I don't know why I choose to wait soo long between each post. My procrastination just results in tons of stuff to update you all on, which inevitably ends in really long posts. So I am sorry for the delay. I hope you can all make it through the many things I have to tell you.
Today at school was the one day a month we (the teachers in my classroom) meet with our students' social worker - the day we get a little glimpse into their backgrounds. First of all, I should explain that there are about 25-27 students in my homeroom and 6 teachers (nice ratio). Half of our students are "community kids" which means they do not live in the dorms on campus or one of our six group homes. They either live at home with family or in another organization's group home. These are the ones that we have no follow up with and are therefore more difficult to handle. Unfortunately, it is not their social workers we meet with.
So I have six students in my section, three from the community and three from the dorms. The dorm that is assigned to my homeroom is the dorm for students with anger management issues. As a result, my students all have a very short string. I have to be very careful in all of my interactions them. These boys are accustomed to using anger and intimidation to get through in life. Sometimes I am so amazed at how sensitive they are and at how easily they are angered. But then we have days like today. Days when I see that these boys have never had any structure in their lives. Their parents are raging alcoholics who are so consumed with their own addictions that they don't realize the addictions brewing in their children. No matter how much these boys act up, their parents take little notice. These boys live in the ghetto, without any structure or support from home. Who can blame them for turning to aggression and force to survive? My heart breaks at each glimpse I get into their stories.
And then there is, umm, we will call him Sam. Sam comes from a wealthy family. Both his parents are highly educated and have provided everything their son has ever wanted. Everything but boundaries. Sam is the result of what truly permissive parenting leads to. He reminds me of a character in a book I just finished, the spoiled princess in George MacDonald's "The Wise Woman" (great book by the way). Her parents gave her everything she ever wanted and neglected to give her anything she needed. MacDonald's character so perfectly depicts Sam. He refuses to do things he is told, simply because he is told to do it, and will go out of his way to make sure he does not do it, even to his own detriment. Additionally, Sam has no remorse for the extremely violent outburst of rage that landed him in juvi and now in placement. Just as "the princess never thought of telling herself now how naughty she was, though that would surely be reasonable. On the contrary, she thought she had a perfect right to be angry." Complacency, by those ravaged from poverty and addiction to those "blessed" with wealth and "success", strange how they can result in the same end. Now I know that we cannot lay all the blame on the parents for the child's actions. But one must wonder who these boys would be today if they had been parented differently.
The crazy thing about comparing Sam to Macdonald's spoiled princess, is that she is the character I identified with most. Over the last several days I have been confronted with my own wretchedness through this character. In the story, the princess's outer appearance is a reflection of her inner beauty. As the wise woman holds up a mirror to the little girl she sees "a child with dirty fat cheeks, greedy mouth, cowardly eyes . . . stooping shoulders, tangled hair, tattered clothes, and smears and stains everywhere. . . That is what she had made herself." Just as I daily make foolish decisions that result in a similar inner distortion. As the fairy tale developed, I was humbled by God's unconditional love for me. Thankful, the wise woman (like our Father) sees past the ugliness. I was most encouraged by this last exchange from the story that I will share with you: the young princess asks, "How could you love such an ugly, ill-tempered, rude, hateful wretch?" To which the wise woman responds, "I saw, through it all, what you were going to be. But remember you have yet only begun to be what I saw." So perhaps I am not that different from Sam. Although I have been parented by a perfect Father.
Speaking of our perfect Father, Cami and I have had the privilege of clearly seeing one of the ways He takes such perfect care of us. As many of you know, we are planning to raise support here soon, but the process has been stunted a little (lots, and lots and lots of paperwork). As a result, money is tight - REALLY tight! As the first of this month approach we began to feel the intense pressure of our finances' tight grip. I have picked up to full-time at the school and 3-4 nights a week at the restaurant, but it still wasn't gonna come together. And then I checked the mail. Cami had forgotten to pick up his last paycheck from restaurant he worked out this summer. Miraculously it found its way into our mailbox and we were $131 closer to meeting our bills. Two days later we got a refund check from our electricity company for $85, a check we had no idea was coming our way. Talk about perfect timing!!! But these two checks are not the most encouraging provisions we received. There is a third and it came to me on Wednesday, November 1st.
I was working at good ol' CPK waiting tables. One particular table was this very sweet older couple with their adult son. We did not talk much throughout their meal but just as they were finishing up the wife asked me what brought me to LA from Portland (my name tag says Portland on it). So I told her, "God told us to move." Her and her husband inquired further and it became clear that they know Jesus too. They were very familiar with the church we are attending and we excited to hear all about what Cami and I are doing. They paid for their dinner with a card and as I dropped it off the wife shook my hand and said, "here is a little pentecostal handshake for you." She had slipped me money and I put it in my back pocket. At that point her husband nearly made me cry. He looked me straight in the eye and told me, "Jesus is pleased with the work you are doing." Even now I am so blessed by those words that tears well up in my eyes! Anyway, they went about their way and as I bussed the table I realized that they had left me a 20% tip on the card. I was shocked, I thought the money she had handed me was the tip. So i pulled i tout of my pocket and discovered $60. They gave me $60!!! And at the very time that we needed it most. I know that my Jesus takes cares of me, but sometimes I forget how perfect His provision is. Even though we have not yet finished all the paperwork to be supported, He still surrounds us by people who give so generously to us (not to mention the jobs too). What a great God we serve.
So those are all the updates for now. There is much more I could say, but I will save it for another time. And hopefully it wont be as long as result. We love and miss you all sooooo much. Thank you for continuing to pour into our lives even though we are so far apart now.
And for your delight, a few pictures of our newest apartment (we move too much!).
Cami hard at work in our office/bedroom. He is almost done with his 4th out of five papers for this semester (yeah)!
LA is in the background, but it doesn't really show up in the picture. But it is still a pretty view from up on a mountain not far from our new home.
