August 10th - All of God's Creatures

This morning when I woke up, Sheila was quick to point out the tarantula they had killed last night outside the volunteer house. The ants were already starting to carry it away. I asked if they were common, and she said they didn't see tarantulas all that often, but that a few months back...one the size of her hand crawled under the door into the house!

Church began at 9:00am. The boys sit in front and the girls sit in back. This is mostly so that there is no temptations between the two. There are flags that hang from the ceiling of all the countries and U.S. states that have been to Orphanage Emmanuel to help out. They are missing the Wisconsin flag...I guess I'm their 1st visitor from Wisconsin, so I have to make a note to bring one next year!

Anita, Esti and I were officially introduced to David and Lydia this morning. They both said they had felt so bad about not having met us sooner but that David had surgery on his leg a little over a week ago, so to us it was completely understandable that he had been spending a lot of time in their house recovering and she had been tending to him.

David had us stand in front of church at the beginning of the service to have us introduce ourselves to all who were there - into a microphone. Even though I am a teacher by profession, I am still a fairly shy person when it comes to strangers, so this was something a little out of my comfort zone. But again, in serving others, God frequently asks us to go outside of our comfort zone.

We sang prises both in Spanish and in English. David leads the worship service, and his sermon was also in both languages. It amazed me how he could talk for 5 minutes straight before he would switch to the other language and repeat everything he had just said. He had many points today, but the biggest one was to listen to God and follow what He tells you. Be ready to accept the challenges He gives you and serve others in His name. David has such a unique way of presenting God's Word. I see a lot of similarities in teaching and personal characteristics between my pastor (Pastor Jeff) and David, although David is about 10 years older, his service lasts 2 hours...something "us Lutherans" are not used to. But believe it or not, I actually had not checked my watch until the very end!!! What a great speaker!

When we got back to the volunteer house after church, Esti went straight to bed. She had been up all night in the clinic with some children that were sick. An older girl had burned her hand, a toddler had a fever of 101, and another toddler had diahhrea pretty bad.

I ate and then met up with Oliver (a college student volunteer from Berlin, Germany) to take the young boys to the soccer field. Oliver had organized a soccer tournament for the boys and it was their 1st time EVER to the soccer field (normally only the middle to older boys play there). There were 4 teams and each team had their own soccer jerseys (red, blue, grey & purple). I got some GREAT action shots of the soccer game. The older boys were their coaches and they were just as excited to be coaching them as the children themselves - although they told me that when they were that young, they played a lot better than these boys. My response was that they should take the younger boys out more often and practice with them! :-)

Half-way through the tournament, Lindsey had brought over the "charamuscas" that Oliver had bought for everyone to enjoy. The best way to descri be a "charamusca" is if you were to make a popsicle out of fresh fruit and put it in a sandwich bag rather than on a stick. They tear open a corner and suck it out of the bag. I had met 2 young boys: Eric and Luis David.

After the soccer game, I went back to the volunteer house and ate. Lindsey was really excited to show me a picture of a tarantula that she had taken on her way back from the soccer game. It was also dead, but you'd never be able to tell by looking at the picture. It must've just died. Pretty gross!

I headed to the girls' eating hall about 4:00pm to help them get ready for bed. I met Yenci, a girl who's 6 years old that I had seen before, but just now learned her name. My goal is to meet & learn the names of a couple of new children each day.