My Friend Valeria
I really have the utmost respect for my friend Valeria. She is 26 years old and possesses a level of maturity well beyond her age. Currently, she is finishing up the year as a school teacher. Every day, she takes an uncomfortable bus to a very poor area 2 hours to the west of Buenos Aires. There she receives very little pay to teach 8 year olds who come from terrible families. At the end of the day, she takes another uncomfortable 2 hour bus ride back into BA. She does this without complaint because she believes it´s what God has for her right now. She loves the opportunity to help these kids and do whatever she can to instill learning and godly values in them.
January 7th, she is going to Curitiba, Brazil to look for a job teaching Spanish to Brazilians. She is learning Portuguese and studying diligently in order to prepare herself for the future. She doesn´t have anything lined up and doesn´t know how long she will be there. All she knows is that she has complete peace about this and wants to obey God. Given the higher level of sacrifice required to do this, I don´t claim to equate my situation to hers. But in some sense, we are very similar. Both of us feel a little crazy, don´t know much about the future, but have complete peace.
Valeria been very kind to me and shown a great deal of patience. On Thursday, Vanessa, Monica and I are going out to her school for an end of the year fiesta. Should be interesting.
