January adventure update

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