9-11

I cannot really put words on my feelings about being out of the country on 9-11, but I will try to describe it. The majority of the people I am around were not in the States on 9-11. While they obviuosly care about the event, it did not cause the impact that it would have had they been living in the States; therefore, 9-11 wasn't even mentioned today until I brought it up! That was a strange feeling.

In government class I planned a discussion about 9-11--I wanted students' thoughts and responses to the event, but I also wanted to challenge assumptions. We read articles about the tragedy of the event from the perspective of those who lost loved ones, looked at some stuff on terrorism, but also looked at different crises around the world. I challenged the students to examine global happenings in context of the purposes and intents of governments. Are governments holding up to the test?

We then looked at a few scripture passages: Isaiah 1's call to look out for orphans and widows (amongst a lot of other huge challenges!); Micah's call to "seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our Lord."

It was an interesting class that raised a lot of questions, but I'm glad the students were thinking and interacting.

A sidenote: basketball games 1 and 2 were cancelled. Game one fell victim to Felix's threat. Today we drove to the school to find out that they had an outdoor court which was flooded due to the daily rain storm. So, we turned around and drove back to school...hopefully tomorrow's game will actually happen!