Sunday Nights

Have you ever felt like the most ineffective person on the planet? Maybe this is a question for all the parents out there, because I think you have to be a parent to experience the kind of crippling embarrassment children can provide you with. However, nieces and nephews exist, too, so I won’t be exclusive. Let’s just put it this way: nothing makes you question your own personal level of effectiveness like a child.

All I had to do was one job. Just take the kids down to dinner. Easy, right? It’s Sunday night, so the kids whose family visited earlier in the day wouldn’t be eating. Just three kids need dinner. It’s okay. I got this. I’m a missionary, people. God has equipped me.

And then all the sudden the supervisor who was going to stay with the rest of the kids can’t stay. But it’s okay, we’re good. The day I can’t handle nine kids! I escort the children down to the community center as five of them protest vehemently at the injustice being done to them of having to eat dinner-two of whom, mind you, don’t actually have to eat anything; they just like to protest.

Let me tell you something straight here-once you walk into the community center, all bets are off. There’s no telling who’s in there, who’s doing what, whether or not dinner is actually ready, and forget trying to control the children if they are not previously disposed. You may think that this is commentary on my control over the girls; I respect you opinion and humbly invite you to spend a day corralling them. The community center is our dorm’s personal kryptonite.

Just outside the doors, I drill the girls. We walk in the community center. We go directly to the table. Those who are eating can line up. Everyone needs to get a cup of tea, because none of you drink enough. Do we understand?

Nine heads bobble solemnly at me. Yes Alisha, we understand.

And then I open the door and chaos ensues.

Within five minutes, Italia is crying because Jenifer has knocked her sweet bread on the floor. Ingrid is making a royal mess with two cups of tea and a spoon. Teresa has somehow managed to paint almost her entire face with her dinner, and Erika is crying because dinner is avena (oatmeal), which should just universally be renamed to “Your children will have a fit if you make them eat this.” Evelyn discovers there’s pie and runs to get herself a bowl of oatmeal, surprisingly having remembered my no-dessert-without-dinner rule, but in her enthusiasm slops the floor with the contents of her dinner plate. Andrea is on a hunger strike and also refuses to drink the tea, and in the middle of it, Ada and Satyuri are calmly sitting and chatting. The dinner table looks like a warzone, and I see several people shooting me covert looks that say, “Should we help Alisha? Nah, she’s got this.”

Yeah, I don’t got this. This parenthood thing is hard. It’s stressful. I just want peace! And quiet! And no one looking at me with a mix of pity and shock! Most of all, I just want my children to behave, and they don’t because they’re children, and because they’re my children they have even more on their plates than normal children.

Of my nine children, all of them got to see their families that Sunday. Some parents had good news, about jobs and better health and improved circumstances. Some of the parents were nice to their children, and brought them presents and treats. But the majority of their parents didn’t have good news. Pregnant siblings, families breaking up, deaths-these are the kinds of things that get shared with my five to eight-year-old girls. Sunday’s are hard for us, because after a week spent anticipating the next time they see their families and building up their hopes that maybe this time, things will be different, they are once again hit with the reality that life really isn’t perfect, their families haven’t changed, and things are still just as messed up as they ever were. None of my kids are here because they come from happy families, and on Sunday’s it shows more.

Somehow, we survive dinner. It involves a mega-temper-tantrum (on Erika’s part) and some possibly empty threats (on my part, “I will make you scrub this place with a toothbrush! And a sock!”), but we survive. Somehow, I get everyone upstairs and bathed, although Teresa manages to shower once again in her socks, and soaks her towel in the process. Somehow their uniforms get sorted (after two sweaters get lost and then found again), their cupboards organized (and I forbid Evelyn from stuffing one more article of clothing in hers, as she has more clothes than I do) and their little bodies get into bed. I fish Jenifer from under her bed where she’s fallen asleep and somehow, we’ve all survived the evening.

And at the end of the night, as they all sleep quietly and not-so-quietly in their beds, I think to myself, “I really do love these kids.” They’re not perfect. They’re dealing with some stuff that would be difficult for people three times their age to process, but in the midst of all of it, I can see Jesus working in their little hearts. He’s at the center of everything, and while I may be the most ineffectual supervisor and worst candidate for parenthood in the history of the sport, it’s imperative to remember: His grace is enough, for me and for them.

Especially on Sunday nights.