Started the day off without my diet coke. Ouch! Actually, I'm not sure how, but I've made it pretty good without. We loaded the buses and headed out on our mission. Lots of sleeping on the buses today. Quiet buses. Today we had the option of going wherever you wanted...bathhouse and house building or village children. It didn't matter boy or girl. ally and I went to the village with the kids. We visited another village near Los Fundos (maybe 2 miles away). Let me tell you-our seniors last year did a great job picking out village to "adopt". It is a perfect fit for our school. It was the smallest and poorest and "least glamorous " village. But boy is it perfect! Great, genuine, appreciative,happy, kind, people. I feel like because of the size we can really make a difference in Los Fundos. We felt outnumbered in this village we visited. The people didn't seem as nice. It didn't take us long to fall in love and claim Los Fundos as "ours".
I'm going to be short on words today. No time to type-I'm using my phone so I'm slow-and I'm fizzling out on the energy.
This is Alba-we are building her a new home. She is the sweetest grandmother. I took one of the parents who speaks fluent Spanish and asked if I could visit her house. She welcomed me with her hands on her heart, pointed to Heaven and a huge smile...
Like any welcoming Mother/Woman would do, she took us straight to her kitchen. It smelled amazing! She had a huge pot of rice and lentils. She insisted we try it. I begged and pleaded and said we just had lunch but she was so insistent. I looked at my translator , aka, Dr. Toby-I said-please tell her no. I can't. I could tell by her expressions and tone that I would really offend her if I didn't try it. Toby said-God will bless you. So -yep-I did. I ate off of her spoon and out of her pot. It was amazing!
Then her spouse came in who was 76 and fit as a 30 year old. He says something really excitedly and points to the pot on the stove. She walks over to a locked cabinet and gets a silver bowl out and fils it with boiled yucca roots. Google that to see exactly what they are...I can't use my data or get it to load from here.
So ...what did we do? We ate them of course! It was basically like a boiled potato! Not bad at all...some salt pepper and butter and I would have eaten the entire plate! As we were eating one of the kids walked by and saw us through a hole in the wall and ran and grabbed our videographer Ethan and he came and filmed the rest of the story! I can't wait to see my expressions! At this point, Dr Toby and I passed the plate back and forth insisting on the other to finish it!
This is a plate of yucca before it was cooked. It took hours with a machete to get it ready to cook. So it was a real gift.
I could say much more. Like how Alba got her best silver dish out of a locked cabinet for us to eat on or how she went and got her two best chairs for us to sit in or how she tried to place a freshly washed piece of clothing on my chair because she was afraid it wasn't clean enough. This is all sort of like Gods grace...we don't deserve it but he has given it to us! She gave us -total strangers-her best! She wasn't worried if we ate all of her food-she would have given it to us and known that the Lord would provide for her and her family. We at home would have been worried about giving all of our "favorite hot meal" away and having to miss a meal. Talk about perspective.
Ally has been named...Big Al the Builder and Dr Ally ...
One of the biggest lessons learned all week...you can teach so much more with actions rather than words. Whatever we did-they did-kids and adults. We couldn't always communicate with words-but we could with actions. What does that teach us? To lead by example-a good example. Someone is always watching.
What do you do when you run out of activities? Grab a box of medical gloves, blow them up and draw faces on them! They loved it! They love everything and anything!
I feel so bad for the teenagers. Teenagers are already so awkward and uncomfortable. The little kids don't have any trouble with us. You can see the pain in the teens eyes-guys and girls. It was harder to work with /on them. But they need Gods love more than anything.
Nino, Marlenis, Aliza, Alaindro, Nicole
This is our bus driver and one of the strongest make leaders/families in the church. My favorite! These families crave "fotos"...they don't have any pictures of themselves! I am having my pictures printed and shipped back to them!!!! I just wish I could see their faces when they get the package! Wow!
Ally and I stayed all afternoon at the house when a bus went back early. We were in charge of sunscreen, water, Chapstick, first aid, holding ladders, cleaning up, snacks, etc!
Our "finished product"! We needed a few more materials that we couldn't get in time. So Nate the SCORE pastor will finish Monday.
