Mission in Mexico - Part 2

An abundance of needs

This is another in a group of posts to keep you all up to date on what I’m doing in Mexico.

Chapel at the Orphanage

I’ve been learning a lot about what I’ll be doing here over the next few weeks, and a lot of it is using my psychology training. The orphanage where I spent the last weekend is in need of help with the behavioral problems of some of the children. Many of the kids have suffered trauma in their young lives, and this can lead to emotional dysregulation and acting out. What I’ll be doing is leading some Social Emotional Learning groups each weekend for them, combined with two other kinds of therapy that help them develop new ways to deal with their thoughts and emotions.

Developing these groups has given me a glimpse already of what people are up against here. When you don’t have resources, lots of stuff doesn’t work. Like printers. Or the internet. So I’ve got some ideas for handouts that I want to use, but I’m not sure how I will get them printed. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Boy’s dormitory at the Orphanage

One other ministry where I’ll be working is a Rescue Reading Program at Susana Wesley Instituto. There are many children in the area that are struggling with reading and writing. The program provides tutoring support, and I’ll be working with four college psychology students to help determine some of the root causes of the children’s problems. The psych students have limited experience, so I’m serving as a mentor and helping them to develop meaningful interventions with the kid’s parents. Later on, I’ll be helping to lead a five week parent training class.

The third place I’ll be helping out is a school for impoverished children called Centro Comunitario. One of the problems in rural Mexico is that children are often put to work early in order to help their families survive. Their parents don’t have a lot of options — they need money for food, and a six year old can plant some crops. Education is just not valued, so kids often don’t go to school. Many of the niños in this program have never gone to school before, so they are learning basics - letters and numbers and early reading.

I walked into the school with its directora, and the children were doing the Mexican equivalent of the Pledge of Allegiance. The kids then went to their three age-group classes: 4-6, 7-9, and 10+. On my first day I spent time with all the classes, but it was the youngest group that stole my heart. I walked into the class and three little girls ran up to hug me, just barely as tall as my waist. We had to pry them off to continue the class. I sat down in their tiny chairs and they were proud to show me their drawings and worksheets.

In all of these programs (except maybe with the pre-schoolers), I’m finding my vocabulary to be lacking. I’m having to study clinical terms that I’ve not yet encountered in Spanish. It makes me sound uneducated, and it’s a little embarrassing. I’ve started trying to guess what I might want to say, and look it up ahead of time. It’s a slow process.

I think I’ll end all these posts the same way:

Everything is funded through donations. Giving is easy through the United Methodist Advance site - https://gbhem-umc.my.site.com/hemgm/s/donate-to-campaign?id=a3fPo000000D43R. Every little bit helps.

Please send a prayer or kind thought down this way. They all help, too.