No More Teams

This morning the California and Ohio teams left.  I wrote a long letter to my friend from CA, Lorraine, who I've known for the past few years.  We've had some great Christian women conversations over the past few years and I was supposed to go over to the Team House last night after they got back from the restaurant in town.  The problem was that I work so hard during the day (and get up so early) that by 7pm I am usually in bed.  I tried to stay awake so that I could meet up with her at 7:30 when she got back, but I just couldn't keep my eyes open.  I felt so bad that I made sure to write her a letter this morning after doing my devotions and writing my blog.  I said that I did value our friendship, but that I've noticed that she works just as hard in her relationships down here with the children as I do and sometimes that means we need to sacrifice our time together for the kids.  I reminded her that we have social media (like Facebook) where we can keep up with each other and continue our chats...the children down here don't have that.  So in encouragement, I shared Genesis 31:49 with her, which reads "May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other."

There were also 3 volunteers that headed out on the team bus this morning, as well as a family of 6 (where the dad was a doctor and active in the clinic all week, a mom, and 4 children all ages 6 and younger), and then John & Jenny (along with their boss who's been working with the horses and therapy training).  That has cleared us out quite a bit, especially since there will not be a team coming for a couple of weeks now.  Andi (the volunteer/team coordinator) has also taken off for the States, probably because we do have a break of no teams in here.

This morning was the same routine in terms of cutting veggies (there was a lot of Yucca and carrots, but still no patastes), serving breakfast and heading over to the pavilion.  We took the children to the park to play a little bit later, but all headed in when Jefferson got stung by a wasp because the boys were throwing stones at their nest.  Hmmm...sounds like something my Noah would do.

After lunch I headed back to our room to do some research and Alina went to Laurie's house to play with Rebekah.  We met back up at the Toddler House and Nikoll was waiting for me at the gate.  We played until supper time.  Alina got to get the toddlers ready for supper today.  There's a routine to it...making sure the kids are lined up nicely by room, ready to say their prayer (they do some "getting ready exercises"...uno, dos, tres...you'll have to ask her about it), she created the supper prayer line-by-line and the toddlers repeated it, she called them by row to enter the dining hall, she prepped them to eat, and then said "buen provecho" (which means Enjoy!  Eat up!).  This is something that the teen moms normally do, but they asked her to do it this evening.  She did a really good job!

After supper, showering the kiddos, and washing dishes (Saidy helped me to wash dishes again), I headed to the Big Girls yard to chat with Michell and Doris before calling it a night.  When Alina and I went back to our room, she ate the rest of our banana bread before reading a chapter in her Left Behind series book and then headed to bed.