I feel I have a tendency to drown when I have a full schedule, but at the same time, it focuses me. It's been busy, but I've made the time to have at least some quiet time with God before I jump into the day. I feel like a new person.
The first week of school was intense. Julie and Victor (the parents/bosses) were gone half the week, and some intense stuff happened. For me and the other staff, it meant a couple days were 8am to 10pm helping out with the kids and doing school. It was a blessing in the end though, because I am submissive to authority to a fault. Having a little more free rein gave me the confidence to tackle some issues with my classes, like disciplining kids who weren't practicing their instruments. Really exciting!!! I don't know what happened over Christmas break, but my students can play guitar now. Still need a lot of work with the strumming and singing, but we're over the first hump!
On Saturday I went clowning in some poorer neighborhoods with people from the young adult and youth groups from church. I was talking to one of the boys who lived right next to the first place we visited and I asked him what he liked to do, and he said "Play baseball." I'm not a big fan of the "perform the gospel for people" thing. Prefer convos sitting on the sidewalk for that sorta thing. But anyways, we gave out toys at the end (another thing that is just so problematic on so many levels), and sure enough, this guy was playing baseball with his sister by the time we left with his new little bat and ball. So I thought God was in that. I was really proud of the Zaragoza girls too, who were the only others to break from the clowning and hold kids and learn names. I also made myself useful by taking pictures. I was really shocked, but perhaps I shouldn't be, that a lot of the group was surprised and moved by the poverty. A lot of people in Latin America live in fear I think, and stay away from those kinda places. But this wasn't even a slum, which I know there are some pretty intense slums in DF somewhere.
The second place we went clowning I felt a lot better about. While the first one felt like a hit and run, I had some time to meet the kids, introducing myself to around 50 of them and getting some funny photos, asking general questions. I wanted to have deeper conversations, but as soon as I paused, another kid would be looking up at me going "Is he going to ask me?" so I would move on. We packed some 100 kids into this little church. Controlled chaos, who knows who heard what. In that I guess, things are less effective. But it was fun, and I got to interact with the kids a lot more. I hope we were able to demonstrate love.
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