When They Hurt My Feelings

The other day I was helping one of the girls sort beans. I made some comment in Arabic and one of the other girls mumbled some snide rude remark. It had already been a day. Super heavy rainstorm, flooded dormitory, chores left undone, fights over morning tea, the person who was supposed to be on-duty with me disappearing. I wanted to be like, "I left my friends and family to come to a city where I didn't know anyone to live with you and teach you things and CCC is providing you a safe place to be and food to eat and I'm even helping you earn money for yourselves AND THIS IS HOW YOU TREAT ME?!"

I want to tell them how I could be back in the US where there is always electricity and running water and AC when its hot and heat when it's cold and I'd probably have a better chance of meeting the husband that they continually pester me about not having. The injustice! How dare they treat me like this when I have 'given up so much' to be here with them!

Like it was something that I did to be privy to all those great things. Like I deserve them. Like it was something I earned to be born in a country of great wealth instead of a country decimated by war.

Shame on me.

I didn't realize it but I think deep down I have this sense of entitlement. I know that I am lucky and so blessed to have the life I do. And although I realize it is a gift, I think down I my heart I believe in some capacity that I have a right to it. But none of it is owed to me. In the same way these girls don't deserve the lots they've been given in life--extreme poverty, abuse, rape, HIV+ mothers, I don't deserve the grace I've been given. To even try to explain what I am 'sacrificing' to be here would be saying that they should be grateful for my very presence. And that is just ridiculous. My life is of no more value than another's.

A lot of the thoughts and frustrations I have lately make me feel like a parent. Why don't they listen? Why can't they just trust that I know better? Why are they so LOUD? Why can't they give me a moment to myself? How do they always know where to find me? Why do they need everything that very moment? Auuhggghh. So each day holds so much frustration. And I am so tired. I keep reminding myself that they are kids. I think a common sentiment is that parenting is a thankless job. So though I am not a parent, I am acting here as teacher/foster parent so I feel like I can relate a little bit.
It is a nice idea to think that all the people we help can see our heart and our sacrifice and really appreciate who we are and what we are doing.  But I think that is rarely the case. And sometimes, like here, in response people can be outright rude, mean, and glaringly ungrateful.

But there are enough moments of sweetness that far outweigh the frustrations. Is this how parents feel too? Like when I walked out first thing in the morning to get a cup of tea and unprompted one of the little ones looks at me and exclaims, "Aunty, you is bootiful!" Or when they pitch in a help me do something with no benefit to themselves. Or run up and give me a hug. Or when one of them gets really excited about learning to make beautiful things. Or when they actually listen and respect something that I've said.

So we keep doing good because that is what He commands. We trust that He who promised is faithful and we wait for our reward in glory. While this still isn't a city I see myself settling long term and I am struggling a bit with my living situation, I am still pinching myself about this opportunity and how it pretty much fell into my lap. He is so good.

"For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self controlled upright and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the great appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works." Titus 2:11-14

Kids

I don't consider myself to be patient person. And it is amazing to me that I love working with kids. Specifically, difficult ones. It is hard. And it could be easy to be dismayed when I look around and see the extreme poverty around and the miserable circumstances so many people live in or come from. It is a conundrum that joy can co-exist with desperation in tough places in the world. And I think a lot of that has to do with children.

Wherever you go where there are kids you will be inundated to some degree with hugs, kisses, toys, pleadings to play, laugh, make funny faces. To show some interest in them. Attention and affection are what kids want more than anything I think.

Henri Nouwen spent some time living with a poor family in South America and he summed it up nicely when he wrote, "The children always challenge me to live in the present. They want me to be with them here and now, and they find it hard to understand that I may have other things to do or think about...I marvel at their ability to be fully present to me. Their uninhibited expression of affection and their willingness to receive it pull me directly into the moment and invite me to celebrate life where it is found."

So while I do not, indeed cannot, understand the heartbreak of not being able to provide for your children what they need and in some cases the numbness of not caring at all, I look in the faces of these little ones around and I understand how there can be hope. I look in their little eyes and hear their precious giggles and I understand how a society can keep carrying on in the face of difficulties that look insurmountable.

I have asked God many times that I could enter into some of the suffering of the world. He is gracious enough to usher me in arm in arm with little ones.

My Best

Yesterday morning it happened. The morning where you wake up and get going and you look at the door and in your mind you whimper, "I don't wanna. I don't wanna!" I didn't want to walk out the door and deal with 37 voices and screams, fights and chores, or anything at all. But I ate 3 handfuls of chocolate chips from my stash and I went. And it was a fine day. Just fine. The girls were cute and sweet and loud and frustrating and gross and funny and amazing and helpful.

