Communication and Community

“Great stories happen to those who can tell them. ”— Ira Glass  “One of the ways to reincarnate is to tell your story ”  — Spalding Gray

This story was contributed by one of our staff: Connie Agudelo. She has given us permission to share the story. This story is about our Kids Korner students. (Kids Korner is our free afterschool program that operates on Wednesday and Thursday.  We pick the kids up from Linder Elementary and bring them to church. Their parents pick them up here.) When they first start coming they are a little quiet.  They don’t talk during circle time or chapel.  But quickly transition into knowing they are safe and begin to be comfortable enough to share stories with staff in a group with other children listening. This week we went outside on one of our beautiful days and one of my smallest students came running up and said, “Ms. Connie everyone is telling me not to pick the bluebonnets. I began to tell her that they are special and why we should not pick them.  I am speaking to her in Spanish -- she is my only student whose dominant language is still Spanish, although several of my students speak Spanish in their homes.  With bright sparkly eyes she asked, “are they magic?”  With care I told her that they can feel magical to you.  When I come out here early in the morning and not only see but smell them it’s magical because they make me feel at peace. Keeping that sparkle in her eyes and smile on her face was awesome.   I carefully and quickly thought about how to explain that to her without disappointing her or correcting her.  It’s how we communicate in our neighborhood that makes us a community.  And as I continue to work with our community I am more and more able to speak in a way our culture understands.  We have our “own” culture here at Parker Lane United Methodist Church and only experiencing it first hand am I able to understand it.   If you’d like to find out more about us you can check us out at www.parkerlane.org.