Political killings, Courting and Dorm happenings

I can't believe it's july already. time is flying. and time is dragging too.

the big news around here is that 9 ppl were killed by the military in a village about 2 hrs from here. a congresswoman decided to give the land she owned (possibly a "gift" from the gov't) to her tenants. and then the government claimed that it wasn't her's to give and ordered a demolition of the village. the people fought back when the military came to "monitor" the demolition, nine were killed and several were wounded. i found out about the killings as i was reading the children's letters to their sponsors, one of my duties on the last saturday of the month when they submit the letters. this is scary. please pray for peace.

I am on that seesaw - homesick one day, deeply grateful to be here the next day. It is hard to travel alone but, it also opens up a lot more opportunities. So some days I feel very blessed and other days I wonder how I can possibly survive without a peer to talk to. I'm just trying to trust the process.

I've given up trying to find a church. The ones I have gone to have been so disappointing, one asked me to invite all the students to come, this is not how I want to use my position. The other just asked me for money, straight up. I also attended a church that felt like a funeral parlor.

Different ideas for dating
First it's called courting. yes, courting. So first the guy makes his intentions known, a mushy declaration of love. then the girl says no, it's practically a rule. then he serenades her with his friends and makes a second declaration at which point the girl gives her true answer. then dating starts and marriage follows quite soon after.
I am going to be giving a series of presentations about dating and relationships at the college. So I am trying to find out what the norms are here. I'm going to draw from the book Boundaries in Dating.

I've started tutoring the college students in english every morning before classes. In the evenings I supervise a study period for all the students in the dorm, there's 27 now. one boy is only SIX! I can't believe that he is in the dorm. On the weekends I plan recreational activities on Fridays and Saturdays. The community work is also taking more time these days as both communities are preparing for a monitoring visit from the country director on July 9. So I now spend two full days per week with them.
Last night one of the girls in the dorm was injured, she broke her foot. She is at the hospital right now. I gave first aid and then stayed with her til she fell asleep last night. There are no x ray technicians at the hospital on sundays so we had to delay taking her to the hospital.

That's about it. In two weeks I'm going to be leaving to travel for a week or so. I'll visit 4 towns that are further up into the mountains. One village has some caves to check out, so I'm looking forward to that.

Miriam