School begins tomorrow.
Seeing the challenges that lie ahead for school administrators, staff, students and parents, a group of approximately 20 people gathered at Lincoln Trail Elementary on Aug. 11 to pray over the upcoming school year.
The event was originally scheduled for the night before, but a derecho passed through the area a couple hours before the event was scheduled. Rain was still in the area around the time the prayer gathering was to begin.
Community Evangelical Free Church of Mahomet Pastor Jason Schifo said the focus of the gathering was a “360” from another prayer event at the Mahomet Police Department on July 27.
“We wanted to pray for the teachers, for the administration, for the school board, for the staff, for the transportation, coordinators, bus drivers, students,” Schifo said. “For everything that’s going to happen in the building and around the building, but then also we spend time praying for people who are going to be doing school differently this year; people who are going to be doing it at a distance this year.”
Not to be forgotten, are parents who, no matter what option of school they chose for their child, will be faced with new territory during the 2020-21 school year.
“And then we spent time praying around some of the issues that are happening within the school district.”
“We prayed that everybody within the building would be seen as valuable, would be seen as beautiful, would be seen as having equal value.
“We prayed that our schools will be a place for all people, small and tall, embraced for the uniqueness, their value, that they’re loved, that they’re lifted up, and encouraged to do great things.”
The 30-minute gathering did not address those issues specifically, but that everyone would come together in unity.
“I think if we’re not all moving together then, then it’s hard,” he said. “You know this isn’t a race. This is a run. In a race we all try and jockey for position; in a run, we all move together.
“I think, unfortunately, we’re taking a lot of these issues and we’re trying to race. And I think that creates a lot of problems for us.
“Unity is the only way. We need to move together. We need to see things together. And I think because we’re trying to treat it like a race, people who are running ahead are getting irritated at the people who are falling behind. Or vice versa.”
Schifo concluded the gathering, telling people to go to their homes, in their neighborhoods to pray with and those they live near.
“The last time I checked, the only way that things change is neighbor to neighbor,” he said. “You can try and change things on a macro level all you want, but it’s really only going to change neighborhood to neighborhood.”
Taking religion off the table, Schifo said that when two people pray together, they form an intimate relationship that helps to peel away some of the layers people wear every day.
“When you pray with people, you hear what’s on their heart,” he said.”People tend to say things that they wouldn’t normally say. And so, when I pray with people, one of the great gifts that I receive is I actually get to hear that.
“Prayer requires me shutting up and listening. And so, I wonder what would happen in neighborhoods, if people gathered together to pray, because they believe that God can change things, but at the same time, in that moment are the things that our neighbors are struggling with.
“Their neighbors voices would go, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that.’”
Those who came were encouraged to see their neighbor in the same way as Paul the Apostle talked about in the second chapter of his letter to the Philippians while he was in prison.
Philippians 2:1-4
“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”
Schifo said that he believes that humans are so entrenched in their own issues that, sometimes, they forget to see or miss seeing each other.
“Seeing each other doesn’t mean just seeing each other,” he said. “It means really taking the time to see one another in such a way that what I see in you defeats all the other negative things that I naturally want to feel because I’m a selfish human being.”
With so much going on with the pandemic, addressing racism and figuring out how to re-engage in school, among other topics, it’s often hard to have multiple, big conversations at one time.
In the Schifo house, they decided to address the big worries that continually pop up with each new day, knowing that it is their first time in this situation.
“I’m going to make some mistakes,” he said. “ I’m not gonna get it right. I’m not gonna nail it.
“When you do something and you mess it up a little bit, you kind of look sheepishly and you go ‘Oh man, this is my first time. I’m trying to figure this out.’
“And I wonder if we sometimes as adults we’re so preconditioned to not want to make mistakes. I think right now it would serve us well to just to be like kids who go, ‘this is my first time.’”
He also believes it would be beneficial if people would approach others, believing that when they arrived at the problem-solving table they had good intentions.
“We can have grace for one another and say, ‘that teacher or that person is trying their best to do what’s right. But this is their first time, and they’re fumbling.’
“There is such a desire right now to vilify people and to immediately assume the worst rather than the best.”
After 15 months of long school board meetings with varying opinions and viewpoints portrayed, Schifo tries to remind himself that those board members and the administration arrived at the meeting trying to do something good.
“That doesn’t mean we agree with everything they do,” he said. “And that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to celebrate everything they do. But at least let’s put them in a winning position before we put them in a losing position.”
And when emotions are high, Schifo said it would be best to look at the person as a whole, including the good qualities they have.
“So, for me, from my perspective, I’ve got to kind of defeat my humanity because my humanity can, many times, be just horrible. And I’ve got to say, God made that person. And he doesn’t make junk. There’s something about that person that’s good. And I need to find that I need to figure that out.”
It is in those moments that he returns to relationship.
And that’s where Schifo sees that school can make a big difference in the world: when a teacher and a student or a student and a student spend time getting to know one another without assumptions.
It’s something that’s practiced at home, he said.
When Schifo’s kids come home upset about something that happened at school, he encourages them to go back to learn something new about the person who hurt them.
“You have to spend a moment getting to know then and looking for something redeemable,” he said.
More often than not, the kids return with information and a new friend.
“We have to change hearts,” he said. “And that only happens through conversation through relationship neighbor to neighbor. If you don’t change hearts, you can’t change anything else. It’s, it’s just the way it is.”
