Gatos Are Us...

We woke up this morning to Mama Kitty showing us her 5 brand new kittens that she had during the night. They are so tiny…I am just fascinated with these little ones...it’s the first time I’ve seen a newborn kitten. No, really, I'm telling the truth here. I have a lot of life experiences racked up but observing newborn kittens are not one of them. There are three that look very similar, one is a little lighter in coloring and then we’ve got a black one which reminds me of our kitty we had to leave behind, Toots...who is now living the high life with the Vanderpools. For those of you who are not cat people, skip this blog. For those of you who are...I know you'll love these pics!

Mama Kitty is a good mama and she has the kitties in a little drainage area right by the carport that is protected by a railing and a wall. For the kitties’ sakes, I’m glad we’re in the dry season and hopefully, they’ll be big enough by the time the rains come that they can find some higher ground. Actually, I think it would be great if they found that higher ground at another address but I'm not too hopeful.

Although I keep saying these are not our cats, I have to ‘fess up that a little while ago, right after we got home from our day at Los Cedros, I took one of our towels out for M.K. and the babies to lay on…the few leaves and bits of dirt just didn’t look like a good kitty nursery to me. As I was reaching between the rails to lay the towel down, I had this horrible picture flash through my mind...I've turned in to the crazy ol' cat woman...you know, the one you read about who has a million cats, has named every one of them and carries on full-fledged conversations with them. Wow! Who knew that I would lose the last of my mind in Managua????

So as unsettling as that image was, I found myself giving a second helping of food to Mama Kitty, her three older kittens and the teen-aged cat that I think actually lives up the street. As I was pouring the Gato Chow in to the bowl, I was mentally calculating what we could cut down on in our own pantry since we are obviously going to have 5 more mouths to feed in the near future. How crazy...I don’t know why I’m such a softie for animals…maybe it's because they’re often more pleasant to be around than are some people.

Animals exhibit a loyalty that is becoming increasingly rare among our own species. They use their tongues to clean and to comfort - not to decimate. They don't seem to carry grudges. They rarely are on a power trip...although we did once have a Cairn Terrier that seemed to be the exception to that statement. The games they play are fun for everyone involved. My pets have always thought I was great...somehow, when I put it like that...why wouldn't I love animals????

But even so, I really don’t want a jillion cats hanging around (although it has cut down on the rodent population immensely!). Sadly, I think it might be too late.

It all started right after we moved in and Mama Kitty kept crying at our door. I found out through the neighbors that she had been left behind by the previous renters…this has always been her home and she was a pet. I just couldn’t stand the thought that she had been abandoned. She evidently had been a house cat but we relegated her to the outside. She wasn’t happy with that arrangement but the compromise was I would agree to feed her. She sold out for Gato Chow. In hindsight, I never should have bought that first bag of cat food, but, in my defense, Mama Kitty failed to disclose that she had three babies plus a teen-ager just waiting in the wings until the new gringa was completely suckered in to a regular feeding situation….I was duped.

Of course, what's cuter than three little balls of fur? Honestly, we had every intention of weaning the two older cats off the food and making the three older kittens fend for themselves…but then we discovered M.K. was pregnant again! ARGHHHHH! I wonder if we can find a vet to come and just fix them all in one fell swoop... This morning's miracle of birth...because it really is, you know it?...well, it gave me a glimpse in to the future and I'm afraid it’s a furry fright as I'm not sure how this is all going to end. I think I've answered my own question here of what's cuter than three little balls of fur? Five. I'm a goner.

Snippets...

Today it’s just snippets of news…not really anything cohesive here other than it’s how life is here.

*It’s a hot, dry, windy day here…a double-edged sword if getting laundry done is the goal for the day. No city water is a problem when it comes to washing but thankfully, the water tank is full so we’re splurging for clean clothes and hoping the city water comes back on tonight. The hot sun and wind serve to dry clothes in short order…the first also tends to toast tender white skin in the same amount of time while the rapidly drying wind also carries the ever-present fine dust that covers every surface…including not-so-brilliant-white clothes hanging out on the line. I think clean must be defined differently depending on locale.

The dust is annoying at the very least while posing a health issue for so many. Some of you have asked if we have air conditioning and have suggested that it might help with controlling the amount of dust that enters the house. It would…but we don’t have it in our home. Well, that’s not quite true. The guest bedroom has a window air conditioner that has been placed in a cut-out in the exterior wall, but it doesn’t work. And even if it did, we probably wouldn’t run it as it would be too costly in electricity charges.

