Tutor Life: Cecette Basett

Galatians 6:2. Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. (NLT)

Let me introduce one of our long-time volunteers, Mrs. Cecette Bassett as she shares a heartfelt day “on the Hill".

"I had had a really rough day.  I had just received some tough family news, but that afternoon I was scheduled to tutor and I decided to go. A little girl who I'd never tutored before was sitting at a group homework table with no homework, so I asked her to pick out a book and read a story to me. We went outside and sat at a picnic table, so she could read out loud to me without disturbing the others.

The story was about a child going to a new school and facing a mean bully every day. As she read, my heart was really going out to this poor bullied child in the story...(as I said, I was already in a vulnerable place)...and before I knew it, I was asking her if I could read the story to her, instead of her reading it to me. Of course she was thrilled, and I read the story with full emotions flowing...extra angst for the poor bullied child and unbridled anger toward that mean bully, and as I read, she inched closer and closer to me until she was pressed up to my side with her head on my shoulder...as if she knew I was sad and in need of comfort. And I could tell she had something going on too, and that for that moment in time, we had each other's backs. Sometimes we're there for them, and sometimes they're there for us. And we form these unlikely bonds with each other when we least expect to."

The work we do here at HFO isn’t a one-way street of helping Opelousas youth. Acts of service aren’t carried out in a vacuum, and these built-in relationships allow lives to intertwine; community develops and real change happens.