A lot happened throughout the week, but I’d like to highlight a couple of them. First of all: the kids. There were 15 of them in our group, and they were fantastic.
They were NOT perfect :) but I was continually impressed by their willingness. Willing to help with stuff – sometimes even taking initiative on it and helping without being asked! Willing to step out of their comfort zones. Willing to admit when they were wrong. I don’t think I was much of any of those things when I was in high school. It’s just such a privilege to be with them and to get to know them better throughout the week.
The adults, also, were just great to be with. Mike – pulling everything together, providing energy and direction, engaging folks everywhere in conversation, and pushing us all out of our comfort zone. Adjusting when the week did NOT go as planned because of his injury, and not drawing a lot of attention to it. Oh – and making coffee every morning! 
Bob – keeping us organized! Working behind the scenes to bring order out of chaos and pull things together that otherwise would get missed. Humbly sharing his experiences of the week whether or not they put him in a good light. Providing humor and quietly helping in whatever he was tasked with doing. Lori – wowza. Being with kids non-stop for the entire time. Providing energy, humor, energy, love, and, uh, energy! particularly when we needed it most. 
Organizing, motivating, being an example, and just loving kids. The love was so evident, whether it was for the kids from our group or the kids we were serving this week, or the kids from the other groups, or the college interns who were working on every aspect of the program. I want to be like Lori when I grow up! Matilde – Matilde ended up coming last minute with her grandson Francisco. She is visiting for five or so weeks from Mexico, and she doesn’t speak English. She was just amazing. Two kids in the group and Chris, a leader from another group who had lived in Peru, would translate for her whenever possible. I’m so grateful for them, but I still think it had to be so challenging for her to be “along for the ride” and to be such a good sport about it. She had to wonder, many times, at what was going on, but she just pitched in and helped whenever she saw a need. The New City folks were delighted to have her: she spent most of her time on a small team that connected with families in the apartment complex where we’ve been hanging out & building the swing set. New City had connected with lots of folks there, but hadn’t realized that there are about 50 Spanish-speaking families with whom they’d had minimal contact. Matilde loved it and New City is looking forward to maintaining and building on the connections that she helped start. And me? I had the opportunity to help with English tutoring for an Iraqi family that arrived in St. Louis two months ago. Every afternoon I would go over to Lamyah’s house and learn about her and her family, and teach bits of English, or the US money system, or whatever else she was interested in. We played a lot of Bingo (with money, or household items, or whatever)! I learned a few words in Arabic too! (I know I’m butchering the spelling on these, even using an English keyboard – hope I’m at least close). good: Sa’h. yes: eeeh. no: lah. equals: esaree. fast: sari-ah. I also got to connect during kids club with some kids from Burma (count to five in Burmese? ti – nee – lei – na – chow – I think!!) and Maryan, a woman from Somalia who’s lived here for seven or so years. (“My country? America. Somalia is no more. Twenty years – TWENTY YEARS of fighting. Somalia no more.” Unreal to us here – can you imagine that happening to your home and country??) She asked if I was married and I said no, expecting a scolding of some type about how I should be having children. But she surprised me. “Husband, no good. Lots of work.” Ok, got it! :) Because she’s been here a while, she tries to help new refugee families acclimate – pretty neat. She’s frustrated with the landlords though, and hopes to move soon. The crime is pretty bad there, and they don’t seem to do much about it. They say they do, and then they don’t.
Well – this is all over the place, I know, but hopefully it gives you some idea of what the week felt and looked like!
-Angela
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