'Sup?

All right, one week down. Already? Wow, I thought I just got here today. I guess not...
I figured I would take the time to talk about 'ma boiz', um, that being the students in my dorm. I'm cool.
The name of my dorm is Maugenhard. It is so named because it is in the town of Maugenhard. Town is a loose term, there isn't anything in the town besides houses. Understand what I mean by that - there are only two things that you can purchase in the town. First is fruit from fresh fruit stands set out in front of people's houses. They don't even man them, they just expect you to take the fruit you want and leave the money. And people do! Crazy, non? The only other thing to purchase is cigarettes, and those aren't at a store. They are in a vending machine. That happens to be right across the street from the dorm. Also, the street is just over one car width wide. It is two way traffic. So that is the dorm location where we cram in 30 guys between the ages of 14 and 17, grades nine to twelve, or freshman to senior.
The guys are great, I love 'em all. We have some young guys, first year away from school, unsure about what is going on and a little shy. One is a Korean lad who has been living in Istanbul with his family. He is a funny guy, very polite and obedient (that won't last). He still bows to people when he greets them, at least people he doesn't know, which is a Korean thing. It is funny because there are certain behaviours that seem pretty standard for someone of his age (he's in grade nine) back home, certain social graces that may be lacking and attitudes that are still, well, juvenile. That is not a bad thing because they are still young and growing and learning. Well, this Korean child is basically exactly the same, even though he was raised in a Korean/Turkish culture. It boggles my mind how alike people are, especially kids.
I debated with myself over whether I would use the names in the this post, but right now I'm not going to. The short reason why is that I just don't feel comfortable with indiscriminitely putting other people's names out on the internet for anyone to see. I guess I may be over-cautious on this point, but I would rather be that than cause problems. The internet has as many bad points and people as good, so for the moment, the kids shall remain anonymous.
Back to my guys. We have one guy who is in grade twelve and he is 6'6" tall, and quite the trash-talker. He has a bit of that black athlete hip-hop vibe to him. It would be easy to dismiss him as another cocky punk, but then you spend some time with him and see that he is rather caring and kind. Don't get me wrong, he talks big and is that fun sort of trash talky attitudey person, but he is not mean and generally follows the rules. I feel like I can trust him (though who knows, maybe in a few months I will be locking him in his room or something, but I don't think so). It's entertaining, that's for sure.
I won't go through all of them, one by one, because that would make this post much too long. There are ten or eleven Korean students, three black students, one Mexican, and the rest are white folks, but most of them have spent their time in different countries beside North American ones. One was born in Mali or Namibia, or some African country like that and has spent most of his time in Africa. It is quite a diverse group.
There are some who like to play video games, and others who are more into sports. We have some amazing musicians, and though I haven't had a chance to see it yet there are apparently some phenomenol athletes, though I can believe it. Some guys are quite mature, and others are still developing. Some are quiet, others are loud. One guy is pretty much all mouth, but it is not a bad thing. He isn't a bad guy, he just talks alot, and is quite entertaining. I love that boy! It is hard to get him to do what he should sometimes because you can't be upset. He is defying me, but in an entertaining fashion.
Likes young'uns everywhere they push the edge when they can, but they know to follow our directions when we give them. We are rather lenient because we don't think they need to be living in a military boot camp. We set the boundaries and let them bend them, but if they are broken then we snap them back and let the rope out slowly as they earn it. I like mixing metaphors.
Please pray that they would continue to be blessings to me and not become burdens or curses. Pray for one child who is rather young and almost not ready to be away from home - it has been a tough first few days, but it is improving. I want it to work out for him, but pray that we would have wisdom in knowing what is best, and that he would find some friends to anchor him here, some people that he connect with here in a deep way. And praise God with me that things are going well. I wasn't sure going in how it would be, but now I feel like it is going well. One final prayer request - the dorm mom's niece was recently (as in last week) diagnosed with thyroid cancer. She (the niece) had surgery to remove her thyroid last Wednesday and it was more complicated than originally thought. The cancer had spread a bit further than they realised and they ended up taking out a nerve that controlled her vocal cords and had to graft a nerve from somewhere else so that she could talk again (apparently you can do that). So Cindy (the dorm mom) flew out to Prague where her sister and her family are living and helped out with the family as they went through this. Pray that the girl would recover completely and that the cancer would be gone, and that Cindy would be able to return here able to fulfill her role here, which is not exactly an easy job all the time, and is not made easier by issues such as this.
Peace out!