Jacksonville baby

Two nights of fantastic sleep and I'm officially rested from another 
amazing trip down south for spring break. 

I was hesitant of Jacksonville at first, after working in post-Katrina New Orleans two years ago and then working with the enormous homeless population in Atlanta last year, I thought "what does Jacksonville even need?" "will there be good opportunities to serve?" which really all boiled down to "why are we going there and not some place better?"

In a sense, I was right, Jacksonville doesn't have the obvious social issues that are in your face with New Orleans and Atlanta, but I was so very wrong in the bigger sense that Jacksonville didn't need any service, that it didn't need a presence of people wanting to serve God.

I was caught up in the "I." I wanted to help, I want to make an impact, I wanted to do something that would allow me to leave the city feeling like I made a difference. What I wasn't doing for the first half of the week was looking at where God wanted me, how He wanted me to serve, what He considered service and how He could see the presence of the Navigators in Jacksonville as a blessing. This trip was not about a self-serving, self-glorifying experience, but about a God serving, God glorifying experience. Once I realized that [or more like was hit over the head with that during a quiet time] my perspective changed and I was able to see the ways God was using us in Jacksonville and me on my work project.

I worked in the only inner-city public high school in Jacksonville, Andrew Jackson High School. The school is considered a 'failing' school by the government because of their heart-wrenching and unbelievably low standardized test scores. I worked with a lovely English teacher in her classroom for most of the time, just talking to the students and helping them focus and complete their work. I worked with two students in particular that I connected with and really began to love and care for very much. One was a girl, one was a boy, both in 11th grade. I got to see their standardized test scores, which were somewhere in between the 3-5 percentile. Their teacher told me that even though they were in 11th grade, they were on a 6th grade reading level. However, even though they aren't able to pass tests and analyze reading passages, they are no less brilliant then any other 11th grader in the country. My talks with them were thought provoking and insightful [well, once we got past them asking me over and over what college parties are like and them not believing me when I told them that I don't go to frat parties] and I found myself thinking that the only difference between my life as an 11th grader and theirs, was and is opportunity. I had the opportunity for a great education, therefore the opportunity to have a great college education. My and my educated friends' intelligence isn't greater than theirs, we've just had more opportunities.

I wrestled with this thought for part of the week. Thinking about how unfair it seemed. If they were born in the life that I was born into, they would be on track to applying to a great college, instead they were asking me what a "major" is and how do they get one. I hate, more than anything else in the world, wasted potential. The potential of the students at Andrew Jackson High School are astronomical, the reality of what they will accomplish is more likely to be read about in a police report than a history book.

In the midst of struggling with this thought and wondering why the world was like this and feeling hopeless about changing it, I was reading through Isaiah 55 and came across these verses that became my theme verses of the week

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, 

neither are my ways your ways,"

declares the Lord.

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, 

so are my ways higher than your ways 

and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." 

-Isaiah 55:8-9

And with these verses, I realized that I don't have to figure out the world, I just have to go where I am called and serve to the best of my ability. God is sovereign over everything that I see as "unfair," and He's sovereign over the students' lives at AJHS. I can take comfort in knowing that God knows what He's doing and I don't have to freak out, all I have to do is stay on track in serving God -- he's taken care of the rest. 

Which, is probably the best thing I could have gotten out of the trip.

I enjoyed every moment of the week that I spent in the classroom, 

and honestly wish that I could be there again this week. 

PHOTOS!

because it was beautiful

disclaimer: I did not wear that shirt every single day, for some reason the photos I chose are from 1 day :)

I mean, come on, does it get prettier?

don't you worry, a Floridian food story is coming next!

I saved it's life!