big smiles and new eyes

I can think of few times in my life when I have felt more joy than when we took the kids up to my church's movie night last week. As I have lived in the trailer park, I have realized that one of the things middle class people take for granted is the ability to go on outings and participate in extracurricular activities. Most of the kids in our neighborhood have very few such opportunities, so they were beyond excited to pack into a car, drive to a different town with a great lake, and have pizza and a movie in our big, old church building. Watching them take off running around the lake as we waited for the pizza to finish cooking, I felt my whole heart smile. It does that often now, as it did last night when I came home to find them all baking banana bread and then plopping down in a home-made fort to watch a movie. I love it.

There are a lot of things that begin to look different when one lives in a trailer park, the kids' lack of outings being only one of them. I am learning the value of keeping clothes clean as I enter a world where going to the laundromat is both costly and inconvenient. For those without cars, it feels nearly impossible. I am learning that some kids are labeled as lazy or stupid, when in reality they come home to situations where no one helps with homework, or where all of their emotional energy has to be devoted to navigating the challenges they face minute by minute. I am learning where to find the cheapest food, how to ward off the winter cold when the walls are thin, and how to help a kid get the things they need while still helping them learn about the importance of earning things. I am learning how important it is to try and show up at the band concert, the birthday party, the school carnival. The lessons are neverending, it seems. It is amazing and challenging.

And of course, life is just plain funny. We discovered a skunk under the trailer, and hoped that the hole was patched during a time when the poor thing wasn't actually in there. Frank (the furnace) is loud enough to wake me up at times. Meals continue to show up from across the street, and afternoons at home are often accompanied by the smell of stinky kid feet. The kids rarely wear shoes.

I hope to be better about updates, since there are great stories every day. Cooking banana bread, trips to the grocery store, homework help. For those who are reading this, I offer thanks. Thanks for reading our trailer tales. And thanks for praying over all the beautiful things God is doing in the trailers and on the dusty streets of our little neighborhood.