Turns out I don't blog as frequently as the two others that I work with. If we were to create totem-pole of how often we blogged I would definitely be at the bottom, with Chandy at the top, and Ron somewhere in between. I know what my problem is. My problem is that when I blog, I beast blog. I have trouble blogging about everyday instances. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I am proud of this fact. I wish I had the ability or motivation to blog the instant I had an idea/thought, but, as my bloging past shows, I dont. In fact, I really just want to be more like Chandy. Chandy is my blogging idol. Not to be confused with American Idol or Baal from the Bible, but blogging idol.
Really, I could blog about something from work everyday. Whether it's a baptism of an eighty-two year old man, a local drug-dealer breaking down in tears after talking and praying with one of the volunteers in the prayer room, two of our kids getting in a fist fight on the steps of Rock Island, or me recognizing yet another way of how unbelievably blessed and spoiled I am, there is always something I could blog about.
Instead of blogging about some in depth epiphany I had I plan on talking about something a little more simple. In my last blog I talked about how the kids down here have experienced so much in their lives in such a short time. Not just that they have experienced so much, but the things they have experienced are so intense and raw. For instance, one of our kids ar Rock Island goes home everynight to his grandmother smoking crack. He's 12. Let's do a time warp and bring to light the issues of my 12 year old days......"Oh shoot, Sally just caught me staring at her during lunch. She probably thinks I'm a total loser now. She's so cute" or maybe, "Man, I wonder how the ninja turtles are going to escape the clutches of Bee-Bop and RockSteady". If it's not the home life, it's something else. It's having to fight, phsically fight, local kids in order to gain some respect or pride. Almost to build up resume so that others know you mean business. Sure, you are going to lose alot of fights, but at least they know they can't just walk over you. Meanwhile you are just hoping that no one brings anything other than their fists to the fight. If not fighting then maybe it's the fact that since the day you were of employable, working age you have been pulling ridiculous hours at work after school in order to support your brother, sister and mother.
What I have learned during my time with these kids is that because of their circumstances, because of their lifestyle, because of their environment, these kids don't have time to be kids.
Tuesday night i experienced a little joy. Tuesday night we went to the Hornets basketball game. Aside from the chain-prayer(read Chandy's blog for more on that), seeing those kids BE KIDS was easily my absolute favorite experience of the week, if not month. Yeah, we were sitting in section 303, 5 rows from the top. That's us. You would have thought we were sitting in Chris Paul's seat on the bench the way the kids acted. We had water-tattoos on faces, balloon hats, those really annoying thunder-stick thingy's that are really loud and hurt when you get hit the groin with, and alot of fun. It's almost like for just a couple hours they were able to forget about the things I talked about earlier, like going home to a drug-infested house, and be kids. In pure innocence. Just have fun, like kids are supposed to. It was pretty awesome. Regardless of the fact that half of our kids couldn't name 2 players on the Hornets roster, those kids had a blast.
So there it is, my once every 2 week blog update. But for real, I'm going to start making more short, quick blogs. Even if it is really hard for me to do those.
Good stuff Luke!
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