Fleas + Exhaustion = I pretty much love it

Well, what has happened since I last talked to you.... Oh I got fleas, they are kind of everywhere and I am full of bites, but they tell me to take vitamin B complex and once that gets in my system the fleas don't like you anymore, so we will have to see. Last week I was in the day shelter they have for pre-street kids, ages 2-6, it was a lot of fun and the kids are soo adorable. I had a lot of fun with them. I hope to post pictures soon but I have to get them approved first by the leadership team because of Colombian privacy laws. I hope to post a picture of a kid with the sweetest glasses ever, for real. The neighbourhood where the day shelter is, is in a really poor neighbourhood and there are always people sleeping on the street close to the shelter and every day people come to the door and ask for food because they know we feed the kids, after the kids are finished eating and if we have left overs we always give them away. That experience has really opened my heart to these people and to what some of the kids I am working with come from. To give you a little glimpse into my life.... the last two weeks my day starts with boarding the ministry bus they have, anywhere between 6:45 and 7:30, it is Colombian time you know. We would go and pick up the school kids, who live in a really poor neighbourhood, we pick them up at the bottom of a hill and one day I hope to go into their neighbourhood and see a little more what life is like for the kids who I am going to be working with. Anyways we have a couple more stops then we drop the kids off at the shelter or the school. After a long day of teaching the kids, playing with the kids, breaking up fights, whipping noses and talking kids to the bathroom, we board the bus again to take them all home. The bus ride home usually entails all the little ones falling asleep and all the older kids being loud and hyper and having a more then normal difficult time listning, which usually results in me splitting them up and them saying "oy profe", it does make me smile a little. So my two weeks of orientation are over and on Wednesday I will be moving in with a Dutch couple that work with the ministry, I am both excited and a little bit bumed out about that. The guy works with the families which is eventually what I am going to be doing once my Spanish gets better, so living there will give me the opportunity to go with him a couple times and learn and watch and even enhance my language skills. The sad thing about it is I will miss the girl that I will be living with as well as all the teens that hang out here on the weekend as I have been spending a lot of time with them. The girl that I was living with is going to this house with a bunch of young people that will eventually be a 25hour care centre, I spend some time there on some weekends and it is a lot of fun. I am a little worried that I will get lonely and feel that I am missing out on the fun. As seems to be the theme of my time here, God is sooo faithful and He does supply all my needs and I can rest and trust in that. I think this is going to be the year where I finally surrender my worry to him and just learn to rest in His arms, hopefully I will learn it sooner rather then later. I will also be working at the school three days a week, my exact job description is still up in the air but I am hoping that I can do one on ones with the kids as I know how badly they need it. I have one day of the week where I can go to a different program. There is this grandma from Australia here who lives in a really poor neighboorhood where gang activity is prevalent and she was called there to minister there. She is starting a kids program on Fridays on Saturdays and I might see if I can help her out on Fridays and if not then I will be at the day shelter. Next week we are starting to go out on the streets to minister to some of the kids and to bring them food and hot chocolate, I am super excited about that, so on Monday at about 3pm your time be thinking and praying for us. Also next week I hope to start spanish lessons at least once a week as I need a lot of practice, especially if I am going to be working with the families. I do feel that I am right where God wants me to be and that is such a cool feeling, but there are times when I do miss people, it takes a while to form the type of frienships where you don't really have to say anything at all and your friends know what your feeling or what your wanting to say, but I do feel truly bleesed by God and I do have a heart for these kids and I pray that they know without doubt how much God loves them, despite their pasts or despite what they have been told and I hope in some small way I can be apart of showing them that.