As we sit in the kitchen of my friend Jill and Janelle's apartment its no wonder that 6 year old Sol cannot focus on her homework. In the Jenny Jump Up baby Vicki is bouncing away, the teenagers, Eduardo and Yoli futzing around with the computer playing different music and Andrea and I are chatting away. I have been assigned to work with Sol on her homework for vacation. Working with Sol has proven to be a huge task as the majority of the time she refuses to do anything and takes about 20 minutes to copy one word, when she has been assigned three pages to copy. If it weren't for her being so cute she would drive me literally insane. Finally realizing she's not going to get anything done with all these distractions I send her away to another room to work.
Life here in Oaxaca has taken a new turn, instead of my usual surrounding of little boys I have been given the job of being in charge of 10 teenage girls ages 13-18 for a couple days. At first I was terrified to, I always feel so intimidated by them because they are really hard to get to know. The teenage boys are thrilled with any extra attention you give them, and the little kids, well they are little kids of course they are easy to spend time with, but teenage girls, they're a little more difficult. Luckily I have been able to get to know a couple of them during Christmas break so I at least had my foot in the door. My time with them began Monday morning at breakfast, I am not much of a talker when I first wake up so being with little kids in the morning can be a bit overwhelming for me, teenage girls on the other hand, they are more my style. As I looked around the table hardly a word was spoken, all of them just stared blankly barely able to eat. As they continued to eat one by one they began to wake up and there would be a little bit of chatting and giggling here and there. As the day went on some of the walls seemed to have come down and I found myself laughing and talking with the girls. With every moment I spend with them I love them a little more. They get so giddy when they talk about their crushes and all that petty stuff it cracks me up! It's been great as my friend Andrea is in charge of the teenage boys so Jill and Janelle's house, where we've been camping out while they're gone, has become the common grounds of both sexes.
Last night as I sat watching a movie with the girls I looked around the room and got really sad, I only have a month left here but now I so badly long to pour into these girls. I hate the fact that my spanish is so poor because there is so much I want to talk to them about. I am only a couple years older than most of them so I feel like I could really be able to relate with them. I want them to know how much they are loved, even if their pasts haven't really convinced them of that. They need to know their worth despite what they've been told all their lives. Sometimes I look at my life and feel so guilty, why have I been so blessed when so many others have experienced so much pain? It reminds me of a part of a song by Bretty Dennen when he says "in a world of suffering why should I be so blessed?" One thing God teaches me over and over however is no matter where He has you in life, whether it's in a time of suffering or a time of extreme blessing, use it for His glory. There is so much that can be learned and taught in the face of suffering and in a time of blessing I believe you should really pour into others. So that's a bit of my life at this point in time. Sorry I haven't been keeping up better with this! Hope you all are doing well and please feel free to write me, I love hearing from everyone and what's going on in your lives as well. I must apologize at times I can be slow to respond but I WILL at somepoint! Take care and God bless! -Sama
One of the teenage girls, Yoli and I playing with Andrea's MacBook
