I wonder whatever happened to Ms. Heckman's class?

Every so often I become incredibly homesick. But the homesickness is not necessarily for family but for journalism and sometimes the people I met through newspapers.
There were always the people I needed to know such as college presidents, city council members, school board members and presidents of the PTA.
And there were the people who I had the privilege of knowing such as the fourth graders at Greenfield Elementary School in 2008. This rowdy bunch of 20 fourth graders in the Salinas Valley were my life for a school year.
I followed them as they learned multiplication, essay writing and sometimes English. I met them in August of 2007 and followed them every few weeks for 10 months.
As 9-year-olds they were an inquisitive bunch asking if I had a family, a boyfriend or children. One young girl loved the pair of dangling earrings I had on one day. Another boy once asked if I would help advertise puppies that his family was trying to give away. Secretly, I wanted to take all of them for a play date at the park.
There are people and sources from my newspaper life that I miss dearly. The students are sometimes part of that bunch.
People in the migrant community of Greenfield struck me as hardworking and honest folks. I will never forget the afternoon I had walked into one family’s simple home – a converted home – and had an experience that left me speechless for days.
I was spending some time visiting the students’ homes during parent-teacher conference week. The teacher wanted to visit a student’s home to get to know their families, their pets and their living situation. This helped form a concrete relationship as well as help her establish what might be going on at home that could affect a student’s performance in the classroom. Some of these students were living with as many as 15 people in a three-bedroom home.
Anyhow, one particular afternoon we pull into the front of the house searching for Erika, a bubbly 9-year-old whose brown hair was sometimes worn in braids and who spoke no English . We quickly discover that the family lives in a part of the house that had been converted. The teacher knocks on the door and a beautiful Oaxacan woman answers in a sparkly black top and blue jeans. This top is something you would see someone wear out to dinner on a Friday night.
We’re welcomed into their home and the young student greets us with a smile. We walk past two tiny bedrooms and into the master bedroom that had a simple carpet and a pile of blankets as furniture. Erika excitedly sits across from her father as I sit cross-legged on the floor. Her father taught himself how to spell his name and never received any education.
But the part of the evening that stuck with me was their poverty. He asked the teacher if she knew where he could get some extra money for food because some nights they would go without dinner. Their bedroom furniture was a television, a dresser and blankets. Everyone slept on the floor. Erika’s desk was often her textbook that she could use for her homework.
I remember driving back to the newspaper that night partially crying. I wanted so much to help them. Something inside me moved that night to really consider ministry full-time instead of journalism. I was tired of writing stories. I wanted to act.
I never saw the family again and the young girl left the school before the year ended. When I arrived one morning to find out that my favorite student was gone I was surprised. I wanted to know if she would be ok? And if her father still had work?
He had found a better job and three weeks before school ended he moved his family.
Stories and people like Erika often flutter through my mind. They were anonymous yet important to my spirituality. If I managed to find them today in the Salinas Valley I would say, ‘Gracias por inspirar a mí.’