A Tale of Two Schools

To Sabbath School teachers: This story is for Sabbath, February 8.

By Andrew McChesney

W

hen Anar was old enough for first grade, he started going to the Seventh-day Adventist school in Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar. His family wasn’t Adventist, but his mom decided that Tusgal School was the best place for him. Then Mom and Dad moved to the United States to work and left Anar with an aunt.

Anar liked the Adventist school and his classmates. The teachers enjoyed teaching, and the children enjoyed learning and playing. He finished first grade. Then he finished second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, and sixth grade. He enjoyed everything about the school. Everyone treated him kindly.

Then a new boy showed up in the seventh grade. The new boy was named Batu, and he didn’t treat Anar kindly. Batu made fun of the way that Anar walked. He made fun of the way that Anar talked.

Now Anar didn’t walk and talk like the other boys and girls at the school. For him, it was difficult to put one foot in front of the other. He has cerebral palsy. Part of his brain didn’t grow normally while he was still a baby inside his mother. As a result, when he walked, he sometimes stumbled. He also didn’t talk as quickly as his classmates. When he spoke, the words came out very slowly.

Batu liked to tease Anar. Even though Anar asked him to stop, he didn’t.

Anar spoke with his teacher, and the teacher spoke with Batu. After that, everything was fine for a while, but then Batu started to tease again.

After a while, the school social worker got involved, and Batu stopped his teasing, but only for a while.

One day, Batu called Anar a bad name, Anar tried to hit him. But Batu was bigger, faster, and stronger, and he won the fight.

Afterward, the school organized a meeting between Batu’s parents and Anar’s aunt.

But Anar had had enough. He told his aunt that he wanted to transfer to another school.

Anar liked his first day in public school. No one spoke unkindly to him.

But on the second day, the other boys began to notice that he didn’t walk and talk like them. They began to tease him, and some of them even hit him.

Anar talked to a teacher, but she didn’t do anything. He talked to another teacher, and she also didn’t do anything. The teachers didn’t seem to care.

The other children also didn’t seem to care about anything. They didn’t care about their teachers, they didn’t care about their studies, and they didn’t care about each other or Anar. During class time, they stood up and walked around the room, and Anar couldn’t do his lessons.

A week passed. Anar realized that moving to a new school hadn’t solved anything. Batu had teased him at his old school, but he had been only one boy. Now the whole class was teasing him. Anar remembered the teachers at his old school. They had cared about him and his studies. He missed his old school.

After two weeks, Anar had had enough. He asked his aunt to send him back to the Adventist school. But before he returned, he prayed. He prayed for Batu to stop teasing him.

On his first day back at the Adventist school, Anar was surprised to find that Batu wasn’t the same boy. It was like Batu knew that Anar had left because of his teasing. He didn’t tease Anar that day, or the next. He treated Anar with kindness and respect. Anar began to like him. Today, the two boys are good friends.

Anar said that God answered his prayer for the teasing to stop.

“I didn’t realize that I was going to a good school until I spent two weeks in public school,” he said. “I prayed to God about the situation, and I think God helped me.”

Today, Anar is 14 and is happy to study in the ninth grade at Tusgal School in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. A previous Thirteenth Sabbath Offering helped his school grow with new classrooms and a library. This quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will help open a children’s recreation center where more children in Ulaanbaatar will learn to pray to the God of heaven. Thank you for your support.