updates

I believe all of the evacuated families are back in their homes.  Most of them were able to return yesterday.  I was amazed at how fast the work was done! 

I am saying good-bye to 3 youth this week and probably 2 more next week.  I was asked today how my heart can handle it.  Honestly, it's not doing so well right now.

the dreaded words

"We're moving tomorrow."

They came from one of my youth this evening.  The idea had been discussed for a while, but not decided for certain until yesterday.  I have been dreading this day.  Their family moved in just over 2 years ago and he came to Youth Night his first week in the community.  I remember that night very clearly!  I remember thinking we were going to have our hands full with all that energy!  His sister got involved in Kids Club right away and counted down the weeks until she moved up to Youth Night last summer.  The Lord has blessed us with a lot of quality time together which led to close relationships.  I will miss them terribly.  

We were able to hang out for several hours tonight.  I am thankful. 

History Repeats Itself

I never know what to expect when I come home and find emergency vehicles in my parking lot.  We had a flash flood at CP tonight in the building perpendicular to mine.  I have not seen one that bad since Kyle lived here.  8 families were evacuated from their homes.  They were able to collect some things to take out with them, but for some, they were out when the flooding started and came home to find their apartment soaked all the way through.  Those apartments will all have to be gutted.  I guess tomorrow we will find out if there are vacant apartments available to move the people into.  It's going to be a long messy task sorting through their belongings once the water is out.  The furniture is most likely all ruined.

When I realized what had happened, there was a group of men out here from the office and they already had the Red Cross on the way.  They opened a vacant apartment in my building to provide shelter for the residents and to give the Red Cross team a place to work.  The Red Cross took care of lodging and food for the night.  Ditches are being dug to redirect the water in case of more rain.  Now the parking lot is full of trucks from a reconstruction company and they are pumping water out of the building.  I can hear the equipment from my apartment, so it is sure to be a long night for the residents on the upper floors of the building where they are working.  I am impressed with our landlord's quick and thorough response.  (and the plans to prevent this from happening again!)

I was able to help a lady gather some things from her apartment, drove a couple to a hotel and checked on some others.  It is a blessing to say I was not needed for anything else because the disaster team was handling things so well.  I was surprised at how positive people's attitudes were tonight as they were walking around soaking wet.  I think it was because they were being cared for.  Others realized they were in crisis and were stepping in to help.  A crisis looks so much smaller when you aren't facing it all alone.

Pray for these families as they return to face this mess tomorrow and carry on with life.  Pray that I will be able to minister effectively in this time of crisis.

weekend :-)

Breakfast, Water Balloons, Kickball, Ice Cream, Games, Dinner, Laughter

A big special event with lots of planning?  Nope, just the ingredients of a nice, relaxed Saturday!  Having breakfast together was planned and then we ended up hanging out the rest of the day.  It was a great opportunity to develop relationships, some new and some old.  It's hard to have trust without relationship and often difficult to develop relationship in a formal setting.  And for anyone wondering how I managed to get up early enough to cook breakfast for a group - breakfast was served at 1:00pm.  I'm all about hanging out with teenagers!

In the course of conversation,"Mr. George" came up.  One guy had lived in George's neighborhood previously and others have met him at various events.  (It is quite common for families to move between our 2 communities and exciting when they can plug into the Youth Night or Kids Club in their new neighborhood.)  Anyway, someone announced, "And Mr. George is about to be a kid!"  I said, "Don't you mean he's about to have a kid?"  "Oh yeah."  Another lesson on the importance of clear communication. 

sueños

Twice during the night I woke up from a dream. I do not know why I woke up (unless my cat helped) but both times the dreams were very clear in my memory. The dreams involved different people, but in both cases I was just hanging out outside in my neighborhood talking with some of my neighbors - en español.

It was a good Spanish weekend. I hung out with a couple of my youth and their family on Saturday night and taught them a really complicated card game (en español). On Sunday I went to Spanish church in the afternoon, and then got to speak with 2 more people in Spanish at English church in the evening. Today I went and visited with the family of 2 more youth. Their mom was encouraged that she could learn English when she realized how much my Spanish had improved.

C and K

Both girls came to hang out on Wednesday.  Normally that is Homework Help, but this is Spring Break so I simply opened the community center for any kids or youth who wanted to hang out.  30 of them did. 

C. was yelling her memory verse down to me from her 3rd floor balcony before she was allowed to come outside.  She knew it perfectly!  She came down later to get her name and a sticker on the poster and choose a prize.    She had also shared the verse with her brother and he said it to me perfectly.  

K. came with her Bible in hand and was very excited to show it to me.  I helped her find the memory verse in it.  She knew how to find the chapter and verse, but was looking in Genesis.  Her Bible is a different version than what we use in Kids Club so I explained to her that the words would be a little different.

They did not ask any new questions, but both did what they had told me they would - with great enthusiasm.

joys and sorrows

Last night I went to bed rejoicing from a great evening with several youth. 

Today I was crying and wanting to comfort. 

Youth Night was really good tonight!  We had great discussion with some tough questions.

People I love are hurting and I am grieving with them.

what a day!

Last week I was really discouraged about Open Center. I stay so busy keeping an eye on the kids, fixing the computers, finding stuff for them to do, and then serving snack that I don't feel like I've had any quality time with the kids on Tuesdays.

Today a girl who hasn't been coming much (C.) noticed the memory verse chart on the wall and wanted her name on it. I explained that if she said the memory verse for the month she would get a sticker on the poster and a prize from the box. She did not understand what a memory verse was so I explained memorizing and went over this month's verse with her. "He is not here; he has risen, just as he said..." Matthew 28:6 Then I explained who said it and why and talked some about Jesus rising from the dead. She said, "Oh so now he's alive in the sky..." I told her yes, but that he was alive again on earth and visited his friends before he went back to Heaven (without dying again!) That part seemed to be new to her. Another girl (K.) was sitting with us, also trying to learn the verse, and then they left together.

A few minutes later they were back and C. said they needed to talk to me and pulled me away from the other kids. (I was expecting to hear that a boy threw sand at them...) She said, "How do we know that's true?" I asked what she meant and she replied, "Those things you said, how do we know it happened?" I said, "Because it's in the Bible." K. excitedly told me she had a Bible at home, but C. said she did not. We went over to the bookshelf and I showed them Matthew and went through pointing out different parts of Jesus' life until we got to Matthew 28:6 and showed them the verse. They had many questions and shared some things they had heard that are not from the Bible. We talked about sin and punishment, seeing God after we die and Heaven and Hell. C. asked "What do you say to God when you see Him?"

It was an amazing conversation! Other kids came and went and there were several interruptions, but the girls were never distracted. They had good questions and they wanted answers! I sent C. home with a New Testament marked at Matthew 28 and K. plans to bring her Bible when we hang out tomorrow. Pray that these girls will continue to seek and trust Jesus personally. (They are 6 and 9 years old)

I was expecting a cold, rainy night for Youth Night. The rain stopped completely late this afternoon, the sun shone brightly and we had lovely t-shirt weather when we arrived at Dev this evening. We had a great time hanging out with the youth and some families! As Kyle and I were walking back to the car at 10:30 a man stopped us and asked Kyle his name. He had noticed the difference in Kyle's life since he began following Jesus and wanted to meet him! It was another amazing moment and so encouraging!

I could go on about the day, but I need to get some sleep tonight. In my "normal schedule" Tuesdays are my longest days and I am often completely drained when I get home. I was pretty tired when I got home tonight, but also pumped from an exciting day! (The free birthday coffee from Caribou helped also!)