I had morning duty this morning. Which means that I got all the girls up at 6am and washed and ready for church. They actually did their morning chores but there were tiffs about shoes and complaints about clothes and the monkey got in the dorm and pooped on the floor and I got through it and now I just feel spent. My patience is spent. It is a good thing that today is not the day that I got hit in the head with a rock.

On days like this I have lots of internal dialogue. I tell myself its normal to feel tired and impatient when I am with all these girls all the time. But I look at other people and think I don't work as hard as they do and therefore have no right to be this tired. In a city full of charities, NGO's, and other projects I look at what little I have accomplished in my almost two months here and I feel stupid. And lazy. So I try to reconcile in my mind that, while God expects us to give our best, he doesn't measure success in the same way the world does. But how do I know when I am giving my best?

Is sometimes my best different things? I know I need alone time to be at my best. But what is the difference between giving my best and being at my best? Is my best always sitting with the girls, all the time when they're around even when I'm not on duty? Is my best sometimes taking that time to plan and create and formulate other ideas and inspirations for them? Sometimes when I'm tired it probably is best to go take some time away so I don't lose it or become irritable with the girls...right?

I know sometimes my best means that I sit and let a little one be in my lap even though I could be working on other things. Some days it means walking to the supply closet 11 times in 2 hours to take the girls to get more crochet thread to make hats. Sometimes it is oohing and aahing over the work they are doing and sometimes it is washing tire rubber from the garbage for the second time because it still smells like stink. Sometimes it is being mean and punishing them and sometimes it is showing mercy. Sometimes it is sitting and mending five backpacks, cleaning pus-filled wounds, telling a bedtime story.

But I know I don't always give my best, whatever it is. Sometimes I walk by when someone is crying. I lose my cool. I shirk responsibility. Sometimes I play dumb.

I can't be all things all the time. And I just don't know. I know we need time to be still and quiet before the Lord. And I want to be successful in this life. But by whose definition? Obviously I'm not in this line of work for the money. But I do want to be successful with this grant money and this project to teach income-generating skills to girls and women living in extreme poverty. But some days, no matter how hard I can try, all I manage to accomplish is baby-sitting these kids for a few hours. And even then I don't always feel like I did a good job. So that sort of feels like a waste, but also really what could be more important? Who is judging? Some days I can't even get the girls to work with the beads! Failure.

I think it is hard to read your internal gauge of bestness when you feel tired in and out. So I will keep trying to give my best. Whatever that is each day.

"The Gospels confront us with the persistent voice inviting us to move from where it is comfortable, from where we want to stay, from where we feel at home." Henri Nouwen

Open Day and Profits

Last Saturday CCC had an Open Day. We learned about this Open Day on Monday. So last week was a pretty busy intensive week. Also, what better time to debut the handicraft skills of the girls to the friends and community of CCC? So my week was busy encouraging the girls to finish their pieces, tagging, organizing the items, and getting them ready to sell.

It was a long day on Saturday. We had a big presentation at first. And only started an hour late! Most of the crowd was people from the community--alcoholic Mom's of some of the girls, people from the market, kids from the slum that CCC sponsors in school. There were a few donors and other volunteers in the crowd as well. The girls sang a few times, the director gave a presentation about what CCC has done over the past 7 years, we showed a video the girls had made [It's actually pretty amazing. I'm trying to get permission to share it.], they sang some more, another video, then at least four important representatives associated with CCC had to be given the opportunity to share. Which they did. And each were equally long winded. It was a hot day and I am a responsible, polite adult but I was struggling. But I was sitting all the way in the back with a few of the girls and we had a fun time. They tried to get me to eat tree sap and then used the sap to try to 'wax' my arms (they did that while I wasn't looking...) and one of the tiny ones fell asleep in my lap and I had a nice, quiet, conversation with one of the girls about family.

Thankfully the speeches finally ended and I hurried on over to our make-shift shop. Unfortunately, most of the foreigners (i.e. people with money and our potential customers) had left when the program was about 2 hours in with still no end in sight. But a few stuck around and enough to sell about 300ssp (about $75) worth of stuff. I was slightly disappointed, but still pretty happy.

Someone had donated for the day a freezer to keep the drinks cold. Towards the end of this long and hot day the ice on it was melting. What started as putting ice down unsuspecting persons shirts, quickly turned into an ice/snowish/water fight. It was hilarious to watch. And of course you can only watch for so long before people notice you are dry and force you into the fun as well. It was the loveliest end to an otherwise tiring day. And perhaps the first "snowball" fight Juba has ever seen. 

