I guess that my New Years resolution of writing a Blog once a week kind of fell by the wayside....and fast.  I am still going to try to AVERAGE one Blog a week though...there is hope of resurrection of my resolution!

     I was on duty at one of the homes tonight and found myself face to face with the perfect thing to Blog about.  JOEMAR.  Joemar has lived at CSC for over 23 years!  He is 32 years old.  Joemar came to CSC from a neighboring island  because his mother was unable to care for him, actually she was not even able to care for herself. Joe arrived with a huge scar on his head and a story about being hit by a motorcycle and side car.  Joe is actually one of the coolest, and happiest people that I know.  The fact that he operates at the level of  a 5-6 year old is certainly secondary to his wonderful personality and his joy for life.  

     Joemar is my shadow much of the time.  He loves to help me in my office, he sweeps the floor and cleans the windows and I keep him supplied with Coke and an occassional meal out.  We both like the arrangement. He likes to hang out in my office drawing, writing his name and doing puzzles..he is quite good at puzzles!   He works at McDonalds three half days a week.  He carries peoples trays for them, cleans tables and mops up spills. McDonalds has been great for him (except for the fact that they quit paying him...anyone out there have any clout with McDonalds?) He also works up at our school a couple days a week.  He helps the cleaners at school.  He helps with dishes in the home and is the best "watcher" that Wilmar has ever had!  Marlys and I both like to bring Joemar with us on shopping excursions, he is a great help! Joemar did have a little room of his own above our garage for a few years but we found that he was doing some experimenting with electricity and was spending too much time alone..so he moved back into the Eicher Home where he had lived when he first came to live at CSC.  He still has his own room there and it has proved to be a good thing from him to be more involved with the Eicher home family.   He is currently very anxious for the new house to be done - actually he has been anxious for it to be done since ground breaking!  Joemar has no concept of time....so why the house is not done when he awakes every morning is a bit of a puzzle to him. He knows that he and Jacob will get to share a room in the new house,  he is very happy about that.  He visits "his room" at the new building site whenever he can. 

     We are honored to have Joemar with us.  He has given us so much!  His smiles,  his unconditional love for us and the fact that he can and does enjoy all the simple, but most important things in life, all these are a lesson for each of us. 

      I am going birthday shopping in the morning (for the February and March birthdays...about 14 kids I think it is)  So I brought Joemar home  tonight so he can go with me shopping tomorrow morning.  Joemar loves to come to our houses.  He packed  his favorite Superman backpack and was ready and waiting for me to finish my duty time. 

      I thank the Lord for Joemar!  His simple joy and total trust are a blessing to us!  We love our Joemar!

      Here's Joemar hanging out at m house.  He is quite excited to go to the Mall tomorrow....what a guy!

      

       I did not have a good day today.   I spent the first 6 hours of my day trying to renew my drivers license.  You cannot imagine....literally smashed up against people the whole time.  There is simply a lack of organization and there were simply too many people.  It was a nightmare.  HOT, constant "flows" of one group of people going one direction while another group is trying to "flow" the opposite way...and lots of people in the middle who are trying to stay where they are waiting for their name to be called.  There were a couple of times that I was thinking that bursting into tears would be the only thing that I could possibly do.  Lucky that I am at least taller than most of the people here....I would have fainted if I had been any lower in that crowd.  Oh my, it was bad.   I am talking LITERALLY being smashed up against a moving and flowing mass of people for 6 hours!  AND...I am not done.  I have to go back!!!!     I was happy to leave though!   But, then I got to be stuck in traffic for two hours...making me wonder why in the world I even want to drive here????   And then I got to spend the last four hours of my working day today with one very, mad, sad and mixed up ex-CSC kid (adult).  I am hoping that was the best part of my day...we will see what decisions are made on that discussion tomorrow.   So it is nice to be home tonight...and I am looking forward to a much better day tomorrow!   I am looking forward to a normal day in my office and with the kids we have now....of course I still do have to go back and finish renewing my  drivers license too....BUT NOT TOMORROW!

       I have lots of photos to add one of these days too!

    We just brought in the New Year - two hours ago already!   New Years is celebrated with fire works here, lots of nice "in the sky" stuff but lots of just NOISE as well.  The  American staff and  our house parents all went up on our hill with the kids to watch the fireworks around midnight.  It is so loud that no one can sleep.  All but 5 kids were awake through the New Year celebrations!  I sat with Wilmar while we watched the fireworks.   Wilmar never sits on anyones lap too long...too much to do in life.  But he was stuck to my lap for more than 30 minutes while we watched and listened to all the fireworks going off all over the city.   He was obviously a bit fearful but enthralled as well.  I kept telling him that all that "in the sky" stuff was "fire works"...the other kids were all yelling HAPPY NEW YEAR and blowing horns.  Finally Wilmar figured out a way to bring all the excitement together...he started yelling "Happy Fire"  to everyone!  It did sum up the event!   We were all happy to be together watching the fireworks!  Thanks Wilmar!