The ONE

This weekend I went home. My brother needed me and I was glad to be at home in Manning. As difficult and as lonely as I feel without my parents there, it was where I was needed. I attended my brother's church and the pastor discussed a verse in Luke about a shepherd who had 100 sheep but has lost one. The shepherd left his 99 and went searching for the one. At first I was really only half listening and passively thinking, "Dude, really, it's a sheep and you have 99 others!" Then I listened more intently and I realized that these were his kids, his livelihood, his passion. He knew them by name and he was willing to take major risks to go after the one who was lost and then when the one sheep was found he rejoiced. It was the perfect transition for my Sunday afternoon which I spent watching a movie. I watched a relatively older movie called Captain Phillips. I am not one to normally love this type of movie, but it was on and it was cold and rainy and my niece was asleep on my chest and the remote was halfway across the room...so I watched it. How glad I am that I did! 

The movie is based on the real life events of April 2009 of a cargo ship headed by Captain Phillips that was overtaken by pirates in the Indian Ocean.  Capt. Phillips is just an ordinary normal guy, good marriage, hard worker, getting his two kids through college. He knew that piracy existed and that he must be on the lookout for pirates due to the area he was taking his cargo ship into. Despite his preparation and efforts, his boat was seized by pirates as they tried to escape the cargo ship. Events unfolded and Capt Phillips was in an impossible hopeless situation in the pirates boat. At one point Capt Phillips tried to escape but was almost killed in doing so because he couldn't save himself. But what he didn't know was that the US Navy Seals were preparing to come after him. An entire country was fighting to bring him back. They were coming for ONE person-Captain Phillips-the one. Just like the shepherd going after that one sheep I'd heard about just hours before, the Navy seals were coming for the one captain. 

So, it made me think. Who is your one? Who needs saving in your class? What are you doing behind the scenes that the students, the parents, your teammates, or even me don't know about? We all have the ONE. Sadly, some of us have more than one, and what's even sadder is that most of us have several. Just as I feel the lesson I learned at church and from Captain Phillips was a calling, I believe our stewardship as educators is a calling. Who is the ONE? The one that isn't getting it, who is struggling more than anyone, who isn't clean, isn't happy, isn't behaving, isn't having any luck with friendships?

Honestly reflect and ask yourself, are you going after THE ONE? I hear often the adage, "every child can learn" and yes, I believe i. But I probe even further and I often wonder, don't tell me you believe all children can learn, tell me what you believe when they can't. So I wonder, are you like me thinking, "I've got 99-that's a good record, forget about the 1" or are you like the shepherd and the Navy Seals-doing WHATEVER it takes to bring that ONE home?