Our Friends from Tampa!

At Harbor House, we get a lot of volunteer groups.  The one we had this past week was wonderful!  Coming all the way from the University of Tampa in Florida, this group of 10 students and one advisor was enthusiastic about everything.  They stayed at Harbor House and immediately endeared my staff to them by offering to clean up the kitchen after each afternoon's snack.

The kids are quite used to volunteers, but most volunteers stay a week or less (sometimes only a day), so the kids were pleasantly surprised when, after a weekend, the same group was still there and remembered their names.  There were some hidden talents such as singing and ukelele playing that we put to good use, and everyone in the group was friendly, open, and wanted to spend time reading to the kids and learning about Oakland.

The groups that are willing to do anything are such a blessing, as there are a lot of random tasks to be done at Harbor House.  From tree pruning to snack making to kitchen mopping to tutoring, the group wholeheartedly embraced our mission and our neighborhood and are welcome back any time!

An Intern's Testimony

[This is Christina, one of our senior interns, who talked at our fundraiser on Saturday.  She was mature and poised and really touched me.  If you'd like to support her and other other inters, please click on the "donate" button or write to me for how you can send a check.  Thanks!]

Hi.  My name is Christina Saechao.  I’m 18 years old and am a senior at Oakland High School.  I am currently involved in the Polynesian club and am Vice President, was a cheerleader and I work 18 hours each week at Harbor.  I am a first generation American.  I am proud to say that I will be attending Cal State Northridge next Fall and plan to study biology – I would like to be an ob-gyn or a midwife.

I was introduced to Harbor House by my cousin when I was 14 years old – she was volunteering here and told me about a job opportunity.  It was at a time when I was wanting to become more responsible, and start working so I could pay for my own things like my phone bill, shoes that I like and basic things that any girl would want...Little did I know that I had come to Harbor House when I was 5.  My mom would come to quilt and while she quilted, I played on the play ground.  When I walked in to HH for my job interview, It felt as if I had been there before – and I had!  

Working at Harbor House has never been easy.  I am continually challenged in my job, especially by the students enrolled in the after school program.  For example, my first year at Harbor House I was in charge of a Kindergartener/1^st grade table.  After bible study time, the students sit down with an intern like myself, and do their homework.  The ratio is about 5 students to 1 intern.  If one student is difficult, then it can ruin the whole group social dynamic and make homework time very challenging.  One of my first graders was one of those difficult kids…she had attitude towards me all of the time.  For some reason she didn’t accept me as her “intern” and she wouldn’t listen to what I asked her to do, and she would give me her mug face no matter what.  This in turn made her an outcast from the other kids at the table. 

The following year, I became a Junior intern and was in charge of the 2nd graders, which meant that I had to deal with the same difficult student from last year.  Again, she made a mug face when she saw me and even said when she noticed me at the beginning of the school year “I have you again?”  What an attitude!  We endured living like this together for 2 month’s until I noticed that she had been gone for a couple days and asked our education director about her.  I was told that this girl’s grandfather, who was a very important man in her life, had passed away.  When I saw her, even though I knew she didn’t like me, I wanted to let her know that I was here for her if she ever wanted to talk about her grandfather.  She started crying – I told her that it was okay to cry, to not hold it in and to let it out.  When she stopped crying she hugged me and said thank you.  Ever since that day, we have been great friends.  And, when the following year came, I had her again.  And this time when she walked in she had a smile on her face when she noticed me.

I love being a role model to the kids at Harbor House.  I have the ability to encourage these kids when no one else does.  I know firsthand what it is like to look for encouragement from others and not receive it.  As a young person I always wanted someone to give me encouragement.  Coming from a big family – 6 older sisters (I’m the youngest) I was expected by my sisters to graduate, not have a kid at a young age, and go off to college.  They were expecting so much from me that they didn’t know how to be there and say that they were proud of me.  I never felt that I had the encouragement that everybody wants, so that’s why I want to be an encourager to all of the kids in my life.

Additionally, it is my desire to instill confidence in each of the kids.  I have been blessed to have been surrounded by people who helped me with my confidence, and It’s now my turn to do the same for the kids at Harbor House.  

Most of the kids at Harbor House are like me – their parents work hard, but can’t seem to get ahead.  Sometimes they work 2-3 jobs to make pay their bills and feed their family. How great it is that I can help each kid who doesn’t receive an adequate amount of attention at home, to develop a positive vision for their future! How great it is that I can encourage someone who needs an extra ounce of courage!  How great it is that I can represent God’s love to these kids when human love can’t always meet their needs.

When I look back on the 4 years I have spent here at Harbor House, I realize that each of my kindergartners have grown to be funny, positive, sometimes sassy, young pre-teens.  I too have grown…I am no longer a typical teenager that thinks only of myself, I care more about the important things like putting others before myself, and I have become more confident and outgoing.  I take ownership of my job, help lead the staff and guide them in their daily routines.  Mostly, I have learned to be a friend and a confidant to the kids and co-workers.

