NEWS FROM NIC

One Christmas Card...

2011-12-06T22:35:00.001-06:00

This is something I just posted on my Facebook page and thought that I should go ahead and put it on the blog as well. I would be very grateful if you would share this with others you may know who might want to participate in this simple yet very special ministry.

I have a HUGE favor to ask of all my Facebook friends. You know how at this time of year you always hear about someone who is battling cancer who would like to receive Christmas cards? Well, I have just found out that the wife of a guy I went to high school with (yes, that was years ago!) has Stage 3 colon cancer. Mike had asked his daughter to send a Christmas card to Cynthia as they don't think she is going to make it see next year's Christmas. The daughter has ended up making a FB page called One Christmas Card (you can check it out and read the story yourself) and is asking for folks to just send Cynthia a card. She is NOT asking for donations or gifts or anything other than for a Christmas card to be sent to Cynthia. Could you maybe do this? What a wonderful gift you would give to someone you don't even know...and we know Christmas is all about giving! It doesn't even have to be a new or fancy card...but if you could do this, I would be so grateful. Jim and I are going to try to send a card from here and hope it gets to her on time. I am going to give you her mailing address...oh, and she doesn't seem to know why she's getting all these cards so please don't mention that Mike's daughter is behind this. Also, if you don't want to sign your names, you can do it anonymously or even sign it with Mike's name! Isn't this a beautiful and simple way (as well as inexpensive) for everyone to come together to bring a little bit of joy to someone's life? Thank you so much!!!
Her name and address are:

Cynthia Flaherty
274 North Fish Haven Road
Lake Ozark, MO
65049

I believe that I know and love some of the most generous and kind-hearted friends on the face of this earth and so I am looking forward to knowing that Cynthia is going to have an inundation of Christmas cards...please remember to pray for Cynthia before you mail the card and if God should bring her to your mind at other times, I know that Mike and Cynthia would appreciate your prayers of intercession on their behalf.

Aaargh!!! Cranky over car repairs....

2011-12-01T20:11:00.001-06:00

Car repairs make me cranky! Or maybe it's the need for car repairs that makes me cranky. Or...maybe it's the car repairs that never got repaired that make me cranky. Or maybe...it's figuring up how much we've spent on car repairs that had been completed, that remain to be completed and that were just completed today. Whatever...I'm a little cranky tonight and the majority of the crankiness centers around our vehicle and all those who have been associated with it the last three months! Maybe that's why I've not gone anywhere the last two days...cranky missionaries aren't what any of us want to be - or see! :)

As of tonight, the car's a/c appears to be fixed. The other repairs still remain to be re-repaired by the mechanic who supposedly repaired them in the first place! And the billfold is empty. Guess what we are getting each other for Christmas this year...and our birthdays and our anniversary?! At least I won't have to spend any money on wrapping paper...and I suppose we've helped do our part in making a couple of car mechanics' holiday season a little brighter. Just doesn't feel like a particularly great way to start our first week back...

Looks like we'll have to wait until next week to try to get back to the first mechanic's place to have him work on the car again. We got a call tonight from Susanna saying that Kenneth has an appointment at La Mascota early in the morning so we won't be able to do anything more with the car's issues tomorrow. And I'm thinking we probably are going to miss our pot-luck Christmas dinner at our pastor's house as tomorrow will most likely be a long day and I won't have time to fix anything when we get home...plus, we'll most likely be tired and sticky after a day at the hospital and in the neighborhood.

I'm looking forward to getting past these rough patches in re-acclimating to life here. Three months in the States and I'm conditioned to expect things to go pretty much as scheduled and for people to do what they say they will do. I have to remember I'm in the Land of Nothing-Goes-as-Planned and living in the City of Good-Intentions-But-Not-So-Hot-Follow-Through! Saying it's a quick and easy adjustment is a stretch for someone who loves to plan their work and then expects to work their plan!

These are just minor irritants in and of themselves...I think it's when they're hitting one after the other like falling dominoes that my frustration level grows.

I don't want to end this on a negative note so let me just say how terrific the weather has been the last two days! Beautiful skies, lovely breezes and daytime temps in the mid to upper 80s with night time temperatures down in the mid 60s! Glorious!!! And...there's always next week to look forward to now, isn't there?

Back in Managua...

2011-11-30T21:00:00.001-06:00

Our travel day back to Managua: Mandy took us to the airport to see us off. We were so grateful that our four cases all came in under the maximum weight limit. We had to buy a new suitcase this trip home as the old one had reached the TSA’s maximum allowable weight on duct tape on a suitcase! At least that’s what I told Jim, anyway.  It has been several years since we had to buy luggage so we were both a little shocked by the prices they were asking for a fabric covered version of a Radio Flyer on end! But, after much searching and a last minute shopping trip, we found a Samsonite that I’m hoping proves to be baggage-handler proof for at least a handful of round-trip flights. I’m not too worried about it being gorilla-proof as I’ve not seen any actual gorillas slamming luggage marked “Fragile” on the beltway.

This is the first time in several years that we have been able to fly out of Rogers for less than out of Tulsa and it was so nice for Mandy to not have such a long drive home. Because we arrived at the airport early, we were able to sit and visit for awhile before we had to go through security. The time chatting together was wonderful but the good-byes are still heart-wrenching. I always try to brace myself to not break down and cry and I always fail. I’m sure that every-time I go through the security checkpoints that the TSA officials must think I’m grieving…in some respects, they are right.

For some reason, our flight was late arriving so we were late taking off. It was not an issue for us as we had a 4 hour layover between flights but I know there were some on the flight who were very concerned about the delay. We had a very entertaining and very attentive steward on our flight who was named Boudreaux…I’m guessing he was from Louisiana. He seemed to go out of his way to speak with each passenger and to appear sincerely concerned for our comfort. That probably wouldn’t bear much notice except when we saw him later in the concourse at Houston, he remembered us and made a few sentences of small talk, asking where we were going, etc. I appreciated the personal exchange in this venue, which is by nature, a fast-paced, non-personal world all its own. So kudos to Boudreaux and those rare few who are like him!

The 4 hour cushion between flights proved to be a blessing. My knee held out but I obviously wasn’t up to any power-walking and so it was just so nice to not have to rush from one gate to the other…naturally located at opposite ends of the airport! We stopped along our hike and ate a late lunch at Panda Express and then found our departing gate. We each had our Kindles and so we read until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer and I took a short nap…trusting Jim to nudge me if my mouth should fall open or I should begin to drool. Never felt any nudges but my throat was a little dry when I woke up…

Our flight to Managua was also a bit late to board and it was completely full. Our seats happened to be on the exit row which didn’t give us any more space width-wise, but did give Jim a little bit more knee room which made it a tad more comfortable for him. We got out on the tarmac and seemed to be sitting there longer than normal. Finally, the captain came on the p.a. and told us that we were overloaded and that he would need to burn off some more fuel before we could take off. I prayed that it wasn’t our stuffed-to-the-gills carry-ons causing the problem and that he would know how much to burn off and how much to keep for the flight! 

There were 3 North American men, all traveling separately, sitting directly behind us and two of them sat and talked together throughout most of the flight. The young man in the center seat was a Christian and he had engaged the gentleman on the aisle seat in conversation. Most of it was focused on the guy in the aisle seat explaining about his business in Nicaragua and how it benefitted the Nicaraguan people. He is somehow involved in a Zona Franca…which are nothing more than giant sweat shops…long, long workdays, lousy working conditions and ridiculously low pay. I think I would have to disagree that he benefits the Nicaraguan people…I tend to think most of the employees who work there tend to be exploited and not benefitted.

The young man in the middle seat asked lots of questions and they were very relaxed in their conversation when the young man began telling the other man why he was going to Nicaragua. He was with a small medical team who were going up north to do some free clinics. He then told him that the reason he was doing that is because he wanted to show the love of Jesus Christ in a very practical way. The aisle guy got very quiet. The middle man (so to speak) also told the aisle guy that God had a plan for his life and then began sharing the gospel with him. Jim and I smiled at each other and we both began to pray silently for the holy encounter going on behind us.

As we were nearing Managua, I realized that the young man sitting by the window had not participated in any part of the conversation going on in the seats next to him. I glanced back at him several times (the 3rd seat has been removed on the exit rows so it allows for an open space there). He held a book like he was reading it but it was obvious he wasn’t. He closed it up and began looking out the window as we were low enough that we could start seeing lights in some of the outer areas.

I turned toward the man and asked him if this was his first visit to Managua. He smiled and told me that it was his second and that it was for business purposes. I asked him if his business kept him in Managua or if he was able to travel to other areas of the country. He told me he would be staying mainly in Managua and the Masaya area but would someday love to come back with his wife to just visit. He told me where he was staying and that the company he was working with was very good to have someone available to pick him up and they assign him a car and chauffeur. We chatted for just a few minutes and he asked why we were going to Managua. I gave him the Cliff’s notes version of the “why” (I can be brief when time is of the essence!) and he got a really funny expression on his face. About that time we were landing and so I turned around and faced the front as Managua landings are notorious for being a little rough. This one did not disappoint.

I asked Jim for one of our business cards and had him write our current cell phone number on the back of it. I then turned around and gave it to the young man and simply told him that if he should find himself in any kind of jam or needed any help, to just give us a call. He looked shocked and then very pleased and then thanked me. I just smiled and turned around and silently prayed for him. I was pretty sure that He doesn’t know the Lord. During that brief conversation, we never introduced ourselves. Not sure why, but God has brought him to both Jim’s mind and mine several times during the past few days. I figure God has a reason for us to be praying for him and so we do. Hopefully, one day, I’ll bump in to him in heaven and find out why.

I wrote a little bit on Facebook re: Day 1 and our car problems. I’ll try to summarize it pretty quickly here: a friend used our car while we were gone and the car decided it was an opportune time to begin to fall apart! She took it a mechanic who was one of those” friend of a friend” guys and who was supposed to be really good and was giving a great deal besides. Not so convinced. Yesterday was the first chance we’ve had to drive it since our return. What we found was that the a/c no longer works, the RPM gauge has quit working (which goes along with the non-functioning gas gauge and speedometer – both of which quit the last two times we were Stateside!), one of our belts squeals horribly, the front door locks will unlock themselves every few minutes, the windows weren’t rolling down or up when they were supposed to do so and the back door won’t unlock.

Yesterday morning, after we had our quiet time, we went out on the balcony off of our bedroom since it was cooler outside than in…we had lost electricity and as a result, had no fans and no coffee. The fans are a must when it’s hot but the coffee is close to crucial year round. While we were sitting there, Eddie, one of the complexes handymen saw us on the balcony and greeted us. I asked how he was doing and he said fine…and then when I asked how his baby girl was doing, Eddy walked over to stand just below us. He told us that she had an operation last week to have two cysts removed from her eyelids and that she will have to have another surgery before long to remove one off the other eye. He said she was doing very well and he thanked God for that. He also thanked us for asking about her and said that if we needed any work done in our house, to just let him know. At the time, I didn’t…but he did have to come today to replace a washer in my kitchen faucet. That type of repair is included in our rent but I gave Eddy just a little money since I just wanted to bless him. He was so grateful and thanked me several times.

Back to yesterday…I have to admit I wasn’t giddy with excitement as we left for lunch yesterday. The issues with the car were just so frustrating. Jim and I went to Pizza Hut to eat where we could get our cheapo $8 for 2 meal…of course that now $8.25 meal doesn’t include our drinks or the $2 special on cinnamon sticks but still, it’s a very reasonably priced meal all in all.

As Jim and I were sitting in the booth waiting for our waiter to come take our order, we were talking about how routine everything seemed to be. I told him that I had always been excited about returning to Managua before but that this time, I felt more resigned to it and that maybe we weren’t supposed to be coming back. (Remember I told you how hard it was for me to leave this time?) I said that I wished I knew for sure that’s where God wanted us. No sooner had I gotten the words out of my mouth than one of the waitresses named Jenifer came up to us and quickly greeted us, shaking Jim’s hand and giving me a kiss on each cheek. She said she had not seen us for a long time and wanted to know if we had been on vacation. (I didn’t think we went there to eat that often!) I told her we had been in the States for the last three months and had just gotten back the night before. She quickly pointed out that she was going to have a baby in March and placed my hand on her rounded little tummy. The baby’s name is Alexis and I’m sure will be as beautiful as her mama. I congratulated her and she told me she was so glad we came back to Nicaragua. After she walked off, I told Jim I had spoken too soon.