The next day I organized who sold what and sorted the money and recorded it for each girl. The system we're going to use is that 20% of the money goes towards materials, 20% they get to keep and spend whenever they like, and the remaining 60% goes into a savings account of sorts for each girl that we will keep in the office safe. I have explained this system several times to the girls. And I have them sign each time they sell something and I add money into their account. But they still don't really grasp it at all. The director has been accused of pocketing their money and each time I try to explain, in English or Arabic, it is met with blank stares. So hopefully with time I can build their trust and also teach them about money management and basic things about costs and profits and business.

Slowly, slowly. That seems to be the pace of progress.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

So, I still feel in over my head with what is on my plate at the moment, but I'm really, really excited about the stuff I'm doing with the girls. Still moving along at a bit of a snails pace as I am trying to fit in beading along with their normal, quite full, weekly routine. Also having trouble getting them to complete a project. But I think that is a problem more of the human nature and of kids/teenagers in general.

I really like beaded things and I really like repurposing garbage. So the last few weeks have been experimenting with different materials and things based on what I can find and what I can get in the market. I can get beads pretty affordably, which is the most important thing. My new favorite thing to work with is tire inner rubber. The second week I was here I was walking and saw a piece in the road and picked it up and started playing with it. Using small bits as spacers in making bracelets and necklaces. A week or so ago a friend was taking some of the girls to the market to pick out more yarn for crocheting and I asked her to keep her eye out for bits of rubber. She came back with two whole tires worth! Which got me thinking...

I spent a few hours of an evening off sewing beads onto a large piece of rubber to make a cuff bracelet. Some of the girls looked at it and one of the older girls exclaimed "This small girl is dangerous!" Dangerous is a compliment. It means I have skills. (The other day I made cookies and shared them with the staff and they said that I was dangerous about those too.)

So I got some of the girls to start beading on rubber! A few broken needles later we have some cool ones. But in a short amount of time we needed more rubber. So I took three of the girls and we went looking for tires; aka I went dumpster diving without the dumpsters. Just a few minutes walk from the compound is a big smelly ditch with a stream of polluted water running through and lots of garbage. We spotted some tires and I and two of the other girls climbed into the grime and started pulling out tires. It smelled awful. I mean, literally we were in a wet pile of garbage and excrement that had been cooking in the sun all day. I should have brought gloves.

Passers-by literally stopped to watch this crazy khawajja pulling rubber out of garbage and putting it in a bag. Ah, my life. We got back and I bleached the tires and washed my hands several times. It took the rest of the evening for me to feel like I didn't smell like a neglected porta potty. Found out later that one of the girls who was helping me retrieve the tires used to live and scavenge in that ditch before she got to CCC. If that had been me I'd never want to set eyes on that place again. These girls are amazing.

And while the girls like my ideas and there are a very few who are talented and hard working, I am having difficulty in getting them to heed my suggestions and finish things off and not only use the same three colors. The hope is that I can get them inspired and once some stuff starts selling get them motivated.

In the next few weeks (the plan is to) start working with local girls still in the slums. I am nervous about communicating my ideas well and them being into it, but I am also really excited. This opportunity is the stuff of dreams. Could I really use my affinity for beads and affection for reusing garbage to help relieve some poverty? Maybe, maayyybbeee even get a few ladies to find other ways to make money than prostituting themselves? Holy moley, the stuff of dreams.

Beginnings....

 

You want me to do what?

I'm in over my head. It is not the first time and assuredly no the last time I have felt this way. It is a feeling generally accompanied with some tears, a fear of failing, and a big desire to curl up and be lazy and do something that seems easier with my life. But I'm stubborn and don't like to shrink back from things that feel hard because they make me feel alive and like maybe I could be doing something that matters a little bit.

Last week I saw the director of the center where I am working and living and she said that a lady from the French Embassy was coming in 3 minutes and could I please gather some of the handicrafts that the girls have been working on and join her in the meeting? Sure.

So I run and gather and walk into the office a few minutes after the lady is there and sit down and really have no idea what all of this is about.

Turns out that CCC had applied for a grant awhile back to teach the girls here as well as other girls that have been rescued from forced marriage, school drop-outs, and girls from the brothels about working in a restaurant. I learn in the meeting that the director wants to, instead, use this grant money to teach handicrafts to the girls that they can sell and as a life and trade skill for them. And guess who will be heading up that entire enterprise?

So the lady is asking me all sorts of questions about sustainability, longevity, prices, materials marketing... And I'm taking it in stride as best I can but feel and look a bit of a fool because I literally had no idea about any of this until this very meeting.

I think it is a great idea and there is great potential. However. None of this had been discussed with me at all before I agreed to come and stay. We discussed working with the girls here and that was it. Small scale. Easy to maintain. With the amount of money given by this grant essentially I'm looking to start up a small business. Which is not something I feel capable to do in the next 5 months. And if I can actually do that in the next 5 months, when I leave who will be here to keep things rolling along?

