Two years after graduating as valedictorian of her class at Penn State, Altoona native Betsey I lite left the United States in August of 2000 to become a teacher in North Africa. For the next two years, she taught her class of second graders the subjects that American children also study.
\nHite’s interest in the area and its people, who are 99 percent Muslim, grew when she considered participating in an overseas mission trip during her sophomore year in college. A campus ministry wanted to conduct a summer project in which the students would help Arab students with English classes and help a newly established American University set up a student government.
\n\u201cI was real, real excited, but it wasn’t so easy convincing Mom and Dad that I should go. Dad said, ‘No way!’ at first,\u201d Hite said.
\nHite said her parents were concerned about her \u201cgoing to a place with missionary intentions where missionaries aren’t allowed.\u201d
\nWhat followed, she said, was a \u201chard struggle\u201d within herself. She decided to try again.
\n\u201cI didn’t want to dishonor my parents’ wishes,\u201d said Hite. \u201cSo I went back to them and said, \u2018If you say don’t go, I won’t go. If you say I’m allowed, I will.\u2019\u201d
\nThey reluctantly relented. Two years later, they were no more pleased about her decision to return.
\n\u201cThey never liked it from the moment I brought it up, but when I would come home, and they would hear about what I was doing, they were proud of what I was doing. They were reconciled to it, if not gung-ho,\u201d she said.
\nIn the school where Hite taught, students have varied backgrounds. The school provides leaming opportunities for local Arab children, as well as American and European children whose parents are employed in the region. The staff and students represent 26 nations. With four years between her journeys to North Africa, first as student and then as teacher, she saw the country open somewhat.
\n\u201c(The first time,) sharing the gospel was very difficult. The women on (our) team were told not to talk to men. There were few women (to talk to),\u201d said Hite. \u201cThe guys on our team got to share their faith every day. Four years later, women were starting to move about (in public) more. But more openness is slow in coming.\u201d
\nHite said laws still favor men over women \u2014 laws permitting men to have more than one wife, laws allowing a man to divorce any wife without a settlement and without her children, and laws forbidding a woman to cross a border without her husband’s permission. Hite’s school made an effort to equalize conditions for both sexes by having the same number of boys and girls in the classroom.
\nShe taught the students in English, and said that the local children are multilingual, since they speak a dialect of Arabic at home, learn a more classical version of Arabic in school, and speak French (the official language of their region) and English at school.
\nWorking in a Muslim country gave Hite the opportunity to use her teaching abilities and to share her Christian faith. In a nation that is 99 percent Muslim, Hite found many opportunities to share the gospel, but she was limited in how she could do so.
\n\u201cIt is strictly illegal to proselytize children,\u201d said Hite. \u201cOur activities in the classroom had to be limited to cultural types of things. But the children were allowed to say anything to each other, so the children of missionaries can share their faith,” she said.
\nHite took advantage of the multi-cultural representation in her class to teach all the children about their different faiths.
\n\u201cEveryday, there was a student of the day (who would speak to the class),\u201d she said. \u201cStudents could choose Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Ramadan, to talk about. I couldn’t teach about what the children did.\u201d
\nIn some ways, she found that she had more freedom to discuss her faith than she would have had in an American public school.
\n\u201cWe could refer to God,\u201d said Hite. \u201cFor instance, in science class, we talked freely about how God made the things we were talking about.\u201d
\nShe also found opportunities to share her faith with adults.
\n\u201cIt is legal between consenting adults to freely discuss religion,\u201d she said. \u201cSo when I spent time in students’ homes, with their families, we talked about religion. Because their faith is such a part of their everyday lives, it’s not taboo to talk about faith.\u201d
\nIn spite of the open discussion of religion, Hite said, Muslims converting to Christianity can pay a heavy price.
\n\u201cIf there’s a young person, not married, they’re in danger of never marrying, of being cast out, of losing their job,\u201d said Hite. \u201cA married woman who becomes a Christian is in danger of losing her children.\u201d
\nAfter September 11, 2001, school officials, Hite said, were concerned about what would happen with some of the Islamic segments of the population so the school was closed the next day, “as a precaution.” But local people seemed very sympathetic about the tragedy, and local government officials participated in a memorial service for those killed in America.
\n\u201cAfter that (9\/11), we felt we were in a unique position as instructors. We had classrooms with both Arabs and Americans in them,” she said.
\nLater, Hite and her colleagues felt a special empathy for two American relief workers, Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, kidnapped by Taliban members in Afghanistan during the aftermath of September 11.
\n“We prayed for them every day.”
\nThe two have since been rescued.
\nLast Spring, Christians in the region received special permission from government officials to hold a prayer conference during the week before Easter. More than 400 Christians gathered to pray for the nation. Hite said local officials wanted to show that they were open, and they were pleased that the Christians wanted to ask God to bless their country. Hite said it was \u201cthe largest gathering of Christians in the country since the Middle Ages.\u201d
\n\u201cIt was a prayer event. It wasn’t evangelistic. It wasn’t allowed to be,\u201d she said.
\nLater that spring, record-setting rains broke a drought that had been plaguing the region. The local government invited the Christians to return.
\nAfter Easter, Hite and her roommates, two other young female Christian teachers from the school, took the opportunity to visit the countryside. They went to the desert, rode camels, and witnessed the lifestyle of the residents.
\n\u201cIt was like walking through the Bible. There were fruit trees that you read about. There were whole villages built of mud and straw bricks. It was such a spiritually rich time.\u201d
\nHite enjoys being back in America, but there is still much that she misses in North Africa.
\n\u201cThe families I spent time with-the things about the culture that are so different from here. The pace is so much slower. People spend time together. I liked being in such an international place,\u201d Hite said.
\nHite has now settled in Akron, Ohio, where she works at an art store. She is weighing the possibilities for her future.
\n\u201cMy dream on departing was to get a master’s degree in art and go back and be the school’s art specialist for kindergarten through 12th grade. (School officials) just purchased new land and are building a new building. That’s just one of many options,” she said. “I can’t imagine never going back.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two years after graduating as valedictorian of her class at Penn State, Altoona native Betsey I lite left the United States in August of 2000 to become a teacher in North Africa. For the next two years, she taught her class of second graders the subjects that American children also study. Hite’s interest in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}