Prayer for By The Hand Kids

Aelred of Rievaulx, 12^th century:

"Teach my your servant, therefore, Lord, teach me, I pray you, by your Holy Spirit, how to devote myself to them and how to spend myself on their behalf. Give me, by your unutterable grace, the power to bear with their shortcomings patiently, to share their griefs in loving sympathy, and to afford them help according to their needs. Taught by your Spirit may I learn to comfort the sorrowful, confirm the weak and raise the fallen; to be myself one with them in their weakness, one with them when they burn at causes of offence, one in all things with them, all things to all of them, that I may gain them all. Give me the power to speak the truth straightforwardly, and yet acceptably; so that they all may be built up in faith and hope and love, in chastity and lowliness, in patience and obedience, in spiritual fervor and submissiveness of mind. And, since you have appointed this blind guide to lead them, this untaught (woman) to teach, this ignorant one to rule them, for their sakes, O Lord, if not for mine, teach (her) whom you have made to be their teacher; lead (her) whom you have bidden to lead them, rule (her) who is their ruler. Teach me, therefore, sweet Lord, how to restrain the restless, comfort the discouraged, and support the weak. Teach me to suit myself to everyone according to his power of understanding or his lack of it, as time and place require, in each case, as you would have me to do."

Taken from Modern Psychopathologies, p. 36-37

Another week at By The Hand

I apologize for not writing for a few weeks. Things have been pretty busy lately. However, you'll be happy to know that this week went pretty well. I think that the kids are starting to get the hang of how I do things. I'm gaining their respect (at least most of them) which is great. We've even been able to do a few games and fun activities, which we haven't been able to do because of behavior problems.

I think that I'm also simply getting used to the kids and I'm able to be much more calm in frustrating situations (I'm not great at it yet, but I'm getting there). Yesterday, for example, quite a few of my kids were not listening when we were supposed to line up. With God's help, I was able to deal with the situation calmly, without causing further frustration for myself and the kids.

On a different note, school progress reports came out this week. We got a chance to see the kids' grades before the actual report cards come out. There are only a few weeks until report cards, and at least half of my kids have at least one F (mostly in Reading). Several kids have 2-3 Fs and/or other Ds. Please pray that these kids can bring these grades up before report cards come out in a couple weeks. Pray that I'll know how to best help them in the program. It was a bit discouraging to see quite a few of the kids I thought were doing well actually having Fs on their progress report.

On the upside, a number of kids I thought were doing very poorly were actually getting all As, Bs, and Cs!

Thanks again for your prayers and support. Here are a few upcoming events for which you can be praying.

Tonight, Oct. 16—Junior high party

Saturday, Oct .17—Pumpkin carving day at Park Community Church put on by the volunteers of my class and the 1^st grade class

Friday, Oct. 30—Hallelujah Carnival at Park Community Church for all of the Cabrini-Green By The Hand kids.

Please pray that we are able to build deeper relationships for the kids. Pray for logistics and safety, and pray that at these events, we will be able to share God's love with these kids.

Bears Game with By The Hand Kids!

One of the Bears players, Adewale Ogunleye (defensive end), donated 29 season ticket seats to our organization. We split up the games between all the sites, so yesterday, kids from Cabrini went. We took the kids to McDonalds beforehand and then took a bus to the game. It was so much fun! One of Lions players even gave one of our kids a football.

The three kids from my class that went: Janiece, Gregory, and Bettiejimae

U2 Concert

Back in September, Colson and I went to a U2 concert. We had general admission seats, which meant we got great seats (20 ft. from Bono) but we also had to stand in line, and then stand at the concert (totaling about 7 hours of standing).

Another Day

I'm not going to write much because I really want to get home earlier for a change. J Today went okay. On a scale of 1 to 10 it was about a 6.5. One boy who was suspended last week for two days was the best kid in my class the entire day. I was really excited because I know he's a good kid. I just think he was maybe trying to show off to others a bit.

It was a bit frustrating during homework time today…I felt a bit unorganized and so many of the kids were struggling to pay attention, sit quietly, and work. Please pray that homework time tomorrow goes better. They're supposed to have 30 minutes of quiet work time and it's just not happening.

Thanks so much for your prayers. Considering I've had days that were a 1 or a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10, today was pretty good.

Sunday we go to the BEARS game with our kids! I'm really excited because this will give me the chance to hang out in a more fun environment with three of my kids.

Thursday

So praise the LORD! Thursday was the best day I've had in my class so far. For some reason, the kids were listening and behavior was not as much of an issue. I felt like I was able to actually have a little fun in my class, which was great. One of my kids even said, "This is how every day should be!" I'm glad that they got a glimpse of the fact that I'm not actually a crazy mean lady. :) Thanks so much for your prayers. Thursday was a huge encouragement, especially because now I know for sure that my kids are capable of doing well in my class.

More to come next week...please pray!

P.S. If my kids do well next week, I'm going to try to take some pictures in class so I can post those online. Also, October 4th, we're taking 20 kids to a Bears game. One of the Bears players donated 29 front row, end-zone season tickets to our organization. Pray that that is a great time with the kids!

My kids are like Scrabble tiles...

So here's a little analogy we came up with at work...

My kids are like Scrabble tiles. Right now, I feel like I'm looking at all the tiles and I can't do anything with them...so I just want to trade them all in and get new ones.

However, sometimes we actually can do something. We just need to rearrange the tiles to try to make it work...so I need to learn some new "vocabulary".

Sometimes, we're stuck with that Q or that Z. It's really frustrating because you end up holding those letters for the longest time, afraid you'll lose points. You just don't know what in the world you're supposed to do with the Q and the Z. But when you finally get that Q and the Z to fit in, you end up scoring a whole lot more points and maybe even winning the game with the Q and the Z.

I feel like I have a bunch of tiles and I just don't know how to make them work. I feel like I have a Q and a Z that I'm stuck with and I can't do anything with. Please pray that God teaches me how to make these "tiles" work. Pray that these two kids (Q and Z) will fit in and end up being very successful in this program.

I know it's a cheesy analogy, but it works. :)

And I do love my "tiles". I just can't figure out what to do with them.