Robert and I had a lot of fun last week watching the great progress that CATCH! volunteers have made over the summer reading to children and creating relationships with them.

Monday night -we went out and watched more kids then even we knew were in the neighborhood gather for games, cupcakes and juice. We played lots of games and had a lot of laughs.

Koelsch Elementary gave us books last year. We handed part of them out that night. As I left I turned to see the whole field filled with children sitting in groups on the grass flipping through the pages. Even the elders of the community, who had been given books for their families, sat at the table flipping through the pages talking about the books. It was great to see.

I had almost reached our car when I felt a little hand tuck itself into mine. I looked down to see a small child. He looked up at me and said "Why won't you let the people come any more on Monday nights?" It was a bittersweet question but I knew then that the kids had been caught by CATCH!

The next morning I was at the Langauge Academy when a mother and a group of children came in. Some of the kids had been at the party the night before and started talking about it. They were laughing and having fun remembering it. The mother asked what we were talking about. I told her about the Summer Reading Program. She then... and this I couldn't believe... started selling me on the neighborhood she lives in and telling me who was there and why it is so important that we do reading there. Fortunately this neighborhood is on my list for next year.

Tuesday Night- We again had a great time watching kids play games and again more children came out of the woodwork. This neighborhood has a lot of the new families that Robert & I are currently working to put into school. They had just met us in the past two weeks so it was fun to see them venture out and come bravely to the party. We were able to hand out at least fifty books that night.

At this party the question came "What are we going to do next? What do you guys have planned?" As we left this neighborhood, a group of mothers who have often sat together on the outskirts of the reading caught up with Robert & I and thanked us. We want to pass the thanks on to the volunteers of CATCH! You guys did a great job- showing up regularly and getting to know the kids. THANKS!

Wednesday Night- This neighborhood is our newest neighborhood. We were only able to put one team in it this summer but what a great team they were. It was made up of a natural teacher, a high school young lady who we put in school when she was a refugee six years ago and her blessed mother who came and helped out. Again lots of children came and enjoyed the games and snacks.

This is a neighborhood that we don't know very well yet so we had to rely on our volunteers who know the neighborhood and the kids better then we. It was a blessing to see the kids run up the them and interact.

One of the kids from one of our other neighborhoods ran up to me when she saw me and said "You guys are here too?! Cool! I'm gonna' move here so I can still see you guys. All my cousins are here." It is all about relationships.

I watched Robert as he sat, arm around a Burundian man, one of his friends. They were having a long conversation in French. They laughed and they talked and they enjoyed each other. When we left I asked what they had been talking about. Robert said that one of the main things was summer reading. The man was requesting that we plan to have the reading time more then one time a week and talking about why it is so important to the kids. The parents love this!

Thursday Night (Party One) was quite a night. We had two parties that night. The first party was with a small neighborhood. When we rolled into the neighborhood I overheard two volunteers having a conversation about where the third one was. They pointed to the van so we all knew she was in the area. Just as we were wondering we saw her. She was coming down the road with one (perhaps) two children hanging from her back, children beside her, children walking backwards in front of her and children following. We had found our missing volunteer. She delivered them to the hill and off we went. Robert played games with the kids, red rover, red light green light and finally freeze tag and then a tired bunch sat on the hill to listen to a book. CATCH! volunteers handed out cupcakes and juice to many kids and then we passed out books. These books were different books as one of the vounteers had been given them. She has about 400!!! We will be passing out books for a long time! YAY!

I watched one child. She would be given a book- run to a nearby rock. Sit and read the book quickly and then bring it back timidly at first- bravely later as she was greeted happily. A volunteer would trade her books and she would repeat the action. She did this several times until finally someone understood what she was doing and happily pulled a small stack of books out for her to take home and read at her leisure.

Another young boy- eyes wide- pleading- asked if he could have more then one book. I ask you- if someone wants to read more then one book should they be turned away? I think not! He too was presented with a small stack of books and told to take them home. The smile was worth so much!!


Thursday Night (Party Two) The Weisel family pulled into the second neighborhood at about 8:30. We were a tired crew but were so looking forward to this last party. In this neighborhood early on the idea had come up of showing a movie outside for the last night. When we got there a makeshift screen comprised of a sheet had been put up. A table with electronic gadgets was in place and the screen was lit and ready to show a movie. I put the blanket that we have been carrying in our car this summer for just such a purpose, down on the grass and plopped down. Robert went over to check on volunteers and my children were immediately lost in a sea of children, favorite friends. As I watched I saw more volunteers come into the neighborhood (this neighborhood was full of readers this year- a team on every night here).

Two volunteers were carrying bags of candy and passing them out to other people sitting on blankets or in chairs. Two other volunteers brought in laundry baskets full of neatly bagged popcorn.

