This morning when I got up, Tony decided that he wanted to shower and go to big circle. He was not
sick – just the ear thing, so I decided it would probably be good for him to go & see his brother and his friends. We headed to big circle, dropping my overnight items from the clinic off at the volunteer house on the way. The message for the day was from 1 Peter 2:19-21 which states “For it is commendable if a man
bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.” Then the second reading came from 1 Peter 3:13-17 which says, “Who is going to harm you if you
are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.” Basically the message was about how even if we follow God’s will in our lives, bad things are going to happen to us and God wants to respond in His ways, in the way that Jesus would have responded, with love and respect towards those who do us injustice. It is in our sinful human nature to be upset, angry and even vengeful when these things occur; but we need to remember to lean on God in these times and respond with love. After circle, I walked back to the clinic with Tony and Daysha to wait for Terri to relieve me so that I could go to the little girls’ dining hall to help serve breakfast and do the dishes afterwards. I joked with one of the older girls about burning the hot cereal to the bottom of the pan and she cleaned it out for me. I definitely was not looking for her to wash that pan, but was very thankful she did (& I let her know that too!)…because it took her almost the entire time that it took me to wash all the dishes to
get the burnt, caked-on cereal off of that pan! I headed back to the house to shower and then went to take a few more pictures to bring back home. Doris asked me to lend her my camera and said she would take a bunch of pictures for me, so I’ve saved what I have so far to my computer and I’m going to lend her my camera and trust that she’ll get some pretty good pics. I hope all of you have seen my new profile pic on Facebook of me & Doris. Daysha and I headed to town. She needed groceries, and I desperately wanted to find a soccer shirt
for Noah to replace the one he grew out of, but loves – I was out of luck. I am not giving up hope though…I still have a few days left for my search! We got back to Emmanuel just in time for it to start raining pretty hard. It is the rainy season down here, so it generally rains at least once a day but not for much more than 5-20 minutes before the sun comes out again.
I ended my day by heading to the little girls’ dining area and ate rice, beans & a tortilla with them and then went to help shampoo hair with Angelica. It has been a real blessing to get this involved with the girls once again. I got permission to take Doris to town tomorrow (thanks to Lesbi for reminding me I hadn’t spent one-on-one time with Doris yet). I like to buy a few shirts for myself – nice stylish ones I can wear to work, so I’m hoping that she can help me pick some out! Of course we’ll do the “ice cream thing” too like I had treated Blanca and Yenci the weekend before. When I got back to the volunteer house, Daysha and I went outside to pick 2 avocadoes which are just about ready to eat. I remember Andres last year standing on a chair with broom in hand, jumping up to try to hit them off of the tree (they really are up high). Then Daysha asked me to pray for her college mentor’s family (the Burley family). Her college mentor, Kim, had posted a message on Facebook saying that her daughter, Emily, was in a terrible car accident and it took the jaws of life an hour & a half to get her out. Please be praying for Emily’s health in this most difficult time. At the end of the evening, I prepared myself to head back to the clinic for the night. When I arrived, there was a girl from the toddler house who was at the clinic with a fever. She is autistic and prone to
seizures, so they wanted her to stay the night. She needed to have her temperature checked every hour, so this meant I would be pulling an all-nighter. I’m glad I had Daysha’s book to keep me occupied.
