Living a Fairy Tale...

There are some things in life you just don’t see coming…I had one of those things happen this morning. Jim and I slept in this morning and didn’t get up until 6:45. I imagine we’re much like most people in that we have a regular morning routine that we pretty much adhere to regardless of what’s on with our day’s agenda. This morning was no different…to a point.

We got up, turned the coffee pot on, had our prayer time and read our day’s devotion. My personal favorite is Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest. I’ve had others but I read them for only a short time and find myself always returning to this classic. God has used this one for eight years now to encourage me, chastise me, teach me and comfort me. For me personally, it is second only to God’s Word as my go-to book.

Some days, I find I need to return to prayer after reading the day’s devotion, some days, I’m able to go right in to reading my Bible. This morning, as soon as I finished reading my devotional, I picked up my Bible and turned to Leviticus. I have started reading the Old Testament again and this is where I happen to be. Those of you who know me well also know I love the Old Testament and I’ve always wondered why there are so many who find it boring or not applicable to our Christian walk today. But I won’t go in to that now as I could fill up today’s blog with my reasons as to why I love this part of the Bible so much. So, yes, it’s true…I’m reading Leviticus.

I am smiling even as I type this as I’m thinking of my friend, Jo Ellen. I still remember the first time I heard her describe the book of Leviticus for our Sunday school class some years back. Jennifer, the wife of our pastor at that time, was teaching an overview of the Bible based on the book What the Bible is All About by Henrietta Mears. Jennifer was going to be gone and she asked Jo Ellen to fill in for her.

That Sunday morning came and although I don’t remember Jo Ellen’s exact words, I will never forget the passionate and descriptive way she outlined the book. Sitting under her teaching was something akin to attending a one-act play. Her hands waved, her eyes rolled, she laughed, she grimaced and she held us all in the palm of her hand as she detailed many of the various animal sacrifices which God required of His people. If you know Jo Ellen very well, you know exactly what I’m talking about. She’s so fun and so funny. She’s also extremely astute. She’s a good student and she’s a good teacher.

That day was no exception. She had us all laughing one minute with her light-hearted and animated descriptions of all the gory animal sacrifices and the next minute, I remember having a distinct sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach and my eyes stinging with tears as she quickly changed gears and brought the realization home of how sin brings death. I can’t even begin to do justice to her teaching that day. I will just say that it was a teaching that has stayed with me ever since then. It was one of those defining moments where my eyes were opened a bit more in my walk with the Lord. I don’t know that I ever thanked Jo Ellen for that day…if not, thanks, dear friend. Because of that one day of teaching, I can read Leviticus and see beyond the repetitive descriptions of bloody and burnt offerings and see how patient and merciful our God is. Thank you, Father, for such amazing love…thank you, Jesus.

Back to this morning. I finished reading my Bible and then began on my latest Bible study workbook. I want to tell you this is one of the things I used to take for granted when we lived in the States. I have always loved doing a Bible study but the accessibility of them was never a question and I would sometimes complain that I just couldn’t find one I wanted to do. Oh, if I could only take those words back! Now, I can’t find one to do! So, having a workbook Bible study now is so precious to me and when we returned from the States in July, that was definitely one of the items that was high on my list of things to bring back.

Anyway, Freddy came to work early this morning and usually he is very quiet when he first arrives, not knowing for sure if we’re up or not. We always are but because we usually don’t open the front door until after we’re dressed, he tends to keep the noise to a minimum. But this morning, we were still reading when he arrived and he could see our lamps on. He came to the window and asked to speak with Jim. I scurried back to the bedroom as we were both still in our jammies.

Freddy and his family are now three days without water and he asked if Mary could come and do laundry at our pila. Of course, we said yes. He asked if Jim could take him to his house to pick her up and bring her with the clothes. Jim told him he would and would get dressed so they could leave. Freddy told him the pump went out on the area well so there are three whole communities that are without water. The area they live in is 5 kilometers south of us (a little over 3 miles) but it is considered part of El Crucero and not Managua. They’re not sure when the well will be fixed.

Last night, Felix (Freddy’s brother-in-law and our night guard) had told Jim that he had been two days without water and although we know he lives in the same community as Freddy, we thought he meant he was without water just at his house. Since water rationing is so sporadic here, honestly, we didn’t think that much about it, figuring it would come back on today as usually two to three days is the maximum without water. We gave him a bar of soap and offered him a towel and told him he was welcome to take a shower in the guard room downstairs. He had brought a towel with him, was thankful for the soap and took us up on the offer. Neither of us thought anything about Freddy and his family also being without water.

