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Monday, July 20, 2015

Back to old habits I guess - catching up on 2 and a half months since my last entry!

I'll work backwards :)

Last Friday, I started my first training for caregivers in children's homes around the city.  I think there were 18 or 19 that came.  One of the groups that came has 19 children's homes throughout the country, and I do not know how many different homes workers came from different places - but there were at least 4 different homes that were represented.

I think it went well.  They all seemed pleased.  The training is split into 2 parts - the first is looking at family systems and how patterns of behaviors happen and looking at how to break patterns.  And the second part is looking more at issues that effect the kids - trauma, sexual abuse and abandonment.  You know, the easy stuff!

I left feeling more pressure than I did when I began.  I think it is both good and bad.  A few drove more than an hour each way to come to the training, and some have been working in their home for years and have never received any kind of training before!  I can't imagine how overwhelmed I would feel working with all of these tough issues and never having any sort of guidance.  So, my newfound pressure is good because it makes me want to work harder and provide an even better training - but it also makes me want to dump EVERYTHING I could possibly teach into it.  But that would not be helpful :(


And June was an exciting month because it held my favorite week of the year - Happy Feet!

Happy Feet is a ministry that goes all over the world - well, not ALL over, just the really poor places and gives shoes to kids that don't have shoes - or more likely (at least in Guatemala) have shoes that are falling apart, 2 sizes too small, etc.  The goal is to share God's love in a practical way.  I love it!







And the day after Happy Feet ended, my friend from San Diego, Anna came to visit!!  She was my first visitor here, and it was so nice to be able to share a bit of my world here with her.  She flew into Guatemala, and we did a day of tourism there.  Then we drove to El Salvador and she spent 4 days here, helping out at the children's home where I work and enjoying some of the beauty of the country.  We had a lovely day going up to see the volcano and lunch with a beautiful view.