Dear Calvary Families,
At Calvary Schools, we believe that stories are an extremely important part of growing, learning, and bonding. I have been asked many times by our community about how I ended up in my current role as executive director, so I want to share some of my story with you today. This is part one, and I’ll be following up in a few weeks with part two.
It may surprise you, but I never intended to be an educator when I was growing up. I was intent on a career with more panache; something impressive-sounding that would be more likely to provide creature comforts.
After all, as the third child of a church planter who had (at the time) disappointed my no-nonsense WWII vet grandfather by becoming a pastor instead of an engineer, I had experienced first hand the limitations that come with an occupation dedicated to human growth. It meant two-hour rides through dry Texas countryside on Sunday mornings in the jump seat of a brown station wagon.
I also remember long weekends in the mountains around south central Idaho cutting, splitting, and stacking six cord of wood to feed the wood burning stove for the winter – not because it was charming, but because it was free.
In spite of myself, I approached my 20s as a college student in Minneapolis/St. Paul with a double major in Biblical Studies and Psychology. I heard about an opportunity to spend a semester circumnavigating the globe while learning about overseas ministry opportunities, with a particular focus on India. I was interested in seeing the world and was not opposed to learning about ministry opportunities so I pursued acceptance for the program determinedly.
Our group spent months studying missionaries and missionary work, through books such as From to Jerusalem to Irian Jaya and Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, as well as a variety of focus areas such as applied linguistics, music, translation, micro loans, water sourcing, and socioeconomic stratification.
And due to the great amount of time that would be spent in India, we of course spent a great deal of time studying the ministry of Mother Teresa. As the pinnacle of our trip, we spent one week in Calcutta working with her ministries and one full day working with her directly at her flagship convent and orphanage.
The Mother Teresa Museum at Ave Maria University
Within a few weeks of my time in India, I decided that I could have the greatest impact on the world through education. If I recall correctly, I officially changed my major from a hotel cafe somewhere in Andhra Pradesh. That was step one on my journey into education. Step two happened in Calcutta.
Mother Teresa’s convent and orphanage was rather nondescript. Its entrance appeared to be in a back alley. She wasn’t there when we first arrived; as was her norm, she was out collecting people off the streets who were suffering. So we waited.
When we were welcomed in, I remember an open courtyard, filtered sunlight, plants, twisting stairs and hallways, concrete floors. When I first saw Mother Teresa, my first impression was that she was slight in stature and had a frailness that was supported by sinewy muscle from hard work. She was wearing her blue and white nun’s habit. And she wore Teva sandals, which startled me at first. They were popular in the 1990’s and extremely practical given her line of work.
For my work day, I was assigned to what appeared to be the baby room. I remember a dozen cribs filled with children unlike any I had ever encountered. It was impossible to tell ages based on their emaciated states – they could have been anywhere from 6 months to 2 years – with sunken empty eyes and bodies that rarely moved outside of occasional listless fluttery movements.
I was told that some of them would make it and some of them would not, but our job was to prevent death if possible or to provide a kind hand and face if the children had been found too late to save. If they died, the last thing they would experience would be gentleness from a stranger.
After a pause to catch my breath, I plunged into my assigned tasks – feeding children and cleaning up their waste, since providing food for the children outweighed the cost of diapers, even cloth ones. And that’s what I did all that day. I followed Mother Teresa and some nuns around a baby room and did whatever the nuns told me to do. And when I walked out of that experience, I knew what profound suffering looked like and that I wanted to live a life that might make a difference.
The next day, our group was invited to work at her institute for the dying. I chose to stay home. I did not yet have the courage to endure that experience, though my courage has grown since then. I stayed in my hotel room the next day and asked God to show me how to use my calling into education to transform the world around me.
Ultimately, I found the path toward that kind of transformation through Charlotte Mason’s teachings, after experiencing the failure of countless other educational philosophies first-hand and up-close. But my journey into Charlotte Mason education and organizational transformation is another story for another day.
I’ll share about what happened when I returned home from India and dove into the American educational system in a few weeks.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Cheryl Ward
Head of School
Calvary Schools of Holland