The boys came by again this afternoon. This is a group of 5-10 boys that have been coming every afternoon for a week to play basketball with Todd and drink all our water and use all our bandaids. They start coming at 12:45 after their lunch and we tell them not to come back until 3:30. Around 2:30 their climbing up the gate looking in and calling us.
They are such sweet kids. The oldest is 12, the youngest is about 7, I guess. They are so rowdy and rambunctious. So cute. So dirty and their Portuguese is horrendous. Todd's learning all the wrong words. We are getting to know them and learning to love them. It's not hard. Sometimes, when they won't listen to anything Todd says, because he's a man and most aren't used to father figures, it gets hard and you want to turn them over your knee. But since we can't do that, we pray and ask God to give us wisdom how to show His love and His patience and that there is something called respect and obedience that is good and right.
Michaela has a really hard time with them coming. And frankly, Todd and I don't quite know how to handle their constant presence. We do enjoy it, and we hope to share Christ with these boys, but they are controlling our lives! And they want us to give them everything! And they're destroying things! It's such a different cultural part of things. Todd's so sore and doesn't have time to recover. He's got a busted toe nail and maybe a torn ligament in his shoulder now. Maybe it will get better if he rests.
We've decided we need to tell them they can only come twice a week to play from 3:30 to 5:00. They'll test us, coming other days and begging, pestering for us to let them in, but we'll have to hold to our guns. We're not getting any work done and Mickey's super stressed out! Today she was really upset because they were playing with Biscuit and she wanted to. But when we told her that we were going to set a limit to their coming and that we want them to come because we want to show them Jesus, she calmed down. She's such a good kid. Sammy just doesn't like it because they're rowdy and he's such a calm little guy. I think they'll get used to it, and our boys will get used to it too as they get to know us. Please pray for us!
2 comments:
Hey girl this blog is awesome! So glad you are doing it as it will keep me closer to you since I miss you so much & always wondering how or what you are doing!! Did you get my email about a week ago with a little update on us & the names of those to take off your mailing list for the next news letter?? love you & praying for you! Sounds like you definititly have some needs where you need more of it! :-)
Thanks for sharing, Julie. I love how you share honestly about the struggles. It helps me know how to pray specifically for you all there as you strive to be an example and share Christ's love with those we often would rather avoid.
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