Thursday, May 28, 2009

Honky Tonk Badonkadonk

Shut my mouth, slap your grandma
There outta be a law
Get the Sheriff on the phone
Lord have mercy, how's she even get them britches on
That honky tonk badonkadonk

One of our girls has said several times that she has to “educate” me on music. Of course she wants to educate me on genres of music that I have intentionally remained ignorant of. One shining jewel of an example is the above song by Trace Atkins. This song is one of the many gems that have been on rotation in our house as of late. Lord have mercy indeed. The girls always want to listen to either Country or Rap. I listen to some Country and some Rap but anyone who knows me could probably not see me enjoying listening to songs about “getting sweaty on the dance floor.” Get jiggy with it…or…something. Just a few months ago I felt that my musical tastes were relatively cutting edge. Now apparently they have been relegated into the category of “old man music.” It happened so fast. Oh well, I suppose I will have to carry on somehow. As I write the baby was able to crawl over to the CD player, pull himself up and turn down the volume on my music. EVERYBODY is a critic.

Friday, May 22, 2009

long time no blog

It has been a long time since our last post. I guess instead of reflecting on life we have been spending our time trying to simply survive. We have had a rough last few weeks. Today, we (along with our supervisors) had to make the choice to have one of our girls detained by the DJJ (Department of Juvenile Justice). She will probably eventually be hospitalized. It was hard to do but we felt very at peace with the decision. She simply needs more intensive care than we can provide at our facility. Her behaviors were extreme to say the least and we had to think of the welfare of the other kids in our care. We hope that she felt the love of God in our house during the few months that she was with us.
There have been several intense situations that we have found ourselves in since we have been here. We have felt very blessed by the support that we have here. Just when we are at our lowest someone is there to make us find the comedy in the situation or to give us just the advice or comfort that we need to make it through another day and feel replenished. Life here is very hard but there is no doubt in my mind that we are living life to it’s fullest. So much of our time is spent on building relationships. It leaves me in awe to think of the community we have found here.
There have been so many moments amidst the recent mess that have made us laugh. Considering the kids we serve they are kind of dirty though. Not really appropriate for blog posting. Ultimately today we feel that our house will finally be a place of peace again. We will not be consumed with damage control. Because of the recent changes we will be able to focus on building meaningful relationships with the kids we have which is why we are here. We don’t know how long we will have the current kids that are in our care. For all we know it is very possible that we could have a completely different house of kids in the next couple months. I have constantly been reminded of the reality of how little time we have to make an impact on these lives. Hopefully our next blog will follow after considerably less time than this one.