It’s been in the mid 90s and we’re managing to survive…we’re a bit damp but we’re still hanging in here. We just got the car back yesterday…I won’t go in to the “fixes”…it will only serve to aggravate me again. Suffice to say, as with most things, the way we expect things to be repaired and the reality of what you receive often have a wide gap between the two. But the a/c now works again and that’s huge! That’s one of those things that really is a luxury that we have come to consider a necessity. So, if it gets too hot and we feel we just have to get cooled off, we can always jump in the car for a short drive.

I had to laugh, in a kind of shocked way, when Jim tossed a book on our bed and a slight cloud of dust poofed up from the bedspread! One of the consequences of having our bed under a set of windows… But, having to shake the bedspread outside is a small price to pay for catching any bit of breeze on warm nights. And the nights are getting warm. It’s that time of year. We have hotter days ahead and more dust until the rains come in the middle of May. So during this dry season, we live with dust…during the wet season, we live with mold. I can’t choose which I prefer…actually, I prefer neither.

*This was our supposed to be our clinic weekend in Rio Blanco but it’s been postponed. The pastor we work with, Pastor Sergio, had a death in the family. His brother-in-law, who was in his early 40s, suffered a fatal stroke last week. And if that weren’t enough, Pastor Sergio’s mother was hospitalized. This family has had a hard couple of years as they lost two teenaged nieces last year. One died with complications from pneumonia and the other from cancer. It seems as though serious health issues are not an exception here but more the norm. I am understanding a bit more why there is such a preoccupation with any kind of illness or “abnormality”…it can have great ramifications that I would just never have considered before.

*We had to miss this month’s clinic in Jinotepe because I was fussing with my own respiratory junk. I knew my own immune system was puny and I didn’t want to pick up anything else plus I sure didn’t want to share this junk with anyone else who might not already be feeling their best. I hated that we missed it for I know it was a good clinic…it always is. The need continues…

*Kenet, Miguel’s nephew who has lymphoma, is not doing very well. He is now at home and they are trying chemo again but the news wasn’t encouraging yesterday when we went to see Miguel for his English lesson. The prognosis hasn’t changed…it’s not good. The tumor is growing and is trying to steal this child’s future. We keep reminding Miguel that Kenet is in God’s hands. He nods in affirmation…but I know while that brings comfort on one level, our human flesh is so entwined with our human desires that we still want our loved ones to be the ones who experience the miracle of divine healing and so we cry out our prayers of desperation. In the past, I’ve cried them for my own family and I am sadly sure I will cry them again in the not-so-distant future as Jim’s folks are having their own health issues. It’s the same for all of us, I suppose…we say we want God’s will to be done but don’t we secretly want God’s will to be our wishes? Kenet is a child and our desire is his future to be counted in decades, not in months. We ask you to continue to pray for this child.

*Our visit with Miguel yesterday was like a small reunion of sorts. We had not been able to see him for the last two weeks due to the car issue and we had no way of getting hold of him. When Jim pulled up in front of the church, I noticed with a sinking feeling that the windows to our classroom were closed. Miguel always has the windows open before we arrive so that the room has time to air out and cool down a bit. Closed windows were a visible sign that he had no hopes of our coming. It grabbed at my heart. Jim honked the horn and a few minutes later, Miguel appeared at the gate to unlock it for us to enter the small church lot. He smiled, but it was a guarded smile. There was obviously some trust lost.

When we explained the situation, he visibly relaxed. He then had to inspect the marks of the “repairs” himself and offered his comments…some funny, some critical but all covered with a sense of relief that there was a legitimate reason for us to have not shown up for two weeks. The only day we had Susanna’s car to go to the grocery store happened to be his day off…we just were incommunicado for a lengthy enough time that his imagination had plenty of time to work.

He told us he was concerned I had taken a turn for the worse with my cold. Remember I said that with many folks here, there seems to be a preoccupation with health issues and I think Miguel is one of those people. He wondered if we had gone away or if we had some kind of terrible trouble come upon us. And his worst fear was that he had suffered “abandonment” from his friends. I had to laugh when he used that term but then I realized that he was being honest in expressing his concern. We assured him that we would not abandon him and that we valued his friendship. Even though we have told him before that if we didn’t come for our scheduled time there was a very good reason, doubt had crept in. Were we really his friends? Did we really care? Were we dependable?

