Orphanage Update

Many of the kids from orphanage 1 are going home for the summer.  Yeah...that's confusing...I knew theoretically that this happens...but it's kinda discouraging when the people you've been working with, on the assumption they need it, just go home when they feel like.  It's also a bit troubling and makes me angry, that the kids are here when they could be at home. 

But God works in mysterious ways. 

So...one girl had told me she had wanted to finish watching "the Bible" miniseries.  So I was like cool.  God had put a few things on my heart to bless her with, but I was shy...she had kept me waiting for almost an hour, and this was going to be good-bye for the summer to one of the people I've poured into most...so I had bought a burrito for her, was thinking about a Book, and wanted to give her music but didn't know how...it's also a tight-wire act, working with teenage girls, especially ones with trauma, to express love in ways that aren't confusing to them...and of course, if one social worker doesn't like how you look at someone or something, that it could be it.  (Working with girls, in school and in the children's home and at church, I usually ask myself "what would a good dad say or do?"  Most of them don't have dads, and the ones that do, a lot of them aren't spiritual leaders.  So that seems to work pretty well, especially with second graders who have crushes on you.)    

So anyways, we watch the thing, I explain some things...at the end she expresses her desire to read the holy books and that she's hungry...so out comes the burrito...

Then we're talking about Spanish and she mentions some Spanish pop she wanted to listen to...since I have my laptop, I download it for her and give her a bunch of other music besides...she asked.  :)  

And then I found a Book and was able to give that to her as well. 

A second girl, I've been wrestling with the possibility of helping her through school financially for the last few weeks...her family situation is bad, and the reason she ended up in the home was because she tried to hurt herself.  So we've been talking and praying about that and I've been kinda at a loss with what to do next...

So while I was sitting there waiting and reading the Hunger Games, her mom came and they talked things out and mom agreed that she should finish 11th class, which previously she had been opposed to (Graduation is after 9th grade here, and then if you want you can go through to 11th, if you're college-bound).  Praise God that he moved this woman's heart, who previously was looking at her daughter as a possible full-time babysitter.   Pray for hope for this girl, she's still got a lot of hopelessness in her head, and while she's totally open to and with God,  she's not out of the woods yet. 

I love being able to work with these young people!  :)