Celebrating Children (Week Eleven)

Greg Burch (Ph.D.), who teaches cross-cultural studies and children at risk issues at the ESEPA Seminary in San José, mainly shared on two of the three principals in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, protection and participation, including writing a child protection policy and protocols. Greg also talked about the need for a cyclical (or spiral is probably a more appropriate word) approach in ministry, where reflection is followed by action, action in its turn by reflection, and so on.

Interestingly, Greg alternated between theory and real-life stories throughout his teaching. I was very moved by a story he told us about a street boy named Douglas. Greg has worked with street children in Caracas, Venezuela, for six years, and during that time, when Douglas was about twelve, Greg was able to take him to a rescue house for street boys. Douglas wanted to be a Chrstian (which was in no way a perquisite for staying at the rescue house!), but during the years that followed went back and forth between his decision and the pull of the street lifestyle he knew. One minute he would be ministering to his friends and the next he'd take part in assaulting people to rob their money. In his late teens he got arrested and sentenced to prison. Greg explained that in Venezuelan prisons there are no cells, nor guards on the inside of the prison area. Instead, there’s one big space where the inmates live. The area is divided into different sections among the inmates, depending on who you identify with. For instance, the most violent inmates have their own section, as do the born again Christians. Greg also clarified that in prison there is no gray area in following Christ, you either do or you don’t.

When Douglas first arrived in prison, he was confronted by an inmate from the violent section, who hit him right in the face with his fist. What do you think happened? How do you picture Douglas reacting? He turned the other cheek. Literally. And the prisoner, along with all his witnessing fellow prisoners, knew immediately what it meant. Douglas had made his choice. From then on, he has followed Christ whole-heartedly. He now has a family and together with his wife is the director of a home for street children. A rare story, but a story definitely worth telling.  

Children with Disabilities / Attachment Disorder / Foster Care (Week Ten)

This week we covered a few different topics. On Monday and Tuesday Leslie Freeman taught us on children with disabilities and on attachment disorder. On Wednesday Jill Aspegren shared from her wealth of experience and knowledge in directing a children's home and pioneering in the field of foster care. Her and her husband Philip Aspegren are the founders and executive directors of Casa Viva, an organisation that provides quality foster care solutions in Costa Rica. The organisation works together with the national government, is mainly funded by Costa Ricans, and the employees as well as the foster care families are nationals. You can read a little more of Jill and Philip's story here.

I was eager to understand more about reactive attachment disorder (RAD), which I knew very little about, although needless to say, if I was ever working with a child who has RAD, I would have to do a whole lot more research. I asked Leslie if there was a link between RAD and narcissistic personality disorder and she confirmed that without intervention RAD could definitely lead to serious emotional and mental problems, even a borderline personality, which makes me wonder what the correllation is simply between insecure attachment and emotional and personality disorders.

In my heart I've been fostering the hope of working in early childhood special education , but have often questioned if spending yet another year studying, in a way investing in myself, made any sense, when there are SO MANY children in need NOW. During Leslie's teaching, however, my hope was renewed. I felt a deep peace and excitement about the prospect. And I also started thinking more about what it would mean in a developing world context as well as in a more developed country.

Street Children (Week Nine)

Mati Gali, a native Samoan, who together with his wife Julie is in charge of the YWAM base in Recife, Brazil, shared with us some of his experiences in being called to a new country and working with street children. Mati appears in a book called A Cry from the Streets, which is written by Jeannette Lukasse. The entire first chapter is available online. In reference to his experience described in the excerpt, Mati told us: “For me, I felt what the kids feel. It happened to me once, it happens to them every day, even today…”   

There are tens of millions, if not a hundred million, street children in the world. According to some sources there are eight million in Brazil alone. Mati explained that typically street children will sleep during the day because it’s too dangerous for them to sleep at night. When they’re awake they will almost constantly be sniffing glue to numb their anxiety. Since the effect of the cheap shoe glue they use lasts five minutes, you often see a bag of glue hanging from their mouth. Some of the children Mati knows like to hang on the sides of buses and sometimes an irritated driver will deliberately drive past a post so close it will hit a child. The children eat and drink what they can and steal to survive. They’re violent and impulsive and for self-protection usually sleep with a knife. The little children are sexually abused and the older ones seek acceptance by being sexually active. Consequently, there’s an entire new category of street children, street babies, who have actually been born into the street life.

