Me vs. the Courts in California? In Which I Almost Lose My Job…. Again

This story's pretty simple really. After student teaching, I was offered several jobs teaching in different school districts. I chose a fourth grade class of 35 amazing kids at Glazier Elementary School in the Norwalk-LaMirada Schools. Then I moved out on my own to a cute little one room bungalow with a white picket fence.

The 35 kids became my whole life. I loved the kids and I loved teaching. I spent hours before, during, and after school trying to make learning and reading fun and meaningful.

However, being naive about legalities, I started telling my students about Jesus. Three of them, DeLise, Susan and Jerry, decided they wanted to follow Jesus too. So I started holding Bible classes after school. I was soon to learn this was not allowed.

So here’s how I almost lost my job….again. One afternoon during Bible class, we were working our way through John, chapter 3. One of the children, Susan, asked if verse 16 meant her parents needed Jesus too, or they would perish and go to Hell. We re-read the verses and prayed for her parents. However, she went home and on her own told her parents they were going to hell and needed to ask Jesus to be their Savior.

I was called into the Principal's office first thing the next morning and told if I wanted to keep my job and not end up as a major court case in the State of California, I would stop talking to kids about Jesus and the Bible. The Principal told me about other teachers who had lost their jobs doing this. But he wanted to give me another chance. So our Bible classes after school stopped. Instead I met on Saturdays with whoever could come and meet off the school grounds. 

With great joy, I recently reconnected with DeLise on Facebook and heard her recounting of the same events. Mostly I heard how she still loves and follows Jesus and that warmed my heart for sure.

But all of this took its toll, and by the middle of the semester I ended up in the hospital exhausted and still in need of much healing….enter the boy, the kiss, yet another tree, and the proposal.

John 3:16:  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.


Song: Your Grace Finds Me (Matt Redman), Your Grace Finds Me