Las Grandes/The Older Girls

The yard that I have been working in is the older girls yard. The yard (there are five different houses that share a common yard) range from girls with the ages fourteen to girls in their twenties (most girls in their twenties are special needs girls). I work with the special needs house. All of the five different houses have what would be considered special needs girls in them but my house has those that need a little extra time and attention.


In my house I have thirteen girls, there are six special needs girls and the other seven are older girls who help with the special needs. I shower, comb hair, brush teeth, and clothe four of the girls (Nohemy, Nickolle, Ofelia, and Lizeth) one of my older girls takes care of Ninoska and then the other girls are capable of taking care of themselves with a little supervision. 


In the yard we try to find activities to do with the girls which can be very difficult. Why is this you ask? Have you ever tried to plan activities for you teenage daughters? Try planning them for seventy girls with very different personality types. It can get very interesting. However trying to find things for these girls is very important so that we do not have them sitting around thinking about their situations. If you are a girl you know how our minds can wonder and create things, without us even realizing it. Well this is where Satan tends to come after our girls. So we try to keep them busy because busy hands can equal an occupied mind.


Since activities seem to be hard to come by we have started doing work groups. The different groups of girls will go with the different staff women that work in the yard and do things like cleaning the church, weeding the garden beds, and raking up leaves. Anything that will occupy them is what we try to do. In that there is a prayer request - Please pray that we will be able to have things to do during free times in the week so that we can occupy these girls hands and minds. With that hopefully we can teach them responsibility which seems to be lacking in our young ladies.

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 says "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody." I think this can sum up what we are hoping to teach the girls through these work groups. Do you know how hard it is to live in a yard with over seventy other girls and lead a quiet life? So I guess it is a good training time for these girls who do follow Christ. If they can learn how to do this verse with seventy other young ladies it won't be so difficult later on.

This is a very hard group for me to work with because they have been hurt already so much in their lives and they have so many barriers up. God has taught me a lot through working with these girls and I know has a lot more to show me in my next four months at Emmanuel. 

Please pray that these girls will open their hearts to the only on who will never leave them nor forsake them. Also please pray for me and the other staff women who work with these young ladies that we will come to the Lord each morning for strength the be His vessels and show them His LOVE and not our frustrations and fleshly attributes can sometimes bring with us.