Monday, August 12, 2013

Meet&Greet Mondays.

Disclaimer: I will probably flake out on a couple Mondays, don't judge me. :) 


Here is the plan....

***Every Monday (please read disclaimer) Isanon and I will choose one of our boys for you to "meet".
***I will force them into taking some pictures, or choose from ones I already have....
***If I know anything about their story that I feel should be shared, I will share it. 
***and I will post specific prayer requests for that boy. 


Today, we meet Joao Vitor. It is important to me to be completely transparent and honest on this blog, so I will start off by saying that Joao Vitor is the most difficult boy we have here. Anything that I share about Joao Vitor is only for the purpose of prayer. Isanon, myself and the others here at Hope Mountain need your prayer, as do our boys. With that being said, lets get to know Joao Vitor. Our age range here on 'The Mountain' is 13 to 18. However, the judge has made an exception for Joao Vitor who arrived here when he was only 11 years old. Tomorrow is Joao's birthday, he will be 12. 

 
We don't know much of Joao's story, except that he has been in many different group homes over the past years. His father wants nothing to do with him, and his grandma and mother can not handle him. We have had to call the police on him a few times (more on that in a bit) and have been informed, that his grandmother and mother have some mental problems. A few months ago his grandmother tried to take care of him and let him live with her. One night, he wanted to make some Ramen noodles, and for whatever reason...his grandmother would not let him, and he went crazy. He grabbed a knife and tried to attack his grandmother saying he was going to kill her. She locked herself in the bathroom and called the police. The next day, we met Joao Vitor

Joao Vitor can be an extremely charming boy. When he  is happy, he laughs a lot and likes to joke around.  He loves attention, but does not understand the difference between positive and negative attention - and unfortunately usually does crazy things to receive this attention. The easiest way to describe Joao is like a ticking time bomb....you never know exactly when he is going to explode, so we try to walk on egg-shells around him. When he gets mad, he is extremely hard to calm down. He starts to cuss and scream and grab anything  he can to throw or hit people with. Isanon has had rocks thrown at him, been kicked and punched in the mouth while trying to calm Joao Vitor down. Many times we have had to call the police, because he has assaulted one of the other boys. Because of his anger issues, the other boys here have not befriended him. Since he is so much smaller than the other boys, he is picked on a lot. Joao has problems with knowing what a healthy relationship between two boys is, and also does things to provoke the other boys.


We are currently trying to find a school for Joao. Because of his severe outbursts, he will be required to go to a special school...and unfortunately those types of schools here in Brazil are not cheap. Also, he has had some appointments scheduled to reevaluate the medicine that Joao has been placed on. 

Please think of Joao this week and pray for him. I can not begin to imagine the pain that Joao Vitor has passed through in his life, or the reasons for his outbursts. Pray for Isanon, Bruno, Flavio and any others who work directly with Joao Vitor, that they would be able to help him, as well as have a supernatural amount of patience with this boy. I will not lie, this boy pushes everyone here to their limits...so please pray for our limits to be extended! 




Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Winter, Summer, whatever..


Everything in Brasil is backwards. Everything. Okay, maybe I am exaggerating, but not by much. We will get back to that in a minute, though.

Since this is my very first blog, it seems appropriate to explain my reason for starting this bad boy up, right?  Right. Basically, I got married, moved to Brasil, and became a mother to 20+ (depending on the day) teenage boys. Yes, it is completely as crazy as it sounds, and I need a blog to document this crazy-ness! My husband is working as a "Pai Social" at a group home for boys ages 12-18. "Pai Social" in the simplest terms basically means he has every responsibility that their father should have. They get in trouble at school, Isanon is called. They get hurt, Isanon takes them to the hospital. They mouth off, Isanon disciplines. My husband has become super dad. We live in a house that is connected to the younger boys dorms. So, where does that leave me? Legally, just living here. But, lets be real for a minute...all those boys living in dorms connected to your house, constantly knocking on your door needing this or that...you become their stand-in mother. So here we are. About to celebrate our one year anniversary, living in Brazil, and loving (most days) on our boys. 




Back to the backwards thing. I have lived in Brazil with my husband, for about 9 months now. Before that, I had come three different times, for periods of 6 months. So, I should be pretty accustomed to how things are done here by now, wouldn't you think? Well, I am not. Things throw me through a loop all the time. I will save you my long list of backwards things about Brasil, and just get to the point. We are in Winter right now. Even though I checked the weather this morning, and it fore-casted a high of 84 degrees, this is winter. Our boys got a couple weeks off for 'winter' vacation, so we went on some outings. 



We went to a water park, the (joke of a) zoo, a waterfall, roasted hot dogs, the movies and a beach trip. Yes, we had a very backwards-but exciting, Winter vacation with our boys.