Week 7

What can I say about this week? It had it's ups and downs for sure! But I think looking back it was a good week...I think! Monday and Tuesday were low key not a lot going on. I worked in the office on paperwork and such and went to McCorkindales, the orphanage affiliated with MYC. Each month we do monthly updates on the children. We talked with the children, the house parents at their home, and their teachers to see how things are going and if there are any problems that need to be addressed. So, the beginning of the week, Alban and I went to McCorkindales to interview the children and the house parents. I really enjoy going there. The children are great and it's a very family oriented place.

On Wednesday, Leann, a psychiatric nurse from Australia who is volunteering with MYC for the month, myself, and Alban held a workshop on corporal punishment and alternative ways to discipline children for the houseparents of the boy's homes and teachers. We had about 12 of them show up. At first, I felt as if it was very disheartening. I was very offended and shocked by some of the things that were said during the workshop. There was one comment that was very offensive towards white people. (I don't want to share the comment or who may have said it for confidential reasons and just it's not needed to be shared for me to make my point) It raised a lot of feelings in me that made me wish I wasn't against corporal punishment! I have never experienced that kind of racism before, where it was directly targeting me and it was very untrue to who I am. A lot of other comments about corporal punishment and beating your child were said and just surprised me. But after the meeting and after thinking it over and venting about it, I started to realize the positives of it all. First of all, this is how they were brought up and haven't had any real education about the effects of it. So, they don't know any different, one talk won't change their thinking completely. It's a process. It'll take time since it's been ingrained in them since they were little. Also, some of them were really wanting to know alternatives to just beating the children. They obviously didn't and don't have the education to know what else they could do and I saw some of them truly taking in what was said in the workshop. So even though in the moment it was very frustrating and disheartening, looking back it was a start to a change. We have two more weeks of meeting and hopefully God will continue to work in these people's hearts.

The rest of my week was stress free. I did some more paper work on Thursday. Then, Friday I started working on things for the girl's home. I am starting to think about how the girl's home should be run. What kind of things do we need in place before the girl's come into the home? What will we do when they first come? What kind of programs will we do with them when they are settled in the home? Who will be responsible for what? Etc. It actually got me really excited for this girl's home to be renovated and to get things rolling. It's going to be a lot of work to get the girl's home up and running but I know God has a great plan for these girls. I just need to trust Him and let Him lead!