I am an Employer

Let me repeat it for my own sake: “I am an employer. I am an employer.”

Whaaaaat?

I’ve had quite a few ‘is this happening?’ moments lately. Also ‘am I really doing this?’ and the most common: ‘What in the world do I think I am doing?!’

One moment was last week when I walked another interviewee to the preschool gate after we had a chat. And by chat I mean that I asked a series of questions that I thought would be good to ask a potential teacher’s assistant which were then responded to with one to five words and a stare back in my direction. Oh my. That’s when the thought “What am I doing?!” came up. 

What am I doing conducting interviews? What am I doing conducting interviews for a position in an area that I have absolutely ZERO experience in myself (save the last five weeks)? What am I doing trying to judge how well/not well other ladies could fill the position I am looking for? WHAT AM I DOING?!!!

I suppose the answer is… I’m not doing much… God is doing much more. He, more than anyone, knows that I could not do a stitch of this without Him. These days I am stretched, pulled, challenged, exhausted... but He works on through this weary vessel. I conducted these interviews this week because I could use a bit less on the ‘exhausted’ front. This Mama is wiped out all the time (can you say in my pajamas at 5:30?) and my circumstances aren’t going to change until February… when this baby comes out of the belly and maybe I’ll be MORE tired and stretched and pulled?! Oh my word.

I say it almost everyday and I’ll say it here. It’s a good thing God spoke so clearly about this here preschool. This is hard stuff at the strangest, most challenging time I can imagine. I don’t know what He was thinking, but all I know is that I am confident this is the right thing and it’s His word to me and ONLY HIS WORD TO ME that gives me the strength to push on. Oh Jesus, I’m so glad you lead and guide and speak. What would I do without You?!

End of sidetrack.

Aaaaanyway, as I sit here in my office at the end of a patience-challenging, body-fatiguing day with my stress-relief music playing (that is literally the name of the album) and my kids sleeping at home (their Daddy is with them), sometimes the weight of what I  am doing (God, actually, need I be redundant) can sink in.

I have several goals that I’d like to achieve for this preschool. I won’t list them here, but there are several things I’d like to see happen through this school. And while providing jobs isn’t at the top of this list, it is most definitely ON the list. This is Africa. Africa is hurting and many of it’s people are hurting too. Life is hard. And the economy in this particular country  has made life even more challenging in the past year. My cross-cultural life has it’s challenges, but in terms of seriousness, they pale in comparison with many locals who know nothing else of the rest of the world and have so much less than I.

But now I am an employer. An employer? An employer. I employ four ladies. One in my own home and now three in my school. That’s four families that are given steady work and provision that otherwise may have much less. It’s a number of mouths that may eat less if I didn’t have an envelope to give them at the end of each month along with a smile and a hearty “Thank you SO much for your work.”

I feel strange as an employer. I feel out of my comfort zone and stretched. Yet I feel confident God made me capable, gave me all the right giftings for this job (who knew!?) and that He, through His bless-ed grace, allows my humble offering to bless these four families with honest work.

For this, today, I am thankful. And I wanted to take time to reflect on that bigger picture before I shrink the picture back down and dig into next week’s lesson plans…