I felt like I was literally in heaven. Or at least the place I pray for all of the time. On blankets all around me were Americans (who lived in the neighborhood or were volunteering), Bhutanese, Burmese, Burundians, Iraqis, Iranians, Sudanese, Mexican, Congolese, the few Armenians (Robert had company that night) and others I am certain to have forgotten. Turkish men gathered together watching the movie and chatting. Turkish women on the sidewalk, mothers and fathers, families sitting together. My favorite blankets of all were the ones that contained Turkish boys laughing next to African children who had lifted handfuls of popcorn up to their mouth but had gotten so involved in the action on the screen they had forgotten to get the popcorn all of the way to they mouths.

Then there was the little girl. One of our volunteers had joined me on our blanket. My husband was with the guys, my boys with their pals and our daughter had stayed with me. A little girl who spoke no English but had a great smile had joined her. My daughter leaned on my arm. The little girl smiled at me and my friend. We smiled back. The little girl moved closer to us. Then in between us and by the time we had gotten well into the movie she was happily wedged onto the lap of my friend, smiling away.

It was a great week. I have said we were blessed this summer with great volunteers and hopefully now you can see even better why it is that I think so. They love the kids that are so important to us.


For those of you who love stats

5 neighborhoods
4 nights a wk (at most)
27 volunteers
4000 reads. That means that the numbers reported to me by volunteers means that children often the same kids came to reading in the neighborhoods and we had 2000 contacts. That is good anyway you count it!!

Please don’t forget we are still in need of school supplies. School starts on Monday August 25^th for most of our kids!

Here is a link to our supply list http://www.catchlife.net/get-involved.html

If it would be more convenient we can purchase the supplies for you. Check out the “MAKE A DONATION” button.

THANKS CATCH! VOLUNTEERS!!!

That Darn Question

Talking to people is always interesting, especially in this work. Again a family came to meet us and again the subject of "where is your father" came up. I have learned not to ask this question with any casualty. If the question comes up I do all I can to control the selfish urge to plug my ears and begin humming loudly. But alas the question comes up and I hold tight waiting for the answer.

The answers to that question range from "don't know" to "we're divorced" to "he was blown up by a suicide bomber." or "killed by vehabija."

What do I learn from the answers to that question.

*to be grateful
*to be aware of others-everyone has their own set of experiences they are dealing with.
*to be very careful what I feel the luxury to complain about. It could always be so much worse.

I was also so very pleased and grateful to the Serbian military for their work of the past months. Check out the latest news! It is absolutely thrilling!

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/radovan_karadzic/index.html?excamp=GGGNkaradzicnews&WT.srch=1&WT.mc_ev=click&WT.mc_id=GN-S-E-GG-NA-S-karadzic_news

Summer Reading So Far!!

It has been such a long time since I was able to come here and sit down and write a blog. It has been a very busy and fruitful time. I decided to share with you the progress of summer reading thus far.

We have five neighborhoods going this summer. We have been blessed with 30 volunteers and a few more waiting in the wings for training times to come up so we can plug them in.

Another first we are doing this year is that one of the kids we registered in school seven years ago is now volunteering for us as a reader. That is fun. She needs volunteer hours for her school and we love having her.

It has been a great summer thus far and we are just getting started.

Come join us for summer reading!

Mr. Jay Comes to Dinner

Thursday was Jay Clark's birthday! Robert called him and invited him to dinner. I had it all planned out. We had chicken in the freezer, potatoes and corn. Joy would bake cake and we were set. I felt so organized and ready to go when I woke up in the morning.

Then Rachel called. The girls were staying home from school to pack while she was at work. Would I show them where boxes were? I took them to find boxes. During this time Robert is at a school working.

It was an early release so I took Joetta to her new school to meet her teachers and get ready as well as see her new apartment. Then finally about two o'clock I took them all home after getting as many boxes as I could find.

When I dropped them off I saw a translator I had been trying to reach. I grabbed him, called a school, set up a meeting, made arrangements to let the family know and put another meeting on my schedule for next week.

Robert & I got home and began to talk about dinner for Jay. I got called because a Sudanese family's foodstamps hadn't come and the mother was worried about feeding her children for the weekend.

I went and got them and headed to H&W. She and I and her five kids sat around a waiting room...waiting.

While we were there a Bantu family walked in. The oldest daughter had an issue that I needed to visit the family for so we were able to talk about it there. One thing off of my plate, just need to follow up now. The same family requested our help with school- they had one child ready for "K" and another ready for Headstart. I made a call to Headstart while I was sitting there.

As we are still sitting there waiting, a Turkish family came in. Again they had school aged kids and they were moving. Could we help them change the children's schools (four kids, three schools?). I added it to my schedule for next week.

