"Teacher Mason" Becomes a Student

It feels like it’s been months since I wrote my last blog. We’ve been especially busy here at Familia Feliz the past two weeks in preparation for the kids to arrive. By the time this is posted, they will have been here since Wednesday of the previous week. If you read my last post, (or even just the first paragraph) you won’t be surprised to find that I am writing this about a week in advance.

Throughout all of our preparations, we have received several more kids from parents who won’t be able to make it to registration. At its peak, the house was accommodating nine boys. Almost all of the volunteers who were travelling or doing visa paperwork have finally returned, along with a few new volunteers. A few other returning and new volunteers will be coming later this month. With almost everyone back, we’ve started having volunteer meetings to go over all of the revised responsibilities and schedule that the director has planned. Nothing against our old director, (he was very busy getting his new project underway and dealing with some health problems) but it seems like things are going to be more organized and smoother this year.

In the midst of all these meetings, I discovered that my day off will be changing to Wednesday. This has a couple of implications. First, my trips to town will now be far more exciting. My previous day off, Monday, was always a little lackluster because most of the stores were closed after the big market that happens on Sundays. I will now, finally, be able to try some of the restaurants that other SM’s rave about. The second implication is that I will now be posting blogs on Wednesday, starting this Wednesday. Because I will be posting this blog and the next one in such close succession, I decided to do something a little different with this one. For our student missionary class at Southern, we were asked to write another story based on the question, “how have you changed in your time of service/how have you been able to change the lives of others?” For this blog, I will be posting the story I wrote, and the next blog will cover all that’s been going on for the past couple of weeks.

Enjoy:

With a whole semester of working with the kids behind me, I can honestly say I haven’t seen the changes in them that I expected. It’s easy to go into a year of service thinking that you’re going to make a huge difference in the lives of others. At least, that’s what I thought would happen. I would love to tell the story of how I changed the life of one of the kids here at our boarding school/orphanage, but the truth is, I’m the one who’s been changing.

Within a week of arriving here, I had figured out exactly who was going to be my problem child--I’m going to call him “Merrick”. Merrick just so happens to be one of the only kids who is truly an orphan. Some of the kids stay with us year-round due to unsafe home situations, but Merrick has no home and legally belongs to the school. Although I haven’t seen his files to confirm it, Merrick clearly suffers from some mental and learning disabilities. He is just about to turn seventeen, but has been placed in the 6th grade.

It was easy to see that Merrick was going to be a difficult kid to work with, but this only pushed me to make a stronger connection with him. “Maybe I can be the one who forms a deep bond with him and makes a huge impact on his life,” I thought. During first semester, things went pretty well. I felt as though I was bonding with Merrick, and he seemed to be fairly well behaved. This was going to be easier than I thought!

Wrong. About the time that summer vacation rolled around (being in the Southern Hemisphere, Bolivia has summer vacation from December to February) things became more difficult. With far less kids around and more free time, Merrick started to resist authority. The four boys, including Merrick, who weren’t able to go home due to their home situations were moved into one house where the remaining male volunteers took care of them. At one point during the vacation, the “male volunteers” consisted of just myself. It was about this time that things started to get really bad.

Another boy who was here for summer vacation had been specifically separated from Merrick because they fight a lot (both verbally and physically on occasion). But, with so few boys and only one staff member to watch them, they were forced to live in close quarters once again. This caused quite a few problems, but the real struggle was discipline. During vacation, the boys had the afternoons free, but in the mornings, there were chores to be done in the house and work to do all over campus. On certain days, Merrick would work hard and wouldn’t cause any issues, but other days, Merrick couldn’t even be convinced to get out of bed.

