to everything, there is a season.

The reality of where we work attempts to conceal itself in normality. or routine. or familiarity. or any number of facades. It does well for a time which only makes the fall more exaggerated as you crash back to reality. This crash assures you that you don't work in a safe place, nor a place where stability is the norm. And though I work here, I am reminded that I am not from here. Reminded that this is life for my students.
Yerman (refer to last blog) is gone. Over the weekend, he and his family moved. It is a gut check that I am not his savior nor his only hope. People come and people go and we never know how much time we have. We can only be an influence for a time and we must hope that the impact we have made on the lives around us is lasting.
Another is gone, but a different kind of gone. Isaac (another photography student) asked to leave towards the end of class today to go see his friend Douglas. He said that Douglas was about to pass by. Imagine the surprise as I opened the gate to a funeral procession crawling towards us. Isaac tells me that Douglas was 19 years old. Him and five others were gunned down over the weekend. The other five are in the hospital. Douglas was his friend, yet he tells me this in such a matter of fact way that it almost convinces me that they were barely acquaintances... that or that this is just a reality of life for Isaac. Although I want so badly to change their reality, I know that it isn't my job... my job is simply to influence the lives that I can for the time that I have been given to do so. My hope is that we are all on that path together, that we may encourage others that, "there is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off." -prov. 23:18



I still don't know the roads we'll take, but it seems like we're heading in the right direction...

Lives are changing. Yerman (one of the students who was arrested in the last blog) has had a problem with lying since day one. He was kicked out of the wood shop and photo studio the first few times he came due to behavioral issues. We came to a turning point in our relationship a few weeks ago when I caught him telling me he didn't do something that I had seen him do just moments before. I had seen him. He had seen me see him. Still, he would not back down from his lie. I had just finished telling him that he had to go home for the day when I thought to myself that it just might be worth trying to talk to him one more time. As we sat alone, I began to explain to him the importance of telling the truth. He started laughing. As my temperature began to rise, I told him that because of the lies he tells nobody knows whether or not to believe him when he says that he didn't do what the cops said he had done. He laughed once more, and it was only then that I noticed the tears in his eyes. I stopped. I put my hand on his knee. I said, "you know that I love you, right?" Tears streaming down his face, he buried his head in his knees and cried. I told him that I loved him. I told him that I was proud of him. I told him that I believed in him. I told him a lot of things... a lot of things that 16 year old boys should hear from their dad (or at least an older male) but unfortunately never do. He cried, then he hugged me, and then he came back for the second class session. If the entire purpose of my move to Costa Rica was to tell one troubled boy that he is loved, then I consider it well worth it. Lives are changing... if not anyone else's, I know mine is.

I still don't know the roads we'll take, but it seems like we're heading in the right direction...