So, after Freddy made his request, Jim and I began to quickly get dressed, having taken our own showers last night, as our own water schedule is becoming pretty sporadic. Our rainy season this year has been remarkably dry overall. When it does rain, it often times comes down in torrents but the daily rains that are typical just aren’t happening. As a matter of fact, many of the farmers are desperate for rain right now. It seems to be one of those feast or famine things, in every sense of the phrase.

Okay…now back to our routine. Usually after we are dressed, Jim goes in the kitchen to open the back door and feed Skits and Snoops, the two male year-old cats we’ve officially claimed as our own now and whom are affectionately known in our house as “the boys.” They are always very vocal first thing in the morning. We have fooled ourselves in to thinking that they are really glad to see us when the reality is they’re hungry and they wouldn’t care if it was Shrek standing on the back deck in the mornings as long as he held the cat food container in his hand.

I got dressed, gooped my hair up with the usual hair stuff and put on my make-up. I then went in to the bathroom to open the bathroom window curtain. After opening the bathroom window curtain, I went to the bedroom door that opens on to our back deck. The door only opens freely to a certain point and then it sticks, rubbing on the uneven tile floor. In order to open the door, it’s necessary to lift up on the door knob to lightly scrape the bottom of the door across the floor until the door is wide-open. This is all part of the usual morning routine. The next step is where a slight deviation occurs.

I was busy thinking about Freddy’s situation and not paying any attention as I grabbed the exterior door handle with both hands. I do it every morning and the motion is just automatic. I can’t explain how I was able to move the door even a fraction of an inch but I managed to move the door almost all the way open, holding tight to the door handle with both hands as I lifted up on the door before I realized there was something wet and squishy in my hands. Although my mind was definitely somewhere else, once that awareness was there, it didn’t take long for me to realize that wasn’t how the door handle was supposed to feel and I quickly let go, jumped back and emitted a loud, guttural sound all at the same time, not even yet enlightened as to what made me react that way.

As I jumped back, something jumped up and then quickly dropped to the floor. I looked down to see a toad, sitting very still. My heart was pounding so hard and my knees were weak. My hands were wet… both from my own panicked perspiration but also from some sort of toad goo…I’m assuming I squeezed his evidently full little bladder a bit too tightly. I quickly moved in to the hallway and did what I always do in any kind of creepy situation…I called for Jim…loudly.

If you are one who is privileged enough to know Jim very well, you know my beloved husband has one speed and regardless the situation, it’s the speed at which he reacts. He is a task-oriented person and he was currently doing a task…feeding the “boys”. That's where his focus was and that's where it was going to stay until the "task" was completed. He's very thorough... bless his heart.

I was shakily leaning against the hallway wall and staring disgustedly at my hands when Jim finally meandered around the corner of the hall. He looked at me for a second and asked, “Are you okay?” Thankfully, at the moment, my sarcastic nature was suppressed and after giving him a very purposeful glare, I just simply pointed to the very still toad which was sitting in the spot it had landed…the now wet spot…and said, “I think I may have killed it.” I then told him what happened.

I kept glancing down at my hands and decided to go in to the bathroom to wash them…repeatedly. Most of the time, I don’t even think about not having hot water at our disposal at the sinks. But this morning, I would have loved to have some scaldingly hot tap water but instead, settled for three good scrubbings with the antibacterial soap.

While standing at the bathroom sink, I turned around to watch Jim attempting to catch the now- fully revived and very-much-alive toad with a Kleenex. It was with mixed feelings that I watched this somewhat entertaining floor show. I was glad I hadn’t killed the toad but neither did I want the toad to make our home his own toad-house. Finally, Jim was able to coordinate his own downward motion with the toad’s and he managed to pin it under the Kleenex. Scooping it up and holding it tightly, Jim went out on the back deck to fling it over the wall…but since the toad was still a bit sticky from its secretions, it tended to stick to the Kleenex and Jim ended up flinging it down to the ground, instead. My only reaction at this point is that I’m hoping it isn’t a grudge-bearing toad!

