by Jim Herrington
Everyone in my household participated in the Reach Out to DropOuts walk. It was a very positive experience that reminded me again of the great needs in our city. In one of our visits we met Javier. He is the 20 years old son of Mexican immigrants. They live in a one bed room apartment in the Montrose Community and Javier is zoned to Lamar High School. We visited him on Saturday and he promised to go call the school that day to get re-enrolled.
By the time we got back to Lamar, Javier was there with a friend, getting registered. We felt deeply gratified for this one success. On Sunday, Betty and I decided to go back to Javier's home and give him our telephone number. We wanted to offer encouragement and support for this young man. We had a 20 minute conversation in which we learned that he was out of school, in part because he had gotten in to a fight and was suspended, and in part because, he was having to work to help his parents pay their meager bills. We found Javier to be an engaging, winsom young man. He said, "Everywhere I go to find a job, when they find out I have not graduated, they won't hire me." This seems to have provided motivation for Javier to get back in school.
We plan to stay connected to Javier. We were impressed with him and from the visit on Sunday got a deeper awareness of the many challenges that he faces to finish his degree. We all need encouragement, support and accountability. We offered this to Javier. He took our phone number and gave us his. Soon, I hope to be able to tell you the rest of this story.
Read another story.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Reach out to Dropouts: a short story...
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2 comments:
Cheers to all who participated!! I teach school in Humble, Texas in a dropout prevention program. About one fourth of our students have already dropped out and the other 3/4 are not succeeding and need some intervention. It is a wonderful opportunity that the Lord has opened for me to minister to students. My nickname is "the math angel" because everyone passes math and about 90% pass the TAKS Math exit test. To God be the glorify for loving these students and sending a staff of loving teachers to work there.
Thanks mama wolf for your encouragement to those who participated in ROTDO. We invite you to join the community we are trying to create to serve God in helping generation of Whole & Healthy Children... your experience will be valuable for new mentors accepting this challenge. You can join our Facebook group (see our website) and encourage others by participating with content, sharing experiences and 'advocating' for the children of our city.
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