August 11th - La clínica

I had to be at the health clinic this morning from 6:30-8:00am. There was a little boy about 2 years old named Memo who had spent the night because he had diahrrea for a week. And there was also a 12 year old girl who had burnt her hand pretty severely about a week ago. Sheila (who works the clinic) told me that this girl's skin had all burnt off of her ring finger and the rest of her hand was pretty badly burnt as well.

I went to the school about 8:40am to work in the storage room some more. ***NOTE TO ALL: They will not need pencils for a very long time. I've been working on organizing pencils all day Friday and just about all day today. I'll bet they have well over 50,000 pencils. I was in the room organizing for 3 hours this morning and 1 hour this afternoon with a small break inbetween to update my blog from the weekend and to have lunch. The cue that it was time to go to lunch was Robert coming into the storage room to offer me some of his "yuca", I guess in the States it's called a Gasava root (did I spell that right, Bob would know). AFTER offering it to me and AFTER I bit into it, he said "you know it's poisonous". Then he paused for quite a while (I guess for effect) and continued by saying "until they boil it". It tasted like a home-made french fry to me. Robert even put ketchup on it.

The school had a TV news reporter there this afternoon, who was looking into every room to film a little bit of everything to put on the news. Robert asked that I work with the door closed and locked (since the room is SO messy right now). It got pretty warm in there which is another reason I was only in there about an hour. When the "coast was clear", I checked to see how everything went. The reporter's camera battery went dead while he was still over at the colegio (high school), so he'll be back Thursday morning to film the primary school. I'm just about finished with the pencils and got a little start on organizing the blue/black pens.

I went to put the young girls to bed again tonight. The normal routine for me with them is:

1. Put a dab of toothpaste on their toothbrushes & send them to the bathroom to brush their teeth and go to the toilet
2. After the bathroom, I send the girls to the showers (it's a communal shower) where I have to stand outside the shower door and squirt a dab of soap into their hands to wash their bodies, and then squirt a bit of shampoo on their heads to shampoo their hair. On some nights they get conditioner as well. I have to make sure they scrub good and get all of the soap/shampoo off...and fairly quickly as the older girls start heading into the showers - so the little ones need to get out.
3. I hand the girls a small towel as they come out to use for drying themselves off. They are to be dry by the time they get back to their rooms.
4. In their rooms, I hand out their "blumers" as they call them (underwear) and I comb their hair.
5. I send them to the living room next to get their clothes. They do not have jammies, but sleep in the clothes that they are going to be wearing the next day. They do not get to choose the clothes they wear, but instead are handed clothes by an older girl who is in charge of giving out clothes that she believes will fit them.
6. Depending on the night, they either watch a movie or get read a couple of bible stories. Tonight we read about Jonah and The Creation. They wanted to hear the story both in Spanish AND English. Before turning the pages, I'd ask them questions about what was about to happen. They know those stories VERY well.

The youngest girls in this room that I have been helping out with are 5-6 years old. Their names are: Nani, Blanca, Yenci, Carol, Evelyn, Cindy & Reina.

We had our volunteer meeting at 6:00pm and Kim came to lead it. She wanted to talk about missions work so she read Acts 1:8 which says "...You will be my witnesses - in Jerusalem (your town), in all of Judea (your state/country), in Samaria (your enemy's land), and in every part of the world." We need to be witnesses to Christ, from our next door neighbor to the ends of the earth. And you don't have to GO to do God's will. We also looked at Romans 12:4-8 which reads:

• Each one of us has a body, and that body has many parts. These parts all have different uses. In the same way, we are many, but in Christ we are all one body. Each one is a part of that body. And each part belongs to all the other parts. We all have different gifts. Each gift came because of the grace that God gave us. If one has the gift of prophecy, he should use that gift with the faith he has. If one has the gift of serving, he should serve. If one has the gift of teaching, he should teach. If one has the gift of encouraging others, he should encourage. If one has the gift of giving to others, he should give freely. If one has the gift of being a leader, he should try hard when he leads. If one has the gift of showing kindness to others, that person should do so with joy. (International Children's Bible)

Each of us has different gifts, some the ability to serve, others the ability to give, and so on. Use those gifts to let God's grace shine through you!

Oliver stopped in much later to say "goodbye". He'll be heading back to Berlin early tomorrow morning. I'm the next one to leave (this Saturday) and although I do miss my children more with each email I get from Bob, the time has flown by so quickly!