Posted in Personal Stories

Taken From Beth’s Blog About The Kids…

What a blessing it is to be teaching Mikela, Rosie, Malaya and Gabriel… it has been a joy to see God working on their hearts and minds. To have a front row seat to the way He is molding each one. Here are just a few snippets of conversations from this past week. Please keep all the Castillo children in your prayers and for me as I continue to teach them.

Rosie during a game in class(finding the missing number, by 2’s-5’s -10’s) 11, 13,__, 17. She took 2 sec. and said, “ 15 Miss Beth”….Miss Beth, “ Rosie, how did you know that?” (with excited voice :>) Rosie, “ God helped me.” This was such a great opportunity to show the girls how he helps them and reveals himself to them. She gave three more answers like this that just blew me away. This little girl makes strides everyday and it is such a joy to see the Lord at work in the heart and mind of this little girl. Learning does not come easy for her and there are days we go backwards, but there are also days where you see Him working in tangible, physical ways. Every week we have scripture to learn and every week she struggles, but today she said the verse we had 4 weeks ago. We haven’t been practicing it, but she just came out and said it. You can’t tell me God isn’t writing His scripture on her heart. She may not know it for classroom time, but His time. His time is so very perfect. She also said today’s verse!!! Go Rosie. We walked to the soccer field today to run a bit and we lined up at the soccer goal and the girls said let’s run to the other goal. So I said, “alright! Ready, set, go !!” You would have thought Rosie had a motor on her. She took off and left us in the dust, literally. This girl can run…I mean really run…I really might need to begin a track team…LOL…seriously:>)

The other day the girls came down to my room and asked me to come upstairs. My first thought was…is someone hurt or is something broke (Jody and Jose are out for a conference this week). They brought me upstairs and I kept asking, “what happened? Is someone hurt? What is broken?” They opened the door to Gabriel’s room and they quietly said, “look his room is all clean”. They had quietly cleaned his room while he was sleeping…Amazing!!! Then they took me to their room and opened the door. “Wow girls this room looks great.” “ Look at the living room Miss Beth and Mommy and Daddy’s room. “ They had picked up all the toys and cleaned them all, plus made the beds and dusted. They even did the twin’s room, but by the time I had gotten there they had pulled some of their toys out, but it was still clean. I could tell they had put things in their spots. “I am so very proud of you girls. You cleaned without anyone asking you or telling you to help our Madame Ne Ne. What a blessing.” They grinned from ear to ear. It was a priceless beautiful picture.

I took Gabriel out for a run the other day to give Madame Ne Ne a little break and to wear out a boy who has much energy. We put his sneakers on and took off. Now you would have thought “Oh we are just running out the boys energy,” but he showed me more of his little heart this day. Every time we came to a cross-road he would say, “Miss Beth, stop.” and then he would put his hand out as if to stop me and then he would look both ways. Then I would ask him, “which way should we go, sir?” and then he would choose. We ran all over town and to the soccer field, to the ocean, then back to the soccer field. He would stop when he saw letters and we would practice saying each one. We finally made it home after zigzagging all over town. He went back upstairs and an hour later I found out he put himself to bed. To cute. Later for dinner the dogs were crowding around me and I was trying to get them to go. He came over and stood in front of them and told them to go. I told him “thanks big boy for protecting me today and right now.” ….”your welcome.” (eyes went big and huge smile :>)