I nearly forgot to mention one of our biggest adventures yet, that happened on our way to the Kome Caves on Sunday- our car overheated... in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, we managed to track down a family farming out in their field; the dears went and got us water, and SJ managed to MacGyver the water tank for the engine or whatever it is (you can clearly tell that I know NOTHING about cars) and get it cooled down again... so luckily we eventually made it to our destination. I was just so proud of SJ fixing a vehicle out in the middle of nowhere.
Anyhow, my first session with the teen girls was lovely. We discussed topics for future sessions, so I will have one more session with them next week and then I will turn the group over to the very capable hands of SJ. We are going to come up with a curriculum of sorts before I go so that I can help her brainstorm some art/music therapy ideas for the group.
The training with the workers at the bigger orphanage and the missionaries went really well. They had loads of questions for me, and I hope that I was at least a little helpful in trying my best to answer them. It is difficult to try to advise people on how to interact with these children when they are the ones living here long-term, absorbing the culture. I tried to qualify that the advice that I gave them needed to be filtered through the culture that already exists here, and that I am not trying to come in thinking that I know everything about counseling and expecting them to follow whatever I said explicitly. I think that I was able to shed some light onto how many children will react to trauma, as well as advising them on how to try to form healthy attachments patterns with the children since they don't have parents, and then I spoke on healthy termination/closure with the children when they leave the mission field here. I wrapped up the session with a discussion on self-care so that they don't all burn out from the intensive work that they do here, and it sounds like the missionaries here are going to try to send the woman who runs the MIS orphanage away for a weekend so that she can rest and recharge. It was amazing to see them all step up to help one another and seek out ways to make sure that everyone had a way to be restored. I think that in my ideal world, I would be able to make time each year to go out to various mission fields and take staff and missionaries on retreats and do a self-care workshop with them... It is so necessary- they all work so hard and hesitate to take any time for themselves for fear of being selfish. Perhaps someday... maybe next year ;o)
So my next training is tomorrow night with the same group as Monday, and I am excited to follow up with them. I will also be doing a one-on-one session with the lovely Lesotho woman who runs MIS over lunch tomorrow. At the request of those at the meeting on Monday, I am in the middle of creating a manual with some art therapy techniques as well as some ideas for what we in counseling call 'transitional objects' to use with the kids when they leave here, so I hope that it will be useful to them. Word that I am here has apparently gotten out- an organization called "the Link" (they are a Christian organization that hosts short term mission teams as well as retreats for local organizations, and they help start grassroots businesses in the area) have asked me to come do a training with their staff early next week. I am really glad that I have gotten so many opportunities to share the skills that I acquired in graduate school with so many people here. It has been such an amazing experience and I feel so blessed to be here, seeing these people love these kids and seeing how much these kids love them in return. God is at work here in so many ways.
Tomorrow holds a whole different sort of adventure for me- Justin, one of the missionaries that lives here with SJ and I, works at a farm teaching local people farming skills, and he has invited me out tomorrow morning to see the work that he does there. So it will be very different from my normal days spent with the kiddos, but I am excited to see how he is reaching the community here. Always exciting things happening here in Lesotho! Please keep praying for wisdom for me when I am talking to these amazing missionaries and staff, and for continued patience and exceeding love for these kids! Much love.
"The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives."
~Psalm 37:23
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