Sheltered? or Discipled?

Yes, this post is long. If you've got the time though, I believe it's worth it...

Heidi and I just returned from the annual RFIS high school retreat. (Heidi was asked to come along as the retreat nurse. Good thing too; there ended up being plenty of “business” for her!) The retreat is a Tuesday-Friday affair that takes place at a nearby Bible school (AoG) campus. Very similar to a summer camp in the States (8 bunk beds per room, separate bathroom building, lots of open space.) Activities are also what you might expect: morning and evening chapel services with a retreat speaker, small group meetings, elective classes, lots of group games, free time, etc.. It was a magnificent event with a great group of students.

One of the reservations some hold about small Christian schools is that they are “sheltered.” Surely they must be an artificial “bubble”, a Christiany “hot-house” that cannot truly prepare students for the “real world.” You can probably guess by the way I just stated that charge that I very much beg to differ. Yes, there certainly are Christian schools that are homogenous, legalistic, image-oriented, anti-intellectual and largely about the business of indoctrinating at the expense of educating. I would even admit that glimpses of one or two of those adjectives appear at RFIS. But let me use this past week’s retreat to make a resounding overall counterpoint.

RFIS is a community of global diversity. Ethnically there is no majority. Nationally there is no majority. Running around the campground this week was a melange of colors and countries. I think it is exceptionally hard to be sheltered from the real world when every continent (save Antarctica) is represented in your school.

Students at RFIS see and immediately embrace the outsider. Need to pair up for a certain game? Someone intentionally invites the autistic student. Without batting an eye a senior asks a new 9th grader. How can one remain “sheltered” if you are gaining so much practice sidling up to the other, to the unknown, to the uncomfortable?

The students at RFIS are instinctive servants. It was a delight to watch what happened at the end of each meal time. Without any requirement given, without any request spoken, numerous students nonetheless jumped right into clearing tables, wiping counters, washing dishes. The peer culture is one that assumes and even enjoys labor together. When there is a request for help (carry bags, move wood, whatever) it is almost always done immediately and without complaint. When the water went off and showers had to be postponed for half a day I literally heard not one complaint or grumble. I know it sounds like I’m idealizing, and of course selfishness is an equal opportunity employer. But it is not even a tiny exaggeration to say that servanthood is the norm among the significant majority of students here. Wouldn’t you agree that self-sacrifice is one of the better habits you could establish for living in the “real world?”

RFIS students are "real", humble and vulnerable. The concluding event of the retreat is an opportunity for students to speak about how they have grown or been challenged. (Yes, you could call it a “testimony” time.) What impressed me most about the students’ words were how articulate they were. These weren't blubbering teeny-bopper campground-emotion releases. Most were thoughtful and specific, many intentionally conscious of the very-real potential for a flash-in-the-pan retreat “high.” They spoke of a desire to persevere in the lows that will undoubtedly come. Here’s a small sampling (5 of perhaps 15 or 20) of what we heard:

• From a half-Belgian half-Congolese student who flunked out of RFIS midway through last year: He acknowledged ending up in the Netherlands, amped up on weed and an unexpectedly-powerful hallucinogen. He testified of God hauling him back from the brink. "Hot-houses" are seldom intimately aquainted with trips gone bad and a loving reception for the "rebel."

• From a fun-loving but insecure young Korean girl: She had a deep conversation with a Brazilian RFIS teacher the previous night; she testified of still having many fears and uncertainties but coming to a point of trusting Christ. Admitting (and anticipating) not having it all together is to already live outside a "bubble."

• From a Cameroonian boy: He spoke of a family background that was a wreck; dad never home, mom working elsewhere, lots of unfaithfulness, a "soccer team" (his words) of random relatives living or passing through his home. He arrived at RFIS last year with seemingly insurmountable academic deficits; he was also silent in class and could barely look at or speak to adults. (I saw this first hand in my science class.) But then he ended up moving into one of the mission hostels and, in his words, discovered for the first time that God loves him. His life is utterly turned around. This year he's in my Bible class and I have discovered him to be smart, perceptive and--at least fairly often(!)--diligent. I also got to coach him on the soccer team and saw his love of life and laughter. He represents a life redeemed, saved from rank generational sin and dysfunction. The Spirit is warming hearts in this "hot-house."

• From a Canadian girl, new to RFIS this year: Raised in a Christian home, she always chafed at her parents’ faith. She too had a meaningful conversation and prayer with a faculty member during the week; she would speak of this experience as accepting and owning faith in Christ for the first time. Somehow this "shelter" has displayed Christ attractively enough for even the inocculated to welcome him rather than reject him.

• From a half-Caucasian half-Bahamaian senior: She came back from a furlough half way through this year. She spoke of how, in her time in the States, she had descended into some godless living and returned here feeling embittered, empty and full of guilt. During the week she risked telling a couple friends and a faculty member; she was dumbfounded at the lack of judgmentalism. A no-fear atmosphere doesn't generally mark schools trying to "shelter" students from the world. She has come to regard the unusual mid-senior-year return to Cameroon as a gift, God’s timing and purposes of redemption in her life now made clear.

It is possible that despite all this I am still just biased and blind, and RFIS is actually a sheltered bubble. But even if that is the case, it is undeniable that what is happening here in this “bubble” is serious discipleship of kids. That, in my mind, is the greatest preparation there could be for difference-makers in the “real world.”