For those of you who do not know, I am taking some classes at ETSU this semester one of which is "Statistics in Criminal Justice".  It is quite simply horrific.  I'd appreciate your prayers that I will actually be able to get my mind around this mess. Thanks everyone!  :)

added on Sunday: also be in prayer for me in regards to some medical issues.....nothing too big, i just ask for your prayers.  Thank you and be blessed!!!!!!!!!!  S

i used to get angry a lot. i still get frustrated or annoyed or whatever, just like anyone else in the world, but for me to get angry like i used to it takes something big. (which is a good thing)  yesterday i got angry and this is why. anyone who i talk to with any regularity will know that i have met two ladies through my job who are Mexican and whose documentation may or may not be "valid". i have had an enormously hard time finding anyone to help these ladies even though i met them both in a DV shelter and they were (are) definitely in need.  the last two months has been an education for me in the way of immigration and the injustices doled out to people who are living in this country but are not of American birth. (let's not forget that at it's conception, America was a haven for immigrants...if you are not of pure Native American lineage, don't feed me the line about others coming into "your" country. we are all, at some point in our history, immigrants) but i digress. the reason i got so angry last night was because one of these ladies has a gorgeous, sweet 16yo daughter and this daughter came home from school (Science Hill) and told us about her history class for the day.  they had been discussing immigration in the United States and the teacher of this HS class began talking about Mexicans and how they come into our country and rob us and kill people and take our land and are all lazy and on welfare and are just a liability to honest Americans. this was all said in an open classroom of impressionable teenagers at least one of which is very obviously Mexican. so this young lady, who by every normal HS standard would be Miss Popularity if she were white and didn't speak in broken English (i.e. pretty, nice, 3.7 GPA), had to sit there in a room of her peers who KNOW she is Mexican and listen to her teacher degrade her people and her culture and HER! this young lady is already convinced that Americans hate her due to past events like two boys setting her ponytail on fire on a school bus and now that belief is just further enforced as is any inkling of prejudice that already existed in any of those other teen's minds. i wanted to march right down there to that school and throw a fit!  i wanted to demand that teacher offer me an explanation!  but i am not her mother and it is not my place (at least not in that direct a way) and it leaves me feeling ANGRY and helpless and with the desire to round up all the Alexandra's of this country and apologize to them and beg their forgiveness for the harsh, unfeeling, hypocritical way that my country and some (a lot) of people in it treat them! i know we have to be careful, i know these are different times but the way in which we treat people, the way in which we are COMMANDED to treat people, should not change.  i entreat any of you who read this to be conscious of what Jesus teaches us in way of treating others the next time you come across a person who is obviously not "from here" and who doesn't speak your language so well. and think about how you would like to be Alexandra's mother sitting there on your couch listening to your little girl tell you about her day at school with tears in her eyes.