Joy, Too.

This week I started spending part of my time at another Mosoj Yan house- Casa Albergue, the second step in the program. It's for girls who were abused physically or sexually, as well as for girls who've finished their process of drug detoxification at Renovación (the house I've been working at so far).

Gabi, the girl I wrote about last week, finished her Ren process recently and moved to Casa Albergue. I was thrilled to be reunited with her and her adorable 13-month-old, Yoselin, and when I saw them I immediately tossed Yosi up in the air and blew raspberries on her belly. Then I set her giggling self down, and she immediately toddled over to her mother who was sitting nearby.

She toddled over to her mother who was sitting nearby.

Pause...

Wait, did she just- Could she do that at Ren- What!?-

"Que-"
"Yosi!"
"O!!!"

The courtyard errupted in exclamations and hugs for this WALKING baby, as she took her first steps right in front of us.

She spent the rest of the afternoon glowingly teetering between my and others' delighted arms and her proud, beautiful 18-year-old mother's affirming kisses.

I'd spent the morning, as I sort of hinted at in the entries yesterday, feeling sick to my stomach and afraid as I've read this month's HNGR readings on poverty and thought about how far I fall of the mark laid out in the book I claim to live by. As I headed to work that day, what I really wanted to do was go into the bathroom and cry for a little bit.

Instead I got to see and be a part of a baby taking her first steps. It doesn't change anything about what I pray I am learning and I don't want it to.

But there is no shortage of joy here, or in life, either.