You Take the Good, You Take the Bad…

If you’ve ever worked with kids, or had kids, or spent any time with kids you know that they can be super sweet, or uhh not. When you spend any significant amount of time with the same kids you learn their patterns, good or bad. Today in Segundo Paso I shared with the kids about Thanksgiving and why we celebrate it in the US. I then asked them to share some of the things they were thankful for… learning, my little brother, my nephew, learning about God, chocolate, etc… When I shared the stories I did it with a couple of pictures that I colored and then let them know that they would have the opportunity to color their own picture a little later after they finished their homework (if they don’t bring their own we give them some to do).

One girl, who is normally very sweet, came up to me and said she wanted to color, I asked her if she had done her homework and she said she had. When I asked her to show it to me she kinda looked around a little, I told her she had to do homework before coloring. A little while later she came to me with a completed math homework sheet, but I recognized it as the homework of another girl so I called her out on it and told her she had to do her own. She ended up not completing any homework, nor did she get to color. A sad day for this girl, although when it came time to leave she said she was going to stay at the church with me and hugged me, so she must not have been too upset with me.

Another young girl who is always a handful came to me and asked for a picture. I told her that she had to do homework first, she put up a little fight and when I repeated the conditions she said “okay” and did a homework page quickly and then came to me to get her picture to color. This girl has learned how to manage her behavior a little through coming to Segundo Paso. It’s been a long road with her, and there’s still much to learn but I’m continually encouraged to have patience with her and continue to encourage her to improve despite her difficulties (which, unfortunately, are many).

It’s not always easy to have patience with the kids, but it’s always worth it. Here are a couple pictures of some of the kids that come to Segundo Paso. Next week we’ll be having a celebration with the kids and one select member of their family as we give certificates of completion, book-bags with school supplies, and certificates of achievement to the kids. It’s been 7 months of learning and growing and frustration and joy with Segundo Paso. I can’t wait until we can start again next year and make it bigger and better!!

More Forgotten Pictures: July

I found some other pictures that I had not uploaded yet, check them out:

From July:
Yeril and I went to a Quinseñera
We had our first (hopefully) annual soccer tournament for the youth at the church)
We had several carnivals for the kids this summer, check out the one at our second kids’ center location
The Refuge Project got a new wall… check out how the old one came down!
A couple pics from Segundo Paso

From August:
Crossroads Church Team doing a Clown skit

2011 Support Raising trip to the States

so I’m finally getting the pictures from our trip to the states back in August out there for the world to see if they so choose…. click here to see the pics.

The Sweetest Thing

Last Wednesday we had a really difficult week with Segundo Paso. There is a local marching band that has been preparing for an event that they have coming up this weekend and they have been practicing in the street in front of the church. This was particularly distracting last Wednesday and as a result we could not conduct business as usual with the kids at Segundo Paso since they all wanted to watch the band and they couldn’t even hear what we were saying anyway. Toward the end of the day each week we go to the park to play, so we finally decided to just go a little earlier. We had already given the kids their snack (a little milk and Ritz crackers).

One of the girls who is particularly difficult each week had not eaten her crackers yet and when we went to the park she sat and continued to watch the band for a while. I encouraged her to come with me and play with the rest of the kids, she gladly got up and came with me but quickly turned around like she had forgotten something. I watched her go back to a kid we had passed that was also watching the band, sitting in his wheelchair, and she gave him her crackers. I almost broke down crying right there in the park from watching her make such an unselfish decision. When she caught up to me I told her “that was a really nice thing you did” and she looked at me like I was crazy and said “what did I do?” when I told her that I saw her give her crackers to the boy she just shrugged and said “oh” and then ran ahead to play with the other girls. A little while later she said to me “ya know it’s because I didn’t really want them anymore”. It was the sweetest thing!

Newsletters: November 2011

Check out the November Lozano Lowdown!