Week 2

HELLO!!! It feels like ages since writing you, but really it's only been a week :) I'd love to catch you up with some highlights...

My First Permanencia

Permanencia is when one of us missionaries stays at home for the visiting hours, so that the children can come over and play, help cook for dinner and just be available for our neighbors to stop by and say hi. The other missionaries were quick to warn me that while the children might seem so sweet and angelic now, wait until my first permanencia. Well, that turned out to be VERY true! These little angelic children turned into absolute terrors in a matter of minutes. I was speechless..and not just because I can't speak Castellano yet! There was around 13 or 14 kids all in our little dining room area. Some kids were coloring, others were doing puzzles and others were chasing eachother around in circles. I was having so much fun playing Uno and asking the kids to tell me the names of different things like ''horse'' and ''car'' and ''soap'', when all of the sudden madness broke loose! One of the kids wanted more paper or crayons or something and we didn't have any more and the tantrum started, which set off some of the other children and then they didn't want to share anymore, so they started throwing pencils, markers, puzzle pieces, FOOD, all over our kitchen and screaming at one another. I was trying so very hard to remain calm, and all I could say was ''Basta por favor!'' One of the little girls is quite challenging to deal with and for whatever reason is very rough with me. She was making fun that I couldn't speak in Castellano and when I tried to kindly remove her from our home for bad behavior she screamed at me and called me all sorts of names. This same little girl, just days before drew me a beautiful picture that read, ''Te Quierro, Brooke!'' with lots of smiley faces and flowers. I am only beginning to realize the challenges of loving these children. They have NO rules, no one to say ''You can not do this'' or ''do your hw'' or ''you're grounded.'' It just doesn't exist for these little ones. And one of the missionaries put it so beautifully regarding their behavior that I hold on so closely to these words to remind me of how I must look at them from now on. She said to me that when they are screaming, yelling, cursing, stealing (yes! these little ones steal anything they can get their hands on from us to sell and buy food, candy, drugs, beer, etc), that they are actually saying to us ''Please pay attention to me. Please love me. If I do this, will you still love me? Please look at me.'' And she is exactly right. They are screaming for attention and for love and they do not know how to achieve this any other way besides their attempts at terrorizing us.

Christian

There was a knock on our window around 8am and we opened the door to this little angel named Christian. He was filthy and smelled like feces and I realized why once I looked in his hair and saw he had feces all over the back of his head. He wanted some hot tea and bread with jam, so we invited him to sit with us for breakfast. This young man is quite well known among our HH because since he was born 11 years ago, he has grown up with HH. His mom lives next door to us and is a prostitute for a living. When he was 9 years old he moved onto the streets because he hated his life at home and was mortified by his mom's work. Last year, Christian started to deal and do drugs...he is only 11 years old. As he sat with us at breakfast, he was so quiet and very well behaved. He poured literally HALF of our thing of sugar into his tea and globbed lots and lots of peach jam onto his bread and scarfed it down in seconds. I asked him little questions here and there and then he said something that pierced my heart and broke it in half. I asked him when his birthday was and he said he didn't know. I thought he was only kidding, but he told me that it was never celebrated at home and he actually has no idea what month or what day he was born, but that it was in the year of 1997. Can you imagine??? I immediately thought of that MTV show ''Sweet 16'' about these lavish birthday parties that wealthy people throw for their teens turning 16 and I literally wanted to vomit. This little boy, who is living alone on the cold, dangerous and downright scary streets, whose mother has abandoned him, who has no idea who his father is, who is made fun of my the other children and even the men in the Villa because everyone knows that his mom is a prostitute, who has not seen a shower in weeks, has never celebrated his own birthday?! It was no surprise to me then, that later that afternoon, when he returned with some friends from the street that he acted like a complete animal and was so mean to us. He came storming in our home, threw pots and pans everywhere, stole food from our fridge and spit at us on his way out. My eyes are filling up with tears now as I write this, because tonight, Christian is freezing cold, sleeping in dog feces and probably went to sleep hungry and alone. Tomorrow he will come over and we will love him and feed him and make small talk with him and maybe he will behave well or maybe he will not. Please pray his little soul. Please flood Heaven for him and for his mother. Her name is Selena.

