Portuguese

Happy Sabbath,

I’m glad to get on here and still have Sabbath hours available.  Last Sabbath I got on here a little late because my little sister came over following my visit to my parent’s house to allow my son to meet two other cousins in his peer group.  Today was a lovely day at church.  We had a good service and fellowship lunch and aside from my son acting up and some extra-unwanted attention from a male member, I had a great day. 

I had a good week too and thank the Lord for it.  There was something I forgot to mention that occurred last week and it seems like it just keeps coming up for a reason.  Last week I was on my way to work and as usually on Mondays (occasionally Wednesdays), take mass transit to get to the office the few days I go.  That Monday, I sat on the train as I always do and over heard a woman trying to offer assistance to another person who didn’t speak English.  I love languages and hope to one day become bilingual and who knows, become a traveling interpreter.  Anything with traveling is dream job material at least for me.  I thought she was speaking Spanish and was surprised that no one else on the train offered assistance.  I decided to step in and offered to take her to her destination and by me intervening, I prevented her from getting off at the wrong stop that the lady was thinking she was going to, helped her switch trains and walked her to her new job at a Brazilian restaurant which was only 3-5 blocks away from my office anyway. 

I hate the Portuguese language.  It wasn’t until I was two blocks away from her destination when I realized she spoke Portuguese and not Spanish.  The only word I knew was obrigada.  I am thankful that most of what I said was similar enough so it was helpful to her but I never could get into that language despite working at a past job where I trained large groups of Brazilians who also struggled with the English language.  They were such wonderful groups of people, but I still dislike the language.  It’s like looking at Polish when you have the gorgeous Russian or Ukrainian languages.  The Cyrillic alphabet looks so much and sounds better.  Who wants to get a headache looking at extremely long words with z’s and y’s, and other consonants that shouldn’t be next to each other, NEXT TO EACH OTHER  and you’re supposed to say that mess?  I won’t apologize.  I don’t like the Polish or Portuguese languages.  It’s not attractive to me. 

Today I sat with a talented lady who is a few years younger than me and her mother and learned not only was she an artist but she studied Japanese and was for a good while studying Portuguese.  Somewhere else in the week Portuguese came up.  I don’t know what for.  Maybe God is trying to tell me something about Portuguese.  I don’t know, but for now I’m sticking with everything else but that.  And Polish, yick!

This week I took on a new person to my caseload and now I’m at 30 people.  This person has a whole lot going on and I feel like they chose me as a last resort and I don’t know if it is such a good idea.  My boss said he wants me to work with her because of my disposition.  He hasn’t seen me in action and a lot of times I lack confidence.  I just hope she doesn’t threaten to harm me like she did the previous case manager.  I feel as though people don’t give these clients a chance.  They come in and believe the first things they hear (negative things) about these clients and not with an open mind and empathy that is so needed in this field.  I was warned of all these horrible things.  She’s a liar. She’s manipulative.  She can’t be trusted and this and that.  I met her and she gave me a lot of information but she had receipts.  She was articulate, organized, and spared no detail about why she didn’t want certain people and how they made her feel.  I have seen it happen so much where agencies believe the staff and not the client.  I have another situation that I got involved in and there were two eyewitnesses to physical abuse.  If I didn’t make the call, that staff would still be abusing the same client and other people.  I made the call, forced them to open an investigation and both eyewitnesses gave their statements resulting in that staff getting fired.  This all happened last week.  Then the program director and I had a talk and I felt he was being dishonest with me.  He came at me the wrong way and there was no reason for it.  I’m having a meeting Tuesday coming up to finalize discharge from the program for my client.  But yeah, back to my new person.  I was nervous and not sure what to expect.  I know that she will be a challenge for me but I’m open to it and the Lord doesn’t give us stuff we can’t handle or bear.

Everyone is not in social work because they care about and like working with people.  I don’t want to be in that deceptive number.

Now the man at church.  There is a church brother/elder who is perhaps 10, maybe 15 years older than me. I don’t know.  I feel like he is in that range but looks are very deceiving and it is true what they say about black people, we don’t age. I am not looking for anyone.  My son is to be the deterrent but it doesn’t seem like the son thing is working to deter this person.  When he came to my church, I had just returned from NY and wore this amazing African skirt and headdress.  I was greeted by him and then I was overhearing him asking others about me, what distant exotic land I’m from and all the shebang.  Sorry to disappoint but I’m ADOS.  Ancestry DNA gave me 1 percent Russian but I'm still 93 percent African and of average black American-ness and I can't shake being average and boring. He didn’t see my son those couple weeks because he was in Carolina.  I brought him back thinking that would end the issue but this man keeps his eye trained on me and approaches me whenever he gets the chance.  Today, he cut me in line jokingly and then tried to put his arm around me.  I’ve even seen him try to make small talk with my son the other week. 

I have to figure out how to make that stop.  The other guy, I was feeling better when I saw he finally brought his wife to church.  I was beginning to think he was not married and when I saw her and heard her, I was impressed by her.  She is a gorgeous woman, quick wit, and deeply spiritual.  Perhaps she attends another church and is heavily involved there, I don’t know. Unfortunately, she didn’t come today.  He comes up to me ever so often but I think he’s just a friendly guy and don’t really see too much issue with him.  He held his arms out to invite a hug but I just shook his hand.  I don’ hug men. It’s against my policy and I know the enemy of souls is trying to start some drama at church.  I don’t have time for it. 

The married man can easily be put in his place by the whole church. People pay attention and they are not stupid. There are a lot of mothers in the church and I choose to stay close to them and under their keen eyes.  The other guy, I don’t know his deal but I know he is interested in me.  Then there was the teacher who went back to Jamaica.  He seemed to be in his early forties and I had mistaken another new set of faces to be his wife and daughter when really they were his cousins.  I learned that the last day he had in the states.  So the enemy is stirring stuff up at church and I have to be on my guard.  I refuse to be caught up in another mess again. 

So what do I thank the Lord for this week? 

I thank the Lord for renewed intuition and self-awareness.  I thank Him for financial help by way of my mother.  I thank Him for the four years I have on the job as of early this month.  I thank Him for electricity that works in most of the rooms of my house, food on my table, and clothes on my back.  I thank Him for family, health, and a great church that I can go to where my son can grow and learn.  I thank Him for the Sabbath.  I rested through the night and it was a good sleep.  I thank Him for this afternoon and what I was able to hear and learn about during the Sabbath lunch.  I thank Him that I am still worth something and can be used by Him even if it involves Portuguese.  He’s not finished with me and I am thankful for His plan tailored for my life.  I trust His plan.  I trust His leading.  I just want to always know when He is leading. 

I hope you have a safe Sabbath and new week to come.  Don’t let the devil trip you up at work, home or in any other place of your life.  Stay alert. Stay woke.