Ally

My heart is very heavy for our oldest daughter, Ally, who is 6. She will be 7 in March and is mature way beyond her years. She seems like an 8 or 9 year old so I often forget she is still so little. Anyway, she is having a very hard time recently. It started a few weeks ago when she started crying for Florida. She is talking about how much she misses it every day, many times each day(and no, she is NOT getting this from me as I am very content to be here and seldom talk of missing our old life in their presence). Anyway, she has had several spells of heavy crying over missing her life in Florida. Today she told me she just wants to go over to "Papa Dean's" house and spend time with him and that she misses going to grammies and spending the night. She went to bed crying once again.

On top of that, she is not doing well in her studies at home either. She is extremely distracted, cannot focus and is forgetting stuff that she has already learned. She is not interested in learning right now.

She talks about her "friends" and buying them presents. But the sad reality is that the only friends she has are in the South Cone and they can't even remember her name. She gets so frustrated going out there and the kids constantly asking her her name and if they can have her stuff.

I think she is so desperate for friendship, that she has become buddies with our empleada. She wants to constantly talk Spanish to her and help her around the house. This shows me that kids really do need outside influences besides their parents and brothers and sisters. We are working on this, but unless you live in another country with a different language, you can't fully understand the difficulties of trying to fully integrate.

She is really longing for a true friend! I am doing my best to be what she needs, but I recognize this need and I think it would help a lot. Today during naptime I took a nap with her in her bunk bed and she just held onto me so tightly and didn't let go of my hand the entire time. It was so sweet, but sad at the same time. I can't imagine what she is going through at the tender age of 6.

Anyway, my heart is really burdened for her and if you could pray for her it would mean the world to us:

please pray she would feel settled here in Peru.
That she would make at least one good friend that lives near us. I seriously don't care if it is in Spanish or English - she just needs a friend.
That she would focus in school!
That her attitude towards her brothers and sister would soften.
That God would allow she and I to have special time in the midst of our busy lives.

Thanks for listening and praying!

P.S. The good news, however, is that Ally speaks BEAUTIFUL Spanish! In fact, she speaks better than me and almost better than John. :) What a blessing!