Homeroom 109

Homeroom 109

Dr. Sandra Jenkins Cook

ISBN 979-8-88751-231-0 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88751-232-7 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Dr. Sandra Jenkins Cook

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Written as encouragement to those serving God by living His truth and carrying His light into public school 

classrooms.

Introduction

You Need to Know Where I'm Coming From

Missing the Mission Field

Not at Public School!

Stroke of Grace

Welcome to the Club

Here's Your Sign!

See You at the Pole?

Take Down Your Bulletin Board!

Valedictorian Victory

Called to Pray

They Called It Macaroni!

Love the Unlovable

Not Who You Are—Whose You Are

Stay On the Bus

He Showed Me Her Hurts

Adding My Two Cents

Standing in the Classroom

Are You in a Rock Video?

Where Was I on 9/11?

Pondering

About the Author

Written as encouragement to those serving God by living His truth and carrying His light into public school classrooms.

Introduction

When I was very young and heard the call from God to become a missionary, I did not know what a missionary was or what a missionary really does. My family did not attend church, so I had very little knowledge about Christianity. I, therefore, concluded mainly from movies on television that, as a missionary, I would probably be going to a foreign nation someday and would be living in poverty, helping other people who lived in poverty.

I grew up, got married, bought a home, and started working. But deep within my heart, I knew that there was still that call on my life, but I did not know how to pursue it. Asking God to lead me to do what He wanted me to do with my life, the strong desire to become a teacher enveloped me. Enrolling in a community college, I began the pursuit to obtain my degree to teach in high school public education.

Upon graduating ten years later from Shippensburg State University, I started my teaching career, unexpectedly, as an instructor at the community college. God was preparing me for the future. Obeying the continuous callings and direction from God, I developed a business program and taught at a Christian high school, became a teacher at an area vocational high school, and ultimately obtained further educational degrees to accept administrative positions at various public vocational high schools.

As I pursued the educational and professional path that the Lord laid out before me, it became clear that I was being sent by God as a missionary to high school students. The Lord revealed to me that missionaries are simply His disciples that obediently follow His calling to go wherever He sends them and participate in the movement of God's love to the people they are sent to. We are actually all to be missionaries wherever God places us or sends us.

Having served more than twenty years in high school vocational education in public schools, I continue to carry a personal burden for the students and staff of these educational systems. I have experienced the blessings and horrors of teaching in public education. I have also experienced the anguish of being an administrator.

On May 7, 2015, on the National Day of Prayer, I was asked to lead the Prayer for the Educational Mountain at the Capitol Building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I developed my thoughts, integrated them with some researched thoughts of others, and prepared and delivered the following prayer, which was, and continues to be, an urgent prayer for our public schools:

Dear Heavenly Father,

We are here today because we need to repent as a nation and seek your face. We, your people, are in a fight for the destiny of our country right now—a destiny that will ultimately be determined by our children and by how their minds are molded and how their hearts are prepared.

Father, you have blessed our nation and lifted up our nation as an example of what a nation can do when founded on Your Word—You have continued to bless us as we function in Your wisdom.

You established our nation as a nation that was destined to arise in wisdom, a great wisdom that would be released to the world.

You bathed our nation in creativity and innovation. You blessed us as our nation developed a culture that embraced faith in You, as laws were developed in obedience to Your commandments.

In the past, this culture of Christian faith was established and was passed onto each generation, and was endorsed and nourished through our educational system.

Father, our society has failed You. Many in our country no longer esteem their Christian heritage, and, therefore, have concluded that these foundational principles and experiences that formed our society are no longer valid.

We have left our next generation without any sense of definition or direction resulting in the uprising of a generation that does what it pleases as it appears right in their own eyes.

We repent, Father, as we confess that our country has turned, and has placed our children on the altar of secular humanistic education and entertainment.

We come before You today, dear God, to ask Your Spirit to rise up within our educational system, and cleanse it.

We pray that You would raise up Godly leaders at our schools. Lord, direct them in their decision-making that they make righteous decisions based on Your Word, not political correctness. Raise them up as faith models to their staffs and students. Give them courage and strength as they lead.

Lord, we pray for our teachers and instructors. Touch their hearts and minds, Lord, to present Your truth. Give them a true and committed love for their students. Anoint them with the gift of teaching.