“You’re working with kids who have been completely destroyed, since they have been babies, some of them,” Mati explained. He said we like to see the fruit of our labour immediately, but need to be able to accept the brokenness in the children we’re working with, “to be wise and slow”. Our consistency in showing God’s love and grace cannot depend on immediate or even visible results. Mati told us that people are often interested to know how many children there are in a restoration house, not how the children are doing. But we need to be people who value quality over quantity. Firstly, a high adult child ratio is not healthy for the children, and secondly, staff working with a relatively high number of children is likely to burn out.

During Mati’s week we had the privilege of hearing one of the discipleship training school students, a former street kid, give us his testimony. At the tender age of seven he had decided to live on the streets, where he started using hard drugs. He survived and eventually rose in the street hierarchy by delivering drugs and robbing people. After years of the street lifestyle he came into contact with a Christian ministry, which over a period of time, led him to leave his street life behind. He now shares his testimony in prisons, has since completed high school and will be going on to university. My heart longs to hear more stories like his, but his story is rare. Most street children die in the streets or end up in jail. I don’t know about other parts of the world, but from what I’ve heard from our teachers, in some Latin American countries the police treat street children extremely brutally and can go as far as executing them. Having glimpsed just a tiny bit into this grim reality through the eyewitness accounts of some our teachers, one comment in the testimony we heard especially stood out for me: “Love in one heart can change a life”.

Speaking of which...

Leslie’s week on child development gave me some ideas for when I do training with the Shepherd’s Heart volunteers. I’m especially excited to share on the value and appropriateness of play in the development of preschoolers. I’ve also invited a friend and co-student, Karen, who will be doing her CRS internship / field assignment in Zimbabwe, to come and visit Malawi and teach our volunteers. A very exciting prospect!     

Just stumbled across this video browsing Leslie and Scott's homepage. Enjoy! 



Child Development (Week Eight)

Leslie Freeman's week on Child Development was one of my two favourite weeks of teaching so far in the Children at Risk School (along with Lance Rawlins’ week on Project Planning and Development). Leslie has her master’s in special education and is currently living in Jaco, Costa Rica, where her and her husband, Scott, run an after-school programme, reaching out to some of the most vulnerable children in the community. We went to Jaco for the week of teaching and stayed on a property owned by Christian Surfers, where we were able to observe Leslie and Scott’s ministry in the afternoons.  

Leslie walked us through the developmental ages and stages from infancy to the toddler years and on to the preschool years. We were also supposed to do middle childhood but ran out of time. She gave us some concise notes on middle childhood and adolescence, however, which I found a useful overview even though I’ve come across the theory before.

She also discussed attachment – the foundation for development as well as for a child-centered approach to discipline. For normal development an infant needs secure attachment with a primary caregiver, which sets the stage for all later development. Out of the attachment relationship, the child builds what is called the working model, the child’s view of him/herself in relationship to others, which he/she will try to reproduce in his/her later relationships and communication. The working model is more or less set by the age of 3-4 years, but it was encouraging to hear Leslie say, that with good care it can be changed. In fact, referring to John Bowlby’s theory on attachment and the range of developmental pathways, Leslie said, that there is always ways back towards healthy. While obviously the earlier a developmental pathway changes its course towards healthy the better, there is always hope. We now know that our brains can change even when we’re adults. Personally, this gives me a renewed sense of hope and encourages me to consistently keep being the grown-up, not only for children, but for adults who have a broken child acting up inside of them.  

Leslie shared some very insightful thoughts on discipline with us. All kinds of behaviour are a way of communication, she explained. Since behaviours are need-driven, we should try to respond to the underlying needs instead of reacting to the behaviours as such. The root of discipline is connection, she went on to say, and gave us some quotes to illuminate her point:

We know from developmental psychology and attachment theory that the bond between parent and child is the most important factor in a child’s development and behavior. When children are attached in a deep and meaningful way, they want to follow their parents’ lead and will not, for the most part, be resistant.