Viviana

I'm not sure if you remember her from last week, but if you don't, check about her from last week's post and you will have a better understanding of her story. I was in the middle of washing dishes after a nice lunch with some fellow visiting missionaries and the phone rang. All of the sudden, Garmon was whisking me off to our friend, Vivian's home. She came rushing out of her home with tears streaming down her face and her hand was dripping of blood from a dirty rag. I was in utter confusion because I could understand VERY little of what she telling Garmon and myself. We were driven to the local police station and then off to the hospital. Finally, I learned that she and her abusive spouse had gotten into an argument. He had been drinking and in his anger grabbed a knife and attempted to stab her. She blocked him with his little hand and it cut her hand up very badly. The police were TERRIBLE. They could care less of her situation and told her there was nothing they could do. The hospital was just as bad. She was whisked away into a room and the doctors were literally smoking and sitting around chatting about who knows what! I felt like I was in the twilight zone! They bandaged her up and we had to take her back to her home, where her dangerous husband was waiting for her. I can not even begin to explain to you in words the sick feeling I had as we kissed her goodbye and watched her walk inside. It amazed me that in all of this, Vivi called US at HH. Not her daughters or her son, but us. How grateful to God was I at that moment that we were able to be present for her, even if we couldn't do anything at all, except hold her hand while she was stitched up and give her kisses and tell her that we love her.

Carolina

Miss Carolina is my new favorite little girl! You must think I'm terrible that I have all these favorite kiddies...but I do. Some of them touch my heart in ways that are quite unique and special...Carolina is one of them. We went to visit her home last week to wish her a Happy 11th Birthday. Her home was absolutely disgusting. The place was trashed with clothes, garbage, dishes, empty bottles, dogs, etc. cluttered everywhere. She was sleeping when we arrived. Her mom told us that they just didn't have the money to buy her anything for her birthday. Now, I understand not being able to afford a present, but I am passionate that every person should have a cake of SOME sort on their birthday...yes, even in the Villa Jardin. In fact EVEN more so in the Villa Jardin. So, we invited her over for a little fiesta at our house in her honor the following evening. As I was leaving, Carolina slipped me a card with my name on it. When I opened it, I found that she had made me a BEAUTIFUL card that read, ''Even though you are the new missionary, I know we will be the greatest of friends.'' This little angel gave ME a card on HER birthday when she received NOTHING. This, my friends, is why I keep saying how much I have to learn from my friends here in the Villa. They have nothing, yet give everything. They are completely detached from this world! I wish I had her heart. I wish I had her selflessness. I can only PRAY I would be so loving and generous, if I woke up on my birthday and was given no card, no present, and no cake. The following night, I made her American brownies and she LOVED them. I prayed the whole time I was making them for her. This was my special gift to her and I wanted her to feel so appreciated and so loved and just everything she made me feel when she gave me my card. Everyone kept asking me for the recipe and I was trying to explain how they came in a box and they were so confused!!!! hahaha :)

Final Thoughts

The lessons God is teaching me through my new friends are absolutely incredible. I am actually overwhelmed. Where do I look first? Where do I begin? How do I accomplish Your Will, Lord? I suppose, I just continue to get up and go through my day and accomplish the duties the Lord has given to me for that day with as much love and prayer as I can give. St. Therese has been an absolute gift to me this past week. She is teaching me that I can not worry myself with the outcome of my actions. For my duty, my responsibility, is only to accomplish what God is asking of me to the best of my ability...nothing more, nothing less. The fruits of what happen are in HIS hands!

I wrote you a NOVEL! I just want you so badly to experience, even for just a moment, what this mission is all about and I pray that this blog is doing just that for you. Please continue to pray for my conversion and for the other missionaries. And of course, I beg you to keep in a special way in your prayers, the friends I have mentioned in this blog. You are with me in prayer each day! I can't wait to talk to you next week :) xoxo