So I have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns. I'm really excited about the opportunity, but also quite intimidated by it. This grant and amount of money is a big responsibility and I am not comfortable heading this up. Especially as I am living in the dorm with the girls and that just by vicinity adds more responsibilities. The director told me yesterday that she wants me to fully focus on the handicrafts and not on taking on duty with the girls. Which is well and good in word. But yesterday was a holiday so the girls had no school and none of the local staff who were scheduled came in because it was a holiday. So because I live here and because I was around to do beading with the girls, it left me as the one on duty. So I still oversaw the meal times, getting them to do their chores, cleaning, wiping tears, looking for clothes, etc etc. It's great if I can actually just focus on getting this handicraft business off the ground. But it's not that simple.

Hopefully this week we can set up some sort of plan and line up the support and assistance I need in order to actually do this thing. But I have a lot of ideas, and the girls are responding well to them and some are really talented. When I expand to teach a larger group of hopefully older ones as well we can really get them to make some beautiful things. And I'm using a lot of scrap rubber and other garbagy things so the costs are low and they are things that the girls can easily find and use on their own. So...if this could work...it would be pretty darn tootin amazing. A dream to be a part of!

I still have a lot rolling around in my head about my life and future. I'm struggling with the fact that I'm in a Christian country right now and that feel wrong somehow. Though I am in a country with staggering needs, I feel like I can justify being here for a season, but I feel like I can't allow myself to settle here because there are still nations without the Good News. But that's another blog post altogether.

So I'm stressed and excited, overwhelmed and inspired, tired and yet loving my time with the girls here. (Even though one of them threw a rock at my head this week).

"I think of the most beautiful thing I can imagine and then try to do that thing. It's an interesting and difficult way to live." Glennon Melton

Periphery

Tuesday was a holiday. It was National Martyrs Day, in honor of all who died in the war and especially to mark the anniversary of the death of John Garang. I was invited to go hike the Jabel (mountain) just outside of the city with some folks. On the way we passed even more SPLA soldiers than usual, a few checkpoints, and saw lots of soldiers with guns that seemed way too big.

So we hiked the side where there are no land mines (this is not a country to go off of the beaten path) and it was steep, but not that far up big rocks and through tall grasses. It was so nice to be at the top of the peak, looking down, and feel like I was able to breathe some fresh air. When we were at the top of the peak I tried to imagine what it would have been like centuries ago before it was surrounded by Juba. I wondered about the feet of those who tread the mountain all those ages ago and why and who they were with and how they felt at the top. I thought about the time before the war and all that has been lost. I saw tiny blue birds and butterflies with stunning bright red wings. I thought of the Creator and his goodness to us.

I came back and spent a low-key afternoon beading with some of the girls. One of the volunteers is leaving next week so her and her family came and made a special meal for the girls. As a token of their thanks the girls got out their drums and sang and danced in the rain. It was fun and beautiful. After the family left, as the sun went down, I and another Auntie and the girls continued to sing and dance in a circle around those playing the drums.

Miriam* (not her real name) came up to me after a few songs and grabbed my hands and held on to them for the next half hour. Miriam is 5ish, loud and joyous, onery. Easy to laugh. Both at small things but also at commands. So we sang and danced together. Towards the end we sang a few praise songs and the girls all erupted into prayer and even small not-so-serious Miriam prayed, but did so holding tightly my hand against her. And it just struck my heart how this little one doesn't have a mother here taking care of her. Lots of Aunties and perhaps too many sisters, but not a mother who is hers. I was thankful in that moment that moment I could stand in briefly to hold her and say prayers with her and kiss her forehead.

Its days like these, filled with joy and only small frustrations that ease the heaviness of the other hard days.

Even though Juba isn't really what I would call my dream or niche or sweet spot or whatever, there are pieces and pockets of satisfaction. As I was praying and swaying with Miriam holding on to my hands I thought of the words from a song that resonated deeply with me in my last few weeks in my N. African home.:
"Thank you, Jesus, Even when the pieces are broken and small
Dreams shatter and scatter like the wind
Thank you even then" (Even Then- Nichole Nordeman)
I feel like I'm collecting broken pieces of goodness and life here. They are not perfect and my vision and dream for the future is still blurry and feels a bit piecey at the moment. But I'm thanking the Lord. I'm happy to still be living parts of the dream here instead of being in the States right now. So even though they feel a bit like broken pieces, small pieces can make great things.

"But when your miracle doesn't happen the way you planned, it becomes important to look for peripheral miracles. Peripheral miracles are those that aren't directly in front of you. They're not the one on which you have been so darn focused. You have to turn your head to see peripheral miracles." Glennon Melton