This morning Monica came with me to LASP to talk to Trevor about some of the tension that has been present in my host family's house. Its not like its been awful or anything, its just that mamá had some concerns that she wanted Trevor to know about. After hearing from Monica, Trevor was feeling very unsettled about my living situation and asked me to think about switching host families. I was not very excited about this idea. I've had a pretty good experience with my family up until the end of last week, and I was willing to work though the situation. However, Trevor asked me to think about it this morning and talk to him before I left for ICADS.
I had a scheduled meeting with Don Antonio to talk about the outline for my thesis paper, so I went to talk to him while I thought about the family situation. We talked about my paper a little bit and got to a place where I felt comfortable finishing the assignment on my own. Then, we got into a huge discussion about US interventions in the governments of small countries all over the world. It was really eye-opening and I feel like understanding the actions of our government is a vital part of being a US
By the time I finished with Don Antonio and returned to talk to Trevor, I had some time to process the possibility of having a new host family. I told him that I would hate to hurt my current hosts and I know that my host mom feels terrible and that I would be willing to ride the situation out. On the other hand, I would love to be with a more interactive family who actually spoke Spanish with me. Ultimately, I just wanted to do whatever was the right thing to do. He said that I would have the final say in the matter and that he would call my host mom to talk to her about the situation and then come to ICADS to give me an update this afternoon. I went outside to pray about the whole situation, and throughout Spanish class I could kind of tell that I was going to be moving tonight. So I wasn't surprised when I walked out of Spanish and saw Laura and Annie, two people who work at LASP, waiting to take me home, get me packed, and take me to a new host family.
I was really worried about it being awkward to just barge in and move out, and it was, but Annie and Laura being there helped a lot. My new host family lives way up the hill from my old house. They are related to pretty much everyone who lives within walking distance, and their house is on the edge of town...it totally has a country feel to it. I am really liking it here so far, but I'm a little nervous about having to take the bus to/from LASP and about not having internet access anymore. Luckily, some other LASP students live nearby, so I can take the bus with them, and at least one of them has access to the internet at her house that I can use if I need to. Riding the bus and finding internet are obstacles that will be easily overcome, and I'm praising God for bringing me here.
My new host family consists of “mami” and “papi” and their three children, Andrey (13), Kevin (10), and Melany (6). They have been super welcoming and fabulous. I've been beaten at Connect 4 roughly 50 times tonight, I've seen all of Melany's school work from the last year, and I've met two of the neighboring families. Dinner was delicious, and I had a really nice, friendly conversation with my new host mom while we did the dishes. No one in my new family speaks English, so I've already used more Spanish here than I did in a week at my old house. All around, its just a much better situation.
I feel bad about leaving my old house, but it's just something that had to be done, and I'm confident that it was in every body's best interest. Because of the excitement of moving I've got lots of homework to catch up on, and I'm sure its going to be a VERY busy week. I can't wait to see what God is going to teach me now...He has been so good and faithful each and every day that I've been here, and I can't imagine doing any of this without Him by my side every step of the way.
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