Again, God holds up a mirror. Doubt creeping in when expectations aren’t met… do we ever master doubt so that trust is an involuntary response instead of an act of the will standing on shaky legs? This conversation with Miguel was a good reminder for me that no matter how good our intentions are, there might possibly be situations in this life that would prevent us from fulfilling our promises. We don’t have that concern with God. He is faithful to His promises and true to His Word. Gracias a Dios.

We listened to Miguel’s worries. We apologized profusely. We told him if we could have called him, we would have. He said he lost our number and couldn’t call us. We reassured him. He forgave us. We had a great time catching up with what had occurred in each other’s lives over the last two weeks and then we had class. Restoration…there’s nothing like it!

*Our night guard, Felix, told us recently that he needed to make more money and thought he was going to have to look for another job. We completely understand that as he is the father of five children. Although we have been relatively pleased with his work performance, we just didn’t feel like God was leading us to give Felix more money to stay. He started with us the beginning of January and we didn’t think 3 months of employment, warranted a wage increase. We have all agreed that he would remain through the end of this month. That gives him time to find a job while he still has one and would give us time to find another security guard.

We began praying that day that God would bring the right person to us. Finding a security guard is a tricky issue here and it often takes time to fill the position with someone who is trustworthy. I had asked Freddy, our gardener, in the past when we needed someone, if he perhaps had a friend or someone he knew that needed a job. He was never able to help us in that regard before but as we were leaving the other day, I asked Freddy again, almost as a second thought, and he said he would think about it.

A few days later, he came to us and told us he had someone who was interested in the position. I was a bit surprised as I didn’t really expect him to recommend anyone. It turned out that his brother-in-law needed a job. We have met him before and he seemed like a very nice man. Freddy reassured us that Felix (yes, another Felix) was honest and that he would not suggest someone who might cause us “damage”. I believe him.

So, Freddy and Felix (and sweet little Gabriel), came over this afternoon so we could sit and discuss the job. By the time their visit was over, we had secured our next night guard! We are very thankful that God has met this need in such a relatively painless manner and we just praise Him for this provision! We are looking forward to building a relationship with this young man as we believe God has brought him in to our lives at this time for a special reason.

Well, I started this thing this morning and it’s now after 9:00 p.m. It’s been a day full of interruptions, both annoying and welcoming. Susanna has a cold so I stopped to make some home-made chicken soup and ran some over to her…it also gave us a chance to love on Pixie for a bit, as well. Plus, Sadie, my youngest daughter, called tonight with her exciting news that she was accepted in to the veterinary school at the University of Missouri in Columbia. This is her dream come true but it means her trip here will have to be postponed. For that, I’m a little sad but my joy for her far outweighs my disappointment. Even when we have a day off, it seems we’re busy! I will try to get some pictures posted in the next few days of some of the kids at Los Cedros. Until then, that’s it for now.

Let me tweak that for you...

First of all…I am much better…thank you for asking! I’ve had an unplanned week of rest, so I think that has definitely helped. I still have some congestion but I think that’s going to be the case as long as we have such dry, windy days. There is a constant haze now which is caused by all the dust being blown about…plus with the recent rash of wildfires in the area, the smoke adds to that which makes the invisible visible…our air! I’m sure that’s one reason that respiratory problems are as common as they are.

The last time I wrote, it was to tell you about our run-in, literally, with a piece of angle iron. Little did I know that the angle iron incident would still be causing us problems a week later! Of course, we never heard back from the doctor…I honestly don’t think I ever expected him to call but a part of me was hoping that he would be true to his word, so although I wasn’t disappointed in one respect, I was terribly disappointed in another.

I told Jim again that I was fine with the scratch on the windshield…it is a tangible reminder that God knows we’re here. And truthfully, it didn’t bother me a bit that the tail fin piece was no longer on the car, although I knew it was bothering Jim. As I said earlier…battle scars. Somehow, such cosmetics don’t seem to be nearly as important to me here as they once did there. It’s just another thing to draw attention and I would kind of like a little more inconspicuousness in the car department. The rest of the this has my husband's stamp of approval...he's very supportive of me even to the point he will let me tell a story on him! I love that man!