After lunch, we went to get some money changed as we had spent most of what I had on me for lunch. Our cambistas (moneychangers) are brothers and they sit under a tree on a busy street in Managua and change money for those who pull up in front of them. It’s Managua’s version of a drive-through bank! Before we even pulled up, one of the two brothers, stood up and began walking to the curb. When I rolled my window down (and it stayed down on its own, thank goodness), he reached in, shook hands with both of us, told us that he had missed us and wanted to know how our vacation was. He and Jim did their transaction and as we were getting ready to drive off, he said he was glad we were back in the country. His brother waved good-bye. I was surprised that they had missed us but again, pleased that someone had noticed we were gone.

The final “welcome home” for the day came at the grocery store. One of the sackers we have known since the store opened was so excited to see us. He told us he had missed seeing us and wondered if we had moved away. I told him we had gone to the States for a visit. He said he was glad we hadn’t moved back. I want to say that it’s because we always speak to him when we’re there but I think it’s more about the fact that we give him a tip when he carries out our groceries. Either way…those were nice words to hear. And those positive strokes made for a much nicer ending to the day.

So now, we’re on Day 2 of our return to Managua and I think I finally have everything put away where it’s supposed to go, all the clothes got washed, the throw rugs washed, the thick layer of black mold cleaned from the fridge and chest freezer seals, Eddy fixed the leaky kitchen faucet today, the internet is finally connected, the plants got watered and we have Pixie with us once again!

We never know what we’re going to find (or find missing) when we leave for any length of time and this time was no different…other than the length of time we spent away. Three months is a long time to leave a place uninhabited in this climate. We have found a handful of termite runs throughout the place, but only one seems to have been active and it was a doozie! Jim sprayed the dickens out of it and smacked an already flat scary looking bug/spider thing. The closest picture I’ve found on the internet that resembles it is a creepy looking crawlie called a tail-less whip scorpion. They’re not supposed to be harmful to humans. We’ll never know where that one was concerned. Gave me the willies!

There are several new stains on the ceiling which indicates it had several leaks that we didn’t have before and the sheetrock tape is coming down in a couple of areas. The bodega flooded while we were gone but doesn’t appear to be any major damage out there. And, all in all, the house seemed to fare okay. I think it helped having Margarita continue to come in 3x week and everything still seems to be in its place...plus most of my plants made it.

Today, Jim and our Nicaraguan friend, Martin (who picked us up at the airport), went to get a couple of estimates on getting the a/c repaired. The first place wanted an arm and a leg to fix it and the second place wanted just an arm…we’re going with the arm guy and just praying he knows what he’s doing! Jim and will take it back tomorrow morning and leave it and hopefully, we’ll get it back tomorrow afternoon with a working a/c. Martin is going to follow him there so that he can bring him back home. If that works out as we hope, then Jim and our friend will take the car on Friday to the mechanic who worked on it while we’re gone to figure out what repairs need to be repaired. I’m assuming the mechanic won’t charge for this visit.

The car fiasco has changed our plans for this week but that’s okay. We probably needed to take a few days to get settled back in before going to visit everyone. Friday night, we’re going to a pot-luck supper at our pastor’s house. Saturday, we’ll stay close to home as there is a large scale political demonstration planned by the opposition to the ruling government. Sunday is church and lunch with friends. Looks like visits will have to wait until next week.

Finally...yet again!

2011-05-11T20:44:00.000-06:00

I’ve come to the conclusion that I will never get caught up…and that I will never catch the rest of you up with all that happens in our days here. I have wondered why it used to be so much easier for me to make the time to sit down and write. I decided that was before we found ourselves “working” seven days a week! I’ve also decided that we’ve allowed ourselves to get bogged down in all that we’re doing to the point that we’re facing some serious burnout. What that means is that we’ve more than likely taken on more than what God told us to take on or in ways that He had never intended. That’s wrong, as well as exhausting.

First of all…Happy Anniversary to us! We’ve been here three years now! In some respects, the time has flown by…in others, I wonder if Jesus would be willing to move the date up on His return! Have we acclimated? For the most part. Does this feel like home? As much as any place can feel like home for people who don’t feel like they have one anymore. Are we fluent in Spanish? Not even close! Are we glad we’re here? Most days. Has our ministry turned out the way we had envisioned? Another not even close! Do we still struggle? Every day in one way or another. Has it been worth it? Only Jesus can answer that…we belong to Him. What are we doing now? Holding on.

Mondays through Fridays (and sometimes, Saturday and/or Sunday afternoons), we can usually be found at CINAFE, the child protection center that we are currently volunteering at in the position of overseers. It has to be one of the most taxing and tiring things we’ve done since arriving here three years ago…and that’s saying a lot considering I thought teaching at Los Cedros was going to lead to my early demise!

We have seen some amazing changes in the 15 children who currently live there. One of the girls who was a master of manipulation when we first arrived has undergone a remarkable transformation. She is hungry to know more and more about Jesus. She is quick to help and has taken on the role of mentor to some of the littlest ones there at CINAFE. She is a good student and has been demonstrating her natural leadership qualities. She still makes some poor decisions and did so again recently, but for the first time ever, she has shown some genuine remorse for her behavior. That’s a pretty big step for her.

Another young girl would not allow any physical touch from us. I could not put my arm around her or touch her shoulder when we first arrived. Now, she almost knocks us over to give us her after-school hugs. She will come in the office and just sit and talk…about her day, about her family, about school and best of all, about God. She has memorized numerous scriptures and she is now starting to understand that although knowing God’s Word is wonderful to know, He expects us to put in to practice what we’ve learned. That’s a harder lesson to learn…but isn’t it for all of us?

We are now entering a dangerous time at CINAFE…about 1/2 of our children are now 12 and older. That means that there is a constant surge of hormones happening at any given time which only adds to the unpredictability of life there. If that weren’t challenging enough, we also have staff issues, government regulations, upcoming presidential elections and all that entails, constant maintenance issues and rising prices. We feel we are in a precarious position of trying to manage CINAFE in a way that honors God and meets the expectations of the organization’s ministerial board while trying to keep our employees in a state of satisfaction plus parenting 15 kids in a Christian manner in a culture that is so different from our own. I’m sure it would be easier if we were 30 years young…we’re not!

There are days that we don’t get home until 8:00 at night. We’ll have staff problems or problems with the children which makes it feel more like midnight when we’re leaving or we will have kids who just need some personal attention. They know that we start trying to leave between 5:00 and 6:00 and somehow, that seems to be the exact time that one of them wants to talk, or they want to play volleyball or handgames or just hang on us for awhile. Somehow, they don’t understand that we’re not 30 years younger so there are many nights that we go home with achy muscles or bruises or dirty handprints on what had been a relatively clean shirt…but we also go home those nights with smiles on our tired, line-etched faces and in our uplifted hearts. Those nights are much more frequent now than they were a year ago which is a blessing…but it is also very tiring!

We have been able to implement some different programs for the children there and hopefully, these will grow in to something that will help contribute to a brighter future for these kids. We now have a general scholarship fund set up for the children so that those who seek to further their education after secondary school (that’s like our high school) can have the opportunity to do so. This fund is to be used for either college or a type of vocational training and we’re praying that this will someday be utilized by all of our children. The need for a good education is so important if these kids hope to have a better life than the one they knew before they came to us.

We also now have three treadle sewing machines that were donated by the Kenmore Kiwanis group from Ohio. We have hired a woman who teaches sewing to come in twice a week to teach the older children how to use the machines so that they will all have learned a basic skill. Although some of the girls aren’t too crazy about learning this craft, others are demonstrating a real talent which is very exciting to see. This class is building such self-confidence in some of our girls who have really struggled in this area so we have already considered this program a success.

Another venture has been teaching a class in jewelry making. That one hasn’t taken off as we had hoped but mainly because our accessibility to affordable quality materials is pretty limited. We are going to continue to pursue this but are in the process of trying to tweak the program so that the few who show some real promise in this craft, can continue to progress.

One of my favorite programs that we now have going, is the weekly Bible study and discipleship program we now have in place. We have a local church who sends several young women over every week to work with the kids through songs, stories and lessons. We have seen some real spiritual growth happening in several of our older girls and that has been so encouraging.

Soon, we will be having Jillian Hoover with us for a month and she is going to help us with a brief music program for the kids. Jillian is from our home church and we are looking forward to seeing God use her musical talent to minister to these children. We want the kids to learn how to read music and play the recorder. We also recently bought a small used Casio keyboard which we are hoping to be able to incorporate in these lessons and we are currently looking for a guitar teacher for our 12 year old boy who loves to strum it and play around with chords. We will also be having a friend of Jillian’s visit with us for a few weeks. Crystal Odell also loves music so we’re expecting lots of harmonious sounds to emanate from our munchkins there at CINAFE!

Okay…that’s our update on CINAFE. Now on to Tipitapa and Rayitas de Luz. Saturdays are full days for us there. We have our adult English class which last for 2 – 2 ½ hours in the mornings. The class has dwindled down to about a solid dozen students. And out of that dozen, about ½ of them are serious about learning English and those six make Saturday mornings worth the sacrifice of our 1 day a week of sleeping in.

After class, we eat a quick lunch that Danelia and Arturo have prepared for us and then we’re back in the hot classroom to take on the 20+ kids who come every Saturday afternoon for their English class. Those kids energize me, that’s for sure…at least for that hour or so because I’m always drained on the way back to Managua!

Last week, we had a special activity for the parents of the children and had about 30 parents show up. Danelia, Anibal (Danelia’s brother) and I each presented an aspect of parenting. My talk was the last and although it was short, my focus in my pitiful Spanish was the importance of giving God first place in the marriage. I hadn’t planned on a question and answer session afterwards but a man stood up and asked if Jim and I argued and how we settled them.

I had to laugh when he asked me and I quickly assured him that we most certainly had disagreements and that we were two very different people in our personalities and our mannerisms which often presented a challenge when we were on opposite ends of something. Everyone laughed as many of them already knew us. I also told them that even when I didn’t feel like it, I try to defer to Jim as God has placed him as the spiritual head of our family. I realized I had been given an opportunity to keep sharing about the difference between a God-centered marriage and a me-centered marriage and so I jumped on that. Jim also spoke up and shared a little bit as well. We all felt the program went very well.

We then had a drawing for three prizes that Jim and I provided. We chose household items that any family could use…2 towels and 2 washcloths, a small pitcher with six plastic glasses and three packets of juice mix and finally, three plastic containers which held a can opener, a scrubby sponge and 4 rolls of dishwashing paste. We also provided the refreshments of cake and soda. It was such a festive time and the parents were so great.

We were really surprised and pleased by the turnout but then, God had yet another surprise for us. Three different couples approached Danelia after the program and told her that they decided they would like to be married and wanted to know if we would let them use the school. When Danelia told me that, I was speechless. Finally, I asked her what prompted that and she said she didn’t know but that’s what they wanted.

We discussed it at length and the only stipulation we put on the use of the building for their weddings was that they would have to counsel with a pastor before the wedding and have a pastor be a part of the ceremony. There are two types of wedding services here, a religious service and a civil service. A church or religious wedding is not considered a legal marriage in Nicaragua. A legal marriage is done by a lawyer and the cost for the paperwork is minimal. A religious wedding is recognized only by the church as a valid marriage. So, we’re asking the couples to “marry” the two services so that they will have a marriage that is acknowledged by both the law and the church. We’re excited to see how this progresses and the impact it will have in the community.

The other use for the building is now in the preliminary planning stages. Beginning in June, Danelia is going to start offering a children’s Sunday School class on Sunday mornings. There have already been quite a few parents who have said they would like to send their children to the class and she is estimating about 20 children who want to come.

Kenneth’s health continues to decline. His legs are so thin now as the muscles have atrophied and his arms are no longer strong like they once were. The doctor at La Mascota, the children’s hospital, has upped his pain medicine now to every six hours. Last Friday, we all felt sucker-punched when one of the pediatric oncologists told us that he not only thinks the tumor in the chest is growing, he also indicated he thinks the cancer may have spread to the brain.

I’m not accepting that diagnosis yet as the doctor is basing it on the past history of another patient and the fact that Kenneth’s white cell count was highly elevated. But there have been no other tests to confirm that so we’re praying against that diagnosis. I am not at all a fan of how medicine is done here and what confidence I did have has waned considerably with that kind of doctoring.

