Day 30 - Change

I didn’t get to sleep last night until after 2am.  I have no idea why, but my body just refused to go to sleep.  Benadryl has become one of my dearest friends on this trip.

Everyone woke up this morning in a tired and cranky mood….not good seeing as how we were expected to deep clean campus.  I got to unclog my first toilet today, a task that I would’ve been ok saving for another day…or never.  After about 4 hours of everyone dragging their feet and moving slowly, we finally finished and were released.  This was both a happy moment and a sad one, because what comes next is packing.  None of us want to pack.  We keep finding ourselves laughing and wanting to cry all at the same time.  Some people are actually packing, and everyone else is delaying it as much as possible. 

It’s hard to leave a place that has become your home and where you’ve made so many close friends.  It’s easy to stay focused on God when you are surrounded by 100 other people doing exactly that, but when we are expected to go home and do it on our own, it gets a lot harder. 

I feel like my life in the last month and even the upcoming month is one of packing and of change.  My clothes and belongings are all packed up, but I have to wonder how long it’s going to take to mentally unpack when I get home.  I’ll be there for nearly 2 weeks, and then will have to pack everything all over again to move out of my home for the first time.  I’m excited and nervous at the same time.  But if I’ve learned anything in Mexico, it’s that God is constant, never changing, and forgiving.  He has been the same God as He was at home, in Mexico, and at college. 

Day 29

Today was long.  We sent off the last set of groups early this morning and now it’s just staff on campus.  We went an hour and a half away from campus to a cave that you can walk all around for our intern outing. 

Three of the four brothers from Douglas are back with a staff member this week, so we took the little guys with us to see the cave and they LOVED it!  They were climbing all over the inside and running away from us as often as they could.  They slept hard on the bus ride home, a much needed break from chaos for the rest of us.  They are going to be staying on campus for the next several days until David is well enough to join his brothers again at Casa Hogar Douglas. 

We all pitched in for pizzas tonight before going to a birthday party for 2 of the jovens that are in the Hope Program.  We all spent the rest of the night dancing like crazy and attempting to salsa with the Mexican boys, who are much more talented than the Americans!

Day 28

Things went against my plans again today, and I’m stuck on campus again.  I went to our 8am stand up meeting and got with my staff group for the day.  They all started asking me if I was ok, and I repeatedly told them that I was fine and ready to go on the zoo field trip today, but against my will they all took a vote and decided that I should stay back and get some more sleep.  So here I am lying in bed in my dorm, another girl is sick also, so Sarah and I are going to do absolutely nothing today but sleep, watch movies, and read.

All week I have really missed home and been ready to go back, especially now that I’m sick.  Today has been a little different; I’m really going to miss the “family” that I have been accepted into here.  There is always someone around who understands exactly what you are going through.  Sure it’s hard to share 1 shower, 1 sink, and 1 toilet with 10 other girls, but I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. 

Day 27

Today was hot, in more ways than one.  I woke up this morning with a fever, sore throat, and a cough.  It’s been going around campus to the kids and the nannies who have so graciously passed it on to the interns.  Instead of getting to go see my Douglas kids again, I stayed back on campus and was able to get several more hours of sleep to be ready for the field trip tomorrow to the zoo.

A tale of 4 brothers...

I want to share something with you all that is a good example of the kind of things that go on in these kid’s lives.  There are 4 brothers who live at Casa Hogar Douglas that range from 3-8 years old.  Israel (Iss-rye-ell), Jose (Hoe-say), Ociel (Oh-see-ell), and David (Dah-veed) were all on campus last week staying in Caroline’s apartment with her.  Caroline is a staff member who lived at Douglas last summer and was the care taker for the little boy’s dorm, but she has since moved back to B2B.  She took these rowdy little boys into here home for the week to give the encargadas (care takers) a break.  These 4 little boys are insanely wild!  Last week they were on one of the buses flipping over the seats and swinging from the luggage racks. 

We suspected that little David (3) might have chicken pox when we found some spots on him on Thursday.  When he woke up Friday morning his entire face was covered with spots.  Because we have 4 pregnant women on campus, he could no longer stay.  The problem is that they also have a pregnant woman at Casa Hogar Douglas, so the boys couldn’t stay there either.  The lead encargada called the boys’ mom and told her to come pick them up because they couldn’t stay while David is sick.

The boys’ mother was abused by their father when they were little, so she got a restraining order and he was actually put in jail, something that is very rare to happen to abusive males in Mexico.  While in prison, their father killed himself.  His entire family blamed the boys’ mother for what happened and cut her off.  She went to the government in Mexico City, where she lived at the time, and asked them what she should do.  She was told that if she moved to Nuevo Leon (a state in Mexico), she could work in a factory and her boys could grow up in a children’s home without here losing her rights to them.  So this is the choice that she made to be able to continue to see her boys as often as she could.

The job that their mother has is very strict and she has no vacation time.  So taking in the boys meant that she had to stop working until David was well enough to go back to the casa hogar.  She attempted to take him back yesterday, but David’s condition had worsened and he now had blisters as well as infections.  She was instructed to take him to the doctor where she was given an antibiotic prescription that was going to cost her about $100 US, which she most definitely does not have.  So she didn’t get it filled. 

This mother lost her job today because she couldn’t work all week.  On top of that, she had to take David to the hospital because he now has them inside his mouth and throat and is refusing to eat.  There are two types on hospitals in Mexico.  Ones that are free and unclean with blood stains left on the floors, and ones that are like American hospitals, but cost a lot of money.  The last thing that we wanted was for David to go to a hospital where he was going to have to wait for, literally, days to be seen.  However, we knew this was where she was going to take him because it was her only option.

This is the point where Back2Back steps in.  After a conversation with Todd, the founder of the ministry, we are able to use as much of the medical funds as we need to help David get the treatment that he needs.  As far as the mom goes, she will place her boys back in the children’s home as soon as David is better and she will have to try to find another job.  While she is at the hospital, Israel, Jose, and Ociel are staying with her boyfriend.  We have no idea how many more emotional scars these boys are going to come back with, the most that we can do is pray that this man treats them with respect. 

These kids go through more in just a few years than you and I will ever go through in an entire lifetime.  Back2Back does a great job making each and every one of these kids feel like they are princes and princesses and that their Heavenly Father loves them more than they can imagine. Every last one of these kids is precious and special to us, that’s why it hurts so much more to watch them go through something that you can’t even help with.