“Give the world the best you have and it may never be
enough.
Give your best anyway.” –Mother Teresa
On Sept. 2nd, I wrote in my journal, “It seems like the problems are so large, how do you even help these girls without hurting in the process?”
For the past two weeks, I feel like I’ve been running on
empty…but somehow still running. All you
stay at home moms, I don’t know how you do it.
Really, I’m exhausted. The girls
have been on school break, so most of them went home to family members, except
Nonhlanhla, Sindi, Ayanda, Welile, and Lucia and Luciano. I was so excited for this to be a “break” for
me, too, but instead it seemed like more work than having a full house. Many secrets were brought to light over this
break about the behaviors of a number of the older girls. There will be definite disciplinary actions
awaiting the girls when they return from break.
It’s not easy coming up with
consequences. It’s not like in the
States where there are so many things (car keys, cell phone, computer, iPod,
etc.) you can take away from a kid, and there’s really no point in “grounding”
because they don’t really spend time outside the house anyway, other than to
and from school. Finding proper ways and
creative ways to discipline has been in itself exhausting, and sometimes the
problems combined seem too big to even worry about facing. There are reasons why these girls are acting
the way they are and living in deceit and darkness. They don’t come from easy lives and all are
jaded and scarred in more ways than one.
Daniel Walker wrote that sexual abuse is the worst crime against
humanity because it robs the person of her soul, her pride, her worthiness; it
“murders the person but leaves their bodies alive.” Why would one of these girls even care about
discipline if they feel they have nothing left anymore?
I’m trying to find the balance
between grace and punishment, because I still have high standards for my
girls. There are reasons but not
excuses. I don’t excuse their behavior but
I try to understand it first. That, too,
gets frustrating because others see that as me being too “soft” or inadvertently
encouraging bad behavior. A couple of
the girls themselves see that I am a very empathetic person and take advantage
of it by inflating their stories, exaggerating, or flat out lying, and that
makes me feel like giving up. Yet, I
still have the solid few that despite their own horror story of a past remain
righteous, obedient, faithful, and committed.
Too much focus on the negative takes away the glory of the positives, so
I don’t want to take away from everything they’ve done for me; for, they have
provided me some incredible “proud mama” moments recently:
The other night, I dismissed
everyone for bed but stayed out in the living room. The girls thought I went to my room and was
asleep, so they stayed up for quite some time.
I could’ve taken this as another frustrating moment because I had told
them all to go to sleep because it was already late. However, as I listened, I couldn’t bring
myself to interrupt. Nonhlanhla and
Sindi (blood sisters) were “practicing” English words to some worship songs I
had written down for them. They were
singing softly but got louder as they somehow randomly broke out in a Whitney
Houston song. Then they prayed aloud in
SiSwati and then continued singing and laughing with each other. At 1:00 a.m., I finally closed my journal and
went into their room. Nonhlanhla quickly
put her notebook down and Sindi pretended she was asleep. “That was so beautiful,” I told them.
“Oh, thank you, Mom!” Nonhlanhla
beamed.
“I hate to make this end, but you
really need your sleep,” I replied.
“Yes, Mom,” Sindi smiled and kissed
my cheek goodnight.
#proudmama
I took the
girls with me to do some singing and praying at the Hope House; even Gogo
Martha wanted to come! Melissa went with
me to each little house to invited the residents to the circle pavilion for
preaching and worship (a pastor was there to preach as well). I had my guitar so we sang some fun songs and
the girls were interacting with the residents to get them to dance and
laugh. The pastor did a mini sermon on
John 10:10 “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy,” and he did a
phenomenal job. After he finished Ayanda
whispered to me, “Can I say something, too?”
At my eager “yes,” she stood up, sweetly greeted the group, and began
preaching on Psalm 23:1. She was
beaming, the most beautiful I’ve seen her.
For, as Scripture says, “Those who look to Him are radiant and will
never be ashamed.” #proudmama
One morning,
I sat outside playing with Lucia and Luciano for awhile. Sindi and Welile came to join us. I had my basketball, so we were rolling it
and bouncing it around. Then Welile
asked how to dribble the ball like I do during games. It turned into an unexpected basketball
coaching session, and the girls were amazed at how I could dribble the ball
between my legs. After trying themselves
for quite some time, Welile yelled to me, “Mama Kate! Look! Look!” and she proceeded to successfully
dribble the ball between her legs.
#proudmama
Lucia is
not even three years old yet. She HAND
washes her own underwear, she sweeps the floor, she tries to pick up her little
brother (who’s almost bigger than her!), and she speaks two languages. Her English has gotten increasingly better;
in fact, she speaks better English than some of the older girls! For example, she conjugates verbs correctly,
which the older girls struggle to do.
The other day, she was on the couch and wanted to jump off. “Mama Kate, Mama Kate, Mama Kate,” she
pesters me until I look, “I’m jumping!”
I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t
just, “I jump,” but she had the verb correct.
She repeats much of what we say or do, which we have to be careful about
of course. I didn’t realize how much I
said this to her, but I tell Lucia, “Girl, you’re cray cray,” when she’s being
crazy (which is almost always). Well,
the other day I was driving and all of a sudden I hear “Cway, cway! Cway,
cway!” in my ear. I turn and there she
is giggling to get my attention.
Naturally, I can’t stop laughing because it’s so stinking cute, but now
she uses that to her advantage, so when I’m scolding her she’ll smile and say,
“Cway, cway” to get me to laugh. That
little stinker. Still, it’s a
#proudmamamoment.
Since Tenele
hadn’t been around for my basketball games, she and Melissa came to watch a
pick-up game at the local university.
After the game, I treated the girls to some KFC dinner since we had
missed supper time. Tenele and Melissa
had a heart to heart, mostly in English, which was surprising! Tenele shared about her past and opened up to
Melissa to encourage her to walk in righteousness. It was absolutely amazing. Tenele’s transformation as of lately has been
astounding. Her time at Project Canaan
was exactly what she needed to mature her and mold her into the leader she is
now. She identifies herself as one of
the “problem” girls in the home, but she wants to have a house meeting and talk
to everyone about how to walk in the light and not in darkness. Melissa soaked up what Tenele had to say and
she in turn also asked me if she could say something to the other older girls
on my behalf. #proudmama
Because Tenele has been raised in
abuse, that’s often how she disciplined her own kids. It’s taken me a long time to try to break
Tenele of this habit that is a part of their culture in Swaziland to beat
children. I can judge much of Tenele’s
heart and character based on how she’s treating her children. Since she has moved back from Project Canaan,
it has been a complete turnaround. I
have given her support, advice, and have shown her how I’ve been disciplining
them, especially Lucia. She actually
listens to me and follows my advice!
She’s been a phenomenal mother, and she is adorable with Luciano, who
says, “Ma-mah, Ma-Mah,” in the cutest voice ever! #proudgrandma
Lastly, still concerning Tenele’s
new freedom and walking in the light, she said something to me the other night
that counters my frustration I talked about at the beginning of this post. She said to me, “Mom? I know I’ve disappointed you so many times,
but because God give you the pure heart and heart forgiving, you keep fighting
for me. Other people look at us (girls
in the home) and say, ‘Ah, forget them.
I’m tired of them,’ and they give up on us.” She was encouraging better behavior from the
girls but empowering me at the same time to not give up on them. #proudmama
So, as Mother Teresa says, even
when my best isn’t enough and I want to give up, I will choose to give my best
anyway.
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