You know, I have no idea how the toad got on the door knob. We have a set of iron full-length gates that act as our outer door there. Jim has covered them with screen so that we can keep the wooden door open for ventilation but not have to contend with an inundation of bugs. There is a gap below the gates but I would never have thought the toad could have managed to get under it and jump up on the knob of the closed door. This is also on the second floor on that side of the house. The toad would have had to have jumped up to the second floor on the back deck or else jump down from the roof and then remain undetected from the cats…or else the cats, more alert and more discerining than I, opted not to mess with the toad.

Later on, the toad thing incident was funnier than when it first occurred…kind of like when I was trying that day to whoof the bug out of my nose. I did have a passing thought about poisonous frogs and toads. But after educating myself a little with some internet research, I decided that it was just a regular ol’ toad, much thinner than when we first “met” and that if the truth be told, I probably secreted more poison to that poor toad than he had the means or opportunity to secrete to me.

Jim knows I'm reading Leviticus. He said it would have been really funny if I had been reading about the plague of frogs in Exodus. Right.

So that's the toad story. The other thing I want to tell you about was the rest of the morning. After the toad eradication task was completed, Jim left with Freddy and they returned with Mary (Freddy’s wife), Gabriel (their 2 ½ year old son), Mary’s mother and one of her sisters…plus tons of laundry! They all went directly out to the pila to begin their wash loads. It was late in the day for them to be just starting laundry. That’s usually something that is done right after sunup…but they had to wait on the sleepy headed gringos this morning.

We filled a pitcher of water for them, took them cups plus a juice box for Gabriel and packages of cookies and crackers for all of them. I also took down the toy basket so Gabriel would have something to do…although he apparently preferred “helping” his dad with the yard work. He played with the toy basket for a little bit but it wasn't long before I heard Gabriel yell, "Papa! Papa!". I looked out the window and he was trying to talk Freddy into letting him climb up the ladder with him. Freddy wasn't about to let that happen, but he did let Gabriel "help" him with the cut debris from the platano trees. I love the picture Jim took of Gabriel looking up at his daddy on the ladder. Freddy is such a good dad and is so patient with Gabriel.

Jim took down the three plastic chairs that we keep outside so that if they wanted to sit down during the process, they could. Sit down…not hardly. These women attacked those dirty clothes with a vengeance and literally had the clotheslines filled with clothes in less than half the time it takes for my washer to get one load washed. And fill those clotheslines they did. I let Mary use my clothespins so she was able to get more things on the line than she would have otherwise. Usually, they drape clothes on a line, fence, bushes or the ground to dry. And although some of that happened here, too, she utilized all the line space available. I was astounded at their efficiency, strength and endurance…and although I was struck by their whole process, I silently thanked God for the blessing of having a washing machine.

We again offered the use of the shower and they were very appreciative and told us they would like to do that after they finished the laundry. By the time it was all said and done, everyone had clean clothes and clean bodies…even little Gabriel got tossed in to the shower and scrubbed from head to toe… although from the sounds of it from up here, he wasn’t too excited about it!

When it came time to leave, they filled as many empty bottles and buckets they could bring with them. Jim and I gave them an empty 5 gallon water bottle to fill plus an empty 2 liter bottle we had. They then all loaded the car up. Mary thanked me repeatedly…we did nothing but provide the water…they did all the work. I told her that if she needed to come back and do it again, that she was more than welcome to do us. Gabriel hollered my name and threw me a kiss…that will more than compensate for the water used.

So, all in all, it’s been pretty interesting so far today. Life here can rarely be described as living a fairy tale existence…but I think we came close to it this morning, in some respects. I started out squeezing a toad and ended up getting a kiss from a prince. Isn’t that kind of how it’s supposed to happen?

I wrote this post earlier today but due to internet problems I'm just now able to get it posted. The rest of our day was pretty uneventful for the most part. Did some shopping and picked Pixie up around 5:30 this evening...we'll keep her until Sunday. She and Jim found a small snake tonight on the steps by the house. Jim managed to kill it by beating it to death with his Croc! He's a mean whacker when the situation calls for it! Felix told us it was a poisonous snake and very dangerous. We later looked it up on the internet and if we picked the right picture of the snake, it's not poisonous...although I have to admit I felt very little remorse at its demise. Okay, honestly...I didn't feel any remorse and I was cheering Jim on! And even if it was a "harmless snake"...if there even is such a thing...we still plan on buying two bags of garlic tomorrow and letting Felix mash it up and spread it around the perimeter of the property. According to him, it will drive the snakes out...I'm not even close to being sure that's true but I imagine we'll be safe from any two legged critters whose olfactory senses are still in working condition...them and vampires!