Smiles and Tears

Today was our last day working at Holy Cross. What a week. I think we have each been through the full spectrum of emotions. There have been tears of happiness, tears of frustration and many smiles and hugs.

Much progress was made on the computer center! It is actually taking the shape of a computer center now - we can almost picture little hands busy at work on the keyboards. Or, at least we can picture the floor their feet will be resting on. (Our team laid the floor.)

In other areas of the school, desks were fixed, door locks and keys were matched and labeled and the ceiling of the cafeteria was repaired. Matt dazzled the Holy Cross staff with his ability to wire the school office computers as well as creating internet access for part of the school building itself. The work crew returned to the hotel each evening a bit dirtier and more tired than the day before. (But always ready to go again each morning!)

Those in the classrooms had many emotional experiences with the children and the teachers. At the beginning of the week, several of us were asked to introduce some new teaching techniques into the classroom to aid the teachers in their work. There was some apprehension about how to go about this task, but by the end of the week today we were rewarded with heartfelt thanks from the teachers who were seeing results already in their classrooms. There were others of us who saw students blossom with hour after hour of one-on-one attention in reading and in working on English. By the end of today, Laura was able to share her gift of storytelling with each class at Holy Cross.

It was very difficult to leave the children today. There were many smiles, many hugs and many tears, on all sides. The children all drew and colored thank you cards for us that were wonderful to receive. Even more wonderful were the little arms hugging us tightly and the little voices telling us how much they would miss us.

We have promised to write letters and promised we will always keep the children of Holy Cross in our hearts. These are promises we will have no trouble honoring.