Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Life Skills

I'm really excited to announce that I have started my Life Skills groups/classes/meetings at Peris! For the last two and a half weeks I have been meeting with about 10 kids for 30-45 minutes each to help discuss problems they may be having. Some of them are very aggressive, some have trouble expressing their emotions appropriately, some are anxious and depressed, some have trouble sitting still...and I meet with them and work on these issues with them.

In Life Skills we use the sand tray to illustrate things we may be thinking, feeling, or experiencing.

We also use fun sensory objects like rainbow spaghetti to help process sensations.
This is really the work that I love doing. I love seeing kids learn to empower themselves and work through their issues. The kids enjoy it and will come up to me any time I'm at the orphanage and ask when we're going to be meeting together again. There are even kids who stand at the door to our meeting room and ask me every time I poke my head out if they can come meet with me too.

Working with the miniatures is really fun!
I hope to share a little more about my work with the kids. For privacy purposes I can't reveal too much information about the kids that I'm working with or the problems that they're facing but I can let you know how to pray for them.
Processing things about our strengths and weaknesses by using the miniatures and the doll house.
Learning that we can face scary or difficult things by working with the miniatures.
I'm still continuing to help with Character Classes and Youth Group at both Peris and Voluntari. It's nice to have a little break in between Life Skills days. Seeing five kids in just three hours is intense! Especially when they all want to dump out all the toy miniatures and throw sand and rainbow pasta around the room.

Talking about how we can handle some of the issues that we face.
Exploring emotions through play.
Today will be my third session with some of the kids and I'm already starting to see improvements. Pray for me and the kids as we begin to talk about some of challenges they are facing. Also, pray for the attitudes and mentalities of the orphanage staff. It's not an easy task to look after these kids every day and some of them aren't qualified to deal with the problems these kids present with. Pray for continued connections with the kids and that I will have the ability to help them build a safe space for sharing and growing.

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