Daughters of Promise November/December 2014 | Page 54

street, playing football,
riding bikes. They’re used
to playing away until
somebody yells, “Car!” and
then they all run to the side
and wait.
“It’s such a different culture.
I grew up on a farm and
was raised to work and
live off the land. You walk
down the street here and
nobody’s working; they’re
all sitting out on their
porches. We took the kids
to a farm on a field trip; a
lot of them didn’t know where milk
came from.“

TRENCHES
IT IS 7:25 A.M. Marlea Kauffman

steps onto the porch of the brick
row house where she lives, ready
to head across the street to Tidings
of Peace Christian School. This time
of day, the streets are emptier than
usual--fewer smells, fewer sounds.
A white lady in tight snakeskin
leggings and hoop earrings passes
her on the sidewalk, while across
the street a young black man walks
with the wide stride necessary to
keep his baggy pants from sliding
down, one hand holding an edge
of them, ear buds dangling from his
ears. Today is trash pick-up day, and
an old man with a scraggly ponytail
rides up on a bicycle with a kid cart
pulled behind, heaped with old bits
of metal and wire. He stops in front
of the recycle bin, props up his bike,
and stoops over the bin, looking.
Marlea crosses the street and walks
up the two cement steps and
through the blue door of the long,
low brick building that is the school.
A square white sign above the door
reads “TOP Christian School.” Staff
prayer starts at 7:30.
At 8:00, the doors officially open,
and with them the noise of children
arriving, the thud of a basketball,
the squeak of tennis shoes on gym
floor, laughter, good mornings.
Marlea is in her kindergarten
classroom, making last minute
preparations before the bell
rings at 8:15, when round-faced
Valerie arrives and stands just
inside the door, waiting for a
hug. Jeremy bounds in after her,
full of excitement and chatter.
Valerie and Jeremy are her only
kindergartners this year, making
this third year of teaching at TOP
the easiest she’s had.
York, Pennsylvania, population
400,000 and growing, is a far cry
from the quiet farm ountry where
Marlea grew up. She grew up
throwing bales and milking
cows, a self-sufficient-and-54-

proud-of-it country girl who never
envisioned herself living in the city.
That changed in July of 2012
when Clayton Shenk, principal
and administrator at TOP, called
and asked if she would consent to
teach.
“Of all the places I’ve gone, this is
the place I most felt God’s leading,”
Marlea says. “I was working at
home, knowing I needed to go do
something, knowing just having a
day job wasn’t what I would do the
rest of my life. Then I got the call to
come here, and I fought it. I didn’t
like the city, but I remember finally
just knowing I had to leave my job
back home and knowing I had to
come to the city.
“Everything was so new, and getting
used to the different culture really
stressed me out. I was paranoid of
street life, and I walked everywhere
I went because I was scared to
drive in traffic. I was petrified to walk
my kids down the back alley and
across the street to the playground.
I would make them all hold onto a
rope, which was a big joke. They
felt like they were tied to it. They
were born and raised
in
the

Another thing I had to overcome
was the issue of cleanliness. You
kind of have to overlook the stinky
child--although we’re allowed to
send a note home if it’s a regular
thing. I had to realize you have to
love these children. They can’t help
if they don’t have their laundry
done at home, or no one to help
them brush their teeth. We’ve often
had lice and bed bugs carried
to school, and do lice checks
regularly--but God is in control of
that, too, and I haven’t gotten lice
yet, even when my student had
them.
“Teaching here, I’ve learned a
whole new dimension of the word
love--loving the unlovable and
realizing the deeper need of their
soul. Even if they don’t learn how to
wo