Monday night, Jim was doing some repair work under the hood…even though we had just paid to have work done at the mechanics, of course, it still needed tweaking. Jim’s a great tweaker. As a matter of fact, he loves tweaking. But sometimes, a tweaker aficionado doesn’t know when to quit and they tweak just a tad too much. I’m starting to believe that there should be made available some kind of tweaker restraints for those who might have a little problem with knowing their tweaking limitations. Thank goodness, Jim doesn’t fall in to that category…yet.

He was trying to get the car ready for the next morning’s early hour trip of 4:30 to take Roger, Rhonda and the kids to the airport for their annual trip back to the States. He finished the under-the-hood repairs and was in the process of getting the interior of the car ready for the additional passengers. Since the back end of the car was going to be necessary for transporting luggage, he took out the broken off tail fin…that’s when the need to tweak escalated to the next level…he would put the fin back on himself.

All seemed to be going well and Jim finished the job in short order. He messed with the a/c a bit in hopes of tweaking it in to action, but that was to no avail. Not even twisting and turning fuses helped with that. No matter…hopefully, the a/c wouldn’t be necessary at 4:30 in the morning.
Sometime later, the car alarm sounded. Now, at this point, I need to say that the four cats that we feed on a regular basis, who I keep claiming are not our cats, often play around on the car, including climbing up in the engine compartment and on the spare tire which rides under the car’s chassis. When they get really active, they can occasionally make the car alarm chirp. But this was not a chirp. This was the car alarm going off.

That alone is an unnerving sound, but couple that with the fact that our guard hadn’t shown up for work and that had been a lot of new faces recently behind us with the new squatter’s moving in…well, it made for both of us moving around pretty quickly. Jim turned on the outside lights and went out to the car to investigate. I turned on the outside lights on the other side of the house. There were no signs of any intruders – two legged or four legged. Jim began checking out the car while I tried to get my heart rate back down to normal…this past year’s break-in has sometimes made me a bit jumpy, I’m afraid.

He discovered that the dashboard panel indicated that a door was left open. So he systematically went around the car, opening and closing each door…over and over again. The indicator light wouldn’t go off and all of a sudden, the interior light was on and wouldn’t go off. Jim knew that everything was working fine (with the exception of the a/c which hasn’t worked for awhile now) before he reattached the tail fin. With almost gleeful delight, he announced he would have to take the tail fin off again and see if perhaps, he pinched a wire. I think he just likes the sound of his drill…

After a good long while, I realized that taking the fin off was taking a lot longer than putting it on had taken. I went to investigate and saw that dreadful look plastered across my husband’s face as he had his hands tangled in a spaghetti-mess of wires…the look that is brought on by a tweaking-gone-bad. I asked him what was wrong. With such remorse, he told me that when he had reattached the tail fin, the screw had gone into the wad of wires and shorted out the electrical system. Not only did we not have a/c, we didn’t have any rear lights with the exception of our flashers. And he apologized profusely.

I think he thought I would be upset. How could I be upset with him? There has always been something about a broken confession that has touched my heart…probably because I’ve had to do it so many times before myself. I’m sure that has to be the low point for a tweaker…confessing that something in the tweaking went wrong and that not only did the thing that needed tweaked, not get tweaked, but rather, would now need the touch of a professional. That moment of realization usually brings on a lengthy, eye-glazing explanation of what should have worked…but didn’t, which is usually followed by a barrage of remarks insulting one’s own intelligence. Such self-abasement begs immediate forgiveness, don’t you think? It’s also the only thing that kept me from choking him at that moment. (Okay, not really, but it sounds good.)

To shorten up the story a bit, the trip to the airport early the next morning was made in Roger and Rhonda’s car while I stayed home since the guard never did show up that night. As Jim was getting in their car, I heard Roger say that they had lost their rear license plate when they had made a trip up to the north part of the country a few weeks prior. I had planned on going back to bed after they left, but I was worried that Jim would be stopped driving a vehicle with a missing license plate, so I spent those early morning hours praying for his safe return. Once again, God was gracious to us and Jim returned home, safe and sound…and in record time for a trip to the airport and back. Obviously, there’s not much traffic out at such an early hour.

Later that day at Los Cedros, David asked about us driving a different car and Jim told him the story, going clear back to the angle iron impact. Since Jim’s classes were through, David drove him back to our house to pick up our car to go to David’s mechanic. That was Tuesday and our car is still there. We’re not exactly prisoners in our home but neither do we feel free to be out and about with a car that’s not ours and is missing a license plate…somehow that whole story just smacks of being too much to try to explain to an opportunist wearing a blue uniform.

