Personal Profile: Older Carlos

Older Carlos, Gabi, and me

Name: Carlos (I refer to him as Older Carlos so that he's not confused with Carlos)

Age: 12

Grade: 5th(?)

Family: Señor Carlos (dad), Mom (name unknown), Claudia, Gabi (younger sisters), Tuco (younger brother), Ximena, and Valeria (baby sisters)

Moroni, me, Octavio, Ximena, and older Carlos

Favorite thing: Not sure, but he does enjoy soccer a lot.

I met Older Carlos when I returned to Mexico. He came over to the church with his other siblings when I first returned. I don't remember what exactly happened when I first met him. I probably just asked him what his name was, and then he began to play with me and the other kids.

Older Carlos can be all over the place with how he acts. One moment, he can be super helpful, then he's being disruptive. He can be caring, and the next moment he's throwing rocks at people. Overall, I love this kid. He's a good kid deep down. He is a great helper. He came to Walmart with me and Carlos one day and helped me carry my groceries home. He complained the whole way home and made me very frustrated, but still, he helped (check out this post for the full story). Older Carlos is caring, as well. Whenever I'm feeling upset (depending on if he was a contributing factor to my upset mood) he'll usually ask why and try to make things better.

Carlos tends to get angry and fight. A lot. I've caught him several times fighting with other kids, whether it be verbally or physically. It's verbally most of the time. I've broken up one of his physical fights before. At first, I wasn't sure if I should step in and do something, but after I saw Carlos get forcefully punched in the head, I decided that I needed to do something, so I stepped in and broke it up. I sent the other kid home, and I had a talk with Carlos about why he was fighting the kid. He told me that the kid was saying bad things about his sister or his family. I then told him that that wasn't the right way to go about it and that he needed to tell someone if that was happening. I'm not sure if that was the right way to solve the problem, but that's how you handle it in America (which probably means it was the wrong way to do it since Mexico and America are two VERY different places). There was more that was said, but that was basically it. I continued to help him with his anger problem after that. It lessened, but it still was a problem. He told me before I left that he noticed that before I came, he would fight a lot. For some reason, that's all he said, but I think he meant that he acted worse before I came. It was awesome to see that he noticed a good change in his life, and it involved me, but all of the glory and honor goes to God, not me. If it wasn't for God giving me the words (in Spanish) to say to him, I don't think anything would have gotten accomplished.

Please pray that Older Carlos receives the true peace and joy that he needs. Pray that he stops the fighting and replaces it with love. Pray that he understands how much he needs Jesus as his personal Savior, as he does not have Him in his life. Pray for his whole family to receive true salvation, as well. Pray that God uses me to continue reaching out to him and that God gives me the words to say to him whenever a situation may arise. He's an awesome kid, and I don't want him to live another day without Jesus in his life.