August 17th, 2011 - The Cleaning of the Volunteer House

One of my passages in my devotion this morning was Psalm 91:4 – He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

 

Oh how I’ve needed to hear these words this past week, but this morning was truly the perfect day to hear them as I was able to soak them in and truly let them work through me.   So many emotions are going through my head as I think that now I’m down to one week left here at Emmanuel.  Actually at the time I’m writing this, it’s almost a week to the HOUR/MINUTE that I’ll be walking out the front gates of this beautiful place that God has blessed.  The trip home has always been difficult because I’m leaving behind children that I have come to love freely, but I’m not yet with my own family…so those many hours that I’m en route (which this time will be over 24 hours of travel between Emmanuel and Appleton) are the toughest.  I hope to hold these words to my heart as everything here begins to wind down and I prepare myself for next week.

Today was a very tiring day.  Kari came to the clinic at 6:30am, so I headed back to the volunteer
house to drop off my stuff.  When I got  there, Lourdes came in and said that her & Katja’s crew would be cleaning the house today and I should get anything in the house (aside from that which was already in my room) into my room.  They did a complete cleaning of the house – meaning they took out ALL of the furniture and washed down walls, floors, cupboards, all the furniture (cabinets &
dressers).  It took all day to do.  Even some boys came over to mow the lawn and then brought the power washer to wash the outside of the house.  In the end, it smelled completely disinfected…like a hospital.  I know that it’s super-clean now and am very thankful that they did this, because Daysha & I have tried to clean as much as possible in between our other responsibilities and then painting the house, but we’d have NEVER gotten it this clean.

I was hoping to get a nap in since last night was rough on me because of it being my 2^nd night in the clinic and having to wake every 3 hours to give medicine…however I had to find other things to do during the day, so I headed to the toddler house to help in the Sala.  After there, I headed to the yards to play with the special needs children.  I read various bible stories to them for over an hour (it was a HOT day today…so I tired easily), then headed to the clinic to relieve Kari for a few hours.  When she came back, I needed to run to the store out front to get a mango juice because all that had been in the
refrigerator back at the house had been thrown out.  I’ll reuse that wide-mouthed bottle for water
for tomorrow too.  Then I headed to the small girls’ area so that Doris could call Andres (she’s been wanting to do that since I got here & she found out he didn’t come).  It put a smile on her face
for the rest of the afternoon.  I went to ensenanza with the girls and then to supper (beans & cabbage) and then over to their house to help with baths, as usual. Because the new group got in a little later, there’s no church this evening.Now that the day is done, I have a large headache, probably from some of the chemicals that are still floating around the house from cleaning.  I was really appreciative to have the chance to talk with a REALLY GOOD friend who sharea a lot of my Christian views.  God put her in place at the right time last night and gave us a good connection to chat for as long as was needed.  Thank you!