Before the start of each new school year, MSI leaders in Indonesia gather to pray and ask God for direction. This annual leadership retreat is where the yearly theme that is disseminated to all 74 educational sites is birthed. This upcoming school year’s theme is “The Matrix.”

By Paul Richardson

Recently a graduate named Imelda came back for a visit. It was a joyful reunion. But this was not the Imelda that I had known 8 years ago. The teenage version of Imelda was an insecure and timid underperformer. She never got any academic achievements nor trophies. But this lady in front of me was a biotechnologist making a good living in one of Australia’s biggest biotechnology pharmaceutical companies. She had somehow transformed into a friendly, self-confident and humble adult.

Imelda reminds me that certain individuals have the remarkable ability to be reborn a little bit every day. This is what psychologists call the “growth mindset,”  which is a relentless determination to grow, learn and change. A person without this transformative mindset will tend to calcify.

Most of my students are eager to learn. They lean forward. They take notes and ask questions. Others pass notes and look out the window. They are disinterested and unteachable. Their hearts seem distant, already beginning to calcify. God‘s words to Moses ring true, “… they are stiff necked people.”

I’ve noticed some calcification in myself.  As a younger man I was eager to change. I loved reading and talking about books. I eagerly searched for mentors. I asked for advice. I sat in the front row of church. I took classes and attended conferences. I believed in people. I looked for the best in everyone. Age has begun to push back against that youthful idealism. I’ve become disinterested in new technology. My personality is increasingly predictable and I feel a cynicism toward certain people. We are all growing older and we cannot reverse aging. But can we continue learning, growing and changing?
I believe we can.

I am reminded of 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

The Latin word “matrix” (literally: womb, or mother) refers to a place where something new originates. I dream for every Mustard Seed school to be a matrix, where Indonesian children don’t just gain knowledge. Like Imelda, they are a new creation who do not conform to the pattern of this world, but are continually transformed by the renewing of their minds (Romans 12:2).

Isaiah 64:8 says, “O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our potter; and all we are the work of Your hand.”