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...