Daughters of Promise November/December 2014 | Page 55

he pastors. Inspired by an innercity Christian school in Reading,
Pennsylvania, the congregation
told the Lord that if they had one
committed teacher, three students,
and $5000 in the bank by July 1st,
they would start a school. When
July 1st came and they had none
of those things, they decided “not
this year.”
But on July 3rd, the owner of a
building right down the street from
the church called Brother Clayton
and offered to let him have the
building for the price of the closing
costs, since he wanted to get it off
his hands before winter. And so
Tidings of Peace Christian School
began.
That first year there were five
students. Today, twenty years
later, there are forty-two students
in grades kindergarten through
twelfth. Maxed to capacity, with
the seventh and eighth graders
doing their classes in the nearby
church building, they are in need
of a larger building so they can
expand.
At TOP, parents have the option
of paying full tuition, paying partial
tuition with a sponsorship, or giving
$30 and ten hours of community
service a month. The school is
able to operate because of
volunteer teachers, with donations,
sponsorships,
and
fundraisers
covering expenses.
Parents say they choose TOP
because they want their children
in a Christian school learning about
God, or because their children
were being bullied and pushed
around in another school. At TOP,
the children are treated with
love and respect.

TOP’s motto is, “Respect God,
respect others, respect yourself.”
Respect doesn’t always come
easily. The first year Marlea taught,
she spent hours with one troubled
little boy. Because of his home
situation, he came to school with
his homework undone, refused to
obey his teacher, broke pencils,
and fell on the floor in defiance.
That situation, along with adjusting
to the new culture, made her
first year difficult. The little boy
eventually improved his behavior,
but sadly, his family moved away
after he’d attended only half
Marlea continues to grow in
understanding her students. “I
remember I was frustrated with a girl
who would never pay attention,”
she told me, “and Brother Clayton
made the comment, ‘What’s most
important, for you to teach her the
schoolwork or for you to show her
love?“
He said there could be other things
in her life making it hard for her to
concentrate, and the longer I’m
here, the more I realize he was right.
You see evilness here that you don’t
see in the country. You walk out on
the street and see the moms and
dads yelling at their kids, and “Just
down the street from us there’s a
lesbian couple who always have a
lot of kids around their house, and
they’re always noisy with yelling
and drunkenness. The cops were
out there just the other night to
settle an argument between the
two ladies. And down the street is a
gay couple who adopted children-so sad. Where I grew up, the
neighbors were married, one man,
one woman, and this gay/lesbian
talk was just what you hear about.
“At school, the whole thing

of ‘What would Jesus do?’ comes
up a lot. They don’t understand
why they need to do right, and we
are trying to help them understand
and live a more peaceable life.
It’s so fun to teach them the Bible
stories. Things that seem basic to us,
that we’ve heard all our lives, they
just soak up. To them it’s all new.
“With discipline, I learned you have
to focus on the positive. They might
get verbal abuse at home, and
scolding them doesn’t have much
effect. But words of affirmation really
make them beam. I’ve learned you
should look for the good in what
they do and give twice as many
positives as you do negatives.”
School ends at 3:00 p.m. Since
her class this year is smaller and
easier to handle than those of the
other teachers’, Marlea helps with
a multitude of after-school jobs:
grading students’ work, mopping
the gym floor, cleaning bathrooms
and drinking fountains, fumigating
for bugs, cooking, babysitting.
After-school streets are crowded
and noisy. If she walks down the
street a ways, Marlea might see kids
walking home from school or kids
riding bikes, scooters, and ripsticks.
There will be pedestrians of all
shapes and skin colors. Neighbors
lounging on their porches, playing
with iphones or some other
electronic gadget. She might smell
cigarette smoke. Body odor. Beer
on someone’s breath. On hot days,
the smell of garbage from the bins.
She might hear a siren passing in the
distance, or the ding-ding of the
snowcone truck. Rap music blaring
from a passing car. A horn honking.
This is the city.
“Now when I’m out playing with
the kids,” Marlea says, “I don’t let
every person on the street bother
me. Most of them know us and
are friendly when they see the
whole line of kids go walking by. I
get worried sometimes, and we’re
supposed to have phones on us
all the time, but I’m not petrified
anymore.
“I became a real Yorker when I
started collecting pennies from the
sidewalk. I found a dime one day.
That was a really good day, the
best day ever.”

Photo

i Miller Kauffman
by Luc
arlea
ed by M
s provid

It’s school as usual in York,
Pennsylvania. If you would like to
learn more about TOP, visit their
website at www.tidingsofpeace.
org.

-55-