This morning around 6:30am, I relieved Daysha from having spent the night at the clinic. I stayed until 11:00am and of course in the morning, right when I was about to take Tony for a walk (the one with the stitches on his ear – but not sick), another child came in that claimed he was sick with stomach problems and vomiting. So that “killed” the walk idea. I was happy to hear that the boy went back to his house after lunch and that Tony got to go on a walk with Kari in the afternoon. When Kari relieved me at 11, I went back to the volunteer house just to put my stuff away, and on the way I saw another dead tarantula on the path – although this one was not as much as in tact as the one I saw a couple of days back. It looked like it had been driven over the night before (and, of course, a few pieces had been carried off by other bugs/insects/predators). I had a quick little snack and then headed to the girls’ dining hall to help serve lunch. When the girls began eating, Esperanza came over to me to ask if I could help her with her “homework”. It was a couple’s bible study that all couples at Emmanuel were asked to do. There were some questions she had to answer and then a survey she had to take which assessed her love languages (???). I helped her translate the sentences into Spanish (which were written out in English) and helped her with a few ideas, but really didn’t feel at all qualified to help her with a marriage counseling bible study. Here’s the reality: Although some people may think that I have it all together in my marriage and in raising my children (I’ve been asked a few times to lead bible studies in these areas)…I don’t feel that I do. I’m being completely open here, and I’m guessing that if you’re reading this – you may be shocked but perhaps you’re also thinking that you don’t have it all together either…does anyone? I think even when things are going good, we ALL tend to look at other couples/families and think that they are doing things SO MUCH BETTER. I do that too. Okay, so that’s my philosophical stuff for you to think about in this blog. Now back to what’s been going on today. As I was washing dishes after lunch, Lourdes (Doris’ sister) asked me if I had a Facebook and when she found out I did, she wanted to know if she could “friend me”. We took care of that and she quickly looked at a bunch of pictures of my family. She thought the picture of Peanut standing next to Sara holding her hand in Sara’s wedding photo (in the pre-wedding pic of Sara and her bridesmaids and flower girl) was the most precious thing!!! About 3pm, Kari came by the volunteer house to tell me that one of the ladies from the team that came was going to help out in the clinic because Katja wanted Kari to go full-time to the toddler house. I know Kari’s heart is more towards being at the clinic, and she mentioned she’s been praying about this new assignment. I told her that God has been faithfully giving me just what I’ve needed since I’ve been here, and perhaps there’s a reason why she is to go over there and spend her days there. I am going to pray that she has strength to handle so many toddlers (it’s definitely NOT my area of expertise), and that she receives much guidance from Jenny who currently is in charge of them – as
Jenny is pregnant and due in the upcoming months. I wasn’t due back at the clinic until about 3:30pm because I thought there would be ensenanza, but there wasn’t. But I walked with Kari as she was going back to her apartment and I headed to the clinic to introduce myself to the team member who was going to help me out with a few hours while I had to sneak away to help the little girls each day. We agreed that she would stay until I was done bathing the little girls (between 5:00 & 6pm), but Daysha asked if I’d like her to take 6-8pm so I could have a “breather”. Now I’m typing this up at the clinic before I have to give Tony his 8:30pm dose of Ibuprofen (for the pain)…and it’s about 4 minutes to 8:30, so I’m going to go for the evening. Have a great night everyone! May God bless you.
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 2nd 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!
Kari came to the clinic at 6:30am to relieve me from having spent the night, so I headed back to the volunteer house for a bit to eat before going to wash dishes. Dishes tend to go a LOT slower when you don’t have that 2nd person there to help. After washing them, I headed back to the volunteer house for lice treatment #2 and to paint. I lost track of time and before I knew it, it was just about lunch time. Bedroom #4 is just about done with only one wall to go! It got painted that elephant gray color, which is really making the room look dark, especially since there’s only one window. After a week of my computer not working with the internet, it finally worked yesterday! With everything that’s been happening to me down here, Daysha & I think that perhaps it was not meant to work on my computer for this past week and today was just the day that it was supposed to be up & running. I can’t really explain here why we felt that way – just a lot of “God signs” going on down here. I am so glad for the opportunity to come down here each year, I feel so close to Him and many times can hear Him whisper to me his wishes and plans for me as I listen to the daily devotions the kids participate in each morning and afternoon, or the ones that I go through on my own.
