"I told her to do it..."

The Mexican gov’t has started a new-ish thing. It’s sorta like a Social Security Card, but it’s called a curp. Most of our kids don’t have one, and the other day when filling out some paperwork at school, one of the parents who works with me was told that his child needed to present her curp. He told the lady he didn’t have one, but she seemed pretty insistent about it, and he knew our other child who was in that school didn’t have one, so he was confused. He phoned me to see if he was right. I told him M—didn’t have a curp, and that neither did R—in that school. The teacher decided they would rather talk to me than him, so he passed me the phone. In asking her why she would require it for M, but not for R, I (and she) realized that they AREN’T registered at the same school (easy mistake?- I thought there was only one school in that neighborhood.) and in all of the confusion, she took pity on us and said that she would turn in the appropriate paperwork and get the curp for us! I can’t even imagine waiting in line with all the papers to get that done for all the kids.

One of the married children of the head house mom is moving back down here. For now, until they get their house fixed up, their family is staying in the trailer on our property. They have a little girl who is 4 or 5? And when she talks about where they are living right now she says “white van.” I need to get my shoes out of the white van. Would you open the door on the white van? It’s sooo adorable.

Today is the start of Lent. While I was thinking of giving something up (although I haven’t quite decided exactly what) I thought maybe I could be consciously less selfish. I’m the first one to get in a car, to get in a house, to be in line for food, to go to bed (they have to turn down their stereos). I make decisions in my house that work best for me, without taking consideration of others A LOT. So tonite, I thought about how I should check over my daughter’s math book. I really didn’t want to. I had other intriguing fun things to do. Instead of making her go get it and bring it to me (a typical SELFISH thing that I would do) I told her I was going to her room to revise it. As I walked in, I quickly realized I wouldn’t find it right away, but what I did find was my book of common prayer-- that has been missing since NOVEMBER 1st. Normally I wouldn’t have such a sentimental thing for books, but as mail is a little harder to come by here, and since there are some things inside it that are special to me, I was pumped! It’s funny that I found it the day before Lent started, when I thought I might try to pray more often (out side of our morning intercessions for the family and community here). And I think it’s great that I was rewarded for doing something I wasn’t thrilled to do, even though I knew it was a more considerate thing to do. The part that kills me, is I’ve been in their room, I’ve asked them to look for it, they know I was missing it, and here it was in a totally obvious place. We even cleaned the bookshelf twice looking for it. What a blessing/perfect timing.


....last story.
Today we came home from the store without any toliet paper. It was on the list, and crossed off, but never purchased.
Why???
M-- 19, "well, I told her to do it, so then I crossed it off."
Me- "you don't cross something off the list until you've finished doing it."
M-- 19, "I didn't know that. Next time."