Douglas Soccer Team

Casa Hogar Douglas officially has a soccer team and they are led by Douglas' coordinator of sports and activities - a Hope Program graduate named Cheko (in red).  The tiny guy in front is my kid.

Their first game was a little crazy because it rains cats and dogs for the entire first half which then destroyed the field and they couldn't move the ball through the mud and it was more like water polo instead of soccer.  Every player just kept falling in the mud.  Most of the guys took their massive mud clogged cleats off and just tried to play barefoot.  Everyone laughed and had a good time which was a nice distraction from the score which by the end of the game was something like 10 to 1 - Douglas lost. To add to the craziness, the power went out as a result of the intense storm.  So we had no water, no power, no lights and no one could bathe and they were COVERED in mud - like something out of a movie.  About 2 hours after the game, we took all the boys to Back2Back and threw everyone in the pool.  Thank God for the pool because the power was out all evening.

They have now played 2 games and are currently 0 - 2. However, the score at the end of the first half of both of those games was 1 to 0 in favor of the other team.  They seem to fall apart in the 2nd half but I have hopes that they'll improve.

But here is the bottom line - we are SO THANKFUL that the boys have a coach who cares about them and who trains with them throughout the week.  I am SO GRATEFUL that my little tiny soccer star is allowed to not only train with the big boys but he gets to play and develop his athletic abilities.  These boys are learning discipline, to follow instructions, to cooperate with one another, to work hard, and to get back up when you fall down as well as work off some steam and frustration each night in a positive manor.  

Pray for our soccer team to work better as a team, to move the ball better, to play selflessly, for their coach Cheko to challenge them and build them up along the way, for opportunities to play against other children's homes in the area, for the possibility to enter into a league.  Pray that the boys would grow, develop and mature through soccer and through sport and teamwork.  Pray for funding for league fees and/or uniforms.  And pray that they'd win a game or at least hang in there a little closer to their opponents. 

Going After the One

Just to keep you all updated - Sammy and I still live at Casa Hogar Douglas full-time and are the caregivers for a boys' dorm there 24 hours a day.

The boys are transitioning and processing through their previous caregivers' departure and what Sammy and I expect from them throughout the day.  Oddly, our biggest battles with the boys most days revolve around whether or not they will eat breakfast, lunch or dinner and not whether or not they'll go to school or do take a shower at night.  They want to stay up until midnight and we want them in bed by 9 pm.  They want to go to school wearing whatever we want and insist that they wear their school uniform.  They want to eat candy and I want them to brush their teeth.  They want to play video games and I want them to read a book to me for 15 minutes.  They think it's totally normal to leave their backpack with all their school books AT school overnight instead of bringing it home so we can do their homework together.  They want to scream curse words at us and I want them to voice their emotions but respectfully.  Most of the boys are 10 and 11 years old and when they hear the response, "no" to something, they often throw full body trashing on the ground, attempting to break things or harm themselves tantrums for often 60 minutes at a time.

So to put it lightly, we are transitioning.  It will likely be months before they accept our schedule and our rules.  It'll be months before they trust me when I say, "maybe it'd be better if we did that in an hour instead of right now." It'll be months before they realize that I'm not going to hit them if I'm mad about something they just did.

One of our boys in particular has been winning the competition amongst the boys to be the worst behaved and most defiant in our dorm.  Sammy and I said, "enough is enough," and we called a meeting with every single adult that works at the orphanage to talk with him all at once.  To have this meeting, Sammy had to leave behind our dorm full of boys unsupervised and I had to leave behind another dorm that I was caring for that day so their full-time caregiver could have a day off.  In an orphanage setting - it's not a good idea to leave kids alone.  But we did it.  We left about 13 kids alone for an hour so we could stop everything and talk to just one child.

He needed to hear from more than just us, what the expectations are for him.  He needed to hear reinforced from others what is considered wildly disrespectful.  He cried.  He protested.  He said it wasn't fair.  But in the end, we were cool and there was now no way he could say, "well I don't have to listen to you because YOU are the only person who thinks I have to do my homework, speak respectfully and read for 15 minutes in order to go to soccer practice!!!!"  He knew that EVERY SINGLE adult in his life was in agreement - he for some reason was convinced that me and Sammy only wanted to punish him and that no one else would agree with our rules.

Since that meeting, he's been an angel.  He got it.  And honestly, modifying the behavior of just one kid might seem like a drop in the bucket but it's made all the difference in our dorm.  He's a leader and doesn't even know it yet.  He's incredibly handsome and I already worry about keeping girls away from him in the years to come yet he thinks he's ugly.  He's wildly intelligent and yet he gets rather solid B's at school.  And he is incredible at soccer.  I think he knows that last part already.  He scores goals on kids twice his size everyday.

Sometimes and probably more often than not, it's worth it to leave the 99 and go after the one.

Prayer requests for our dorm and for Sammy and me -
*  patience for their outbursts
*  appropriate words and wisdom when they share with us abuse from their past
*  for the boys to not just sleep but truly rest at night
*  for their first year teacher at school to not treat them differently just because they are "orphanage kids."
*  for the boys to grow to trust us a little more each day
*  for the self confidence - to know and believe in themselves and their abilities

Living at Casa Hogar Douglas Again

About a week ago, when all the kids started back at school here in Monterrey, Sammy (fellow Back2Back staff member) and I took over one of the dorms at Casa Hogar Douglas after several caregivers decided to leave.  We were honestly a bit surprised by their departure but I truly feel blessed and lucky and I'm grateful to get to be the full-time caregiver for these 7 boys.

The last time I was the full-time caregiver of a dorm at this same orphanage - it was 2 years ago, I barely spoke Spanish, I didn't know the kids well, nor their daily schedule, I was clueless about their  school uniforms, and I had 14 boys ages 2 to 9 instead of just 7 boys, and on top of that I was in charge of doing the laundry for all 70 kids that lived there at the time.  This time around things are A LOT different.  For the past 2 years, I've spent almost every single day at Casa Hogar Douglas either giving caregivers a day off by taking care of their kids from sun up till sun down, reading with the boys, doing homework, tutoring kids, giving boys haircuts, or caring for certain sibling sets on the weekends.  After all that, I know each of these boys backwards and forwards before ever moving in.  So the transition has been relatively smooth.

To top it all off - God has provided a way for me to have Saturdays off so that I can watch NCAA football from the time College Gameday starts until the west coast games are over - talk about beautiful!!!

We are all doing well.  The boys so far have done their homework every single day which was not the case last year.  They have been reading and doing extra math for me every single day - even on the weekends.  And I've had to explain to each of them probably 5 times by now why it's important that they read and do more than just the bare minimum and remind them that I love them and only because I care about their futures - and because I believe in their abilities and refuse to let anything limit what type of career they could have one day simply because they attended one of the worst public schools in the entire state - that ALL THAT is WHY they have to read for 15 minutes.  One day, they will "get it."  That day is not now but that's not going to stop me from forcing them to develop to their full potential.

The dorm is SUPER clean and so are the boys.  Amen and Amen.