I stopped by the clinic to check on Kari to give her the option of staying in the clinic over lunch or going and taking her turn in the dining hall & washing dishes. She said although she didn’t really mind, it seemed that she’d rather stay in the clinic, so I headed to do dishes. After dishes I headed back to the house and cleaned a little bit. I relieved Kari from the clinic around 2pm so that she could go and get a bite to eat (they do send an extra plate to the clinic during meal times for the volunteers in the clinic) and just take a break. I let her know that she could tackle supper time (serving food only) and then bath time, and when she was finished if she’d come back for about 20 minutes, I’d head to the house to pack to spend the night. I began reading a 350-page book at 2pm and it was so good that I had to finish it (which means I didn’t get to bed until about 11:30pm). I had to get up every 3 hours for this little boy to get his medicine, so I’m thinking that I may be tired tomorrow – but I’m sure that God will get me through! The highlight of my night was probably while I was sitting in the front part of the clinic (since I needed light to read) and getting to watch the big bugs come out to play. The ants here are larger than normal, but this huge black cricket (probably 3-4 times the size of the ones we have) crawled across the floor and wasn’t about 5 feet in front of me when out of nowhere a little lizard ran down the wall and over to him and whisked him away! I heard the crunch when it caught the cricket in it’s mouth and I think the lizard would’ve started eating him right there, but I didn’t really want to see it, so I stomped my foot and it ran under a door into another room. Later, as I was reading the last 10 pages of my book, I saw a cockroach come out from under a cupboard whose size had been foreign to me since I had lived it Mexico. I wanted it to stay under the cupboard until I finished the book and retreated to the back room to sleep, so once again I stomped my foot and it went running. When I spend the night in the clinic, I take the top bunk of one of the beds in there. I figure that if any bugs are going to climb a bed, they’d rather go for one that’s not so high, hahaha.
This morning I had to first stop at the team house to say goodbye to the Maryland group. As I mentioned before, I didn’t get to see them that often this year…but it was nice to see familiar faces from time to time! I greatly appreciated the help they gave with filling in for us a few hours here & there so that we could have a little bit more time to paint. Katja came by the house today to inspect the 3 rooms that are now finished. I think she realizes that it’s going to take a little bit longer than anticipated. At breakfast, Doris was pretty upset. She shared a bit of information with me, and I will pray that God touches her heart and heals her struggles. She is one of the many reasons that I come down each year. I love to see her smiles and kidding around and just to be there for her! After breakfast, I headed back to the volunteer house to prepare the last two bedrooms for painting. I took out every non-furniture item that was left behind by previous volunteers, and moved all of the furniture to the center of the room. I did 2 loads of laundry and also scraped a bunch of the paint drips off of the ceramic tile in bedroom #3 and swept that room. We should be painting as soon as lunch is done. While Kari and I were doing the lunch dishes, Gerson called over our way to say that there was a boy in the clinic. Kari took that shift since I was going to paint and she didn’t have plans – other than to come and help us paint. Later on we found out that he was going to be staying the night, so it worked out even better because since she is a newlywed…it might be tougher on her to stay the night, away from her husband and in a new place. When I got back to the volunteer house after lunch, Daysha was working on the white pillars in one of the bedrooms, and Daniel and Kellin (Kari’s husband) were rolling paint on one of the walls while their boys were outside cutting the lawn. They got that wall done in no time flat. Daysha kept working on the white borders/pillars the rest of the afternoon and I worked on the ceiling & flooring edges and also the corners with the brush. Looks like these two rooms are going to be gray (think of an elephant’s color). Katja came over later to check on the progress of the house and mentioned the possibility of the volunteer team that’s coming on Saturday to paint the kitchen, living room and hallway for us. At 4:10, I headed to the little girls’ dorm to help with baths and got the shampooing job again (which I like doing). I chatted as I shampooed each girl’s hair and then sent them to Elvia who washed the shampoo out. I generally stay a little later to help out with calming them down, etc…but since I’ll be staying the night at the clinic, I really needed to get back to our house to have a little supper and then to get ready for the clinic. When I got to the clinic and was chatting with Kari, the power went out. It was completely dark and I was regretting not bringing a flashlight (because power outage is a common thing down here). Just a few minutes later, Daysha ran in and announced that she’d be in the clinic as long as the power was out – even if it meant staying the night. She had let me know earlier in the day that she has never lived on her own…living with her parents’ right up until college and then living with roommates. I don’t know how she’ll far when I leave and she has that big volunteer house to herself for 1-2 weeks. She agreed to go back to the house to get a flashlight for us, and while she was gone the power came back on (what a relief), but I still had the flashlight for the night “just in case”. Later in the evening, Gerson brought a boy in who had been taken to the hospital for stitches. He had an incident with a trampoline that had just about ripped his entire ear off and stitches needed to be put on the inside as well as the outside of his ear to attach it back on. Gerson said that this boy will be in the clinic for quite a while, so I can pretty much bank on staying in the clinic every night for the rest of my time here. Gerson also asked me how long I’ve been her and how long I’d be staying yet and then asked (again this year) WHY I don’t stay for longer bits of time. I let him know that eventually I’d be down here for the entire summer.
