week, my students wrote their life stories as an assignment for English class. A guest speaker during spiritual emphasis week here at BFA had encouraged the students to think deeply about their story: how God has used the events in their lives to shape them into who they are today. This weekend I laughed and I cried as I read their stories. Several of them gave me permission to share parts of their stories here with you.

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"Ever since I was born I could not hear that well. I was partially deaf. Whenever my little brother and sister would go to bed, my parents would ask me to whisper. I couldn't....Three years ago, I was at a praise and worship night at our church. A friend of ours came over from New Zealand as a guest singer. That night, he said if anybody needs healing to come up to the front row. I said to myself, "Well I'm partially deaf so of course I need healing." So I went up to the front row, and he started praying for me and boom right then I felt a warmth through my body from God. I heard 100 percent! Praise God.

After praise and worship, I said to my parents we've got to go to right now to the hearing doctor. So my Dad took me after a few days. The doctor did my hearing test, and he said, "I have never seen anything like this before." My Dad and I were draining down tears. I was healed. Praise God!! I am so much better in school just because of my hearing. Hallelujah thank God."

* * *

"In public school there are not many Christians and you get judged by your weight and looks. So I developed a sickness called anorexia. It was so hard on my parents. After that my parents decided that they had to change something. So that January, I got help from doctors and I was home-schooled. Soon after, we heard about a school called BFA. I felt loved for who I was. I loved it. I became closer to God. Now I am here writing my story. God was here when I lost it, God saved me."

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"My parents wanted me to go to Swiss school to perfect my German. So I was in Swiss school and my German got better and better but my relationship with God got worse and worse. My academic grades were lowering; my choice of friends was not good; I started doing what they all did which gave me a very bad reputation. Kids from my class would smoke and drink at age 13-14 and I’m just there wanting to be like them but I knew what they were doing was wrong. So I was not involved in those things but I was with them.

My parents decided to send me to BFA. At first I resisted coming to BFA. I wanted to keep on with my life as a careless person. But now, my grades and my attitude have extremely caught up and most importantly, my relationship with God. Here at BFA I have really good friendships and teachers.
In Swiss school, teachers wouldn’t care. They would tell students that they are not going to have a future and that there’s no way back, and they really brought kids down and made them think what they said was true. So I am very grateful to be here at BFA because now I look back at my friends in Switzerland and I see them spending their time on the streets doing whatever and they don’t care and their parents don’t care. So I’m very thankful my parents brought me here to BFA because I probably would have ended up the same."