Last week we closed the week of deficiences by returning to APAE on Friday for a parade with our kids and the kids/teachers from there. We walked through the streets of Imbau and each time we passed by a school, the children would join the crowd! I heard some complaining from our kids but once they were reminded about the small sacrifice this was compared to the big sacrifices some of the kids from APAE have to make each day for the rest of their lives, they quickly kept up and stopped with the whining. We all had balloons that we popped together when we made it to our final destination, the bus station. It was a really neat morning and in the afternoon we had a beauty day, full of doing nails and hair with all the girls! I actually couldn´t tell you where all the boys were but it was really enjoyable for all us girls to get dolled up and I could tell they all left that day feeling beautiful and confident!
I had the special opportunity on Saturday to skype with the not only my immediate family, but so many other members of my family as they were gathered for a wedding. I had the priviledge of meeting the groom for the first time over skype and I even was lucky enough to be taken via computer into the bride´s dressing room where I got to see the beautiful, smiling bride getting ready for the special day! It was so amazing to get to be a small part of the family gathering. I can´t wait to see pictures!
Sunday was Megan´s 24th birthday! To celebrate we had a BBQ at Lourival´s family, where Megan is staying, during the afternoon with their whole family. After eating a bunch of food their, we headed to another girl´s birthday party- someone from the gym, where we got to listen to a free band and enjoy some more food! We ended the night with a beautiful Mass and then headed back to Lucas to eat some more cake before calling it quits.
Monday is the day we do English with all the kids and in the afternoon I experienced a really special moment with 2 of our students, Lucas and Isael. I pulled Isael aside to do a little one on one English and I discovered that he had studied at APAE up until this last year which helped me understand more why his Portuguese was so gramatically incorrect and I also discovered that he had a speech impediment where he put an ´s´ sound on the end of each word that he said. Lucas, one of our advanced English students who studies each Saturday at PBF, came over and helped Isael master saying ´hi´and ´bye´then we worked forever on getting him to ask ´What´s your name?´ without putting that ´s´ sound on the end of each thing. It was such a special moment to see Isael smile with pride after successfully learning a little English and I was filled with love for Lucas after seeing all the patience he had with his peer. It was one of those moments that left me smiling the rest of the day!
On Tuesday I had all the photos printed and the ´photographers´got so excited to see if the other kids were able to guess their pictures. It was a lot of fun to have the kids come in and here some of their ideas of what the photos were, but in the end the majority were able to guess at least one so I started marking how many they were getting correct so that the top 3 were given prizes. It was so fun to have a competition to get the kids excited about what we are doing in photography this year!
We continue to do our individual things on Thursday. This Thursday marked the halfway mark on my teaching English at the private school, I now have one more month. So far it has been very enjoyable for me but I think in a month I will be ready to return to PETI. Katie continues to pray the rosary with an elderly woman in the church community and Megan this week started visiting an older student of ours who has been studying English extensively for longer than the others. He unfortunately had to stop coming to PETI because his mom has a disease that is slowly leaving her blind so he has to stay home to take care of his younger siblings and nieces/nephews while his dad works. This means we are not able to spend time working on his English so Megan plans to make the trip to his house Thursday mornings to get some extra practice in and help out around the house where needed. It is so great for us to go our separate ways and reunite in the afternoon with all kinds of stories!
Special prayer request, something recent that we actually just discovered today. One of our students, Eva, whom Katie has known since her first year working with the program, was recently taken out of the orphanage and returned to her mom. Not even a week later, she is now engaged to someone 6 years older than her and she has decided to stop coming to PETI, stop studying and stop with the English course she is doing with us. Katie went to visit her today to see if this was true and she returned saying she didn´t even recognize the girl she talked to- she has lost all interest in life and has resorted to a life of marriage at the tender age of 14. The sad part is that her family is on board and actually encouraging the union between them. It was a rough, heartbreaking day in which us 3 girls had to lock ourselves in a classroom and pray.. pray for Eva, for us that we can accept that this may be out of our hands and just a prayer of trust that something good with come out of this. So we ask that you all keep Eva and this whole situation in your prayers.
May this upcoming month of September be one in which we all stop to appreciate the beauty of God´s nature as the leaves start to turn colors and the weather becomes a little cooler.. there at least. Here it will be heating up! I am bummed to be missing fall once again this year as it is my favorite season. Thank you for your constant prayers and support of the work we doing down here, we gather so much strength knowing we have so much love in the States!
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