Although Kenneth is declining physically, his attitude has never been better. He is eating again and when the pain medication is doing its job, he’s full of smiles and jabbers like a magpie. He loves to play games and his newest favorite thing to do while we sit in the waiting area at the hospital are hidden object puzzles. I have a big book of these kinds of puzzles and he loves finding something before Jim or I do. Cancer may be taking a terrible toll on his body but it hasn’t dampened his competitive spirit one iota! The kid is brutal!

I make light of this because that’s how we are getting through this right now. Every visit to La Mascota is torture for me…and I’m not the one getting stuck with needles and poked and prodded in all the painful places every two weeks. But I am the one who sees the babies with huge protruding tumors over the eyes, toddlers with horribly extended misshapen bellies due to inoperable tumors, young girls and boys hopping around on one leg due to amputations from bone cancer, children who look more like stick figures than human beings who are so weak that their coughs sound like strangled mews thanks to the lung cancers from which they suffer…these visits almost always bring tears to my eyes and sometimes, I can’t hold those tears back. I look around at all the children that we see each visit (there is an average of more than 70 children treated each day as outpatients in the cancer ward) and my heart literally hurts at their suffering. Kenneth just sees new friends with whom to share his puzzles or toys.

One day, I think Kenneth sensed what I was thinking as I sat and looked around. He never said a word but just took my hand and squeezed it as if to reassure me that everything was going to be okay…it was as though our roles reversed for a moment. I sat and stared at him and was horrified at the thought that as much as I hate those hospital visits, I am going to be devastated if the day comes (and the doctors are all sure it will come), that there will no longer be a need for us to be there because Kenneth will have received his ultimate and eternal healing. On that day, his pain will have ended but I’m afraid ours will continue for some time. And I’m so selfish in this…Kenneth has become such a part of our lives here. He’s more than a little boy with cancer…he’s a little boy whom we dearly love. Please continue to pray for him.

Now going south from Managua is our newest ministry venture. I think I told you about Mercy Plate Ministries? I will explain in case I haven’t and if I have…consider it a quick review! It is a fledgling feeding program for the elderly in a community called Vera Cruz which is south of Managua…and no, Vera Cruz is not close to our home either! It is run by a wonderful Nicaraguan Christian couple who are from the Atlantic Coast. Due to scheduling conflicts with our time in Tipitapa, we are currently unable to be present to help Segard and Elsie with the actual serving of the food but we have been helping financially and encouraging them with prayers and advice.

We have been able to bless Mercy Plate with some games, dishes, silverware, food and today, we took a load of donated clothes and shoes down for Elsie to hand out on Saturday. The program is growing so fast. A few months ago, Elsie started out with about 9 seniors who came for her first Saturday evening meal. Now, they’re up to about 50 on the roster. She not only gives them a good hot nutritious meal, she also does blood pressure checks and offers them a time of fellowship.

We’re working on trying to figure out a way to do a home delivery system once a week for those that are homebound so that we can get to know them and their families and begin building relationships with them. So many do not know Jesus and we know time is so short for a great many of them.

Our “big dream” for them is to build a covered outside eating area so that the rainy season will not keep them from coming. There is an enclosed building they can meet in but it’s hot and they love being outside. We want to get some plastic tables and enough chairs for everyone. Those are big dreams but Segard, Elsie, Jim and I all serve the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. The project of building a simple rancho and some plastic chairs may look like a huge project to us…but we trust God to provide in His time.

Segard told us that many of the elderly in that community are skeptical of gringos coming in there as they associate so many of us with the Iran-Contra War so we have some hurdles to cross but we believe God has opened a door for us there and we don’t want to not step through it. There is an uneasy dance with the churches in the community as they’re fearful of Segard wanting to start a “competitive” church. Segard assured them that is not his intention but we all agree that we want to share Jesus with them. Segard and Elsie are more about the service aspect whereas Jim and I want to be able to visit with the folks and find out where they are spiritually. We’re also trusting God to provide us with that opportunity in His time.

So, that’s a quick general overall snapshot of what we’re doing with our current ministries. Before I end this I will tell you that this past year has been the most difficult year for me (and I would assume for Jim) for some time. We will be coming back to the States in August and we’ve decided to stay for a couple of months this time. We need some rest and we need to hear clearly from God what direction He wants us to go. I am confident it will be to return here…I’m just not confident in what capacity. We have many questions that we are laying before the Lord right now and we just want to be obedient to Him in our every response. Thank you for your continued prayers, words of encouragement and support. You are so precious to us.

Long overdue...

2011-02-28T22:31:00.000-06:00

I’m not even sure how to begin this. I know it has been ages since I’ve blogged and at least twice that long since I’ve done a newsletter. Every few days or so, I tell myself that I’m going to carve out the time I need to “catch up” and yet I I don’t seem to ever start that carving process. As frustrating as that is for me, it was brought to my attention this past week that it is equally, if not more so, for some of you. All I can do is apologize for letting you down in this respect. I KNOW we’re super busy, (and I’ll be the first to admit that we’re probably too busy) but of course, I realize you have no way of knowing that unless I take the time to share just what it is that we’re doing. And if there is anyone who has the right to know what we’re doing here, it is all of you.

First of all, God answered my prayer to help me find a block of time where I can actually sit and write. I’ve been sick with the flu the last 4 days and today is actually the first day that I’ve even felt like sitting up this long. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I prayed that prayer of finding more time, believe me. But, I recognize an opportunity when I see it so I’ll try now to give you a decent recap of what we’ve been doing lately.

You are aware that we’ve moved to a much more secure place to live. Things are unpacked, the study is organized, flowers are planted but it still doesn’t feel like “home”. We have just recently put in 3 ceiling fans which is helping to keep the place cooler. We’re talking about painting the all vanilla-colored walls and replacing the blinds with curtains to help make it feel a little cozier. All the wall décor we had in our house is still waiting to be hung but we want to paint first before we hang them…with concrete walls, the fewer holes Jim has to make, the better. So, right now, we’re safe but still not feeling we have a home. I’m assuming that will happen at some point. Honestly, right now, we’re here so little most of the time that “home” seems to be way down on our “to do” list. I don't have pics yet but maybe if we get moving on the improvements, I'll have some to show.

We continue to spend most of our time at CINAFE and so that’s where I’ll focus for this particular blog. Obviously, too much has happened to catch you up on everything at once. So, about CINAFE… To begin with, the children have just started their new school year and they are so excited. They are sporting new backpacks and new shoes. Many have new uniforms. Right now, it’s all great…but the routine of homework hasn’t gotten old yet so attitudes may change before long.

The majority of the children have returned to the private school (where their tuition has been donated) but we have four of the children who have had to change schools. Thankfully, they are able to attend a school just a few blocks from the home which not only makes it convenient, but also, we’re praying that this will be a positive change for these children. We also continue to have a tutor several times a week to help those children who continue to struggle with their basic subjects. Many of our kids were way behind in their education when they came to us with some having to learn to read and write for the first time.

We are working on some new programs for the kids. They not only need a safe and healthy place to live, they also need to have some hope for a future that is different than their past. Thanks to a Kiwanis club in Ohio, we will soon be able to buy some sewing machines for our girls so that they can learn a life skill that they will always be able to use. Through some vocational and aptitude testing, we are discovering some of the older kids’ God-given gifts, abilities and interests with the idea of trying to nurture those through possible outside vocational training.

For example, we have a girl who is extremely artistic, another one who is very interested in and very good in the field of cosmetology, a young man who is interested in carpentry and a girl who enjoys studying English. We all know some children are university material and some aren’t but regardless of their abilities and capabilities, we don’t want to try to force these children in to a mold that doesn’t fit them. So, in conjunction with that, our third stage of this “future of hope” program that is in the process now, is to set up a general Scholarship Fund for any of the CINAFE children who choose to continue with a higher education program or vocational school training. We are very excited about this opportunity for our kids.

Day to day life at CINAFE varies greatly. If ever there were a roller-coaster ride of a ministry, this one is it and it takes an unbelievable amount of time as well as physical and emotional energy to be there day after day. The “fix-it” side of me wonders why sharing the truth of God’s Word doesn’t just make it all better. But then, the truth of God’s Word answers that very question…Satan is a liar and a thief and that he has come to steal, kill and destroy.

The challenges that we face every day at CINAFE, with both the staff and the children, are spiritual battles and they are wearying. Our Hope and our Strength are Jesus Christ and In Him, we hold on to the promises that we are more than conquerors…and He is who we want each one of the children and the staff at CINAFE to come to know as their Lord and Savior. That is a difficult step for so many of them to make as trust is not something that they are quick to give. These children need your prayers. The staff needs your prayers. And we certainly need your prayers. This is a heavy responsibility with eternal consequences.

Karen, our friend in Ohio and the wife of the CINAFE board president, came to spend part of the Christmas holiday at CINAFE. That was a fun and a very busy week. We had a Christmas party for about 40 children from our local neighborhood plus a poor neighborhood about 1 ½ kilometers away. An American gentleman, Dana, who comes to visit Nicaragua several times a year, rented a giant inflatable jump house castle and we had a Nicaraguan ministry team, Castillo Del Rey, come to entertain the kids. We had games, activities and refreshments ending the afternoon with a presentation of the gospel. It was a fun day for everyone.

One of the other highlights of that week was taking the children to a poor neighborhood in El Crucero, which is about 13 kilometers south of Managua and the community where all the children attended school last year. Thanks to some very generous folks who donated to this project, the children visited thirty homes, passing out plastic tubs filled with food, including a hot, cooked whole chicken and a loaf of fresh bread. The children took turns praying over each family and everyone sang carols, oftentimes with the families joining in.

The children were in such high spirits, they loved doing this! And the reaction of the recipients was so touching. These were folks who lived in very poor conditions. More than once, we heard that the food baskets were an answer to prayer. One lady had six children and said she had fixed the last of her little bit of rice that morning and had no idea what she was going to feed them that night. Another was an older couple who cried tears of gratitude when they received their basket. Another was a grieving mother who had just buried her three year old daughter who had been hit and killed by a microbus.

Of course, the word spread like wildfire and as usual, there were people who sought us out, asking for food and as usual, there wasn’t enough to go around. That was the saddest part to the day - having to tell people that there wasn’t any more to give. I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to that.

There was another memorable event for the children and that was a visit to Ancianos Coronados. The church Jim and I attend, Covenant Church of Managua, reaches out each Friday and every other Saturday to a community of elderly in a neighborhood called Las Naciones in the south part of Managua. The church has a feeding program for the folks and they meet in the front yard of someone who has volunteered their home for this.

We have such high regard for this program and thought this would be a good experience for our CINAFE kids so Jim and I arranged for them to have the opportunity to help serve lunch one Friday before Christmas. Each year, the kids minister in a neighborhood with food baskets (like they did in El Crucero), or caroling or hosting a neighborhood Christmas party but this year, we wanted to make them aware of another segment of people who are so often forgotten or mistreated here in Nicaragua, and that’s the elderly. We want the kids to learn to give as well as receive and we want them to learn the concept of serving others. But we also want them to recognize and respect their elders and to be open to the wisdom they can impart to them. This doesn’t just happen…it’s something we need to be intentional about facilitating.

When we first arrived, I think the children were a little apprehensive and maybe even a little intimidated but it didn’t take long for the generations to merge. The kids prayed and then sang Christmas Carols with many of the Ancianos joining in. Some of them closed their eyes and swayed to the rhythm of the songs. Some sat very still with tears quietly rolling down their weathered faces. Those were the ones who touched my heart the most.

After the program, the children then passed out lunch that was prepared by a team of local neighborhood ladies that does this each week. It was a simple lunch of beans, rice and tortillas but for many of the Ancianos, that is one of the few hot meals they get each week. This is truly a neglected segment of society here.

Many of the Ancianos suffer humiliation and abuse from their own families who view them as burdens and no longer productive or contributing members to the household. They are encouraged to eat their lunch there on site as it has been found that many of them get their food taken away from them if they try to take it home. It is heartbreaking and I am so thankful that our church has undertaken this ministry. These people come not only for the hot lunch, but also for the love and validation they receive each week. They never leave without hearing God’s Word.

There were lots of smiles and even a few hugs exchanged that afternoon. The children finished out their time there with passing out food and hygiene packs to each Anciano in attendance. I wish that I could bottle the kind of joy that we saw on so many faces that day. The children did a great job of serving and their smiles were infectious. The Ancianos loved having the children there.