Merrick can be extremely stubborn, and when provoked, only resists more. One specific morning, Merrick refused to get up, refused to do his chores, refused to work, and refused to be convinced. My only option was to resort to some sort of discipline, but finding effective discipline for Merrick can be difficult. Assigning physical labor doesn’t work, because he just refuses to do that as well. Taking away privileges doesn’t seem to work either. Part of Merrick’s problem is that he doesn’t link current actions with future consequences. I could restrict him from participating in special Bible movie nights, or require him to stay on campus while the other kids get to go into town, but none of this registers with him. When the time comes for such a punishment to be fulfilled, he doesn’t realize that his previous behavior is the reason he is missing out on the fun, which only frustrates him further.

That specific morning, I decided to try disciplining him with an immediate consequence as opposed to a future one--taking away one of his Christmas toys. As soon as I grabbed his RC car and started to head down the stairs, he bolted out of bed and caught me by the collar of my shirt. “Give it back, teacher” he demanded. I explained to him that this was a consequence for his refusal to help out in the house and around campus. “I’m serious, teacher, give it back or I’m going to hit you… I’m going to hit you good.” My thoughts raced almost as fast as my heart as I tried to figure out what my next move was. Some might have prepared to fight back, but I decided to pray in that moment.

The verbal battle continued, but as I patiently tried to talk things through with Merrick, it became clear to me that he wasn’t really planning to hit me, although he continued to threaten to do so. After praying, I was impressed to show Merrick that circumstances like these can be resolved without turning to violence. Eventually, I got him to let go, and I returned to my room where I locked the door and prayed some more.

The next morning, I was hoping that Merrick had learned his lesson, but he only resisted more as I tried to wake him up and get him to do his chores. As the week progressed, his behavior only worsened despite the punishments that were put into place. It was then that I realized what was happening. The whole time, I had been trying to impact Merrick and change his behavior. Maybe things were operating in reverse. Maybe God was using Merrick to impact me in order to teach me patience and how to manage conflict. Merrick is not an easy kid to deal with, but maybe God was giving me the tools I need to care for him properly for the upcoming semester. Maybe God was using Merrick to train me so that I truly can make a deep impact on him later. When I look at it this way, I don’t feel as though I’ve failed to help Merrick. From this perspective, I see God teaching me first so that I can impact Merrick, and others, in the future.

Since the writing of this story, there have been some new developments with “Merrick”. It’s a good thing that I came to realization explained in the story, because Merrick’s behavior still hasn’t improved much. About a week ago, the director and I were planning to put some linoleum flooring down on the second story of my old house. After moving the roll of linoleum into the house and recruiting some boys to help us move the furniture, we took off to find the proper tools for the job.

After being gone for just fifteen minutes, we returned to something resembling “UFC Fight Night”. Merrick and another boy were viciously wrestling each other to the ground, and seeing the look on their faces confirmed that it wasn’t just a play-fight. The director and I jumped into action and separated the two, after which the other participant stood down and backed away. Merrick, however, required the two of us to hold him back from starting things up again. Only after the director threatened to call social services and the police did Merrick back down. With further investigation, we found that the fight had started after Merrick refused to help the other boys move the furniture.

Although it’s frustrating to not make any progress with Merrick, my new mindset is extremely comforting. Maybe I won’t have any impact at all, but God can still use Merrick to teach me a lesson in patience which is valuable in so many other situations. I pray every day for God to work on Merrick’s heart, and I know He has plans for Merrick. Whether or not I’m a significant part of those plans is a decision I will leave up to God.

TL;DR

The kids and volunteers are trickling back in for the start of the new school year. My day off has been changed to Wednesday, which means better food/shopping options and a new day for my bimonthly blog posts. Catch the first post of my new schedule in two days. I may be a missionary, but I still have homework assignments (see indented story above). Sometimes tough kids don’t soften up--I just see it as God training me to be more patient.

P.S. Because I couldn’t get into town today, I just included the pictures from my story. Similar pictures have been included in earlier posts, but these ones have different captions that relate to the story. They also can't be enlarged because they were copied and pasted directly from Google Docs, sorry about that!