March 23

Next week one of the other student missionaries is going to leave. This means that I have to take over the little girls’ room. All this time I’ve been like the babysitter. I would take care of them on the weekend. I would always dread having to work on the weekend because you know how kids behave for the babysitter or the substitute teacher. It’s always ten times worse than normal. That’s what I have to deal with every weekend when I have to take care of the girl’s room. I remember the first time I had to take care of them. Right after they went to bed, I ran to my room and cried. Now I have to be with them everyday for the rest of my time here. I feel bad about it, but I feel a lot closer to the kids at the Infa. They’re just as rowdy, sometimes more, but I know how to handle it at the Infa. I’m at the Infa most of the day. I don’t know what to do here at the Hogar. Amanda (the one that is taking care of the girls right now) said that she felt the same way when she started taking care of the girls. They wouldn’t listen and they would be absolutely terrible with her, but after they got used to her, they settled down. The thing is, I don’t feel like I have any more patience for the “getting used to me” part. I need a lot of prayer because next week my work load gets a lot heavier and I’m scared that I’m going to be snapping at the kids more than having the patience that I want to have.

At the Infa things are stressful… especially on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The missionaries before us started a reading program with the kids and I wanted to start it up again. When I was helping some of the kids with their homework, I found kids that are in 6th grade who still cannot read. This really got to me because my parents have always pushed me to do well in school and I feel like there’s no one to push these kids and even if they want to, the teachers don’t always give them the attention they need. So what I’m doing is paying a teacher around $7.50 each week to help these kids. Thankfully the Seventh Day Adventist church in Newbury Park “the Place” has donated money and I’m going to use that to continue paying her and buying supplies for these kids. She’s actually a teacher at the high school and agreed to help out. She’s definitely not in it for the money and I’m thankful that there’s someone like her to help from her heart. The first day she came she told the kids, “Never believe anyone that tells you that you aren’t smart. All of you are very intelligent. The problem is the teacher. It has nothing to do with you. They didn’t teach you right, but It’s okay because now I’m here and I’m going to teach you.” That right there won me over. I could already tell that she cared about the kids. Although we have a teacher and I’m there helping, there’s still one major problem. The kids that really really need to come aren’t coming. I’ve already started to bribe them by telling them if they stay they’ll get lollipops. I feel like I need to talk to the 6th grader’s mom, but even then, sometimes the parents may not even care. It’s been hard especially because I’ve tried so hard to set this up for them and then when I talk to those who really need to come, they agree that they’ll stay. Then three o’clock comes around and they run down the street. One day I ran out to the street and called after them. I was desperate. I called for those certain kids to come back so I could talk to them. I wanted to at least try to convince them to stay. They turned around and started dashing down the street. I was so frustrated that I was about to cry, but I told myself that there are others in the class right now that want to learn and I have to do all I can for them. So I went back to the classroom and started helping the kids who are younger. The teacher takes the older kids and I take the younger ones. There are these certain kids who I cannot control. They were disrupting the whole class and anything and everything I did wouldn’t work. I couldn’t sit there and watch them the whole time, I had to help different kids with their work. I was going crazy. I wanted to spend the time with certain kids (there’s this one boy who would switch b for c and s for f. He didn‘t know his alphabet either). Anyways, at the end of the class, I gave the lollipops to everyone except for these certain troublemakers and the boys flipped out. At first they started begging me and saying sorry. When they realized that there was no way I would give in, they became angry and yelled not so nice things at me and the teacher. I wanted to take them out of the class forever, but these kids need it. They’re the ones we see at the Infa early because they say their teachers kicked them out. How are they supposed to learn anything if the teachers are kicking them out and if we‘re kicking them out too? They need special attention and I want to give it to them, but I don’t have enough of me to give special attention that I want to give to everyone. I really don’t know what to do.