Where to Begin??

Wow, this blog update is LONG overdue; I'm not sure where to begin...

I believe the last post indicated that Brian was waiting to hear back from ESB for the job he wanted, we were heading off to London for the Saints vs. Chargers game, and Brian's parents were coming to visit.

Done, done, and done. :)

Two days after Brian started with VHI, ESB called and offered him the job that he'd been waiting for. The job is doing asset management with our local electric company; it's a 2 year contract and so far Brian enjoys the work and his colleagues.

My work with Barnardos is a slow progress; I'm currently working with 1 mom who consistently shows up every week for our counseling session and with 3 others who never show up. There's hope yet...I'm learning on a daily basis the vast difference of working with families impacted by poverty. With poverty comes higher stress levels in the home, increased use of drugs/alcohol, increased probability of domestic violence, increased number of crises and trauma (abuse, violence) that children witness in the home, increased chances of children being subjected to physica, emotional, and verbal abuse, and decreased hope among families unless they get involved with community support systems and agencies/organizations (such as Barnardos). Tomorrow, I'll start working on my next batch of families, all self-referred, which is positive, it means that these are families that are seeking support and will commit to attending our sessions.

Brian recently asked me, "if I could abolish 1 thing in the world, what would it be?"...without giving it much thought, my first answer was poverty...with the hope that the issues I mentioned above would decrease as access to health care, adequate education, food, medicines would increase. What would you say...if you could abolish 1 thing in the world?