Fortress Week 2

Week 2 Fortress

This week we learned about Peace. We taught the children how we were nice to our friends and we did not fight. Here are some stories from this week…

Monday I went out to play hide-n-seek (this is becoming a daily thing but it is so cute and I love it) they are all hiding (well not really well because they are three) and I go looking for them. I walk outside and I hear them all in this one little plastic playhouse. I know that is where they are but Jack (has a bat in his hand and is standing in front of the door to the house) looks up at me and says “They gone.” It was so funny and really cute. I find them all in the house after looking everywhere else and Mack jumps out the window of the house. It is really funny to watch them all play.

Last week we learned about Joy and we told them that Joy meant really happy. Avery was doing a puzzle where you match opposite things together to make one piece and while she was doing that, she found a piece that said happy. She ran up to me and said teacher look we learned about this last week. It was really sweet.

By Wednesday, all the kids have gotten to know us really well. They are very hands on and want to sit in our laps when we are on the rug (it is a big rug that we do circle time on). It is kind of sweet but after awhile you get tired of little kids wanting to have their hands all over you. And if you know me really well I am not big on the whole touchy feely thing. I mean I like it every once in awhile but not all the time. I guess I am going to get out of my comfort zone this summer. :D It won’t be a bad thing.

This week with Urban, we went on a tour of the Presbyterian Night Shelter (PNS). That was amazing and very eye opening. It is a night shelter that takes is about 700 homeless people every night. They have a big building for men and woman with one side being men and the other side being women. We went upstairs and when you are up there, you can see down on all of the mats. As we are looking at this I was reminded of the invisible children DVD when it shows all of the kids sleeping side by side in a small room. That is what this felt like. There weren’t a lot of people there when we were but it was just rows and rows of mats maybe two inches from each other. That is a lot of people in one place but I think it is a good thing. I have driven down Lancaster (the street where most of Fort Worth’s homeless population lives) at night and there are still a ton of people on the street. If the PNS is taking in 700 people imagine how many more are still on the streets. It breaks my heart.

I hate to say this but Fort Worth is growing on me and it is becoming more and more a place where I would want to live. I really want to do some type of work with low income or poor families or just people and there is a lot of that in Fort Worth.

Well that is my week. It was a great one. I really love the kids I work with. They are all so sweet. Oh I almost forgot I have a new name. Anne doesn’t call me Miss Heather she calls me Miss Feather. It is kind of cute and if you know any of the new 7th grade girls at Highland they all call me Heather Feather Bird Duck Flamingo. Yes that is all one name. It is just funny that Anne calls me Feather. I kind of like it. :D

Fortress week 1

This week was the first week of summer JAM (Jesus and me). It was a great first week. This summer we are doing the fruits of the spirit. Every week we will be talking about love because it is the most important. The kids we are working with do not always receive love at home. This week we also learned about Joy. I am working with the preschoolers ages 3-5. They are really cute. The first day we had 8 children and the next two days we had 11. During outside time Anne has started asking me to play hide-n-seek with them. It is sweet. I count and they hide. They are not very good at hiding so I pretend to not see them and look everywhere else. They love this. Bob normally will yell and say, “We are over here.” I ignore this because the game would not be as much fun. We then go inside for some circle time where the children learn about the lesson for the day. This week we learned about our faces, bodies, and emotions, which led up to Joy. It was very interesting and the kids loved it. We drew ourselves and colored what we looked like one day, we finger painted one day to see that we were all had different finger prints, and we painted paper plates the color of our skin then found eyes, ears, noses, and mouths to make a face. Overall, I think it was a great week.

Two days this week, I got the opportunity to lead Urban Experience. For those that do not know Fortress has youth groups come in every week to help run the program and they go on some type of Urban Experience every day to learn a little about the neighborhood. The group I took went to Union Gospel Mission (the book “Same Kind of Difference As Me” was written about the mission) and got a tour. I loved this and got the idea that it would be somewhat neat to go volunteer to help feed or do something over there once a week after I finish at Fortress. I know that sounds crazy but working with homeless people is something that I enjoy. I am going to call tomorrow and see what I need to do in order to be able to volunteer.

I will end with a story. Bob is very cute and makes me laugh often. Today they were doing puzzles. Mike was doing a puzzle and dropped it as he went to put it up, Bob helped him pick it up and then told him here you go man just hold it with two hands. It was really cute. Bob has a really funny personality and often makes me laugh. <

Well, that is week one. I hope to sit down at the end of every week and write out what happened. We shall see how well that works.

**Names have been changed

Summer 2010

WOW I can't believe that summer is alerady here. It is going by so fast. I thought I would let the ones who read this still know what is going on in my life....

My summer plans are kind of crazy but I am going back to Fortress, babysitting, and working my normal job. Many people ask how this will look so here is a typical week for me this summer....

Sunday night I will drive to Fort Worth. Monday-Tuesday (and a few Wednesdays) I will be interning at Fortress. I am super pumped and I can't wait. I think it is going to be amazing and I am so excited about it. I will drive back to Abilene on Tuesday night.

Wednesdays are a little different every week but most weeks I will be babysitting two children one is a 5 year old boy and the other is a 4 year old girl so far it has been very eventful.

Thursday and Friday I will work my other job that I normally work during the school year. So that is going to be fun.

Saturday and Sunday I will have the day off to rest and just chill from the week. I will need it TRUST ME.

I know that this is a CRAZY summer schedule but I think it will be amazing and to be honest when I got the call asking me to come to Fortress I knew that it was going to make my summer crazy but I wanted to be there and I have a special place in my heart for that place and those kids. I will try to do a better job about blogging this summer but to be honest I don't know if it will happen. I will try though. This first week is going to be crazy because I am taking an online summer class right now and the first week of Fortress (next week) is my last week of class. Anyway this is my crazy summer and I will try to update it.

Love,
Heather

P.S. please be praying for me this summer. Thanks!