This past week has been a challenge to say the least. Each time we get new students, there is an adjustment time, especially since most of these kids have never had to follow  hard and fast rules. The five new students were no exception, other than maybe they were more traumatized than most.

When they arrived, I sat them down and went over the rules with them. They all listened intently, and agreed wholeheartedly that they would obey all the rules.( They later told one of the other students that they only had to follow rules while I was looking. As long as I didn’t know, it wouldn’t be bad!) Then I told them about the schedule. A schedule? Why, they have not had to follow a schedule before! Work?? Who needs to work anyway. They came to study, not work. Since we had told them before they came that school was not starting for a while, and that they could only come early if they wanted to help get things ready, their attitude came as a surprise to me. At the end of the first week, two of the students left, saying that they would come back when school started. Then last week, all three of the others decided to go home too. When asked why, they said that they did not like working, and they don’t like sleeping in the kitchen.

There wasn’t much I could do about the accommodations until we get the dorm built, so I couldn’t fix that for them. And, I kindly explained to them that working is part of the program here. It will make them better people in the long run, so it is something that we plan to do everyday, even after the dorm is built. They were shocked! These kids had never been expected to do any work before, and they didn’t like it. Although they have lived here all their lives, they did not know anything about working with bamboo or building houses. They told us that Americans are just really smart, and that is why we know how to do it already. We explained to them that all it takes is hard work and a lot of effort and you can do anything you want. They looked rather skeptical. (there is a vast difference in the kids who grow up in town, rather than out in the jungles. We get both extremes…kids who know nothing but work, and kids that don’t know how to work at all)

But, while all this was going on, all my orphans, and the two other new students were having the time of their lives. We all work together, and we were getting a fair amount done around the place. We also play together, and do all kinds of neat things. We also decided to start studying in the afternoons since it rains then and is hard to work outside. My disgruntled students couldn’t help but be affected by the other’s attitudes. They started to soften somewhat. But, they had already made their phone calls asking people to come and get them. So, today they all left…but they told us that they plan to come back next week.

Each one of these children has great potential. I know that they are pretty naughty right now, but it is because of lack of training and education. Please pray that God’s will would be done, and that they would come back if that would be best.

In the mean time, we hear that more students are walking our way. God has been really good to us, and we were able to purchase the foundation materials for a bamboo dorm. It will be exceedingly small, but that is OK. Thank you so much to all those who helped make this start to happen.