Tough love

It's not always rainbows and ice cream when I'm spending time with the kids, sometimes I have to give some fatherly discipline too.  This past weekend was a good example of just that.  Everything was going pretty well until it was time to go to Bible class Saturday afternoon.  They are supposed to leave at 4:00 so I started telling them all to get ready around 3:00, which they replied with "we'll get ready at 3:30".  So I let them slack a little in getting ready.  I'm not technically on duty Saturday afternoons, I'm just there to hang out and spend time with them, so I figured that I would let the house mom handle getting them ready to go.  Well come 4:15 I walk into the house and six out of the seven older boys are still there and definitely not ready to go.  So I got them out the door by taking away soccer balls and other privileges.  I walked them to the church with Sam because we were headed into town to get a car to Jeque.  So we get there and they enter through the back door, but as I look through the front door there are three of them missing.  I walk inside and find them hiding in the bathroom.  Well I put the fear of God into them and they quickly walked to their class.  I also told them that I was going to talk with the teacher and if I heard any more complaints about them that there would be more punishment.

So while they were in class Sam and I went to Jeque to eat dinner with Auden and Wendy who were just returning from their three month visit in the states.  We had BBQ hamburgers and Auden's delicious grilled teryaki chicken.  For desert we ate one of the yellow cakes and chocolate icing that my awesome sisters sent me. We even played catch with a baseball.  It was like a real american backyard grill out, haha.

Returning stuffed from the BBQ I knew that it was time to have a house meeting.  The boys behavior this weekend and especially this afternoon was just not acceptable.  So I told them that we were going to have a meeting soon, and some of them already feeling shameful went to their beds to try and sleep through it.  But when it was time I went and got them out of the beds.  The greatest offenders came in with their heads down already feeling a little shameful one even had a stocking hat pulled all the way over his face that I had to take from him.  My speech went something like this, "Do you all understand why I'm here, why I'm in Peru?  Do you understand why I come every weekend?"  wait for their answer...one said "to spend time with us, and to rest."  So I responded, "The reason I'm here is because I care about you guys, you and your futures are important to me.  So yes I come here to spend time with you, but I also come here because I want to see you succeed.  If I just wanted to rest I would stay in Trujillo and do nothing on the weekends."  Quiet..."What I'm asking of you guys is that you respect me and that you behave in the manner that you know you must behave. If you don't want to do that, if you don't want me to be here tell me." more silence..."Then do you guys understand what I'm saying to you?"  They nod their heads in silence and Angel realizes that Nelson is not nodding, so Angel reaches over and pushes Nelson's head back and forth. "Ok, for those of you that hid in the bathrooms today, go to your rooms."   All of them that knew they had behaved badly were very remorseful while those that knew they were behaving well were feeling really good.  The next day one of the greatest offenders apologized to me, while the other two still didn't want to look at me.  However when it came time for me to leave Sunday afternoon they were all back to normal and wanting to keep playing with me.

On a lighter funny note.  Last night I had a huge scare.  I woke up to what I thought was something stinging or biting me and I flipped back the covers and saw a big black something.  I pretty much freaked out, flipped out of my bed onto the floor wound myself all up in my covers, then took a closer look at the suspect.  It was my headphones wound up that I forgot were in my bed when I fell asleep.  They had wound up tight against my legs and the rubber cords were pulling out my leg hairs.  So then I laughed and went back to sleep very relieved that it was my headphones and not a scorpion.