Rugati-va! (Pray)

I will start out with a God story about Claudiu from Casa Ana. Yesterday he was giving his pretty common 13 year old boy commentary and attitude when we were having a scheduling meeting with all the educators about Christmas vacation. He was pounding on the walls and the floor and yelling, just looking for some attention. Someone when up to ask him to be quiet, but he didn't listen. A bit later our newest staff member from Nadia, Attila, went up to talk with him...he's a big guy, and doesn't put up with any junk. Claudiu was very disrespectful, hid under the bed and spoke very rudely to Attila...not a good choice. Attila pulled him out from under the bed and brought him down the stairs, where they proceeded to have a raised voice conversation in the hallway (Ok it was a yelling match). I told the rest of the people who were downstairs to head to the mom's room because we didn't want to give attention where it wasn't needed. However, Attila was needed in the meeting so he could choose when he could work, so I handed my responsibilies over to Elena and headed towards the warzone. They "talked" a few more minutes and then Zorro (C's younger bro) came down yelling at Attila for yelling at his brother. Attila went into the meeting some time after that point and I was there with the boys as well as the mom. Zorro calmed down and went upstairs, but Claudiu didn't want to. He told me to leave him alone and that he was going to run away. At some point he went up and got his coat (this tells me he was thinking at least somewhat logically) and I went to stand in front of the front door. He kept telling me to get out of his way (I'm so glad he respects me enough not to hit me) and finally I said, "Ok, if you want to run away then you have to write a declaration about why you are leaving." He didn't want to. "I'll write it for you, you just have to tell me what to write." I looked at the mom and our oldest Simona and told them I needed paper and a pen and they provided. So I put the pen to the paper and started saying and writing, "I, Claudiu, want to run away because..." and I looked at him to finish the sentence. And he did. We wrote for about 5 minutes with me asking questions. He was still intent on going so I asked, "Don't you think it would be a good idea to say how all of this started, why Attila yelled at you in the first place?" So we started writing that, but the pen stopped because I was writing sideways, so I asked, "Can we please move to the kitched table because the pen doesn't work like this any more?" He agreed and we kept writing until Attila came out and sat down near us. All this time that we'd been writing, Zorro was holding his apple from snack, planning to throw it at Attila, so A said "Come on, let's talk like normal people. I am really sorry about the way I acted and how I spoke with you all. Let's talk it out." Well it progressed from there with Claudiu tearing up his declaration, turning to face Attila, listening and accepting his apology and then apologizing. They shook hands and A told him it would be cool if they could be friends and not enemies and then they hugged...I was almost in tears. I didn't think Claudiu would run away, but it was sweet to watch the reconcilation. Praise the Lord that He was a part of that, that Claudiu's heart has softened as much as it has and that He led me through that situation.

On the other hand, it was a disaster at Casa Nadia today. I didn't even make it over to Ana once. We have decided to move Madalin and Daniel into a room together and for the other 4 boys to be in a room for the time being. I don't know that a single boy didn't put up a fight. I won't go into the reasoning now, or all that took place, but I definitely called Elena more than once just not knowing what to do (almost in tears the last time) and we finally got ahold of Bruce about 10 minutes after she came back to the house, and he quickly came and helped settle things down. Madalin and Daniel were still not all that happy, but we all left the mom by 9:45 and everyone was calm, if not asleep. Please pray for all the boys of Casa Nadia to accept this transition. Madalin and Daniel specifically are needing to make connections with adults and needing to learn about respect and how to behave appropriately...a lot of things really. Please pray for these boys to adjust. I just don't even know how to ask you to pray other than that. Praise the Lord that the girls were so well behaved during all of this. Laura and Ibi cleaned up in the common room upstairs and their room as soon as I asked them. Then all of the girls went down and sat on the couch and looked at a stack of books I gave them.

I also ask you to pray for Bethany as she transitions into Romania, into Casa Nadia, into big changes. Pray for her to find a language teacher as mine is booked (she even cancelled on me this week because of her high school teaching schedule). Pray for B to connect with the kids and the moms and the educators at Nadia.