4th grade gang wannabes!?

Tutoring: Still growing. Three more new ones today. Three different new ones Tuesday. Fortunately, they’re not ALL coming back on the same day. We still need to prepare more for this growth. But, yes - I have to walk to the bus stop to pick the kids up now and walk back together. Because Tuesday we started our day with some heated boys after the little “G-squad” in town jumped Archie and hit him in the face as he walked to the MICO house. I’m encouraging the boys Not to fight back and Not to get riled up. The only thing I know to do so far is keep them safe. So, I walk to the bus stop and we walk back together.
It’s crazy, our three (now 4) core kids wether it’s at MICO or even outside their bus, when they see me, those three brothers run full speed at me yelling Miss Julie, and give me big hugs. That’s enough to keep you in something like this, I’d say. =P But, happens today, after they greet me, they’re yelling across the street at the G-Squad how they were packing protection! I refused to be a part. It’s interesting too. It Did show me a bit of how God works. How I see it, when we choose to do things on our own, we’ve chosen our reward and our outcome. When we let God handle it and give it to Him and obey Him, He can reward us, and that’s Always better!
When the boys choose to pack weapons (Which one Did, in fact, have an exacto knife in a pocket of his backpack for that reason), I cannot stand up for kids like that. I cannot back their weapons. They’ve chosen to handle it, and I cannot step in for these kids I’m “so proud of” and 'fight' for them, when they’re fighting foolishly.
That’s all for my random thoughts.
Pray for direction in this time of shifting.

Not happy that my friend is in jail, but what a cool experience to be in a ministry in which my dad and I have developed a relationship with an individual and go together during visiting hours and discuss funny stories and God stuff with an inmate for like 45 minutes!
Tutoring today was so funny. We are averaging 6 boys between the grades of 1 and 5. They are so humorous and not short on energy or boldness. Today, I gave a couple of them the best thing I could find in order for them to get creative and do the limbo (which they decided) - a rope. After entering the homework room for some more problems with another kid, I come out to find one at the top of the stairs with rope in hand and one at the bottom JUST about to start tug of war. Oh dear dear! I can't help but laugh everytime I think of it. NOW - this makes our tutoring ministry look off the wall and out of control. And while you may sense that walking in - it totally is not. But let's just say - if we want to serve more kids - we are in bad need of more adults and helpers.
New Update: I am a high school algebra teacher as a full time sub. What an experience. It's the greatest thing though seeing So many High school kids I know though, day in and out. Freshman are very cool. And math can be fun to teach.