Filed under: Blog
Why is it that all the crazy stuff tends to happen on Fridays?This Friday was probably the craziest and most amusing day I’ve had at this job, due to three unforeseen events. The first happened when I was driving into work at 7:30 and the parking lot was flooded with about 6 inches of water that was pouring rapidly from underneath the GED building. They weren’t open yet, so Bella and I looked up some numbers and found someone to call to come take care of it. Then I had to run to an IEP meeting. About an hour and a half later when I returned to my school, there were 4 cop cars parked in front of the GED building in the puddle, which seemed to have stopped growing. Eh, something with one of the continuation kids, I thought. But really, 4 cop cars??? Then when I turned the corner to the Head Start building there were 5 or 6 cops standing by our classrooms with their hands on their holsters. “Nothing major, nothing to be worried about” was the response I got when I asked what was going on. Went inside. Immediately the teachers started telling me what had happened during my meeting.Apparently, several of the moms had been huddled outside after dropping their kids off. These women are the most chismosas I’ve ever met. Loud, dramatic, emotional, Latin women. And it sounds like there were about 8 of them out there. While they were chatting, they saw a young guy going into the bushes. “He is going to make pee right here?” They wondered. Until he pulled a gun out of his “huevos” and buried in under some leaves.So the ring leader of the group tells the other women to cover for her and pretend they’re just talking as she proceeds to GO INTO THE BUSHES TO RETRIEVE THE GUN. But it gets worse. She decides to bring it inside the classroom where there are 20 preschoolers playing and PUT IT ON MY DESK. At least she had the good sense to hold it in a towel so her prints didn’t get on it. The details get fuzzy at this point, but somehow after the frantic moms yell, “Where is Emily, where is Emily?” Someone called the cops and they arrive at the scene and take posession of the gun. It was loaded with 3 bullets. One of the moms reportedly kept going back to my desk to peek under the towel, moaning, “Ay, Dios mio, si, es una PISTOLA!” Just like in the telenovelas.Later on the mom gets interviewed and describes the suspect, etc. She’s in and out of my office recounting the story to anyone who will listen, switching back and forth between English and Spanish. The police are also in and out to use our bathroom (they must have been drinking a LOT of coffee.) But because the door is locked, everyone is ringing the bell, which only rings in the office so I had to go back out through the classroom to let people in every few minutes. Meanwhile I’m on the phone with the executive director trying to decide whether or not to call all the parents to come pick the kids up or wait til 11:30 at the normal time. In the end we decided to wait and just keep the doors locked and not send the kids out to the playground. Eventually the cops found the guy, and in his backpack were the clothes he had been wearing earlier. All the teachers were freaked out that he would find out who turned him in and link it to us and come in on Monday to kill all the kids.Oh yeah, and incident number 3 of the day was that there was a fire in the food service kitchen and so the lunch was going to be delivered to late for the kids to eat before their parents came and so we almost had to give them cereal that was sitting around from this trail mix project they did a few weeks ago. Head Start is really big on eating at certain times and eating certain things and so it was just bad. So I had to go out and talk to the cops and let them know that I would be opening the door for the food man later and everything.Anyway… Interestingly, I was so calm all day. I did not feel endangered at all. Maybe it was a false sense of security, magnified by the fact that all I ever saw on my desk was the pile of dirt and leaves left by the police where the gun had been. But I think the whole day was an answer to pray for me.Let me explain.A few years ago when I was just starting to sense a call to poorer urban areas, I argued with God. I had such a protected and privileged background that I felt guilty for. I didn’t think I could ever be accepted by the people I felt called to — they would think I was some snooty white girl who didn’t understand their lives and their struggles. But God’s answer was that the safety and provision I had experienced growing up would be an asset because it was something I could take with me and offer to others who didn’t know what safety felt like.So while I may have been naive to not worry about the guy’s retaliation, or fear gangs, or be freaked out by the gun because I’ve never had to worry about things like that, it was almost a blessing that day. Those are very rational fears and it was totally normal for these moms and some of the other teachers to be worried about them. But I knew I was safe and that God would protect us, and that I was in authority both at the school and spiritually in order to bring that safety about.So that was my adventure at work on Friday. We’ll see what happens tomorrow!
Filed under: Blog
I was journaling today about how I long to know Jesus as a servant — how unworthy I am to even untie his sandals. And as a friend, as a bride — he seems so distant to me right now. I understand him now only as a child; I trust that I will never stray from his care. I am simple-minded and sleep in his arms while he wins the bread and takes care of my poop.Then I had a flashback to earlier this afternoon when I was sitting in the livingroom of some friends. The dad was asking me about senior trips as he is concerned about his daughter’s opportunity to go to Disneyland with her senior class. He was struggling with the issue of her being a trustworthy adult coupled with his fear of her possibly less trustworthy peers. He smiled at her and patted her shoulder saying, “Confiyo mucho en esta muchacha.” Then he turned to me and smiled, saying “Y me da mucha alegria ver esta muchacha.”CONFIYO MUCHO EN ESTA MUCHACHA. Y ME DA MUCHA ALEGRIA VER ESTA MUCHACHA. EVEN IF YOU NEVER KNOW ME AS MORE THAN A FATHER, THAT’S ENOUGH LOVE TO COVER EVERYTHING, God whispered.
