Here is the third in the mini-series sharing Rachel’s blog….
This is the beginning of a short blog series featuring the amazing girls that I work with at My Refuge House. Due to confidentiality their faces will be hidden and I will use their pseudo names.
I would like to introduce to Hope, Abigail, and Maggie. These three girls are in their last year of high school and will be graduating in July – to their great excitement. Last semester these girls had the misfortune of having me as their chemistry and geometry teacher and they now have the privilege of taking economics under my tutelage. Last week we talked about speculation, strikes, and rations – topics I know mainly from reading Victorian novels during my literature studies. Regardless, the class is going very well and I am excited to reach the global economics section towards the end, which I know a little more about.
These girls are precious to me because we have struggled through learning chemistry together, I have had the privilege of meeting their families during home visits, and I have the honor of encouraging them to write stories. Two of them are working on brilliant pieces of fictions and one is working through the emotional process of writing her memoir. They work on their stories in their free time and then I open up my office for them to come and type out their newest sections. After they have reached a certain point we are going to sit down and edit them together. It will be a learning process for all of us to be sure. They do not write because they have to but because they love to do so, and it is personally inspiring. They are voracious readers and tackle books with great passion. We talk about the books we are reading and offer suggestions on what to read next. I just finished To Kill a Mockingbird and successfully convinced one of them to start on it immediately. They remind me of younger versions of myself, but they are so much cooler.
They can each play the guitar and ukulele beautifully and are always teaching themselves new songs. Some of my favorite moments are when they come into my office to chat with me about various topics or sit down and strum through a song they are learning. They are awesome at playing “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz – their newest conquest. They speak English beautifully, play scrabble better than I can, and are always challenging themselves. They are going to change the world and I am proud to be another voice of encouragement in their lives. They are intelligent, talented, and sassy and I love them.
