"The Life of Community"

Tommy Mahaffie
Sep 1
5 min read

1st Week of School 2025

The first week started as it always does with butterflies and scheduling issues. Teaching PE I have found that it is hard to arrange the schedule to fit everyone's needs so I am really thankful I have a great principal that can help with any problems that arise.

Amongst those issues I found out that one of my classes coincides at the same time the middle school classes happen. So my colleague and I have made a plan to switch inside and outside every 4-5 weeks. Which means I will be outside during some of the hot period. Nothing I can't handle but it will be an adjustment to my regular methods of teaching.

Another unique thing about this year is that my current HS students in my PE and health class are students that I have taught previously in 4th and 5th grade. I guess that's what happens when you stay at a school for 6 years. Both my HS classes have started off really good. They are really respectful and hardworking. My other HS class is a health class where I only have 8 students. Which is good not just because of the size and the one on one interactions but also because it gives me a chance to go through the curriculum before I have to teach it to 24 students in Semester two.

Brittany

If you don't know Brittany is working a few hours a week at our friends church Keystone Nazarene. This past spring Brian Woolery (friend)(colleagues husband)(father of 2 of my XC runners)(volunteer xc coach) asked Brittany to help out till December until their colleague gets back from maternity leave.

One benefit of this job is that Avery can come along while she works and we don't have to pay for child care. One downside is that it can be distracting and cause Brittany to not get as much as she would like to get done.

Recently Brittany found a benign cyst on her head that needed to get lanced and then drained. Thankfully it it was benign but it was still scary to see a big bump on her head that was scabbing up.

She is also working with the churches financials which I feel will help benefit us and our budgeting habits.

Cross Country

This is my 6th year of coaching and being apart of cross country team at OCSI. Our first day of practice started off great! It was our biggest turnout yet of 35 students. There were a few drop outs on day two but most of them stayed despite the heat and well the running. This year we will have 4 coaches that are going to be apart of the team which will aid in giving more individual feedback and advice to runners aswell as allowing us to have monday practices which hasn't been a think in 3 years. Another high note is that we have the most girls I have ever seen on an OCSI roster (9) and a full team of HS girls that can score during the meets.

I have a good feeling that this year is going to be a great year! We have a lot of talented runners and only 1 senior which sadly is my captain and one of my best runners. But that means we have a lot of room to grow for the future and I think the fact that I've been here for 6 years and have taught a lot of my runners means that I am building a program that students enjoy and want to be a part of which is all the Lord's doing.

Cross Country is a chance where I can encourage and train up students to become better versions of themselves not only through running but in all areas of their lives. It is one of those sports where you have to be physically, mentally, emotional and spiritually ready to compete. Which carriers over into many different facets of their lives.

Bonhoeffer

This summer I bought a book at a christian bookstore in Holland Michigan entitled "Bonhoeffer" written by Stephen J. Nichols. I remember in high school watching a short video about Bonhoeffer and being intrigued about his life. If you don't know he was a theologian in Germany during World War II.

I just started reading the introduction to this book and one of the things that caught my eye was how Bonhoeffer talks about "the life of community." Stephen mentions that "we are not individual heroes achieving greatness-- an unfortunate but prevalent model of living the Christian life in our day. Instead, we live together in Christ by faith"(pg.21).

This thought really stuck out to me because that is what I feel we are doing here at OCSI. When people ask me why I like Okinawa I tend to list the most obvious answers like the weather is great, the ocean, and the food. But one of the less obvious and most important reason Brittany and I love it here is because of our community of believers. We live in an apartment complex on campus. We have this amazing opportunity to be closely surrounded by our colleauges and fellow believes that we do ministry with. I believe Dietrich Bonhoeffers thoughts on how the "life together" or the "life in community" is something that is so ever present in my life. I am so grateful for God's grace and mercy and wonderful gifts of this job in Okinawa and this community.

Keystone Nazarene Church

This past Sunday Brittany and I visited Keystone church the one that she is working at. We plan on coming at least once a month because we feel it's important for us to be apart of the community that Brittany is currently working with.

Brian Woolery (the pastor) whom I mentioned above was talking about the great commission and how it connected to the churches mission.

"Making Christlike Disciples in Okinawa"

https://www.keystonenaz.com/

He talked about how we are created for a purpose. That through our actions and attitudes in how we live our lie we are baptizing people every day.

He mentioned that Japan like America has their salvation in "stuff." Lots of new technological advancements/trinkets are made in Japan. Japanese people love their stuff. But within that there is also deep brokenness.

He posed the question, "How can we reach them?"

Here is what he said.

Live in the overflow of what God is doing in your life
- through the ups and downs of your day to day.
Pray; make time to pray together and for others in your life.
Call People by their name.
- get to know the convenience store workers name, or the person you walk by in the park every day.
- It shows a tremendous amount of care and love.
- It that same vein as a teacher; learn your new students names or relearn your old students names.

He left us with 2 main points that he printed and laminated. Something that we can take with us and ask ourselves as we walk with Christ and others in our community.

1) "God how are you working around me today?"

2) " How do you want me to join you?"

Please, ask yourselves these questions and think about your community in Christ. Do you have a strong community that can build you up and live life with. If not then I encourage you to find your people. But on the antithesis of that God also calls us to go out and make disciples of all nations/ people.

Last thing I will leave you on is some pictures of my week. Thanks for reading and I will see you in the next post.