Serenity Prayer

Well our meeting/gathering with the parents last Thursday was a success! It got a little crazy when the speech started for the parents and we took all the kids back over to the other building. We were all in 3 small rooms, 2 without light and they all were little fireballs, full of energy! Past that though it was a great chance to link some kids to their parents, inform the parents a little better about things that are happening at PETI and just have an evening of fun. PETI then was cancelled for Friday as we were there until 11PM on Thursday. I still went to Imbau and met up with a few of the English students to help them with their homework and any other questions they were having about the lessons they are learning. For the most part I have been impressed with their ability to pick up the material, I was expecting to see them move at a much slower pace.
Katie finally returned home on Sunday, Father´s Day here in Brazil. I was at lunch with the family and got back to find her about to take a nap. We spent a good couple hours filling each other in on everything that had taken place in our 4 days apart! This time apart really made me grateful to have her here with me, it is so nice to always have such a close friend nearby to tell and share everything with!
Monday we did English with all the kids, working on basic questions such as ´Where are you from?´and then working on colors, something most of them have mastered. Then on Tuesday we had the kids write down something materialistic that they were lacking, whether it be a pair of tennis shoes, food for their family or a jacket to keep them warm. We have so many suitcases full of donated clothes that the group brought down and so we thought this would be a good way to see how we could most put them to good use. It was amazing that despite how many times we told the kids it was to be something materialistic, alot of them still continued to write ´security´or ´friendship´and many of them wrote down things for their family memebers too. Now it is just a matter of organzing the suitcases and seeing what we have!
Juliano, a student I have now metioned several times has admitted that he wants help to stop using drugs so Katie and I have been visiting several nearby rehab centers but so far we have had no luck finding any that accept minors, even only for the day. It looks like the closest that he could enter into is in another city and will most likely be pretty expensive but we are still on the look out.
Yesterday we come back from lunch only to discover that 2 girls in the program, whom we thought were friends, had gotten into a fight during lunch. The story is always changing but juice ended up in both each others hair and faces and one girl ended up with a goose egg on her forehead from the other´s knee. It was a sad situation and we had a long talk with both of them individually and then together to try and resolve some of the issues between them but it will take time to heal the wounds that were opened up from their fight. I went and visited Rogerio because he has yet to come to PETI still. I found him just sitting outside his house making a kite. We talked for a good 30 minutes about the sad surrounds he lives in and he had all kinds of information that no 13 year old should know about where his brother and friends smoke, what they do to hide it up, etc. It broke my heart that he is already exposed to such a sad reality. I worked so hard to convince him that he needed to keep himself at a distance from these people and their actions because although right now he may have no problem telling them no when they invite him to smoke, it is going to get harder. As much as I tried to convince him that PETI was a safe haven where he could get away from these problems for a few hours everyday, he didn´t show up again today. :(
This is where the serenity prayer comes into play. I have felt that quite a few things have been thrown at us this week that we can only do so much about. I don´t know if it is because I have better language skills this year or because I am more aware but I feel that I have a lot more on my shoulders this year. Katie and I talked alot about it and I know I need to find a way to do what I can while not letting the situation affect my time with the rest of the kids. They each have sad stories and circumstances but if that is the only thing I focus on, I will go crazy. I have found myself so drained each day this week, feeling helpless and desparate. The serenity prayer has become the prayer of my heart because I can´t keep living each day like this, it is not fair to the kids and it is not fair to myself. I need to make myself more present with the kids and give them all my attention, while not completly forgetting about the problems at hand but being able to step back and realize at what point things are out of my hands. It is going to be a tough balance to find but one that I think is so important!
Along with the struggles that have come our way, I hope I never fail to take notice of all the amazing little miracles that take place right in front of my eyes! Yesterday we got Daniele to take off her hood in school for the first time and now she is going everywhere proudly showing her short, adorable haircut! Today I got to teach English in the new school again and it was another great day. I think it is so important to make these connections with other kids in the community, especially on a day when we would be doing nothing at PETI anyways. The new kids I work with bring so many smiles and laughs into my day as well, and I am really enjoying working with them!
I know school started for my siblings so I am assuming most people are getting ready to get back into the swing of things there. I pray for a productive and fun start to the school year! It is a busy time of year but I hope everyone takes the time to savor the importance of rest and time with family and friends as well. Keep all the kids we work with in your prayers as they sure are in need of them!!
Happy start to the 2011-2012 school year!

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."