About three decades ago, I was director of a high school in a rural area in Eastern Africa. The school was among the few church-run educational institutions in the province, which enjoyed considerable academic reputation and Christian discipline. In the early 80s, unfortunately, the education policy of the land was highly liberalized by Marxist-Leninist philosophy and moral and/or religious teaching was prohibited.
A positive aspect of the Marxist regime was that it insisted on labor education to be an integral part of school activities. The school I was leading was already active in engaging students in different clubs such as hygiene, sports, scouting, literary, agriculture, community services, etc. hence, the labor education was an added opportunity. At times, students who came late or didn’t turn in assignments on time or those under discipline for various reasons were required to do extra-curricular activities such as compound and rooms cleaning, vegetable gardening, tree planting/watering, bridge/road maintenance, etc.
One morning, while I was organizing different teams of students for labor education, a student in his late 20s confronted me by refusing to line up despite my repeated instruction. Restraining my anger, I told him to leave the school compound and come to see me with his father or mother or guardian the following day. The student left the compound and I went out for field work along with teams of students.
No sooner did I reach home after two O’clock in the afternoon and had my late lunch, than two medium-sized vehicles full of party leaders, administration authorities and armed police arrived; I was urged to meet them. Since the director’s residence was quite close to the school, I quickly went to my office to receive the officials for whatever reason they had come. To my dismay, the disobedient student was also among the guests in military uniform who were clearly in a furious mood.
As was customary, I welcomed the officials and invited them into my office. Starting from the party leader, each one of the officials expressed anger that I dismissed a revolutionary vanguard and an army veteran from his least deserved right to education. They also stated that I had overlooked his physical condition. For this they threatened that they had resolved to take a revolutionary action against me.
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At this point, the party official interrupted me and asked, “You mean you haven’t dismissed the student (Comrade…)?”
“Not at all,” I replied. The official ordered that the student be called in; they asked him whether he was dismissed. The student said, “I was asked to leave the compound, so I assumed that I was dismissed.” Then the authorities got angry at the student and began to scold him. Suddenly, my role shifted from self-defense to arbitration and I pleaded with the delegation to leave the matter to me and the student.
The guests eventually calmed down and I seized the opportunity to brief them on the overall activities of the school, helping them to reconfigure their roles and responsibilities as overseers of public and private institutions including schools. After seeing them off, the student remained behind and apologized for his mistakes in tears. I also forgave him and we mutually agreed that he will be one of the regular monitors during school cleaning. Since that day, he continually developed an attitude of friendship and respect. Praise The Lord.
As I look back to the context and implications of the story highlighted above, I can only affirm that care-fronting can lead to a win-win solution if handled prayerfully and guided by God’s Word with honesty and integrity.
