How has your summer rhythm been different this year compared to years past?
For us, normally our summers are slower. Kids are running freely throughout the community. In and out of our centers and bases at a much more lax pace. A time of year where most children are working thus leaving our routines at the door, and introducing slower rhythms. Rhythms of sitting at the table together, eating a meal with everyone crammed around the same tables, games and conversations galore. Because we simply have the time to be together. No where to go, no school schedule to keep. It is a beautiful time of connection.
This year, however has looked so different. Weeks of not being aloud in the communities due to COVID, keeping our connection through phone calls, daily check in’s and regular supply drops had become our new rhythm. This month, the government gave us permission to re-enter. But to do so slowly. To be cautious of the high-risk communities, and to keep gatherings to a limited number of people. Social distancing still exists as we carefully reintegrate back into the communities that have captured our heart. Empowering families with basic needs and resource.
We are teaching new rhythms to a community of people. How to keep connection all the while not putting those we love at risk. It is a new season, but one that has been prayed over, discussed and strategized. Not only among our staff, but in partnership with the local government and officials. It has been a time of learning and teaching. A time of listening and speaking up. A time that may have felt at times lost, but has fully been reinvented and redeemed. This summer may not have been the typical slow rhythm we had been anticipating, but it has been a fruitful one filled with dreaming about what is to come.
Though we are excited for Fall to get here, we are loving every moment with the smaller groups of children who daily are right in front of us. A time of learning and listening to who they are as individuals and their dreams for the future.