Day 159.

What went down this weekend:

- Finally saw Avatar today! Very impressed by the special effects -- finally CG faces had some emotion to them. I will say some parts of the love story were a little weird, but I really wished I lived on a planet that lit up.
- Yesterday morning, I played Ultimate Frisbee with some students from the language institute. It was a good time and it made me want to play with Luke when I return.
- I also went to the pool yesterday with some girls who are going to work in Carpio after going to language school for six weeks. Let's just say my face looks like I just pulled it out of an oven.
- Overall, I walked around San Francisco (my suburb) in the hot hot heat for more than two hours yesterday. Good work out!
- Tomorrow I'm going to have a sleepover with Alanna at Carmen's house. We're going to watch the Star Wars movies with her kids.
- This last week has been somewhat of a rough one at El Refugio (that's the name of the alternative school where I teach -- it means "The Refuge"). Every single one of those girls has been through so much pain, and every single one of them is looking for something; that's why they come. Having said that, it is very easy to split the students into two groups: those who show up to study, and those who don't. There are a handful of girls who love playing soccer, coming late to class, and disrupting others. They are also the girls who have been known to threaten other students (they have a gang-related past/present) to the point where bullied girls refuse to return.
Carmen and Lorena, the cooks who live in La Carpio, have absolutely zero tolerance for this group and have hinted that these girls shouldn't be allowed to attend if they're not going to put their studies first.
Then there's Jesus, who as my host mom put it, "was known for eating dinner with sinners." What are we supposed to do? It's not right that these girls show up with absolutely no interest to improve our success rates, gain from our efforts, or learn from what we have to teach them.
But since when was it right to have those expectations? When did we get in control? Our job is to plant seeds. God is the one who is going to make them grow.
Yes, to be a teacher you have to know how to push your pupils, but to be a Christian you have to know how to display God's love. At times that love presents itself in forms of discipline, other times it appears in rivers of unending mercies. How do we know which to use in difficult situations?
I re-read an amazing essay on poverty by Cranford Joseph Coulter and found this Dietrich Bonfoeffer quote: "We need to relate to people less according to what they do or omit to do, and more according to what they have suffered." It's easy for Carmen and Lorena to be frustrated with the girls -- they have had to live the same life and I'm sure they would give anything to have had the opportunities as young women that these students are presented with every day. But for some one like me though, some one who has food on the table, a roof over my head, and much more important than either of those things: loving parents (and host parents) who respect me and have my up-most respect, it's impossible to even imagine the dark, empty places my students have been to and go to every day.
This verse has really presented itself to me during this time:

I Corinthians 13:3
"If I give everything I possess to the poor and give over my body to the flames,
but have not love,
I have nothing."

Is this not the truth? We can do all the good we want in all the ways we want, but if it's not for love, it's not worth it. And above all, we must remember that these hurdles, these hardships -- they're not ours. They're God's. If camp taught me one thing, it's that I am an incredibly weak being. My Spanish is still so lacking. My patience falters more often than I want to admit. My body needs sleep. It was God's love, sent to me through the smiles and sunsets, that kept me going.

And it's that same love that will keep me going.

--Hannah