Recently, we had a team from First Baptist Church, Cassville, MO. Their main ministry focus was spent in Tipitapa but they spent one afternoon with the kids at CINAFE and I’m not sure who had more fun…the kids or the team! We have seen a lot of teams come through CINAFE and we’re never quite sure how the kids are going to react, but I can honestly say that all the kids warmed up so quickly to the FBC team. Even our older girls, who can be a tough crowd to win over, absolutely went out of their way to make the team feel welcome. I was so proud of those kids! And so proud to share them with folks from home!

So, in general, that brings you up to date with our CINAFE kids. We have been with them for a year now. We have seen some of them at their worst and all of them at their best. We have celebrated birthdays and quinceañeras. We have helped with homework and taken away privileges. We have attended school events and sat in emergency rooms. We have wiped tears and played pranks. We have cheered and we have counseled. We have seen walls come down and barriers fall. We have gained the trust of some of the most closed-off children and have become a safe place for them to share their fears, frustrations, joys and sorrows. We have made the children laugh and cry and they have done the same to us. I don’t know when it happened exactly, but sometime in this past year, we have opened our hearts to the children of CINAFE, and they have each crept in and firmly planted themselves. And that’s why we continue to put in more hours than we should at CINAFE. We’ve fallen in love!

More on Kenneth...

2010-12-08T17:46:00.000-06:00

Started this yesterday…finished it this afternoon. That is so typical of things here now… seems so hard to get anything completed when planned!

I’m sitting here at my desk at CINAFE and my aim was to work on next week’s schedule of events as it’s going to be a very busy week. The problem is all I can think about is Kenneth. I thought if I could “talk” about him with you, then it would help me express some of what I’m feeling and maybe be enough of a release that I can focus on what I need to be focusing on today.

We had planned on going to Tipitapa this past weekend, even though I’ve taken this month off from teaching, but I wanted to go check on Kenneth. Saturday, Susanna e-mailed to tell us she was flying back to the States for Christmas that following Monday and to let us know Pixie was “available” if we wanted to dog-sit while she was gone. She asked if we could take her to the airport Monday morning so we decided to just wait to go to Tipitapa then to help save on our gas as the airport is on the way to Tipitapa. Sunday afternoon, Susanna called and said she was going to go with someone else so we decided we would go ahead and come in to CINAFE on Monday morning and work for awhile. We finally left here about 3:15 to head on over to Tipitapa.

Danelia heard our car pull up and came out to meet us. Her eyes filled with tears almost immediately. She said that she had made 3 trips to the hospital in the last week, with the latest being that morning. Monday’s trip was to try to get a good ultrasound test done. It was unsuccessful. It seems that the position they need Kenneth to lie in is also a position that causes him excruciating pain and so they said until he can lie still as they need him to do, then they can’t do the test.

I understand that they need him to lay still. What I don’t understand is why they can’t do something medically to help him do that. Maybe I’m just fixated on trying to alleviate his pain but for professionals in the medical field to be angry and frustrated with a little boy who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, who is scared and who is crying out in pain and fear just seems wrong to me. But I’m not the only one who feels that way. His mama does, too, and my heart just aches for what she’s going through herself.

The doctors told her during one of the visits last week that they think the tumor is growing much more rapidly now and that it is pressing on the spine and on the intestines. That is one of the reasons he no longer has normal bowel functions. This only complicates things as he is immobile now from the waist down. But they want a good ultrasound to make a correct diagnosis. We all want that.

She told me that she is supposed to take him back to the hospital on Thursday or Friday. One of her brothers who has a car, said he could take them if he goes on Thursday but he can’t help them on Friday. I told her that we could come and get them if they needed to go that day. She told me that they would need to be at the hospital by 7:00 and that she was afraid that was too early for us. I told her not to worry about that…and then, I turned and asked Jim if it was okay, knowing that it would mean we would have to leave our house a little after 5:00 a.m. Jim is a saint, in case you all don’t realize it. He said it was fine.

Danelia told us that one of the doctors told her that he thinks the cancer is spreading further down the leg and that Danelia needs to watch for fever or signs of infection. She was shaking when she told me that Kenneth had started running a low-grade fever that morning and that his feet were swelling. But, she said that he didn’t seem to be having any pain. She expressed even more concern that she couldn’t get him to eat anything. The doctors had simply said to bring him back Thursday or Friday.

Danelia said she was scared. She said that she knows that God wants her to continue to trust Him. As so often happens these days, I joined her in her tears. I agreed that God wants that from all of His children. I also told her that God knows that we love our children and He understands her fear.

She said that she has decided that if they want to put Kenneth in the hospital, that she is almost ready to let them do that just so he will be more comfortable. She can’t bear seeing him in pain and trying to lift him and carry him without causing him pain is becoming more and more difficult. She is so torn as to what to do. She hates the hospital environment and I don’t blame her. Kenneth hates it too. It’s not a comforting place to be. But she knows that he can get care there that she can’t give him and that they can help keep him nourished.

She knows she would have to stay with him 24 hours a day there which would also mean that she couldn’t be at home with Lindsay. Neither could Arturo as he works 12 hours a day, 6 days a week and sometimes more. Lindsay would have to stay with Danelia’s mother and no one wants that as Lindsay does not do well being apart from her mama. Danelia’s mother has her own health issues plus she isn’t a very affectionate individual.

Life is scary right now for the rest of the family but it is also very unsettling for Lindsay…she understands enough to understand that Kenneth is really sick but I don’t know that she really grasps the entirety or the severity of the situation. She does understand that whatever is happening with Kenneth is bad as it makes her mama and papa cry when they think no one sees them. She has whispered to me before that “mama was crying this morning”. Danelia knows that being separated again from Lindsay would only add to both their anxieties.

As Jim and I stood and listened to Danelia, I so badly wanted to give such wonderful and profound words of wisdom and comfort & all I could do was cry with her. It was and is such a helpless feeling. I looked around as we stood at the broken down fence that acts as their gate. The dust swirled as the wind blew across their rutted dirt road. The rusty, hole-ridden piece of zinc that she had put across the front window of the school to keep the sun out looked even more sad and dilapidated as it sat tilted at a precarious angle. Celeste and Genesis, little girls who live a few houses down the street and are students at Rayitas de Luz, stood silently and somberly, watching us as we both had tears roll down our cheeks. The whole thing just seemed surreal as like conversations have so many times before.

We both wiped our faces in preparation to go in to see Kenneth. He isn’t unaware of what’s happening to him but neither of us want him to have to see “doom and gloom” faces all the time. She said she had moved him out to the school room as it was cooler and he could rest better out there. She said he was playing music...there’s not much else for him to do. He can’t get down on the ground and play with his toys. I know it’s difficult for him to hear the other children out running and playing when he can’t even move his legs of his own volition.

I walked in, expecting to see him lying down on the table that had often served as a makeshift bed before we gave the kids bunkbeds. I was surprised to see him sitting up and looking pretty good. He was in his wheelchair with his feet propped up on a pillow in another chair. He had a small guitar in his hands...someone had given it to Arturo to give to Kenneth. He greeted us with a smile and I asked him how he was. “Bien”. Fine. That was good. The last few visits had garnered the response of, “Un poco mal. A little bad.

I touched his bare feet. I was struck by two things. They were terribly swollen and they were spotlessly clean. Clean feet on children in Nicaragua are a novelty. But seeing these clean feet were more than a curiosity to be glanced at…they were visible signs of a little boy who can no longer live the life a little boy should be able to live. He can no longer walk to the bathroom, pedal his bicycle, run to the dirt mound and jump off, kick a soccer ball, climb in and out of his bed. The sight of those clean, bare feet stabbed at my heart.

There were two other things I noticed when I touched Kenneth’s feet. First of all, that he didn’t react. I touched lightly because I wasn’t sure if my touch would be painful to him or not. He didn’t even twitch. Maybe my feet are just very sensitive but if someone touches them with a lot of pressure or with little, I move. Kenneth’s feet remained absolutely still.

The other thing I noticed was that while both feet were swollen, the right one was noticeably larger and it was quite feverish. The heat ran up his entire right leg. The toes on his left foot were cold to the touch although from his ankle up, it became progressively warmer. I was hoping that was due to his feet being elevated. I asked Kenneth if he had any pain and he said no. But he was still dealing with the incessant itching on his back and around his waist. We were thankful that he was having a pain-free day regardless the reason.

I asked him if he knew how to play the guitar. He shyly shook his head no. I told him that I didn’t know either and I wanted him to try to play something for me. He grinned but again, shook his head no. We began talking about music, toys and cars. Boy talk. He would answer my questions but didn’t seem to want to talk much. Danelia had gone in to the house to sweep and to some things while we were there to sit with Kenneth. I realized how difficult just even doing her daily chores must have become with trying to balance a day full of housework and taking care of a sick little boy.

I asked Kenneth if he could choose anything in the whole world he would like to eat, what would it be? He shrugged his shoulders. I asked him, “Un elefante?” An elephant? He grinned and shook his head no. “Que?” What? I asked this almost with trepidation…what if he told me something that I couldn’t get for him? He smiled and said very softly, “Carne asada.” Grilled meat. “Carne asada? Le gusta?” Grilled meat – do you like it? He slightly nodded his head yes, still smiling. I asked him if I got him carne asada, would he try to eat some of it. His head nod was much larger this time.

About that time, Bayron, the little boy next door and Kenneth’s best friend, came over. He is very affectionate with me and will often pick flowers from whosever bush he can get them from or make me flowers from bits and pieces of things he finds and give them to me. But even when he doesn’t come bearing gifts, he always has a hug...which is of the gift I love most. I miss getting those hugs from my grandkids.

I have to laugh at how Bayron is with me. He sometimes will sit next to me and will just play with my fingernails as he is fascinated (as are most kids) with longer nails. Women in his barrio don’t have long nails as they wash clothes by hand on a concrete pila which would negate the thought of any kind of manicured hand. He will turn my fingers this way and that and closely examine my skin. He always tells me how “white” my hands are.

Or if he’s standing next to my chair, he will mindlessly play with my hair…he loves the silver in it. Silver sounds better than gray. Regardless how it’s defined, Bayron finds it very interesting and will twirl it around his fingers or try to separate the few remaining brown strands from the rest. I’m sure I must look quite a mess when he’s doing this but honestly, I gave up worrying a long time ago about being “put together” here. It’s no longer important to me but I do admit that I’ve wondered at times how much dirtier my hair is returning home from Tipitapa than when I arrive there.

Bayron is another little boy that we’ve been able to help some with medications. He suffers with terrible headaches and has been diagnosed with lesions on the brain as a result of being beaten by his father when he was small. He’s a terribly sweet little boy with a wonderful smile and he loves to teach me new Spanish words. He’s much more comfortable with women than men, which is understandable due to his home life. But I often worry about Bayron and his future. I’m glad he’s a student at Rayitas de Luz.

Danelia came out to see if we would stay with Kenneth while she went to get Lindsay from church. We told her we would and I asked her where close by that we could go buy carne asada. She said that there was a place but that it wasn’t safe for us to go there and that she could go get it for us. I asked her how much it was and she told me. I got in my purse and gave her enough money to buy carne asada for all of them and told her that was what I wanted her to do. She protested saying it was too expensive. I told her that if Kenneth would eat some of it then it was worth every penny. She gave me a nod, a smile and teary thank-you and tucked the money inside the waist band of her skirt and left to go get Lindsay.

Bayron and Kenneth are best buddies. Kenneth was the one who often looked after Bayron in the neighborhood and now, Bayron takes care of Kenneth. Kenneth’s countenance brightened measurably when Bayron came over. Bayron began digging in the old rice sack that serves as Kenneth and Lindsay’s toy “chest”, obviously searching for something. He pulled out ratty looking Barbies and well worn stuffed animals, cars with chipped paint or missing parts. Kenneth watched as each toy was pulled and would name the ones that we had given him. Not a one could qualify as “gently used”. Jim and I looked at each other and smiled. We were glad that he had enjoyed his toys so much.

Finally, Bayron found the little bag of Hot Wheels that he was looking for and gave it to Kenneth. Bayron set up the little Hot Wheels stunt track that we had given Kenneth last year and Kenneth would choose which car was going to go down the track and when to let it go. Bayron played for Kenneth and Kenneth seemed to be as involved in the process as he could. Before long, two other boys who looked to be about 6 and 8 years old and their mother came by to also visit with Kenneth and Danelia. She told me they attend the same church as Danelia and that she wanted to come visit with her for awhile. The two little boys joined in playing and we watched as the four of them laughed and talked about the stunt track and cars.

