The Van Ministry

In our church we have a very important out-reach program that we call the Van Ministry. For every church service/bible study/class/whatever is going on at the church, the church sends out about eight 15-passenger vans to go pick up kids who live in Lincoln. Most of the kids that they pick up come from a predominately Nygerian community; these kids are so precious. Most of the kids come from pretty sketchy home life situations, which makes me even more sad. All lot of these kids were raised in homes where discipline was not present at all, so they don't really know how to act in public, which creates problems in classrooms.

Tonight was the PreK-6th grade concert at church. The concert was from 6:00 pm-6:45 pm, and then during the sermon (6:45-7:30) were the Girls of Grace Christmas parties. I had been at church since 5 setting up for my little 1st graders' party. First they were going to have a tea party, then do a "JOY" craft, and then play this Christmas Carol game that I made. After the concert, I went down to the rehearsal room and picked up all of my little 1st graders and we headed back to the room. We started the tea party, and I was passing out food like a mad woman. After going through 3 packages of gummy worms, one whole bag of cookies, and two whole bags of tiny sandwhiches, my little girls were still hungery. I jokingly said, "Don't your parents feed you?" One of the little Nygerian girls, Warga, looked up to me and said, "No". I started crying. I just couldn't hold it in.I excused myself to teh restroom, leaving the girls with the two adult Girls of Grace leaders, and tried to put myself together. I cried in the bathroom for a couple of minutes, but then decided that I needed to be in the classroom doing my job. My red puffy eyes were very noticable, and four laidies stopped me on the way back to the classroom to ask me if I was okay.

When I got back to the room, Jen and Heather (the adult leaders) asked me to take all of the girls to the bathroom so they could relieve themselves. (This is one of the responsibilities of Junior Leaders.) In the bathroom, Warga and Nyalengk, the two Nygerian girls in my class of 1st graders, were arguing, but it wasn't usual first grader arguing. They were arguing about who's "waste product" smelled worse. "Nya, your crap stinked so bad right now girl. Mine crap smells waaay better than yours." "Warga, that ain't fair! I eated a burrito for lunch!" This made me laugh, although I hid my laughter.

After that, we made "JOY" ornaments that all of the girls got to take home to put on their trees. As we were cleaning up the mess and preparing for the caroling game, Warga came up to be with her ornament. "Annnaataaayyshhha! My paper falled off my ornament." It would be an easy fix, but Jen had already taken the craft supplies back down to the craft library. So I said, "Warga sweetie, I don't have the glue with me right now, but I'll show you how to glue it, so you can do it at home with your mom." Her reply absolutely shattered my heart, "She don't love me. She ain't gonna help me. All she loves is her needle shots and her smoking." I lost it. I picked the little girl up and hugged her. I bawled like a baby. When Jen returned I told her that I needed to leave for a while to put myself together. I looked her in the eye and told her I would explain later. I ran down that hallway with tears streaming down my face. I sat on that bathroom floor and cried and cried and cried. When I regained my composure, I went back in the class and I started the game with the girls. It involved a lot of singing, which lifted my attitude a little bit. Then parents started showing up, so I had to take Warga and Nyalengk down to the over-hang where the vans were being loaded. Our church is pretty big, so it took us a while to get all the way down there. As I was helping the girls into the vans, Warga looked at me and said, "I love you, Annataayyshha! I'll come every week so I can see you and we can make crafts." This broke my heart again. I cried all the way back up to the room, and almost all the way home.

These girls are so precious; all of the children are. Maybe I'm just a big softy, but I would adopt every single one of those kids if I could. I'll probably end up being the OCD single 50-year-old who has 21 different adopted kids all under the age of 10. I hope not, but who knows... God's got a plan.