Dearest
friends and family,
How time flies here in Kansas! It’s
been three weeks since I've started here at Main Place Youth and January is
officially over.
A quick break down of what I’m doing
here: my position is called a Teaching Parent and it’s quite literally being a
parent to these girls. Along with myself there are three other Teaching
Parents, Ms. Violet, Ms. Valerie, and Ms. Lenae. All of them have been here for
at least seven months so they’ve been great at helping me learn the ropes! Each
day my job is to make sure the students at Main Place get through their
routine, which is much, much harder than it sounds!
As we go through the day each girl
earns points for positive actions like following instructions, appropriate
response, accepting “no,” and others. If they do something negative they also
earn negative points for that action. The points correspond to levels and the
levels have certain privileges associated with them. It seems like a complicated
system but it is effective!
The teaching parents do all of the
appointment running, basketball game going, and organizing of Saturday
afternoon games and activities. We also have to coordinate on discipline and
any requests the girls make. After doing that for a couple of weeks it quickly
became evident that it was vital to be united in Christ as leaders! It’s been
awesome to pray together before the day starts and learn and grow together
through the church here in Kingman.
The girls are sweet and have shown
me a lot of grace as I get started here. There’s definitely a learning curve
with each individual girl, feeling out exactly how they will respond to
criticism, what their strengths are, and where they stand in their relationship
with Christ. As the girls advance levels they are allowed to participate in
school activities and sports. Most of the girls are very into music and art so
it’s fun to hear them singing as they get ready for the day!
Kingman is only 45 miles or so from
Wichita so on my days off I’ve gone shopping there and checked out the city a
little. It’s still far larger than any place I’ve driven on a regular basis so
I still hesitate to drive there very often. The city of Kingman has a
population of about 3,000 so it’s a little more familiar to drive in!
There’s so much more that I would
love to share with all of you but it’s so hard to type it out in a letter. If
you think of it I would really appreciate any prayer you can spare! The first
thing you could pray for is that all of the teaching parents here would
continue to exhibit Christ through their interactions with the girls. Second,
pray for the girls to experience Christ during their time here at Main Place.
Third, if you can pray that the girls will have a true heart and lifestyle
change while they are here and afterwards, that the change will stick for life.
Hope and pray that all is well with
you! Please write, call, email, or text anytime because I’d love to hear from
you all!
In
Christ,
Jennifer
Connell
1111
N. Main Street
Kingman
KS 67068
Jenn.anita.conn2010@gmail.com
