Another Week In Paradise

We had a nice rest in Darwin last weekend. I was able to get a much needed haircut and Linda very much enjoyed the shopping opportunities and picked up some things we needed. It was strange to be in civilization again. The Hotel we stayed in was brand new and very nice. The room had a beautiful view of downtown Darwin. On Sunday evening we went to what’s called the “Mindil Beach Sunset Market”. The market opens at sunset and goes well into the night and offers all sorts of international food, entertainment and has various vendors selling unique craft, art and clothes items. The atmosphere has a very international feeling to it. Darwin is a very multi-cultural/ethnic city and it is actually closer by flight to Singapore and Manila than Sydney.
We arrived back to Pickertaramoor about 8:00 Monday morning to begin a new week with our boys. Man, what a week it was! It’s a good thing we had a good rest. We needed to deal with a serious anger issue this week. In fact it was by far the most serious issue we had ever dealt with in our years of working with youth. It’s a long story and will spare the details but one of our young men became very verbally abusive and threatening to the teacher staff and us. It has been building up for some weeks and we have made attempts to curve this behavior and give the student every chance to come under the authority of the school. He is a very big, strong young man for his age. It got to the point on Wednesday evening that we needed to send him back to his community. He became enraged at that point and went ballistic swinging a large piece of wood breaking windows and threatening staff at the top of his lungs. He finally calmed down after an hour or so and the police needed to transport him back to his community. We don’t want to give up on this young man. He is very smart and shows very good leadership ability. Please pray for him and for us staff here as we seek Godly wisdom in this situation.
It is amazing to us how God can turn a not-so-good situation into opportunities of learning and growth. We needed to walk our other boys through the above situation being they of course experienced the trauma of it as well. We had a day of informal debriefing on Thursday and focused on dealing with anger being most of them are dealing with all sorts of anger issues themselves. We discussed Eph 4:26-27 "Be angry, and do not sin": do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. & Prov 22:24-25 “Make no friendship with an angry man, And with a furious man do not go, Lest you learn his ways And set a snare for your soul”. Linda and I are thrilled concerning their response and believe our boys have moved to a new level as they learn to deal with anger. What a blessing it is to see these young men begin grow and blossom.
Linda and I are enjoying a peaceful weekend here in Pickertaramoor. The weather is beautiful every day here during the dry season. The lows are usually in the upper 60’s to lower 70’s and the highs are middle 80’s to lower 90’s. The school is located in a very remote bush area so there are no stores or anything like that but we enjoy taking long walks, spending time with friends and watching an occasional DVD. We watched a movie last night called, “August Rush”. Check it out if you haven’t seen it yet.
It’s early Saturday morning as I’m writing this and it’s still dark. The realization of being here is all to evident as I hear the Dingo’s yell in the bush. Please continue to keep the students and staff here at Tiwi College in your prayers. Thanks!!!!