Saturday, November 21, 2009

So things here are settling in, and becoming slightly chaotic both at the same time.  as an update, over the last few weeks, Gary has become more present in the house, working in the Bible school area, and getting new things done for the orphanage, so his time for school has basically vanished.   I have taken over as principal of the school, and with Nancy Hibbard, the new secretary, we are slowly trying to implement some improvements in the school.  So I guess the role things are settling in, and the chaos is of my own making!

As I have been here a full year and a part of another, I slowly gain a vision of how life, culture, things work here.  Having some background as a baseball coach in the states when my kids were little, and being exposed to a higher level of select baseball with traveling teams has given me a view of people in authority over a team, both good and bad.  It seems I am falling back on my coaching time to view this as trying to build a team of people to accomplish goals.  Ok, guys today we are going to learn to bunt....   So we are developing a plan to try and get more order into the school, a more focused plan and start a process of evaluation of the school to see what assets we have and how best to use them to help these kids grow.  I also look back on my own parenting life and feel a great sense of remorse that I didn't have these things figured out better when I actually had kids of my own at home.  I love my son's greatly, but I can see now the places I failed them more clearly since I have responsibility for 70+ kids now.  And in turn, this places me more squarely in front of God, seeking His mercy and grace, both for my mistakes and for my son's futures. 

So, in school we will, over time, become more old school, as this is what I know.   Hopefully it will be an improved version though.   Kids are disciplined regularly as needed.  The level of responsibility for the kids in how they do and more importantly, how they put forth effort will be raised.  I am becoming more aware of some of the advantages of American culture, while becoming even more aware of the disadvantages. American kids are exposed to so many things, different ideas and such, that it stimulates conceptual thinking in a way that is almost completely lacking here.   My hope is we can in some way bridge that gap and help build concepts in these kids, and use that in a more proactive way to share Jesus with them.  Each day I become more aware of my complete inability to accomplish this, I am not an educator.  But I know that God equips and provides and in this my faith is built by relying on Him even more.  I guess since I know I am not really a teacher, I will be what I can be, which is maybe a coach and planner, and let God do the rest.   And now for your viewing pleasure, some pictures of our kids.

These kids have a lot of backgrounds.  some are well of Haitians, some were restaveks in the States, some were kicked out of their homes and sent to a country they really didn't know because of step parents.  For whatever reason we are all in the same place now, and hopefully we can change their lives in a good way. 

thanks for reading, I now return you to your local stations.  remember, if this had been a real emergency, you probably wouldn't have gotten the message anyway.      :)

Bondye benis ou                                                                                                                                          

Dan