A Story from a BFA Teacher: Beka Sharp
I went to kindergarten for about a week before I told my parents, “I want to be a teacher when I grow up.” Now, a decade into teaching, there is nowhere else I would rather be than in the classroom, specifically at BFA. I regularly tell people that BFA is where I can most fully and truly live out being the teacher God created me to be.

I firmly believe that wherever our feet are planted is our God-given mission field. In recent years, mine has primarily been MB 215. The brightly colored papel picado hanging from the ceiling and the whiteboard covered with crazy quotes just showcase the surface of Spanish class.

In my classroom, we build bridges, not walls. We celebrate the ways the image of God is reflected in the Spanish-speaking world, and we seek deeper ways to love our neighbors.

As we grapple with Spanish grammar, we cultivate empathy for anyone who has ever embarked on a language learning journey. We recognize the courage and humility it takes to actually put that language into practice.

My students are most engaged when we diverge from covering indirect object pronoun placement for the sixteenth time and venture instead into stories from my years in Mexico. My classes listen with rapt attention as I share hard realities and the incredible beauty and hope that rise in spite of them, as I tell stories and current events of the people and part of the world I call home.

Interspersed with memorizing yet another irregular preterite conjugation are conversations of the impact of broken systems and injustice on the “least of these”, the poor and the vulnerable, discussions on the tangible reality of light breaking forth in the darkness, and of hope rooted in something deeper than our worldly circumstances. We dialogue on realities in the Spanish-speaking world, but the truths of how we see and engage with the world as followers of Christ carry well beyond Latin America.

And the deepest beauty of BFA is that these conversations don’t end in the classroom. I sit across from my students, sharing life over lunch or during Access. I’ve spent countless evenings in the Storch kitchen with students sitting on the counter across from me, asking thoughtful questions as I make Tuesday’s breakfast. Thoughts first planted in the classroom are cultivated on after-school walks through the Black Forest, over dinner at Chrysalis training, and on phone calls with former students who are now an ocean away in university.​

My heart isn’t that my students remember every irregular preterite verb or flawlessly place object pronouns. My desire is that they are equipped to step out into the world and love their neighbor a little more intentionally (or at least see them with a little more empathy) because of what they learned in my class.​

Over the past eight years, I have gotten dozens of texts or calls from former students, excited to tell me how they just used Spanish in their day-to-day lives. Dorms have shared with me their students talking about what they’ve been learning in class around the dinner table, sparking deep conversations. Parents have told me that their daughter has pursued a career working with Spanish-speaking immigrants because of the love and empathy my class instilled within her. Change is happening in the world because of small moments in MB 215.

The lessons we teach and the relationships we build in our classrooms don’t end there, and that is the best part of BFA.