Shortly after that, Danelia and Lindsay returned. Lindsay quickly scrambled up on my lap for hugs and tickles. The boys continued to play and Danelia and her friend were talking. I thought for a minute how normal everything seemed…and then I saw Kenneth, sitting in his wheelchair and looking down wistfully at his friends playing with his toys and I realized how “not normal” it all was…and just how quickly this new “not normal” had become “normal”.

It was getting dark and we needed to go. We still had to stop by Miguel’s house to check on them. I treasure the time we got to spend with Kenneth “babysitting”. He’s so precious to us. It was a quiet ride home. We continue to pray God’s will be done in this situation. The words are easy to pray…the reality of how that may play out is much harder to face.

Un poco mal...

2010-11-28T18:15:00.000-06:00

Move #24 is in process. I’m supposed to be packing but thought I would take a few minutes to try to recap the last few weeks for you. Moving seems to have dominated our life this past month. How many times have I said “I hate moving!”? If you ignore the times before I was verbal, I would guess at least 20. This move is no different.

We are once again almost in a state of limbo. We have to wait until our neighbors move out for us to move in. And I say that with such mixed emotions…I love our neighbors and I don’t want to see them move. I would almost be willing to stay where we are if they would decide to stay here…but the lure of much-longed-for family and the American way of life has won out and they will be leaving Nicaragua very soon. We anticipate being able to start moving in to their place in the next day or so and hopefully, that won’t take much more than two days to get everything moved and then, I am going to start the “nesting” process all over again. I don’t know how birds do it!

After living here for a month, we have learned somewhat the things we can “work in” to our smaller accommodations and those we will have to let go. I’m afraid the freezers are going to have to go. The old upright is currently serving as a shelving unit in the bodega (the enclosed open-air laundry room) and the chest freezer that I love is currently occupying too much of my precious kitchen space. Both are going to have to find other homes. We have talked about getting one of those really tiny little chest freezers just so that we can keep ice on hand and the occasional frozen foods that go on sale, but that’s a conversation to be continued on another day.

Let’s see…we just had company for a week. Sadie (our youngest daughter), Marc (her fiancé) and Brittni (Sadie’s friend from vet school) came to spend Thanksgiving with us and we had a very busy week. We made three trips to Tipitapa which is what I want to share with you today. We went once for Saturday English class (with 28 in attendance!), once to attend Kenneth’s little sister’s (Lindsay’s) graduation from preschool in to primary school (a 3 hour event!) and once for Lindsay’s 6th birthday party. Actually, our family took care of putting on the party, supplying the piñata, gifts, cake, soda, balloons, etc. but we had it at the Rayitas de Luz school inviting the neighborhood kids. Lindsay loved it! She was dressed in a princess outfit and she played the part to the hilt…she loved being the center of attention.

It has been difficult of late for Lindsay. She is finally old enough that she is very aware of the fact that Kenneth often receives more attention than she does and even though Kenneth’s cancer demands that attention, it’s still hard for a little six-year old girl to try to process what all of that really means. Rarely does she say anything, but Lindsay has become acutely aware of how she is impacted by Kenneth’s cancer and her child-like frustration became evident the past few weeks.

Two weeks ago, when it was time to have school pictures taken, Lindsay didn’t get hers because that was money that was needed to take Kenneth in a taxi to the hospital…he can no longer walk to get on the bus. We didn’t find this out until after school pictures. We have taken pictures for the family to have but it’s not the same. Lindsay was happy and her parents were very grateful but all recognized the fact that Lindsay appeared to be the obvious one who had to make a sacrifice.

Also, Lindsay was told she was going to have to miss out on her graduation as the family had no way of going and taking Kenneth. The three block walk would have been over badly rutted dirt roads and it would have been too difficult trying to push Kenneth’s wheelchair…the pain would have just been too much for him. Even though Lindsay understood why, her disappointment at missing her graduation was very evident in her tears. Thankfully, we found this out the day before and we were able to juggle some things around so that we could get everyone, including Kenneth, to the school on Sunday for the big event. We were even able to get Lindsay some new shoes to wear as her old school shoes had holes in them. I don’t know who was happier that day, Lindsay or her parents.

The other big looming disappointment was the birthday party. Danelia had told Lindsay that they just couldn’t do a birthday party for her this year as all their extra money was going to transportation and medicines plus various other items for Kenneth. That’s when the tears also were accompanied with the accusatory “why’s”. Why did Kenneth get a big party for his birthday and she couldn’t have one? Why could Kenneth have a piñata but she couldn’t?...plus, I’m sure, a litany of other questions.

We were there for part of that and seeing the tears in Arturo’s eyes as he tried to explain the adult answers to a child’s questions in terms that she could understand, was enough for me. That’s when I knew that we were going to do a party for Lindsay. Here’s the part that I want to reiterate to you…we couldn’t be helping pay for taxis, buy medicines, food, shoes, pictures and birthday party supplies without you. Jim and I feel so privileged to witness the impact you make on the lives of so many people here…I wish you could see it first hand for yourself.

Now, I’ve mentioned Kenneth a lot but haven’t directly addressed where he is right now with his cancer. If you read my Facebook entries, you already know. If you don’t, I will give you a quick rundown. Kenneth’s pain in his legs and lower back has progressed to the point he can no longer walk. After various x-rays and sonograms, his pediatric oncologists said that the tumor in his pelvis is beginning to grow again and is now pressing on nerves. His bowels are no longer working as they should which has added another dimension to Kenneth’s care. This is due in part to his medication and in part to now being immobile. We are continuing to seek ways to help Danelia cope with this latest development. He continues to battle pain and nausea and both have caused a decrease in his appetite.

The pain medication is obviously a double-edged sword. It does help in keeping Kenneth’s pain somewhat manageable but it is loaded with side effects and taking it in conjunction with his latest round of cancer meds has opened up a whole new world of challenges along with the things I just mentioned. He has an itchy rash now that he mindlessly scratches until raw. I always fear infection and check his rashes every time I’m there. He’s often either very lethargic or the other extreme of being very agitated and short-tempered. His frustration with being held prisoner by legs that no longer work and pain that makes its presence known takes form in unpredictable mood swings. Kenneth still tries on occasion to give me his sweet smile but more and more, when I ask him how he feels, the smile no longer appears and he answers with “un poco mal”…a little bad. That is devastating to hear coming from him. He says a little bad but it’s obvious he is in pain.

Kenneth’s prognosis now? According to the doctors, there is no hope. According to God, there is always hope. And so we do. Our hope is in Christ, as is Danelia’s and is Kenneth’s. I know God has put this family in our lives for a reason and I don’t want to waste or trivialize one moment of what they are teaching us. These latest developments with Kenneth have come much sooner than we had thought. We were all on board when Kenneth seemed to be in remission and the doctors said the tumors were no longer visible in his chest. We all tried to ignore the “inconclusives” that we kept getting on so many of his tests. We all kept hoping that the leg pain that had returned was due to over-exertion from playing too hard or riding his bike on those bumpy roads. Even the doctors wanted to look for bladder infections and kidney infections to explain away the back pain. But that doesn’t seem to be how the book on Kenneth’s life has been written by his Author. Right now, I’m not sure how I feel about all of this. I guess I would have to say, like Kenneth, “un poco mal” and trust God with my own pain.

Oops!

2010-11-07T20:28:00.002-06:00

Okay...somehow, things didn't post as I had planned. So, regarding the posts below about our move...The Move is the first part and then The Move - Part 2 is posted right below it. Hope you can figure it out...but I'm thinking it's going to be much simpler for you to get it right reading it than it was for me trying to get it posted! Sorry!

The Move...

2010-11-07T20:26:00.000-06:00

NOTE: I wrote this on Wednesday, November 3, 2010 but then we lost our internet capabilities and am just now getting it posted. So…here’s a quick update even before you read the blog…which is probably a little like putting the cart before the horse…but we now have internet, hot water in the showers and the stove is hooked up. Now…you can step back to last week and what I have just written will make more sense after reading the following blog.

It’s time for me to catch everyone up on what’s been happening here. Life has been very busy for us since our return from the States…it was hectic when we left but it has been crazy since we returned. I’ll try to bring you up to speed.

Tipitapa: The foreman of the construction project at the school in Tipitapa has been down for almost 2 months now with shingles plus some other infirmity and is in a lot of pain. Not only is that a problem for him, but it has been a problem for us. We had waited hoping that Adrian would be well enough to return but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen for some time to come. Danelia and her family knew that we wanted to get back on track so several weeks so she asked her brother Anibal to take over the completion of the project. That was almost one and a half weeks ago but we had a sudden change of plans and didn’t get to go to Tipitapa last weekend, so we don’t know if there’s been any more progress or not. I’ll explain our change of plans later.

Kenneth: Kenneth needs your prayers again. He has been experiencing an increasing amount of pain in his lower back and left leg over the last few weeks and when we were there last, he was unable to walk without assistance. Jim had to almost carry him to his seat in the classroom because he didn’t want to miss out on our English class. His face was etched with pain but he still managed his sweet smile when asked how he was. This is so heartbreaking to see. After class and when most of the children had left, I sat down next to him and asked how he was feeling. He said in a very soft voice so that the other children playing nearby couldn’t hear, that his leg hurt. I thought I was going to cry right then. Those tears came later.

After the remaining group of kids got busy playing, Jim and Arturo sat down and began to talk about the construction project. Since they were right by Kenneth and could attend to him if he needed something, Danelia and I moved our chairs out back of her house where her outdoor kitchen once stood…it is still a mess from the construction, but it was a shady place to sit and it offered us some privacy to be able to talk…although “privacy” as we know it seems to be a foreign concept here. Danelia began telling me that in the past week, Kenneth had lost his appetite and was not wanting to eat and that he was having trouble using the bathroom. She said he would wake up crying at night due to the pain and that it was so hard to see him suffer like that. That’s when my tears joined with Danelia’s. Her fear and frustration were contagious and for a little while, all talking stopped and we simply just sat and cried together. We both agreed that sometimes, that seems to be all we can do.

Once the tears had lessened, we then began to have the same conversation we have had so many times before…that God has a plan, that we have to hold fast to our faith, that He is sovereign over all and that our responsibilities as Christians do not change even though our circumstances might. I don’t know if it was the fact we had cried ourselves out for the time being or if it was the fact that we were putting voice to the truth, but either way, we both began to gradually feel God’s peace coming over us. He is faithful to be our Comforter just as He had promised.

Our time ended with me praying with Danelia. Usually, she asks only for prayers for Kenneth but this time she asked that I would also pray that God would strengthen her faith for the coming days. She said she wanted to be strong and accept with grace everything that God was going to bring to them because she knew that the neighborhood was watching. There is so much superstition about illnesses that still exists here and Danelia has had to suffer accusations of unconfessed sin and even being aligned with Satan. She knows all too well the importance of showing Christ regardless the situation. It’s just that the possibility of losing Kenneth is a situation of far greater magnitude than hurt feelings from thoughtless words thrown by uneducated neighbors. And Danelia knows this is a walk that she cannot make without the hand of her Savior leading her. I think right now that she wants the strength to hold His hand as tightly as He is holding hers.

Kenneth had several more appointments and had additional testing done this week at two different hospitals here in Managua, but it appears that the doctors are still guessing as to what is causing this increased pain in Kenneth. They have given several possibilities…kidney infection, bladder infection, strained muscles and finally, the one we all were dreading to hear…the possibility of a tumor. They gave an antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory along with more pain medicine and said that they wanted to wait and see if it was just an infection or inflammation of either the bladder or kidney. If he’s not better next week, they said they want to do more testing. I don’t know what else they really can do.

I struggle so much with the lack of good medical care here for the poor. The doctors do their best but so much of the equipment is old and outdated and often is not working properly. I’m also not so keen on many of their methods for treatment. The words “hope”, “encourage” and “faith” are rarely heard and if someone is to utilize any one of those, they are going to have to do it on their own without assistance from the medical world. So…once again, I am asking you and all your believing friends for prayers for Kenneth. Please help us in carrying this need before our Great Physician. Our flesh desires healing but the Spirit in us reminds us that we are to pray for God’s will to be done. I’m praying they are one and the same.

