First thoughts

Monday, July 28, 2014

5:15pm - Leslie

It’s always hard to know what to write at first, there are so many thought to sort through – my own, the impressions team members have shared, conversations with our host – it’s all swirling around in my head.  Yesterday we went to the children’s church service and spent a little time with them, it was wonderful to see the two youngest children babbling and crawling and socializing with everyone.  When we were here last year they had just arrived and were clearly not coming from a good situation and it was encouraging to see the drastic improvement.  On the flip side of the coin, we were discussing with our host a microfinance program that used to exist for local women.  He said that after ten years the program closed and he was mad about it.  We talked in depth about all the benefits of the program and all the ways that it should have been assessed and he said something that stuck in my head, “what these people do not realize is that this life is a rodeo.  It is not a matter of if the women will fall off the cow or the bull, but how long, how many minutes or seconds she can hold on.”  The contrast of that dire assessment and the positive effects of the environment at the orphanage, albeit requiring extraordinary effort and support, is something that is hard to reconcile.

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