Babysitting

For
the past 3 weeks I have been watching my friends 3 children while she and her
husband were traveling in the States. It’s been a very challenging time. The
children are eight, seven and five. During the days the 2 eldest girls were at
school and the five year old boy was in preschool for a half day. I was able to
continue with all my other ministries. The kids and I were up at 5:30am every morning. Breakfast had to be served, lunches
packed, school bags double checked, teeth brushed, and finally most morning we
were able to do a little devotional before we headed out to the bus station at 6:45am. If you know me at all, you know that I am NOT a
morning person. You also know that I am always trying to drink less coffee for
a number of reasons. With that being said you must know that I have had way too
much coffee in these weeks.

Just
this past Wednesday, I had gotten up as normal with the kids; we got ready and
off to the bus on time. After I dropped the girls at the bus stop, Ivan and I
went for a walk around the block, we tried to do this most mornings because he
does it with his mom when she’s here, so it’s was good for him to stay in
routine as much as possible, and I needed an excuse to exercise. As soon as we
got back to the house my phone started ringing. I didn’t recognize the number
but that happens often. I picked up the phone and it was the girl’s school. The
secretary told me the girls were fine, so immediately I was thinking, “Then why
are you calling me?” She told me that some of the children on their bus had
witnessed a boy being hit by a car and dying. She said one of my girls had seen
the whole thing and was very shaken up. She wanted me to come pick her up from
school. I told her I couldn’t do that, but before you think I’m heartless, let me
explain. The school is about an hour and a half away in an area of the country
that I have never been. The directions to the school from what people told me
is that it’s near some building in this particular town. Nobody could seem to
tell me how to get there. Most roads don’t have names or sign up if they do
have names. I phoned another mom that sends her children from this area to see
if she had heard from the school. At that point she hadn’t, but she said there
was no way I would find the school if I had never been there. So between the
two of us, we worked on finding a ride home for my girl. It ended up that she
stayed in school. All the kids who witnessed the accident were taken in with a
counselor and sent back to class. In retrospect, it seems this was the best
thing to do, because they didn’t focus on the horrible scene in their heads all
day.