Gang

There are some things in life that I just cannot comprehend. I see the horrible situations of these girls and just don’t get it. How is it that these girls have to deal with this stuff at such a young age. Today was one was one of those days.

In order to give you a good background, I need to first inform you of the drama leading up to this event. Just to protect her name, we are going to call her Denise. Denise has been captain of the Barrio Blanco team. Denise is 14. About two weeks ago, we had a big tournament. During the time we was on the bench, she had a horrible attitude; didn’t support the team, just pouted because she was on the bench. Anyways, the team wrote me a note of how they felt Denise did not have a good attitude and should be removed from her position as captain. They also told Denise about the letter. I don’t care who you are, that hurts a lot. So despite my phone calls, Denise hasn’t returned to practice. Also, I haven’t seen her during that entire time, until today.

I was driving up into her barrio today and got lucky (or God totally planned it that way) and saw her on her way to a colmado. I stopped her as asked her if she had time to talk. She said no. I said, oh well, I don’t care sit down anyway. ☺ I’m really nice like that. As the conversation went on, I discovered that day after the tournament a group of girls invited Denise to hang out with them. Well, this group of girls happened to be a gang. Within the next few days, Denise found herself with a group of girls that steal, smoke marijuana, get in fights, have sex, drink, and have sling shots that they put bullets in along with the rock. Good influence, right? When asked why she stays in it, she responded at least these girls tell me things to my face and not behind my back. We talked for a while and eventually she said she is going to try to get out on Saturday. She said that they may try to hurt her if she leaves, so please pray that she will be protected and the other girls will let her go. Also, pray that I will be able to convince the team to apologize to Denise. Teenage girls can just be plain mean and they are just awful at asking for forgiveness. They often let these events remain like this and stay enemies forever. Ugh, breaks my heart. For real. 14 years old.

I love my job.

Seriously, this job and my girls give me sooo much joy. I am just wondering when I'm not gonna enjoy it and be sick of it but my love for my job keeps growing and growing everyday! We just had a volleyball outreach and it was seriously sooooo fun! When we have american teams, we take a group of them to play against a community. This particular night, they played first against my girls team from Barrio Blanco. Then we chose 6 to play against the guys (who are stinkin AWESOME) ps. we have never EVER won a game against a guys team in my 2 years of being here. Anyway, I played when we played against the guys and we ended up winning but it was seriously such an intense game. The whole community was so into it. For real, it was amazing.

In other news, I had a huge breakthrough with one of my girls Darlenys. Her grandma just died and even before she was pretty closed off to everyone. Her grandma has raised her since she was 3, so she's pretty much been her mom. But when I came back from Christmas vacation, I could tell she was struggling even more. Anyways, God gave me the idea to start a journal to her. I wrote her a letter and asked her some questions about her mom, God, life, etc. Basically, the stuff I would ask her in convo but have a hard time getting out of her. I told her she could respond when she wanted and as long as she wanted and I would respond. Well less than 24 hours later, I had it back 4 pages FULL of questions about God, how to deal with depression (she also mentioned that she hardly ever eats bc food makes her nautious). Ps. any ideas of how to deal with that? I am excited to continue seeing her life through this journal. God is good.

VC Revolution (the travel team that we just started) has their second tournament this saturday. I was sooo proud of them last weekend. Before the tournament we talked about how we need to be missionaries even on the volleyball court. During the day, one of my girls got interviewed for a local news crew and she talked about how the goal of the team to to bring all honor to God. Also, on the way to the tournament, all 3 teams piled into a mini-bus. The music was blaring and a bad song was playing. Behind me I could hear TONS of girls yelling and dancing along with the song. I was disappointed at first but when I turned around, my heart just swelled to see that none of my girls were singing and they all just smiled at me with full awareness of why I was turning around and full awareness of the fact God was proud of them in that moment. Not to mention, I was SO proud of them. I will make sure to take a picture of them after the tournament saturday. They seriously look so cool in their new gear. The team is currently 2-1. :)

Thanks so much for your support through everything. I feel so privileged to work here. For real, thank you.