Driving to Los Cedros isn’t so much of a worry as it’s in a rural area. There are frequent police stops there but Tuesday, they already had another vehicle pulled over so we were able to drive by without being stopped. Thursday, school was cancelled as there was a death in the community, so we didn’t have to worry about driving out to Los Cedros again. But the rest of our “life” away from home here tends to take place in the heart of the city, where there are great numbers of men in blue. As a result, we’ve missed seeing Miguel all week…and we have no way of getting hold of him to explain why. The church doesn’t have a phone and neither does Miguel. Hopefully, we’ll be back on track for next week.

My “schedule” says we need to be getting things done. We need to be at Miguel’s. We need to get groceries bought and we need to get copies made. We need to get errands done and bills paid. But even with that sense of urgency that constantly is trying to surface, there’s a greater sense that God’s timing trumps my schedule. And I think that all this “down time” this week is not to be taken lightly or blown off as time wasted. I have been able to spend some time back in my Spanish studies plus more importantly, getting back in to one of my Bible studies that I had been neglecting as I thought all the other issues were more pressing. How foolish.

Jim’s tweaking has provided some income for someone else at a time when many people are in desperate need of work, plus made for a situation where my “not doing” has provided me time with God I wouldn’t have taken otherwise. Isn't that how it goes? My husband's tweaking turns in to a teaching for me. I love my handy-man.

Well, we just got a call from David and our car won’t be ready until Tuesday. I want to sigh and say, “that’s just great…”…but I don’t mean it…I want to do it sarcastically. The reality is, it is great…I just don’t yet see why it is. My plans say otherwise.

You know how we often think trusting God means that we need to listen to His counsel regarding the “big thing” before us? I think sometimes that’s easier than trusting Him in the little, mundane things in life…like we’ll get our car back when it’s His time for us to have it instead of when I think we need it…like maybe spending time at home is His better plan for us this week than my good plan of being out and about doing the things I think need to be done.

How many times have I asked God to speak to me? Well, He is. I accuse Jim of being a tweaker, but in reality, I think we’re all tweakers to some degree. We just have different areas where we think we’re qualified to tweak. Jim wants to tinker and tweak mechanical stuff…I want to tweak people and plans. I can easily convince myself that my opinions, my direction, my timing, my plans have to be right and that anything that might interrupt or interfere with those must be wrong. Ouch. I have to acknowledge that is a very arrogant attitude to live clothed in. Ouch, ouch.

God is gently whispering to me I need to be thankful for the countless number of times that He has saved me from my own tweaking, my own planning, my own agenda…all those times that people didn’t do what I thought they should do when I wanted them to do it, all those plans that went awry, all those schedules that never were completed, all those “hiccups” that happen just in daily living…thank you, Lord. Thank you for reminding me that you are sovereign over all things…including my plans. I guess I’ll go study some more verb tenses...

Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21

From a different angle...

I’ve had a nasty cold for a week now and have just not felt particularly great. I’ve really wanted just to stay in bed but our commitments are such that I didn’t feel like I could afford that luxury right now. So, this morning, with a stuffy pounding head, an achy neck and a wee bit of a fever, we headed out for Los Cedros for our day’s classes.

I got up at 5:45 this morning to take my shower (the water was already off!) and to have my quiet time. Things actually were going pretty smoothly schedule wise but even with that and the fact I was very prepared with all my lessons, I still didn’t feel “right” and I knew it was more than just not feeling well physically. I shot off a quick e-mail to several friends and asked for prayer for some specific things for today.

While eating breakfast, Jim asked me if I wanted to stay home today. He knows I’ve not been sleeping well and that this cold is starting to take its toll on my energy levels. I told him yes, that I wanted to stay home but wouldn’t. I had six classes of English to teach on my day’s agenda and needed to go to school. He just gave me one of those, “Oh-good-grief-you’re-stubborn” looks, shook his head and loaded the car with our day’s worth of lessons, lunch and extra water bottles.