We went in to the office. I was actually very impressed with the H&W office. The caseworke that narrated on this case yesterday was very kind. She was patient with 5 kids in her office. We walked out with food stamps for the kids by 5pm. We had started this process at 3:30pm. I really didn't expect that!

As I am taking this family home- I call Robert to see if he can start working on dinner. He had pulled the chicken. We had one large pack of legs and a large pack of breasts that had mistakenly gotten put away in the freezer before we had portioned it out. I was bummed. We only needed enough for 7 people and had food for a lot more people. Robert & I decided to cook it all and we would just eat a lot of chicken left overs.

As I was dropping the family home I watched the kids walking away. They have been wanting to come to our house since last summer. They love our two youngest children so they asked me to say "Hi" to them. I looked at them, thought of how much my kids would love to see them, thought about Jay and how much he likes these two kids and decided to ask their mother if I could take them for the night. Yes! Nine people instead of 7.

On the way home I went to the store to get potatoes. As we were walking up to the door the kids saw the girl scouts selling cookies. "Can we get some?" I see behind the table one of the
women we work with and enjoy at one of our schools. I stop to say "Hi" and buy a box of cookies.

I walk in the store. When I walk up to the produce I saw two people from my past who obviously hadn't seen each other for a long time. I stopped with my two charges to talk with them. Again one of them was involved in an organization that Robert and I had wanted to refresh our knowledge of and partner with again. I found out they have a meeting tonight. "Do I want to come?" (that is still up in the air- I really want to sleep)

We check out- I talk a bit to the cashier that I see almost on a daily basis and then I head home. On the way home my phone rings. A Kenyan friend of mine needs to visit a friend in trouble at the hospital. Can she bring her three year old over for a couple of hours? "Sure." I say "Has she eaten?" No. Ten for dinner.

I get home with my charges. My children yell from their rooms and come tearing down to greet their friends. Robert and the kids have cleaned the house very well, put the chicken in the oven and peeled the potatoes we had.

I peel potatoes, get the table set and Jay comes. He and Robert sit and talk for awhile. F and her three year old daughter come. I ask F if she has eaten. No, but she needs to get to the hospital. "Do you want me to save you some?" She would love that. 11 for dinner.

I am putting food on the table...the phone rings...it is Joetta. One of the kids in her neighborhood , who is one of our cases has gotten hurt. He hit his head very hard and is walking around the neighborhood, scared, not listening, making no sense and acting paranoid. Can Robert come? He and Joy leave. Jay, our kids, visiting kids and I sit down to eat. Robert spends time trying to find the boy and get the boy come with him to the hospital. to Robert delivers boy, father of boy, brother of boy, and translator to the emergency room. When all had settled down and he was no longer needed at the hospital he leaves for home and dinner.

Robert is home, Jay and he are talking, S comes, I serve her the plate I have saved for her dinner. We eat a birthday cake and sing "Happy Birthday to Jay" the reason we are here. At nine Jay leaves for another appointment. God bless Jay. He isn't upset that all of these people crashed his birthday. Instead he enjoys it, laughs with the kids and blesses all of us.

I take S and together we deliver my charges home. When we get back to my home S and I sit and down and talk until midnight about issues she is dealing with.

The food that was too much hours ago is now just enough. The five pound sack of potatoes is gone, the large bag of corn is gone, there are a couple of pieces of chicken for someones lunch today and one last piece of cake.

This is not an unusually busy day at our home. Instead it can be fairly normal. We walk around, we meet new people or we know people. With almost every encounter during the day a request for action is made from us. We have to draw our boundaries tightly because of this. Some things we will do, some we send to others, and some we just won't do.

As for dinner- a typical American home I believe asks a certain group of people to dinner @ 6pm. They come, have a great time and the guests leave graciously around 9pm. In all of the other cultures we work in being invited is rude and means that you really don't like the person. It is normal for people to just come by around dinner time and eat with you. It is also rude if a guest leaves a few hours after dinner or if you expect your guest to leave.

Yes, I know we are in America and that people need to learn our ways... However they often know our ways and miss some of their own. They miss that connection that you get spending time around food talking and laughing. It is amazing the relationships that we build sitting at their table or our own. Thanks Jay for letting so many people crash your party!

Friends!

It is so fun when you get to make contact with a friend that you have not spoken to in a long time and find that they are doing very well and making a significant difference in the lives of people around them.

This week I "googled" someone I had been thinking about a lot and found her. Check out this link and see what great things she is doing!

http://oregonstate.edu/leadership/president/2007Report/eda.php

Eda and her family were good friends of mine before I got married when I lived in Oregon. They came to Robert and my wedding and for years we made the trip up to Oregon to see them until kids made the trip more difficult. We eventually just lost contact. I am so excited to see what she has been up to over the years.

Good job Eda!