This morning we said goodbye to Jacki and Julie. After they were long-gone, we realized that Jacki left her camera behind. I will try to get her address from Katja, so that when I get back to the States I can mail it to her. When we headed to church, I saw the Maryland group for the last time. They could’ve used my help with painting faces for the children today, and I was hoping to join them later. The service today was on forgiveness. It’s amazing how each day that I’m here, God speaks to me in His own way – and His chats are just what I need…refreshment for my soul. After church, I spoke briefly with Kari and God must’ve put checking up on her later into my heart because as I was moving into my new freshly-painted room, I found a phone with a charger (and she does not yet have one). I quickly took it over to her apartment with the intention of also inviting her to the tienda to each lunch with us later – and I found her with bloodshot eyes. She missed home. Her husband was out working and she had the day off and it hit her that she’d be here for 9 months. I was glad to be able to have the opportunity to share with her that most volunteers go through a little homesickness the first week or two that they’re here. It’s an adjustment since you don’t really understand what the needs are yet or how to keep yourself busy. Gradually you realize that there’s more work to do than hours in the day and that alone-time to reflect on those you’ve left behind lessens. When I got back to the volunteer house, I decided to head to the yard and have Karla check my head. Karla only found one, which was very tiny or just hatched, and she told me that she was pretty confident that she had gotten all of them! Sometime over this past weekend, Julie, Jacki and I googled the life cycle of lice (I know…gross). Anyway, I discovered that the best thing to do is to give myself another treatment 9 days after the first treatment in order to kill off any newly hatched lice (the treatment generally doesn’t take care of killing what’s inside the eggs) – so I’ll have to look back and see when I gave myself the first treatment. Between that and what Karla’s done for me, I should be good to go! Of course, I’ll still have her periodically check me from now until my return home.We headed to the tienda for hamburgers (no tacos today). I showed Kari and her husband how to manage their phone…simple things like putting Lemps ($$$, payment in advance for usage) on the phone, texting a special code before calling the U.S. to get a discount rate, how to check how many Lemps are left on the phone, etc. Daniel showed up to eat with us, which was nice because Daysha and I realized we hadn’t extended the invitation to him while in church…it completely slipped our minds. We chatted and ate for about 2 hours before realizing that the time had flown by and we still had not yet painted today. When we headed back, Daysha needed to catch up with a girl, so I headed to the house to do some cleaning. I swept the bathroom and cleaning the bathroom sinks. Daysha & I have an agreement that I’ll take care of the floor sweeping/mopping and the sinks/showers and she takes care of the toilets. After having worked at McDonald’s and cleaning those bathrooms on the night shift, I never care to clean a toilet again. I also swept and mopped the hallway, living room and kitchen since Daysha cleaned the kitchen cupboards and did the dishes (there were a lot of dishes). Laundry was an all-day, ongoing thing – as usual. Sam (David & Lydia’s niece) came over to help us finish painting. She’s going to be a junior in high school out in California & is such a sweetheart! She was here for 5 hours this afternoon and although it only took us 2 hours to finish the room, it was nice to chat with her for another three! When we were done, I cleaned up our brushes and the painting jars. Cleaning the floor and getting the furniture back in place will have to wait until tomorrow. I’m also planning on getting into the last 2 bedrooms and getting all furniture into the center of each room, so that we can begin them sometime this week. I’d like to have them all done before leaving Daysha here alone. Today was cooler than normal. I’m actually closing the windows and turning my bed-side fan off this evening to prevent it from getting too cool in here. Generally around week 2, I begin to adjust to the climate here – which is not much different than a typical Wisconsin August, there’s just no air conditioning…so no escape from the heat/humidity. Good night to all, I know I won’t be sweating tonight!
