Samuel's Adventures: Meet a student: Ana

Name: Ana Deysi Ramírez Rosales

Age: 17 years old

Arrival: First started coming to CICS in 2007

Teacher: Mary Eva Pacheco

Ana is part of a family of six deaf children. She is a sister to Verónica, the cook, and Teresa whom I wrote about earlier. If you would like to know more about Ana's home life, you can click here to got to that post.

For the rest of this post, I will let someone else do the talking. Her teacher, Mary, has been in school with Ana for many years and knows much more about her than I do, so I asked her to write a piece which she gladly did. She wrote it in Spanish which I translated below. If you want to see the original text, whether you know Spanish or not, you can click here. Maybe you can even critique my translation skills! Confession time: I did use a bit of Google Translate, but nobody's perfect, right! :) Here you go...

I remember the first time that I met Ana. She seemed like a very pretty girl, with intelligence and a lot of energy. She always had a beautiful smile, which made me want to try to get acquainted and be her friend. But to my surprise, she rejected me immediately and always tried to do different things to openly show that she didn't like me--things like disrespecting me, hitting me, or pushing me. It wasn't easy, but with the support and advice of Nata and Becky, I was finally able to get close to her and she accepted me.

Over the years, I have discovered that Ana has a very strong character and a heart that wants to do what is right. However, she fights against her human nature that wants to lead her astray, and which often does. She has a very brilliant mind and is very intelligent, to the point where academics are very easy for her. I would say she pretty much learns by herself--she doesn't need much explanation in order to learn something new. Year after year, she wins first place in the spelling competition, although some years her little sister Teresa has won, which has not been easy for Ana to accept.
In these last few years, Ana has struggled with submitting to authority, influencing and making groups between the rest of the deaf children, and leaving her house under false pretenses in order to go to places that wouldn't be allowed.

She confesses to fighting a lot against the Tempter in doing what is right. She has expressed her desire to be faithful to God, even though she knows it isn't easy.

Let's pray for Ana, that she could remain firm in her decision to be faithful to God. Pray also that God could provide a place to work for her. That is another big decision she needs to make next year, since she won't be coming back to school.

Through faith, I see Ana completely decided to serve Christ, being a useful instrument for the glory of God, teaching other deaf children what she has learned. I think she would be a good teacher!

I am happy to have had the privilege of teaching her these years, and I leave the rest up to the Lord. --Mary Eva Pacheco

Like Mary said, please pray for Ana. She has many struggles, but desires what is right. Pray that she transform into a shining example of what Christ can do. Pray that she wouldn't lose what she was taught when she stops coming back to school next year. Pray for Ana...

Ana, along with Teresa, "busy" helping Verónica make
chocobananas (chocolate covered bananas on a stick).

Fighting for something, not sure what. Left to right: Beatriz, Tiffany, Ana

In school, supposed to be paying attention!
Left to right: Teresa, Paola, Ana

Sooooo tired! Hammocks are always so inviting
right after lunch. I can testify to that!

Ana tries to whistle, making for a hilarious expression,
not unlike Elmer's "fat person" impersonation. :)

Believe it or not, more people than this can fit on the swing.
I believe we've had up to five on there at one time. ;)
Left to right: Teresa, Beatriz, Ana

One of the all-time favorite afternoon games: trapo. You see if you can
knock the mop handle down without getting caught, which frees everyone.
Left to right: Mauricio, Ana, Eduardo, Teresa, Beatriz