What a Summer!

I am headed to the beach for a few days of rest. The summer (no corrections, please, about season given my living south of the equator, etc.) has been an absolutely exhausting one. But it's been exhilarating, too.

The meeting of educators from Jesuit schools in Tanzania, Kenya, and USA was amazing. It took a lot of work, but it was all work that was well worth it. And we could not have had better guests. The folks from the US were "go with the flow" types -- and that's exactly what is needed even on good days here (and a grace that I'm short of at times, I confess). Our residence was still very "rough," but they acted as if it were a palace.

And how open they were to the various experiences that I'd designed for them! I'm not a big fan of immersion programs when they are conceived of as "sink or swim," preferring instead to let people put their big toe in the water to test it first, wade a bit, and then dive in when they are ready. I think it was a profitable time for the participants from the States, a chance to see that there is more to Africa than pictures of children with distended bellies. They did see the hope, but they saw the misery, too.

I posted some days ago the results of our hard thinking. I am so proud of what we managed as a group, of how we took what has been given and made it our own.

My hope is that this experience my serve as a model for others who want to do something other than just talk at teachers about what it means to be at a Jesuit school.