CINAFE: We came back to lots of challenges at CINAFE. Some of the children had been acting out while we were gone and things had risen to a higher level of chaos than that which normally occurs with 15 children living together. We were bombarded with problems when we drove through the gate and it seems as though life is just now starting to return to normal there. Well, as normal as it can be when we’re also in the middle of trying to put on 3 different quinceañeras at the same time for girls at CINAFE…it’s like trying to put on 3 simultaneous wedding but for girls who will be turning 15 years old! That’s a lot of hormonal activity to deal with, believe me! The grand event is this Saturday afternoon and I’m sure all of the adults at CINAFE are going to join us in one gigantic sigh of relief when Sunday finally comes!

The most recent “big news” for us personally has been our unplanned move to a temporary place this past weekend. Without a doubt, this is a story of God’s Hand of provision and protection. You know we’ve been tossing around the idea of moving for awhile now and we had come to the decision we would do so at the end of November, when things had calmed down some for us at CINAFE and in Tipitapa. But God’s timeframe proved to be different than ours. I hope I don’t confuse you with all the different names in the following. If you have followed our time here, most of them will already be familiar to you.

On Wednesday (the day before we had planned to give our 30 days notice to our landlady), when we came to work at CINAFE, Felix (our old day guard who now works at CINAFE) asked if he could speak with Jim and me. I asked him to wait just a few minutes while we got settled in and then honestly, I got busy and totally forgot all about talking with him. Sometime later, Felix appeared at the screen door to our office, acting very nervous and he had a very serious look on his face. I invited him in and apologized for not speaking with him sooner. He said he had something important to tell us. At the time, I wondered if he was not happy at CINAFE and was going to quit. But, his news had nothing to do with CINAFE.

Felix said that the day before, he had gone to a neighborhood right next to ours to pick up his wife’s pay for the ironing she had done that week. He always goes to picks it up or goes to meet Blanca so that she does not have to ride the bus by herself with a “large amount” of money. While in that neighborhood, Felix was talking with one of the security guards who knew he used to work for “gringos”. That guard warned Felix that Eddie, one of our former night guards who has been implicated in several prior robberies in our neighborhood, and a friend of Eddie’s, were planning on committing an armed robbery of our place that next Saturday…just a few days away. The guard said that Eddie would often come by and talk to him and that he probably didn’t realize that this guard also knew Felix.

The guard said that Eddie knew that we are gone every Saturday to Tipitapa and that he and his friend would have only our new day guard (Miguel, our friend from Tipitapa) with whom to contend. Eddie had told the guard he was talking with exactly where on the wall they were going to get in and that they would have the gun with them in case they had any trouble. The guard knew that Eddie was thought to be the one who had committed the other armed robberies in our neighborhood but didn’t want to call the police because he thinks Eddie is too dangerous. After all, Eddie carries a gun and most of the police don’t. Actually, sad as it is, that’s pretty good reasoning. The police are generally only effective if you cross a solid line while driving or if you don’t stop before crossing a line…of which neither apparently need to be visible to the naked eye. But I digress.

Felix took the news from the guard very seriously as he also knows Eddie. When he was sharing all of this with us, his hands were shaking. He said that three other security guards in our neighborhood were friends with Eddie and that they had covered for him when the police would come looking for him. He was fearful that if Eddie tried to do something that no one would do anything to stop him. He also asked us not to say anything about him warning us as he did not want Eddie coming after his family as retribution.

Jim and I just sat there stunned at the news. Felix said we needed more guards and maybe even guards with their own guns. At that, I snapped to and immediately said, “No! No guns!” Felix normally will be quiet if I contradict him in some way, but not this time. He then said that he had an uncle who was a police man and he would call him and see if he or some of his police friends could help us. I smiled at Felix and told him that I didn’t want to involve his family and thanked him for the offer. But honestly, I didn’t want to take a chance on bringing a fox in to the hen house, so to speak. Felix then said that he would come back to work for us on his days off from CINAFE until we could move at the end of November. Another offer that was appreciated but not at all practical – for him or us. In between his various offers of solutions, he kept saying very emphatically, “Doña Lynne, it is dangerous for you and Don Jim to stay there anymore.”

I looked at him long and hard and knew that he was right although I didn’t want to admit it. Even if we were able to defer Eddie this time, the neighborhood has changed so much this past year with so many negative things happening that it would just be a matter of time until someone, if not Eddie, would break in and we would once again lose our electronics or worse, someone might get hurt. I couldn’t bear the thought of that. But neither could I bear thinking about the fact that our only good option was to move up our moving date to the next few days. I wasn’t emotionally prepared for that and all that I knew it would entail and I could feel my eyes filling up with tears.

I looked at Jim and asked, “What are we going to do?” I wanted him to tell me it was going to be all right and that Felix was over-reacting. Instead, he said, “I think we need to leave.” That’s all it took for the dam of tears to break. Jim immediately said, “We’re going to be okay,” and Felix said, “I am sorry, Doña Lynne but you need to be safe.” Both of them thought it was the threat of a possible armed robbery facing us that brought those tears. But it was more than that. It was the fact that I wasn’t ready yet to move. I wanted to pack on my terms, I wanted to leave on my terms and I wanted to love on my animals for another month…on my terms. Sitting very still and listening to Jim and Felix tell me again for the umpteenth time that it was the best thing for us to do, I realized I had no terms.

I know this is long. So to keep it from becoming even longer, I’ve divided it up in to 2 blogs. Obviously, you know we are okay or you wouldn’t be reading this, right? So, that may be enough for you. If you want to follow the next few emotion-packed and exhausting days after we had that bombshell dropped on us, you can read it in the blog above.

The Move...Part 2...

2010-11-07T18:18:00.000-06:00

NOTE: I wrote this second part about our move also on Wednesday, November 3, 2010 but then we lost our internet capabilities and I am just now getting it posted. For chronological posting, read the blog below first.

I love different houses, I love decorating, I love “nesting”…I’m not so crazy about moving. I had told Mandy that I had moved 18 times in my life. I was wrong. I had forgotten several moves when I was a baby and a couple during my college years but after writing down each move, and including the upcoming move at the end of this month, I will have moved 24 times. That’s too many times for someone who yearns to be “planted”.

When I had talked about this with Mandy & Jim while we were Stateside, I said then that I wondered if Sarai ever cried out to Abram…”I just want to settle somewhere! I want to put down roots!” If so, I think I understand a little of what she might have felt. My hat is off to any woman who had or has to live a Bedouin lifestyle. Maybe God keeps moving me so that when that day comes that I get to my “mansion” in heaven, I’ll know I am finally home and I can settle in for good.

By Wednesday afternoon, Move #23 was just a few hours away. After Felix left the office and I got most of my crying out of my system for the time being, Jim and I sat and discussed all of our options. We came to the conclusion that moving early really was the “best” choice of all the lousy ones that we had before us.

Our first call was to David and Sherah, the couple whose condo we will be moving into the end of this month. We wanted David to contact the landlord at Quinta Allyson (the gated complex where they live) and ask if they had a unit available. He told us to come right over and we could go talk to the landlord. When we got there, the landlord wasn’t there but his sister was and she said there were two empty units that had just come available. David had already told her that we would be moving in to their unit at the end of the month and so she said that she would allow us to just go ahead and rent a place for the same month’s rent that our monthly rent will be in the new place. Typically, they charge several hundred dollars more per month for renting a place for any time frame less than a year. She told us to come back the next day at noon and they would have the unit cleaned and ready to go and we could sign the contract.

The next phone call was to Susanna to see if she would accompany us to act as a translator for our visit with Doña Sara – our landlady. That was a visit none of us were looking forward to making. Susanna has dealt with her in the past and I think she was dreading it as much as we were. And, the visit was almost as unpleasant as I had feared. Doña Sara immediately was very unhappy that we were moving and let us know that she was going to keep every penny of our last month’s rent and our deposit. She said it was a terrible time of year to try and rent the house and that she needed more time to do so. She felt we were being very inconsiderate even though we had explained why we were leaving on such short notice.

Her son, who is a Harvard educated lawyer and speaks English, was also at the meeting. He was sympathetic to our reasons for wanting to move but deferred to his mother at every turn. They both impressed upon us that if it was just the security issue that was prompting us to leave that they had friends who were government officials very high up in the government and that they could help us with protection. We thanked them but said that we thought that it was best that we go ahead and move. That’s the last thing we need at this point is to get involved in owing favors to someone in the government here.

Obviously, Doña Sara is used to getting her way and so she tried another tactic. She said she would drop the rent by $125 a month and we could use that money to help pay for 24 hour armed security but we would have to sign a contract to stay two more years. My “No” wasn’t just clear, it was adamantly clear. And even though I was very respectful when I said it, I’m sure that didn’t help our case any.

By the end of our meeting, Doña Sara would not allow us to have our last month’s rent back because we did not give her 30 days notice that we were leaving (which was true, reasons why aside) and our deposit was also hanging in the balance depending on how her “walk-through” of the house came out. She said that she would be at the house at 12:30 on Monday afternoon to do the final inspection. She stressed that in order to get our deposit back that the house must be in the same condition in was in when we moved in. We should have known this was a set-up statement. She has not been honest from the get-go. I was sick. We needed that money to help soften the blow of the upcoming move.

After the afternoon of meetings, we returned home to begin packing. Susanna came over for a couple of hours and she got my dishes and books packed up before she had to leave. I began packing all up our bedroom and office things while Jim started in the spare bedroom closet. We both were staying very focused on the tasks at hand and tried not to talk about what to us was the elephant in the room… our pets - Xander, our much-loved dog and our cats, Skits and Snoops.

Jim and I made the decision to not tell our families or friends what was happening. We knew they would only worry and we didn’t want to burden them with that. But I felt that we needed to let someone know so that night, I called Jackie, our Missions Director at our home church, First Baptist in Cassville. I knew we would be out of touch for the next few days and I also wanted someone to be praying protection not only for us, but for our employees as well. I explained the situation and she encouraged us saying that we were making the right decision in going ahead and moving. She let me share my concerns but continued to tell me that what we were doing was the right thing and then she prayed with us. I want you to know that was a cherished prayer. I can’t even imagine what my life would be like today without the prayers of godly people like Jackie Hendrix.

Xander sensed that something was wrong and he was very agitated and nervous, staying under my feet practically every step of the way. He knows he’s not supposed to be on the bed and he kept putting his front paws upon the bed and stretching the top half of his body across it. Telling him to get down did no good. I would have to stop what I was doing, walk over to the bed and physically lift him off. Normally, if I would have done that, he would have wanted to wrestle and play, but that night, he just wanted to be loved on. I don’t know how many tears covered his coat that night.

Thursday, we began packing again. Susanna returned mid-morning and we loaded up her car, our car and the borrowed pick-up of our friends in Ohio, Karen and Dwane and headed over to Quinta Allyson so that we could hand over a hefty sum of money and sign a year’s commitment to rent. The list of rules and regulations covers a full page but what I kept reminding myself was that it would be a safer place for us to live than where we were. When Rafael, our new landlord, spoke about having pets, I could feel a lump rise up in my throat. We then drove on over to our new “home” for the next month. It turns out that the unit is right next door to the one we will be moving in to so at least the next move won’t be far and won’t require so much packing and unpacking.

Jim and I spent the rest of the day Thursday filling action packers, suitcases, boxes and totes. We made several trips over to the new condo and by that night, we were beat. It didn’t seem like we were making much headway. Where, when, how and why did we get all that “stuff”??? I realized how imprinted we are with being Americans. We love our “stuff”…it brings us comfort and makes us feel secure. Moving to a smaller place which will not comfortably accommodate all that “stuff” is definitely going to force us to pare down some and that’s not a bad thing at all.

Doña Sara’s brother came by and tacked up a “For Rent” sign on the place. All the neighbors, on our street and behind us, were well aware that we were moving and the security guards in the neighborhood watched our comings and goings with great interest. We wondered if word would reach Eddie. That was our last night to sleep in the house. It was a fitful night. I wish I could say I slept well in the condo but I didn’t. My mind was too filled with things to think about.

Friday morning was clear and the view was stunning. I thanked God for allowing me to enjoy that beautiful view one more time from my favorite spot on the deck. Skits was rubbing against my leg and Xander was pawing at him trying to get him to play. It was a moment I wanted to last forever. My heart hurt every time I thought about not having them with me anymore. But there wasn’t time to dwell upon that for too long. It was the day to move the big “stuff”…all the furniture.