I am and will always be grateful for the opportunity to work at Harbor House. I have been able to use the gifts God has given me, to speak kind words of truth to the kids in our program.  I’ve watched their life skills develop, I’ve seen positive growth in myself and the kids that I’ve worked with, and it helped secure my vision for my future. I am also grateful, for all of you who are here tonight who have and/or will be supporting Harbor House’s vision and purpose.  Without your support, I would not have been able to develop into the young woman that is standing here tonight.  

Thank you.

God's Family

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God."
1 John 3:1

I love the kids in the youth program.  I tell them that we are all part of God's family - that through God's love, he has made us all part of the same family, even though we look very different.  At this point, we usually have one of the younger kids get really excited and point out that even though our skin is totally different (I am definitely in the minority as a white person at Harbor House), we are related.  Some of them just think it's funny that a very white Caucasian American and a very dark-skinned Nigerian American could be part of the same family, and some of them are really touched that they are God's child, that God loves them, and that the staff and other kids love them.

"Aaron" is one of the latter.  He has a rough life.  He's lived in a variety of different situations during the school year - an apartment, several shelters, with his mom's ex, with relatives, and been kicked out of most of them because of his mother's behavior.  She has her own issues that she is dealing with and loves her son very very much but has probably never seen or experienced what it's like to be a healthy parent who can provide for her child.  Aaron has never met his father.

I am grateful that we have been able to provide some stability for Aaron this year, but it hasn't been easy, and has involved many difficult conversations with him and his mother.  Aaron thrives during devotion time though, and needs to know that he is loved by God and by people.

This boy absolutely loves that he can be a part of God's family.  He told me once that having God as his father "makes me whole."

Recently, in devotion, I told the kids that people always ask me why I don't have kids.  He said, as loud and enthusiastically as he could, "Because you have all of us!!!  We're your family!"

Well said.

His First Thank You (Updated)

 We have a child in our program who is very angry.  In fact, he tells us almost every day how angry he is.  He is angry because his siblings get all the attention, because we will only help him with his homework and not do it for him, because he doesn't want to do homework, and because we won't let him scream at or hit his sister.  Danny takes incredible patience to work with, because his most common reaction is to scream at the staff person who is helping him.  If he is not actively yelling, he is generally at least being rude.

We have been working very hard with Danny to help him name and manage his feelings.  We explain over and over that he can be angry and we understand that he is angry, but he cannot be rude or yell at people.  He usually responds by shouting, "But I'm angry!"

One of the tools that we've used for him is something I developed in my classroom and call a "feelings paper."  The kids can mark what they're feeling - everything from frustrated to angry to excited to happy to sad to nervous - and sometimes they choose all of the feelings.  Danny gave me a feelings paper at least once a day, maybe more, EVERY DAY for the first few months of this school year.  All of them said he was angry.  Usually in big, bold, capital letters.

I have been so proud of my young staff.  Although they are mostly in high school, they do not lose their tempers with him.  It's actually almost unbelievable how calm they are.  He yells at them and they respond politely.  He throws papers at them and they don't react.  They are continually patient and kind, far after many professional teachers would have lost their cool.  I think they really do understand that he's having a hard time and needs kindness modeled to him.

It's hard for any of us to believe that we are getting anywhere when children are this upset all the time.  So it felt pretty incredible to everyone when one of the staff got this card.  We have never heard Danny say thank you in any way.  We have never heard him acknowledge that we help him.  This was a wonderful sign that he does know, deep down, that we love him and we want him to succeed.  It is also a powerful testament to my staff for remaining calm and kind and truly showing Danny the love of God.

UPDATE: Since I've written this, there has been an incredible turnaround in Danny.  Many of the staff have commented that he "seems like a normal kid now."  What they mean by that is that he is not furious all the time.  He's no angel, but he is spending time playing instead of screaming, doing his homework most of the time, and usually not being rude to people.  When he is rude, if you pull him aside and talk to him, there's much less yelling and much more of a conversation.  He smiles a lot.  He takes compliments.  He usually doesn't hit his sister at Harbor House any more, and he uses the words "please" and "thank you."  He looks happy a lot of the time.  This is a complete turnaround.

Our Faithful Tutors

As the majority of our staff are teenagers and in high school, we try to help them be successful as they help our younger students.  This hep manifests itself in a number of ways, from parental nagging and instruction about homework and deadlines (some of them have parents who can't or are unable to do these things) to hands-on help with specific subjects.

For the latter part, we have a small army of wonderful, dedicated tutors.  They are friends or church members who have been recruited - many retired or with grown children so have a little more free time.  They help mainly with math but have stepped in with other subjects as well.  

Being teenagers, the students getting tutoring do not always have the best follow-through rate.  They want and appreciate the help, but things come up.  Parents schedule family dinners, students don't feel well, they forget their backpacks or other materials, or they decide at the last minute that they can do their homework themselves.  Whenever this happens, I talk to them about how the tutors have taken time out of their schedule and it's unfair to stand them up - sometimes these talks help, and sometimes they don't, but I think it's a learning process to see how your actions affect someone else, and we are all constantly learning.