I LOVE YOU. Three simple words that to many people are “just words”, but with the children down
here mean SO much more. Three words that a husband and wife may say in passing each other in the house or to end a conversation on the phone, or a child may say when they want to prolong going to bed, that many times is just a common phrase. They’re 3 words that get shared verbally, yet many times do not truly come from the heart. Doris says these words to me at least once a day and they generally either accompany (or are followed by) one of the strongest hugs I’ve gotten in a long time. Yesterday I had to remind her of my weak stomach, to which she was very respective. Although Blanca doesn’t say it as often as Doris, she constantly looks for me…to take my hand wherever she goes (generally in between the little girls’ house & their dining hall). She’s always giving me hugs…perhaps not as “strong” as those from Doris, but they last a long time – as if she just wants to curl up in my arms forever. I can’t imagine being in a better, more loving place right now. My first stop this morning was to the kitchen (there was no circle this morning). The very first thing I saw was a tarantula. Although it had recently died, it’s the first WHOLE one that I’ve seen in the 4 years I’ve been here…since generally the ants and other bugs come and carry pieces of it away. It was pretty large, and would’ve scared the daylights out of me if I’d have found it in our house! There was great comfort in knowing that it was dead and I wouldn’t have to worry about it coming over by me or bothering me while I had to do dishes. When I headed over to the clinic to take over the morning shift (Jacki had spent the night), Gerson and Karelia decided to send the 2 boys home. Better yet, no new kids came in – which meant I could get back to the house to help with painting. Karelia also brought some girls over to fully clean the clinic so that I could get back to those other chores. I deeply appreciated this. I spent the rest of the morning painting before heading back for lunch to do dishes. I can’t really
remember how it started (I would probably blame Doris), but there ended up being a water fight in the kitchen. Doris and I got soaked – but it was fun! The afternoon was spent painting some more (I cannot believe how long it takes to paint a single room!), and then after supper I headed to the medium girls’ house to help Julie and Jacki say their goodbyes. They threw a little party for the girls and because their Spanish is limited, Julie asked that I be there for translation into Spanish. She played a few games to start and then got into some bible versus that she’d like the girls to focus on as she leaves. After the bible study, I headed back to the house to paint some more while Julie and Jacki gave out cookies and gifts. Julie and I are different in our ways – she needs long conversations and to show affection when saying goodbye, whereas I would just rather slip away unnoticed. But we got along well as roommates for this week and a half. The AWESOME news is that 2 of the bedrooms in the house are done! They have been painted and cleaned and are set-up and ready to go. Tomorrow Daysha and I will be moving into these two rooms to free up the other bedrooms. The 3rd bedroom we had started is mostly done, but needs a 2nd coat and touch-ups, which hopefully we can get finished up in the next couple of days. I’d like to have all the bedrooms done before I leave. If I think of it, I’ll take a picture of the bedroom I’ll be staying in before moving my stuff into there. Although to most Americans it probably won’t look like anything spectacular, Daysha and I celebrated last night about having accomplished the painting of these two rooms and WE think they look great!!!
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