(Chris White)  

Children who are products of attachment parenting are easier to discipline because even as infants they learn what it is to feel right, and children who feel right are more likely to act right. This inner feeling of rightness of being able to trust others, is the beginning of a baby’s self-worth, and children’s behavior usually mirrors their feelings about themselves. 

(Dr. Sears)

There is a beautiful intelligence about how a child’s development is meant to unfold. When children are deeply attached to their parents this bond allows us to transmit our rules and values and guide them in a positive way. 

(Chris White)

…methods of parenting rooted in the philosophy of behaviorism can achieve short term changes in a   child’s behavior, but at a long term cost of delaying development and promoting immaturity.

 (Chris White)

Our parents (or other primary caregivers) give us our first tangible experience of who God is. “Attachment IS the heart of God“, Leslie writes. Through the attachment relationship parents model God’s love in a concrete way, even though in a broken world insecure attachment will, sadly, convey a distorted image of who God is. Correspondingly, children won’t even have a concept of God’s love if it hasn’t been modeled to them. Reflecting on this, I smile to think how my mum has modeled God’s love for me in her parenting without even knowing it. I really am blessed and hope to pass on some of the love so freely given to me.      

We had time in class daily to meditate on Bible verses and contemplate on what they communicate to us about how God relates to us, modeling how we should relate to each other, including children, because “a child is a person as fully deserving of love and respect as any adult”,  as Leslie writes. Here are a few of the verses Leslie asked us to reflect on in reference to how we relate to children:      

Don’t lord over the people assigned to your good care, but lead them by your own good example.

(I Peter 5:3)

Let Him have all your worries and cares, for He is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you. (II Peter 5:7)

I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love.   (Hosea 11:4)

Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced perfect love. We love each other because He first loved us.   (I John 4:18)

                                                                                                                                                                

A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare.   (Proverbs 15:1)

He will deliver the needy who cry out.   (Psalm 72:12)

The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.

(Psalm 103:8)

In a world that doesn’t always value sensitivity, taking the time to listen and to build a deep connection, it was encouraging to hear Leslie teach on the value of these aspects and explain how they are some of the very core things children need.

Please pray with me…

During my stay in Malawi in May and June I came across the phenomenon of underage prostitution the very first night I arrived in the country. On the way from the airport we drove past some young girls who shouted something to us in Chichewa. I asked my hosts if it was safe for the girls to be out that late at night and pointed out they looked very young. My hosts explained they were prostitutes, and yes, they probably were very young. I wondered about what I’d seen, about what life was like for these young girls, what kind of backgrounds they came from and what the future would look like for them, but it wasn’t until later that the topic came up again in conversations with locals and I learnt just a little more. The youngest girls, I was told, are no older than twelve. I couldn’t help but wonder who the people are that are willing to exploit the girls and how exactly in their own minds they are able to justify to themselves what they are doing.

Towards the end of my stay I visited Living Stones Church in Blantyre, where someone was sharing about their work with the Salvation Army and mentioned a shelter for trafficked children. I wanted to ask her more about it after the service, but as is usually the case with visiting speakers, there were quite a few people wanting to talk with her, so I had to leave finding out more about the shelter till another time.

I know that when I go back to Malawi, primarily I need (and want!) to be focusing on working at and for the preschool, but a big part of me also wants to go and reach out to the young girls who are prostituting themselves, to talk with them, to understand more about what life is like for them. I realize, however, that could be very stupid of me – as a foreigner who doesn’t understand that much of the culture, let alone the subculture, I might be risking the girls getting into more trouble. So I’m asking you, to please pray with me for the girls and about how to act on what I’ve learnt. I’m figuring the least I can do is try to find out if there’s a church or organization reaching out to the girls, offering them alternatives, and I’d really like to find out more about the shelter for trafficked children and engage in conversations with the locals to gain more understanding. 

Grateful for you,

Karolina