It Made Me Smile When...

A boy was trying to steal a girl's spot on the couch and in the process he hurt her finger. She made an overly big deal about it, which made him really mad. I talked to him about letting go of his anger, but he seemed unable to do so and seethed in the corner for at least an hour. After a while, I glanced across the room to see the girl he "hurt" and him apologizing to one another and giving each other a big hug!

Sunday morning I was emotionally and physically drained from dealing with students who had been telling lies and trying to steal another student's property. The mood of the entire group that morning was somber as half the group was waiting to see who would face consequences for the night before. Three girls (who are never behavior problems) came up to me and gave me a card that said they hoped I would cheer up and feel better soon, because I seemed sad. They had also drawn me pictures. At the bottom of the card they each printed their name and signed in cursive above the printing--all official-like.

In the car, on the way home there were two girls who seriously asked me "are we there yet?" and "how much longer will it be?" every 10-15 minutes! (It was just like the family vacation movies). One of them didn't seem to get the concept of cities and towns.
--She asked, "Are we still in Tillamook?"
--"No," I replied, "We left Tillamook about 15 minutes ago."
--"Yes! So we're in Portland, now?"
--"Uhhh...no."
--"Well then where are we?!"
--"We're in the mountains...on Highway 6...between Tillamook and Portland."
--"Oh."
Then about 15 minutes later...
--"Kristi, now are we in Portland?"
--"Nope, we're still in the mountains."
--"Are you sure we're not in Tillamook?"
--"Yep, I'm sure."
Just a couple minutes later...
--"That sign said Tillamook on it!" she shrieked accusingly.
--"It said Tillamook State Forest," I explained, "we're still in the forest, but not the city."
--"Oh, good," she sounded relieved, "so we're in Portland now?"
At this point I decided it was time to explain something to this carload of kids.
--"Everyone look up here," I called, interrupting a serious argument between two girls over whose dad or stepdad was the horriblest father. "Have you guys ever seen one of these weird things? It's like a big piece of paper." I drew an imaginary rectangle on the windshield of the van. "There are little dots and circles on the paper with names of cities and towns, and inbetween them are lines that represent the roads that connect the cities and towns."
--"They're called maps, Kristi," called a seventh-grader patronizlingly.
--"Oh yes, thanks. I always forget things...anyway these maps. If we had one right now, it would show Tillamook over here," I said as I pointed to a spot on the windshield near the passenger side, "and it would have a bigger circle over here that said 'Portland,'" I pointed to the driver's side. "Now there are roads connecting the two cities and we would be right about here, inbetween the two." I pointed to the center of the windshield emphatically. "We're still in the mountains--in the mountains in-between the cities of Tillamook and Portland."
Everything seemed fine until Highway 6 dumped out onto Highway 26, then...
--"Kristi, now are we in Portland?"
--"No, we're still about 30 minutes away."
Several minutes later the same girl read a sign on the road announcing that we would soon be reaching the Hillsboro exits.
--She turned excitedly to the student next to her and exclaimed, "Hillsboro! Yesss!!! We're in Portland!"

Toward the end of our car ride, one of the students needed to use the restroom very badly. To keep her mind off of her desperation, she decided to teach the rest of the van how to count in Spanish. The other students listened respectfully to her as she rattled off her spanish numbers: "once-uno, once-dos, once-tres....doce-uno, doce-dos, doce-tres...", etc. But my favorite came after the "treces" when she said, "Sometimes I forget forty--oh yeah, it's quartito! Quartito-uno, quartito-dos, quartito-tres..." I thought about correcting her, but it was keeping her mind off going to the bathroom--and besides I wanted to see what she would call fifty!

Sunday night, one of the girls I had sent home without ice cream called me after 10:00 PM. "I was in bed, but I couldn't sleep," she explained, "and I decided it was because I needed to apologize to you for being bad this weekend." I thanked her and told her I had forgiven her and then we had a great talk during which she admitted to me, "I'm sad that even though I was telling the truth you couldn't believe me because I have told so many other lies."

In one of the small groups last Tuesday one of the students had just shared something semi-personal, when she suddenly asked, "Can I make a rule for this small group we're having?" I told her to go ahead, assuming that she was going to request that we not share her story outside of the group. Instead she said, "Let's say that we cannot chew chips while other people are talking--sometimes chewing is really loud!"

In that same group we were talking about kindness. "What sorts of people are hard to show kindness to?" I asked. One student's hand shot up into the air, "I know: cheerleaders!"

I was looking around the room and I happened to notice one girl burp, and then puff out her cheeks, holding the burp in her mouth. She looked like a chipmunk with nuts bulging in her cheeks and I watched (unbeknownst to her) as she held her burp-air in her mouth for about 20 seconds before slowly blowing it out.

In the evening life group, we were sharing with one another how we rated ourselves at showing love to people the past week. I told the group I felt that I had done very well at loving people that are difficult to love, "I asked God for love for them," I told them excitedly, "and that love was just pourin' out!" One boy looked up startled, "Did you just say that love was porno?"