We left the house a bit early, around 7:30 a.m., which I thought was going to be nice so we wouldn’t have to try to hurry on the pot-holey (my own word…more creative vocabulary at work) road to Los Cedros. I always pray out loud in the car when we leave home…for protection of our home, for our protection, for safety for ourselves and our employees, for our family and friends and whatever burdens we are feeling for them at the moment. It’s something we began a long time ago in the States and we continue to do it here. I do the praying as Jim is driving…the one not necessarily in direct response to the other!

We came down the hill off our road on to the old road to Leon which is actually the road we take to Susanna’s and Los Cedros. Jim was doing fine, missing many of the head-bangin’ holes, stopped vehicles without tail lights and motorcycles weaving in and out of traffic. I wish there was some adequate way to convey how much concentration it takes to drive here. There are always people right on the edge of the road, as well as dogs and chickens. Plus traffic that wants to enter your lane from a side street or driveway, goes ahead and pulls right out in to your lane, stopping only at the last fraction of a second before actually making impact. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the method of driving here. I am surprised there’s not massive road rage occurring on every dirt, graveled, cobbled and paved roadway in the entire country!

Okay, so Jim’s doing a splendid job of driving when all of a sudden, we both realized at the same time, that the stoplight that hasn’t worked since our first visit to Managua was working! Since we arrived at that assessment by the bright red light beaming down at us, Jim hit the brakes and came to an abrupt stop, totally infuriating the guy behind us, who cordially let us know how he felt about it by tapping out the message with his horn! Just as quickly as we stopped, we remembered that there was a sign that indicated that particular light is a “siga de frente” which means that right lane traffic can go through the light whereas left lane traffic (turning and straight) has to stop. We were in the right lane. So was the car behind us until he managed to get around us and zoom off. We followed his lead before receiving any more spontaneous serenades.

That little snafu was good for the next minute’s conversation. Then, just as we were both starting to relax a bit, once again, we saw something at the same time. This time it was serious and we didn’t have the luxury of time to react. A pickup truck was pulling out of a lumber yard on the right hand side of the road (my side) and had a long piece of angle iron tied to the top of his truck. There were a load of problems with that…no flag on the end of the iron so it was almost impossible to see until the last second; it extended way past the front end of the truck; the truck didn’t ease out of the driveway but rather pulled out like most traffic does; and, no one was out in the road to alert oncoming traffic…like us.

Jim and I saw the angle iron at the same time and I yelled as he slammed on the brakes. He couldn’t veer out of the way in to the other lane as there was oncoming traffic. If he would have veered right, he would have plowed in to people standing by the side of the road and hit the truck (and driver) broadside. He had to hold his course, all the while thinking his wife was about to be decapitated. That thought crossed my mind, as well, as I jerked as far to the left and laid as flat as the seat belt would allow.

The brakes worked great but just not quickly enough and the sound of the impact of the angle iron hitting the car was tremendous. I kept expecting, at the very least, to be showered with broken glass and crumpled pieces of metal. Jim pulled the car off the side of the road and we both just looked at each other. There was a long thin line etched dead center on my side of the windshield. It began right at head level and continued all the way to the top.

Jim got out and I realized that he was taking something off the top of our car. It was the “tail fin” piece and it was snapped completely off the car, being held on only by one little screw. Jim pulled it off and opened up the back of the car to put it in. We both were looking back at the pickup truck which now had a crowd of guys standing there looking at us. Not one of them made a single move toward us. That was a mistake.

Jim started to get back in the car and I told him to pull forward as we were blocking a driveway and a truck was wanting out. As he started the car, I got out and headed back towards those men. I was furious!!!! Talk about road rage hitting in full force! I don’t remember being that determined in a long time. As I walked towards the men, they began to thin out considerably. I’m guessing they must have discerned I was as mad as I was! I could not believe that not one of them came to see if we were okay! Without exaggeration, they could have killed one or both of us and yet not a single man showed anything more than a detached curiosity. I was about to share my entire thought processes with them in a way that language barriers would not be a hindrance. But God spoke.

It’s amazing how long of a conversation a person can have with God in such a short distance. And it’s amazing how quickly He can take the anger away and bring to mind the miracle of His intervention. By the time I got to the few remaining men…I have no idea what happened to the larger group…my whole attitude changed. I was still shaken and I wasn’t very happy with what had just happened, but the anger was gone.

A very well-dressed man somehow appeared between me and the few men working on re-tying the piece of angle iron. They had backed the truck back in to the parking lot and they were tying on a thin, blue plastic bag. The well-dressed man seemed intent on preventing me from getting near the truck. I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. Obviously taken aback, he shook my hand and told me “Mucho gusto”…Pleased to meet you. I doubted the sincerity of his greeting.