Felix took a vacation day from work so that he could join Freddy in helping us move. The boys worked like machines, stopping only to eat lunch. Friday night, when we were through moving for the day, it was decided that Felix would go ahead and take Xander home with him that night. None of us wanted to take the chance of Eddie coming by at night and possibly hurting him. I knew I couldn’t go say good-bye to him and I cried like a baby when Jim, Freddy and Felix left the condo to go pick Xander up to take him to his new home. It was a very sad night at our place.

Saturday came and Miguel, Freddy and Felix met us at the house. No one said anything about Eddie that morning but I am sure he crossed everyone’s mind at some point. Jim had to go take care of some business at CINAFE and I continued to pack things up while the boys loaded the car. Right after Jim left, he called telling me that he had seen Eddie next door at the neighbor’s house. He warned me to be careful and to tell the guys that he was next door. I did and from that point on, they wouldn’t let me out of their sight. I couldn’t even go downstairs to the basement without one of them coming with me. It was really quite touching that they were so committed to making sure I was going to be safe.

Evidently, Eddie must have had second thoughts about trying to rob what was obviously an almost empty house. He hung around for most of the day next door and then left right before the guys made their final trip for the day. It was almost an anticlimactic end to the day but not a disappointing one, that’s for sure. We don’t know if Eddie had planned on doing anything or not and I don’t suppose we will ever know. What we do know is that God protected us, our employees and our animals and that’s what mattered.

So, in summary. Doña Sara refunded our deposit but not our last month’s rent. Xander is now living with Felix and I have yet gotten to the point I can talk about him without crying. Skits and Snoops were left behind after much prayer and discussion. They started out as wild kitties and they retain much of that in their personalities. Snoops is a good hunter and Skits can hunt if he has to do so. They are best buddies and brothers – they need to be together and both are outdoor cats. They know their area and there are places for them to find shelter. We are gone most of the time during the day and neither would do well locked up in a condo all day without anyone here with them. I believe it was the right decision albeit a painful one. More tears. I do believe I have cried more in the last two and a half years here than I have in the previous two and a half decades. Maybe it’s because I’ve had to say so many good-byes since God called us to move here. I don’t know.

The temporary condo is serving us well or at least it has in the six days and nights we’ve been here. While it’s true that we don’t yet have internet or television and we’ve been taking cold showers every night (we finally got our hot water “widow makers” installed today), it does seem to be more peaceful here. We have amenities here we would never have had staying in the house. We had a downpour last night and there wasn’t one leak in any of the rooms! The stuff in the open part of the bodega got soaked but that was due to poor arranging, not a poor roof.

My stove still isn’t hooked up but Jim bought the necessary parts today so that may happen tomorrow and I do have just about everything unpacked thanks to late night and early morning hours. Jim went in to CINAFE and I stayed home to get laundry done and to keep unpacking. Margarita came today and cleaned the floors and helped me rearrange the bodega which was really helpful. We’re slowly settling in for as much settling as a person can do while knowing there is another move coming up in less than a month.

There are several things that have really hit home with me this last week. First and foremost is God’s provision for us and His protection over us.

We are also very thankful:

• to have gotten word of the planned robbery with enough time to avert what appeared to be imminent danger

• there are prayer warriors who were faithful to carry our concerns before the Lord for us

• that we were able to borrow Karen & Dwane’s pick-up truck

• that not only was there a place available for us to rent, but it is right next door to where we will be moving…which also enables us to give a month’s trial period to find out what we need to have and what we can get rid of here

• the condo complex appears to be a safe place to live with good neighbors, many of whom are here also serving in missions.

• Doña Sara returned our deposit…it’s not everything we had hoped for but it’s more than we thought she would do

• there are people who aren’t the type to say, “Call me if you need help,” but rather are the type who just show up and help…such a good lesson for us to learn ourselves

• God has placed so many wonderful Nicas in our lives…they far outnumber the few “bad eggs” we’ve encountered

I could go on and on with how God has blessed us…and I don’t think God would mind a bit…but I do think the blog would be even longer than usual so I will stop for now.

Someone asked me this past week if I was ready to move home. I’m assuming they meant back to the States. I have to say that at this moment, the only move I’m looking forward to making is to my Laura Ashley suite in the sky but I would imagine there will a few more earthly ones between now and then!

The words for today are...

2010-10-28T07:08:00.000-06:00

I WILL TRUST IN YOU

Written by Danny Daniels

When I can't see You, I know You're here

When I can't feel You, I will not fear,

I will trust in You and I will not be afraid.

And when the battle is close at hand,

I know You're with me to help me stand

I will trust in You and I will not be afraid.

I will not (I will not), Be afraid (be afraid)

I will trust in You (I will trust in You)

I will trust in You.

And when the darkness is closin' in,

And I am running against the wind,

I will trust in You and I will not be afraid.

'Cause when I'm standing upon the shore

And all the battles have gone before,

I will trust in You and I will not be afraid.

The Battle Resumes...

2010-10-13T19:17:00.000-06:00

We’ve been back almost a week now and the battles have resumed! But I want to assure you that our God is so merciful and we have seen how He freely pours out His grace and His blessings upon His children! We not only continue to see His loving hand upon us here, we were blessed beyond measure during our brief time in the States. Some of the ways we have recently experienced the Lord working:

• He gave us safe travel both to and from the States as well as all the times we were on the road to go see friends and family. We flew in between tropical storms which inundated Nicaragua with torrential rains that resulted in lots of damage and loss of life for too many of the already impoverished people here. We returned to find our home dry and intact…nothing short of a miracle with all the rains the country experienced in our absence.

• We were astounded and humbled by the generosity of so many of our brothers and sisters in Christ during our visit home. Because of this giving, we are moving forward on getting bars for the school in Tipitapa and will be able to have the concrete floor and walls smoothed out. We will also be able to buy tables and chairs for the kids and a desk and locked cabinet for Danelia… and a fan for me! Whoo-hoo! I was also able to bring back some Spanish Christian books for the children which I ordered before going to the States plus I hope to be going to a book sale Wednesday afternoon at the Nicaragua Christian Academy to see if I can find some other books for the children at Rayitas de Luz. Jim and I just can’t thank you all enough for supporting the Rayitas de Luz school like this.

The septic is ready for the top

• Speaking of the Rayitas de Luz school…the heavy rains prevented the completion of the septic but it is so close to being done! The large concrete top has been made – and will be placed on top of the septic in 3 sections as soon as the ground is dry enough, to be moved in to place. Thankfully, they had covered the huge pit with black plastic during the rains so that Danelia didn’t end up with a 2-compartment in-ground swimming pool! I’m pretty sure that the children are anxious to begin the flushing marathon! Plus, I’m also quite sure that Danelia and Arturo will be extremely thankful to be able to use their newly constructed shower instead of having to bathe from a bucket. I marvel at Danelia’s acceptance of the mess the construction process has made of her yard and her home…I don’t know that I could have been nearly so patient or so gracious.

Our first class in the new building

Serghi is the little boy on the left in the red shirt

• Even if there are still a few things in the works, we know the school is making a difference in the neighborhood. One of the little boys, Serghi, told Danelia that his mother doesn’t want him to come there anymore because he’s learning things about Jesus and she doesn’t believe that he should do that there. Serghi is about 6 years old and wants to continue to come to the school even though his mother thinks we are of the devil and have come to disrupt their lives. If she means the disrupting of selling and using drugs, the disrupting of being unfaithful to spouses, the disrupting of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, the disrupting of lying, stealing, and slandering etc….she’s right! We have come to disrupt that life and bring to her and others in the neighborhood, the hope of a transformed life in Jesus Christ! The mother told Danelia that Serghi can’t sit at the same table as Kenneth or in any chair where he’s been sitting as Kenneth’s cancer is a punishment from God. Danelia told me she doesn’t want this woman to be part of the school or even for Serghi to come to class but I told her that we know that what the woman said isn’t true and that if Satan weren’t afraid of what was going on, then he wouldn’t be stirring up trouble. After we talked a little bit, Danelia acknowledged that she knows that Serghi needs to be in class and that we have to show his mother who Jesus is by the way we react to her hateful tirades. We KNOW even more so now than ever before that this is exactly where we’re supposed to be working and it is because of all of you who support us in this that we can continue in this. The spiritual war appears to be ramping up there and so we would ask for your continued prayers as we are called to show Christ to those who want to oppose His work there.

Kenneth & Lindsay enjoying their gifts

• God continues to be faithful to Kenneth and gives him the strength each day to get up and even go out and play with his friends. The x-rays still don’t show any tumors but Kenneth has been experiencing more and more pain which has migrated down his legs and into his knees again. The doctors gave Danelia two options…put him back on the stronger chemo regimen in spite of his allergic reaction to it and in spite of the potential for more damage to his internal organs or continue with the current regimen and “hope” for the best. She has chosen a third option in continuing with the current regimen and praying God’s will for Kenneth and the family. I’m pretty sure God has put His stamp of approval on #3. Kenneth is to go back in November for more testing. I would ask you to continue to pray for our special little guy.

• Not only did our home stay dry and intact during our time away, neither did we suffer any break-ins, which unfortunately, several of our neighbors did. I often pray that God will camp His angels all around our wall and I don’t doubt for a moment that they do indeed stand guard and at the ready to intervene, if necessary. God also used the recent break-ins to motivate me to get on board mentally and emotionally with the advice of so many who have urged us to go ahead and plan on moving the first of December. So, move we will. An added note to these break-ins is that we found out it was one of our former employees (who worked for us for a short stint as our night guard) and that he and a friend used a gun to enter a home during the day, beating the maid and robbing that house and the one next door to it. We are giving thanks to God for protecting our employees and our home from this situation.

• While in the States, we received word that there were so many “bad” things happening at CINAFE and it caused us both concern and frustration. I expressed that frustration to Mandy, our daughter, with tears and more tears. Upon our return, we discovered that what we had learned was just the tip of the iceberg. At some point between the time we left and the time we returned, I realized it is not my job to be the “fix-it” person (an impossible task anyway) but it is my job to carry those needs before the throne of our Lord. We continue to see Satan attacking in every way he can think but we are not willing to relinquish these children or this work to him and so we continue to pray and see God’s guidance and we praise God for His faithfulness in keeping our children safe there. Of course, we would welcome anyone who wants to join us in praying for CINAFE…we need all the bent knees we can get!

• And now…I want to tell you how remarkably God provides for our needs here. I have told you that we will be going ahead and moving to a condominium in a gated community the first of December. And I’ve also told you (and anyone who would listen!) that I didn’t want to make this move. I have been so worried about our employees and our pets as we can’t take them with us. We will probably keep Margarita but most likely cut her down to just 2 days a week after we move. But I’ve been worried about our security guards…Day and Night Felixes and our gardener, Freddy. Jobs are so hard to find and I’ve been crying to the Lord, “What are our employees going to do?” “How can we feel good about moving and knowing that these people are going to lose their jobs?” “What about our dog, Xander? Who will take care of him? Who will love him?” God has begun to give me His answers. When we got back from the States, we learned that one of the security guards was dismissed and that there was going to be a job opening up this Friday. Although we were both very sad and disappointed at losing the guard there, we also immediately thought about Day Felix. He’s dependable and honest and we think the world of him. He takes such good care of us and is always looking out for our safety…he even said himself that he thought we needed to look at moving! He’s also one of the primary people we’ve been concerned about not having a job so we were overjoyed that this opportunity presented itself. We talked to Karen and Dwane and asked them what they thought about us recommending Felix to our director and they were very supportive of that. So, on Monday, we did that and then talked to Felix. He was so sad when he found out that we would be moving to the condo as he knew immediately that he would no longer be needed. We explained the situation to him about CINAFE and he was so appreciative that we had recommended him for the job. On Tuesday, he interviewed for the position and Raquel agreed that he would be a good fit there. Today was his last day with us. I have to tell you that although we are thrilled that Day Felix will have continued employment, we are beyond sad that he will no longer be working for us. We hadn’t planned on losing him so soon but when we saw this opportunity for Felix, we told him we thought that he needed to go ahead and take advantage of it. He was very worried about what we were going to do for a day guard for the next 7 weeks (and so were we!) but I told him that we thought he needed to worry about taking care of his family first and he reluctantly agreed. Although we all know that this is the wisest decision for him to make and is obviously a provision from the Lord, today has been a day filled with tears. I know we’ll see him at CINAFE, but there was just something about giving him his final pay and telling him good bye that brought us all to tears. He thanked us over and over again for everything and we did the same. I hate good-byes. Always have and always will.

