Meet My Friend Jesus...Pronounced "Hayzus""

He's 7 and just finishing the second grade. Wonderful young man. I've gotten to know him through his mother, Francesca, who cleans for us every other Wednesday. He has a little sister Karina (she was in an earlier posting when she was about two months old). Mom is getting a divorce. Not a good situation for a young man who is obviously very smart. We brought him a panda bear from our China trip and a book on creep-crawley things that live in Costa Rica from that trip. Boys like that kind of stuff. He is bi-lingual; his mom is sort of.

They are now living in an apartment in downtown Lincoln that has lots of moms like Francesca, but not all the kids are like Jesus. This is the first summer he will live there. Kerry and I decided we needed to find a way for this kid to go to day camp at the local park. Hanging out at the apartment complex did not sound like something that would be good for him. His mom did the paperwork with the help of some friends. We got the good news today; he got a full scholarship ($225). Kerry and I will pay the extra expense each week for the field trips.

Jesus is so excited; he just ran to me and hugged me. He mentioned he wanted to be a Boy Scout. I told him he had to be a Cub Scout first. I found out who does Scouts in Lincoln; he will join a Cub Scout troop at his school this fall. The uniforms will be free because of his mom's low income. Plus the Boy Scouts now have all their information in Spanish so his mom will be able to understand what he is doing. For any of you out there who think that English should be the language of the United States...get over it. I live in California where we think that communication is good regardless of the language. Glad I got that off my chest.

We feel better about this than I have about a lot of other "charitable" things we've done. I hope you can see from his face that he is a wonderful young man. He is capable of great things. I keep thinking of that phrase: "give a hand up not a hand out."