I realized Jim was standing next to me. He had backed the car up to the lumber yard,, obviously thinking he might have to have a ready get-away vehicle standing by for his what-appeared-to-be-momentarily-deranged wife. Jim and the well-dressed man began looking at our car together and I realized the man spoke English. I heard the man tell Jim he would take care of all the repairs and that we didn’t have to worry. I wasn’t convinced but all of a sudden it didn’t really matter.

I walked back to the truck and the other two guys went in to the office, leaving only the one kid tying the angle iron. I asked him if he was okay…he said yes and he asked me if I was okay. I told him I was scared and I felt my voice crack. I took a deep breath and then asked him if he didn’t think it was a good idea to tie a red flag on the end of the angle iron. He told me he didn’t have a red flag. I told him that it was dangerous like it was. He said all he had was the blue bag. For an instance, I felt my heart melt. All he did have was a blue bag…and his buddies had left him holding it. I stuck out my hand, shook his and told him good-bye. He just stood and stared at me. He was no more shocked at my reaction than I was.

I then walked back to where Jim and the well-dressed man were still talking. The man was promising again that he would take of all the damages and that he was very sorry the incident happened. I told him God was gracious to us. He told us he was a doctor…as if his being a physician was going to be the reassurance we needed that he would make good on his word. He gave Jim his name and number and took our phone number. He said he would call us on Saturday. We’ll see.

Now here’s the deal. As far as I’m concerned, it really doesn’t matter. Our car now looks like a Nicaraguan car…banged, scratched and dented. It’s kind of like war wounds. What does matter is we weren’t hurt and we didn’t hurt anyone in the process…with our car, with our hands or with our words. God intervened so I kept my head…physically and emotionally.

Oh, I almost forgot something...God knows I love the moments of absurdity in life and even in the midst of this whole thing, He made sure there would be something funny happen. When Jim and I had pulled to the side of the road and Jim got out to check the damage, there was a street vendor who was loaded down with big balls of brightly colored "string" made of plastic strips. He had tons of them slung over his shoulders and in a huge bag. As I was looking back towards the group of guys at the truck, the vendor steps in to my line of vision and raises the giant glob of string, asking if I wanted to buy some. He didn't argue with my "no". Later, Jim and I laughed about that...how the guy was a salesman through and through, regardless of what had just happened and that perhaps we should have sprung for the ball of string to give to the kid on the truck to help secure the angle iron or to wrap it around it to help with the visibility. I can't make it as funny as it was...you'll just have to know that was one of those moments that you just have to shake your head at and say, "Can you believe it?"

After we got back in the car and continued on our way to Los Cedros, we began talking. We discussed how quickly our lives could have been drastically changed forever. We both freely expressed the goodness of God and then had to acknowledge that wouldn’t change even if the morning’s events would have turned out differently. Jim asked me if I was still shaky. I knew he was. I admitted that I was too, but surprisingly, I wasn’t as shaky as I thought I would be. I survived a piece of angle iron aimed right at my throat but I still had 140 plus children to face; children from the poorest families in Los Cedros; children who have no families at all but instead live in the local orphanage; children who didn’t attend school at all before this school took them in; children who are angry, lonely, insecure, scared, dirty and who have no dreams; children who God has put right in my path to love, to care about, to teach…not just English but to teach about Him. That makes me shaky.

One more thought…part of Hillsong’s, Mighty to Save, keeps going through my head so I looked up the lyrics…seems like a good theme song for a near miss with a section of angle iron.
Everyone needs compassion,

Love that's never failing;

Let mercy fall on me.

Everyone needs forgiveness,

The kindness of a Saviour;

The Hope of nations.

Saviour, He can move the mountains,

My God is Mighty to save,

He is Mighty to save.

Forever, Author of salvation,

He rose and conquered the grave,

Jesus conquered the grave.

So take me as You find me,

All my fears and failures,

Fill my life again.

I give my life to follow

Everything I believe in,

Now I surrender.

My Saviour,

He can move the mountains,

My God is Mighty to save,

He is Mighty to save.

Forever, Author of salvation,

He rose and conquered the grave,

Jesus conquered the grave.

Shine your light and let the whole world see,

We're singing for the glory of the risen King...Jesus