At one point, I was emailing with some of our newer tutors who were deciding if we had a need for them.  When all of our students who said they needed help actually showed up, we definitely needed all the tutors.  When one or more came unprepared or not at all, we had tutors doubled up or sometimes sitting around.  I always felt bad for the tutors who weren't being fully utilized and hoped they didn't feel like we were wasting their time.  I emailed one of them and she wrote back:

To some degree we tutors are demonstrating to the staff the faithfulness of God. We can be there every week whether the staff is there or not. We can even faithfully be there on those days that the staff says they will be there and then does not arrive. This is especially important for young people who have not experienced that same dependability and faithfulness in their own families. From what you have mentioned, I suspect that Harbor House is that safe place, that dependable place for many of these young people. It is an honor for my husband and me to be included.

That is a beautiful sentiment.  I am so grateful for them and their faithfulness.  I do think that the staff will see their faithfulness, in retrospect if not now. And I hope it will reflect to them, how faithful God is.

His Safe Place

I went to pick up our students from school to walk them to Harbor House on Monday, the first day after Christmas break.  When the bell rang, "Jose" ran away from his classroom and straight at me.  "I missed you so much!!!" He shouted this and ran to me with his arms open wide, hugging me as hard as he could.

Jose is six years old and has a beautiful, kind, loving heart.  He also has a pretty hard life in a lot of ways.  His mom has four children: Jose, his 7-year old sister, his 11-year old brother, and his 14-year old sister.  Their mother, Val, suffers from chronic illness and is a single mother.  She works as a security guard, outside, in the cold and on her feet.  She is understandably exhausted.  The 14-year old picks up a lot of the parenting responsibilities, which is hard for everyone involved.

Jose had a very challenging year last year, both in class and with us.  We had to have him take breaks from our after-school program a few times because he ran into the street and behaved in other ways that were very unsafe.  Every time he came back, he would apologize profusely and be very remorseful, and then do the exact same thing.  His teacher was extremely frustrated with him and told me about it in detail every time I met with her.

This year, Jose is calming down soon and definitely trying as hard as he can.  He still has some issues, and we worked with the wonderful counselor at his school to give him services when he told me that sometimes he wants to be friends with someone but his brain tells him to bite them instead. . The counselor is, fortunately, a huge fan of Jose and loves working with him.  If you've ever wondered if approval makes a difference for a child, I told him yesterday that i had talked to his counselor and the counselor said, "He's such a nice boy."  Jose beamed like it was Christmas.

I am very optimistic about Jose's future, partly because he has so many people on his side, and partly because we are starting interventions so early.  Don't get me wrong, it is hard to be him.  And I think it's very hard to be his mother much of the time.  But she texted me last night and said, "Thank God for ppl like you and all hh staff with not only professionalism but passion and knowledge of understanding human nature and children's view."  She knows we will support her, we will love, support, correct, and praise her child, and that we are available to help find additional resources like counseling.  Jose doesn't sleep well or enough hours and often goes to the couch outside the offices at Harbor House to take a nap.  He literally eats, sleeps, plays, learns, and works at Harbor House, and that makes it very much of a home for him.

Like anyone else, I was a little reluctant to come back to work after Christmas vacation, but when I saw Jose's face light up and saw him run to me with his outstretched arms, I was reminded of how safe he feels with us and how long vacation must have felt for him without his safe place.  He's so happy to be back and we're so glad to have him.

Planning Ahead

 Meet "Russell."  Russell is now a fourth-grader in our program and speaks Cantonese better than anyone else in the program, including staff.  This makes Russell very useful to us, as we have several families with parents who speak only Cantonese or mostly Cantonese with very limited English.  As he is also a very helpful child, he is always willing to jump in and translate when necessary.  He has helped me explain to one parent that our program is full, to another that we had food she could take home, and I stationed him at our "Adopt A Family" table to explain how the program works and how people could sign up for their kids to get presents at Christmas time.One of the mothers who speaks mostly Cantonese told me "His Chinese very good!"  Of course, his favorite thing to translate is when he gets to tell on his little sister, but that's just human nature.

Not too long ago, Russell asked if he could talk to me.  He seemed a little nervous and said he had something important to ask me. He continued, "Bronwyn, I know this is a long time from now, but when I'm in high school... do you think you would maybe hire me?"

It was asked seriously so I responded in kind.  I said, "Well, Russell, you know, I have to interview applicants and you'd have to fill out an application.  But the things I look for are responsibility and hard work and working well with people, so I think you'd have a good chance.  And you already translate for me, so that's been really helpful.  I can't promise you anything, but I think you seem like you'd be a great employee."

He looked incredibly relieved and said he'd apply when he was in ninth grade.  I'd love to have him as an employee.