day 15

Day 15: A Bible verse

[Acts 17: 22-28]

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

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Now. Let me tell you about my ridiculous day at work yesterday. First of all, I was called into work around 650am (I usually come in between 700am-715am) because cottage was in utter chaos. One boy was outside because he was being assaultive and the boys inside were running around, not listening to the staff at all. It calmed down and they got out the door at 820am for school. Whew.

I come back on at 100pm because on Wednesdays, the kids have a short day (seriously, it feels like these kids are NEVER in school). The boys are already crazy, a group of them harassing one of the younger boys. It took a while for them to calm down. Soon after, one of the boys started having a blowout. He was throwing rocks and kicking doors and banging on windows. So my co-worker and I held him, while he kept trying to hit us and spit on us. When he was done being ridiculous (or so we thought), we let him go. What does he do? He starts freaking out again, this time shoving my co-worker, and so he is held again. We let him go when he calms down.

Right after this boy is done having an issue, another boy starts walking off campus, completely unprovoked. A staff and I follow him. He continues to walk and walk. We ask him where he is going and why he is going AWOL. At first he doesn't respond, but then tells us that it is boring on campus and we never do anything fun (so obviously, the logical reaction is to leave campus without permission, when it is getting dark and isn't safe). We follow him into a pet store, where we look at animals before he is ready to walk back. We get back to campus without incident.

I get a chance to eat a couple bites of dinner before I'm called out to deal with that first child AGAIN. He is being psycho, running after a co-worker with a huge tree branch that he found, whipping it around. I approached him and he whacked me on the left thigh, giving me a beautiful black and blue bruise. So he was held. And he continued to spit in our faces and kick us and bite. When he was calm, we let him go, but he deeeeeefinitely was not done being ridiculous. He proceeded to: break into the cottage that I (and a couple other staff members) live in, attempt to throw sandbags at us (good thing they were way too heavy for him), throw live worms at our face (found UNDER those sandbags), and spend time picking out the best rocks to throw at us from a close range. Yep, he was held again. At this point, I was so, SO exhausted, both mentally and physically. I had barely eaten anything that day and was feeling like the day would n.e.v.e.r. end. Fortunately, that was his last hold and he had a decent rest of the night.

All that to say, I'm glad I didn't work out during my off time yesterday because I ended up getting paid to work out.