God, we pray for those that prepare and approve the curriculum materials that are presented to our children. Father, raise up a new group that will honor Your Word and promote Godly choices.

Father, we pray for the safety of our children on all campuses throughout our nation. We ask for protection from the enemy that roams our schools seeking to steal our children, kill our children, and destroy our children.

Lord, bring peace to our schools. Bring Godly unity and love to our campuses.

God, we pray that there will be personal miraculous encounters with Jesus by our children in our schools. We pray that our children will have visions and dreams of Jesus and that they will personally and individually see His Word made manifest.

We pray that blueprints and revelations from Heaven will be given to the children and that they will begin to speak out all that they see.

We pray that a great breakthrough will be released into the United States in the areas of creativity and innovation that will come through our students that will significantly impact the economy of our society.

Lord, we pray that Jesus will bring healing to our children's hearts and bodies and minds.

We pray that our children will meet Jesus and will receive the Gospel truth, and that they will then boldly tell their friends and their families about the Jesus they meet.

God, we ask that You release Your Holy Spirit upon our schools, their leaders, their teachers, their staff members, their students—our children.

God, be glorified, once again, in this great country that You have established. May our children rise up each day within our schools and proclaim one nation under God.

Father, we bring our worship and praise before You. We offer up these prayers.

In the mighty and holy name of Jesus we pray.

Throughout the chapters of this book, I will share my missionary experiences, highlighting the miracles that the Lord did, centering in on my calling at one particular public vocational high school. God miraculously sent His light into that school and I know that He placed me there for such a time as this.

I believe that the Lord will continue to send His light into the darkness of our public schools through those called to this mission field who obediently go forth in His love to serve.

To God be the glory for all He has done and all He will do!

1

You Need to Know Where I'm Coming From

For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper and not to harm, plans for hope and a future.

—Jeremiah 29:11

Not everyone who has a skill or great knowledge in a particular subject or trade area can become an effective teacher. I believe that teaching is a gift and a calling that goes beyond presenting and explaining a subject or demonstrating a skill. I believe that teaching is an anointed communications talent given by God—it is a gift. This gift, when bathed in Godly love and respect, and used in living testimony to spread the Gospel message, becomes a ministry.

So how did I become a teacher, assigned to Homeroom 109? In order for you to fully appreciate the miracles of Homeroom 109, I need to explain to you where I come from and how God prepared me for this calling.

What would you do as a parent if your nineteen-year-old son who had just been drafted into the United States Army and was scheduled to go overseas told you that he was coming home on a two-week leave and was going to get married to his seventeen-year-old girlfriend, a girl who he had been dating for less than a year who was still in her senior year of high school? This was the challenge presented to my husband's parents over fifty years ago. My husband's parents considered themselves to be well-respected pillars in their church. They were both Sunday school teachers for years and participated in every project in their church. My husband's father was a long-term board member.

My family members were non-Christian, never churchgoers, who were all dealing with multiple worldly issues. My mother, at that time, was having an affair with another married man. Under the guise of taking me out to learn to drive when I was sixteen, she would ultimately use me to take her to a local shopping center parking lot where she would regularly meet her boyfriend. This placed me in the middle of a horrible betrayal affair that I did not want to be in. I was filled with guilt because I felt like I was participating in her unfaithfulness to my father.

My future in-laws were aware of my dilemma as I often spoke to them about it, seeking counsel and comfort. Even though they appeared interested in my problems at the time, sharing these problems with them created more alienation toward me later on as a daughter-in-law choice.

My dad, who also had infidelity issues, could not handle discovering that my mom was doing the same things he had been doing. The discovery of her affair triggered a severe mental breakdown in my father, and he eventually became institutionalized for several months.

My older brother, who was verbally and physically abusive to me, drank a lot and was suspected of being on drugs. During this time, he got married to one of his girlfriends that he had pregnant (there was at least one other girlfriend pregnant at that time).

How embarrassing and demeaning this was to my husband's parents to have their son marry into such a family. They believed that they had been the model Christian parents, and they desired a much better wife selection for their son. Unfortunately, they determined their disapproval of me based on my family and who they were, not choosing to recognize or accept who I was.

In