My Faith In God Is Renewed

One of my schools has been pretty rough so far, and I’m not talking about the one where the students were attacking teachers. 

No, one of my schools has given me literally nothing to do. I don’t plan lessons, I don’t have an English board to work on, and I don’t eat lunch with the students so I have really limited contact with them. Needless to say this school usually resulted in me being bored to tears by the time 4:00 rolls around.

Today, however, two very important things happened.

First, today was the first day that any student ever has come into the teacher’s room and said “Bryan-sensei imasu ka?” 

“What?!” My ears perked up, my heart was all a twitter. “One of the students wants to talk to me!?”

“Bryan-sensei, for afternoon break will you please play baseball with us?”

YES. YES I WILL. HOW COULD I SAY NO TO YOU, OH SWEET CHILD!?!?

So, with my renewed sense of purpose, I scarf down my food so I can go head out to the baseball field.

Oh, but one quick note.

I don’t like baseball. I hate baseball. Baseball was always that sport I was awful at. I can’t bat, I can’t catch, I can’t do much of anything when it comes to baseball, so I absolutely detest it. 

The kids tell me I’m up to bat, and the only thing running through my head is “Oh Dear God, please, for the love of everything that is holy and good in this world, just let me hit this ball. Please. Please don’t make me look like a chump.”

So I step up to the plate (in my nice slacks and button down shirt no less), take a practice swing, and squat down into my batting position that I’ve spent years perfecting.

Here’s the pitch and PIIINNNGGGG away goes that ball! I can barely believe it, but I’m cackling to myself as I ruuuuuuun all the way to first base and get there safely… except for slipping and falling and getting mud all over my sleeve, but that’s beside the point!

My faith in God is renewed.