So, God took care of seeing that Day Felix had work…but what were we going to do about our own security for the next month and a half? God had that already taken care of for us, also. Miguel (in Tipitapa) still doesn’t have steady work so we drove over there late Monday afternoon after we initially talked to Felix. We told Miguel about the situation and asked if he wanted to work for the next 7 weeks for us as our day security guard. He said he would think about it and let us know today. I was somewhat taken aback by his reaction but also realized that it is a long distance for him to travel by bus each day. Felix had already told us that if Miguel didn’t want to do it, that there was a “brother” in his church that Felix thought would help us and Felix said he was a very honest man. We had asked him about his own flesh and blood brother and Felix said he didn’t want to trust us to him! But, I heard from Miguel late this morning and he said he would work so he is to be here at 8:00 Friday morning. God has provided yet again so that we won’t even be one day without a security guard.

Oh, yeah…this part is so good, too! Don’t ever think for a moment that God doesn’t care about the perceived “little” things in your life…He does. Felix was thrilled when we asked him if he would take Xander! That was the only smile we saw from him in regards to this whole thing! He and Xander have become such good buddies and Felix’s little boys love playing with him. I cried again when Felix said that he wanted him…he knows how much I love that goofy dog. He said he would take good care of him. I told him I wanted to keep him until it was time to move and he said that was fine. So, we have Xander the Wonder Dog for a little while longer.

Felix also told us that there are several other people who have asked Freddy to come to work for them but he’s not wanted to do so because of working for us. We will talk to him tomorrow and tell him about what’s happening and even though we’ll go through the sadness thing again, I will feel better knowing that he already has two other people that he works for and can easily pick up other work if he wants it.

So, that leaves Night Felix and the cats. We will talk to Night Felix tonight about the upcoming move and we are praying he will stay with us until it’s time for us to move. We are also praying for him…that although he’s not nearly as dependable as Day Felix, we do want him to be able to provide for his family.

The cats…this is going to take another work of the Lord to take care of them. I know nothing is too big OR too small for our God and so the prayers continue…both petitions and praises. It’s true that the battles here have resumed but it’s also true that we are so encouraged to see how He’s at work in all these situations.

So…what’s He doing on your end?

Dedication Day...

2010-09-20T22:27:00.000-06:00

I should be finishing up packing but thought I would get this written really quickly. We have to get up at 3:30 in the morning as Susanna is picking us up at 4:30 to get us to the airport for our flight back to the States. I’m not looking forward to the alarm going off that early…I just am not a 3:30-in-the-morning kind of gal! But knowing the payoff at the end of the day is going to be seeing Mandy, Jack and the kids waiting for us at the Tulsa airport makes it all worthwhile! It’s a short trip (2 weeks) but we plan on enjoying every moment we get to spend with our families and friends.

Wanted to give you a brief update on the addition at Danelia’s…it’s not quite finished but it does have walls, floor and a roof so we’re now on the downhill side. We were hoping it would be done by now but the torrential rains that we’ve had the last month has really hampered the building process. The bathroom and septic still need to be finished and the doors and windows need to be installed. There are some other things that we would need to get done but it shouldn’t be long before the kids are actually able to use it for their classroom.

Dedication Day...about an hour before the service began

We had a dedication service on Saturday and invited the neighborhood. It was a hot day and folks were slow to come out but we ended up with over 50 people in attendance. We had hoped for more than that but several of the Zona Francas were working that day and that meant that a lot of the parents were working which also meant that kids were on their own…a good reminder of why we’re doing what we’re doing there.

Jennifer reciting a poem about Nicaragua

Danelia planned the program and the kids sang, danced and others shared their talents. A local pastor came and had a short service and the vice mayor of the city came and gave a speech of support for what we’re doing there. She is the one who waived all the government permits for us so that we didn’t have to get bogged down in the process of trying to get the building erected. I was so leery of that at the time just knowing how this government functions, but she has held true to her word and has allowed all the work to continue. She was Danelia’s first grade teacher so I’m sure that helped sway her to decide to help us with this. Both the pastor and the vice mayor expressed their appreciation for us “investing” in that little barrio and the people who live there…it’s not a high-profile place, that’s for sure.


The pastor thanking God for His blessings

There were others who spoke, and other entertainment. One of the ladies told me that she played the flauta (flute). When she told me that, I was really surprised as I just couldn’t picture someone in that neighborhood having access to a flute or access to music lessons. She told me that she used to be a Catholic and that their church at the time had a woman who taught her how to play. I asked her if it was difficult to learn and she told me it was. She said she wished she had more time to practice but because she normally works 6 days a week (she had taken that day off for the celebration), she just doesn’t have much time to play.

As she spoke, I just kept picturing my friend, Jo Ellen who always mesmerizes me with her flute playing. Well, a little bit later, Danelia invited this lady to come up front and as she walked, I was excitedly anticipating the music I imagined I would hear. She turned around and it took me a second to realize that what she held in her hand was not a beautiful silver flute but rather, a cream colored plastic flutophone…like the kind that so many children play in elementary school. I realized that was the “flauta” that she was about to play.

I am ashamed to say that my expectations for beautiful music weren’t very high at that point. But God is still faithful to put me in my place when I so desperately need it and that moment was no different. As she began to play, she played each note very deliberately and separately but shortly after beginning to play, the most magical sound began to come from that little piece of plastic and by the time she was finished, I was ready to throw roses and shout encore! True, she wasn’t at all close to being on the same level as Jo Ellen and her silver flute but God obviously did something to that music between the time the note was blown and the time it reached my ears because what my ears heard was some very beautiful music. And now…I’m ready to try to add a music “class” to the curriculum at the school. I can just see 25 little flautists flutophoning away and calming the savage beast in all of us!

After the ceremony, Danelia served everyone a late lunch of vigarón…boiled yucca, shredded cabbage, tomates, chiles, vinegar and salt and chicharrón…fried pork rinds…real ones. This is a traditional Nicaraguan dish and is typically eaten with the fingers. Not only am I not a 3:30-in-the-morning kind of gal, neither am I a pork rind aficianado. I have eaten this dish at Danelia’s before but just couldn’t do the pork rinds again…so I ate the rest of the food and thankfully, Susanna likes pork rinds, so she helped diminish the quantity of them that lay conspicuously off to one side of my plate.

All in all, it was a great day…a long one but a fun one. We would have liked to have the building completed for the celebration, but even though it wasn’t, there was plenty of hope and excitement for what God has planned for that neighborhood and we are so thankful to be part of what God is doing there.

I want to thank you for helping to make this dream become a reality whether you are supporting us with your funds or your prayers…both are necessary. Thank you for your giving to this project because you are building more than a concrete block structure…we believe you are laying the foundation for increasing God’s Kingdom in that barrio.

Well, I could sit and share so much with you but I need to finish packing and 3:30 is going to come early here. I hope my bedroom light will wake up the neighbor’s anemic rooster… it would be nice if I beat him to the punch for a change.

See many of you very soon!

Moving on...

2010-09-06T22:54:00.000-06:00

Will we ever get to settle in one place? It looks as though we have a move on the horizon. I hate moving. I hate the process, working out the logistics and most of all, I hate the good-byes. I told some friends recently that I wondered if Sarah ever felt like this when Abraham had her pack up and move.

Moving always seems to involve loss and I guess I have to admit I’m a sore loser…especially when those kind of losses involve loved ones, friends and/or pets. This move will see us saying tearful good-byes to three of our employees, our cats and our dog. And that is such a painful thought that I can’t hardly bear to dwell upon it.

We will be leaving this house that I absolutely love and moving to a condominium in a gated community the first week of December. This is what I have absolutely not wanted to do but circumstances have been pushing us more and more in that direction until we feel that it is our best option at this time…and it’s not necessarily a good option on some levels.

Our next door neighbor has hired 24 hour security guards and they are from a professional guard service which means they are armed. This is the first guard they have had in the two years we have lived in this house. They have also moved their Rottweiler to the back yard so we’re assuming that they’ve had some sort of problem just recently.

Then, someone in the lot directly behind us decided to join the other two houses back there and began to construct a frame for a new house right up against our security wall. They built on a high place so that it would enable anyone to just be able to climb on their roof and they could easily just step over our concertina wire on top of the wall and jump down in to our yard or climb down the platano trees. That made us realize that our security wall was no longer quite so secure.

The empty lot across the road from us now has 24 hour security as well. It is owned by the bank and they have hired two guys to keep an eye on it and to keep squatters from settling there. The guards have put up a plastic lean-to type shelter and cook outside as well as use the great outdoors for their restroom facilities. Not a great view from our perspective and I’m not sure how it’s much different than when the squatters move in.

We’ve also been looking at our own guard situation. Our night guard is a nice man but he’s not at all dependable. Jim has caught him sleeping again and it is not that unusual for him to just not show up for work. It is so hard to find someone who is trustworthy and dependable. We hear stories all the time about folks who have either been robbed directly by their own security guards or they were complicit in allowing someone else to do the robbing.

Periodically, we try to assess how we’re doing economically and we have been talking about how we might be able to cut back on some of our expenses. All of the above things combined with this issue is what brought us to make this painful decision. We both asked some of our friends who we know are our great prayer warriors about their opinion on this and almost without a doubt, they came back with the same answer that we had already been coming back to time and again. We needed to move.

We talked about just trying to find another house but then we realized we would be facing pretty much the same issues that we have here. Security and financial. Even if we should find an impenetrable place, we would still be paying out an awful lot each month in wages and that wouldn’t help our budget any. We just kept coming back to this same place.

I love our view here and I love our house. It has been perfect for us. It is much cooler up here than down where the condo is and the neighborhood initially appears to be a bit better here…but it’s not staying that way. It’s a fairly quiet area most of the time but in the past year, we have had some acts of violence occur right just on the other side of our wall.

Our neighbors in the big house next door usually have an all-night party at least once a month. They had another big shebang Saturday night that lasted until about 5:00 Sunday morning. They had a DJ and a mariachi band. The amplifiers were turned all the way up and the music was so loud that we couldn’t even hear our tv or have a regular conversation. It actually made things in our house vibrate. We shut our bathroom and bedroom windows and turned all three fans on in our bedroom in the attempt to muffle the noise a bit but it didn’t help much. If that wasn’t bad enough, they began shooting off huge fireworks at 1:00 a.m. These were so loud that they literally shook our bed and lit up our bedroom! They must have set off at least two dozen of them. As I lay in bed, I thought that maybe moving wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world after all. Pulling all-nighters at our age isn’t much fun.

Now the down side of this decision…we will be losing three of our employees as we will no longer need our two guards or our gardener. This is where it starts to get really difficult. Night Felix has six children and although it’s true he’s not dependable and I don’t have complete confidence in him, I still feel badly that we will soon be putting him out of work.

But that doesn’t compare with how I feel about having to let Day Felix and Freddy go. These two Christian men are so dear to us. Freddy has been with us since shortly after we arrived. He’s so good to help us when we have something unusual we need him to do and we have helped his family a lot the last couple of years with everything from paying for medical situations to helping them with shoes and food. The only thing that gives me any peace at all is that I know Freddy is still working for Susann 2 days a week and for our old landlord 1 day a week. He’s a go-getter so I’m praying he will find work to take up the slack we will soon be imposing upon him.

The thought of letting Day Felix go is awful. He is so loyal and extremely trustworthy. He has been with us for a year and a half now and he is our go-to guy when we need to know or get something. He has helped us in so many respects and I consider him a friend as much as an employee. He has two little boys and he’s such a good daddy and husband. I am so worried about what will happen with Felix when we have to let him go…jobs are so hard to find. I am going to ask you to please pray for these people that God would bring even better employment opportunities for them so that they will continue to be able to provide for their families.

On top of having to tell our wonderful employees that they will soon be out of a job, we are also going to have to decide what to do with our pets. The cats were just tiny kittens when we moved here and their mother and brothers and sisters moved on a long time ago. These two boys, Skits and Snoops stayed around and adopted us. They are such good kitties, especially Skits, and I’m just not sure what to do with them. We could try to move them both to the condo but it’s in a much more populated area than where are now and right off a very busy road and I’m just not sure how they would acclimate. I had the thought of them getting out in the road and getting killed. Keeping them inside is not an option. Both have claws and both are used to being outside kitties. I am sure Skits would love to be inside but he would also want to have the freedom to be out when he wanted. The option of leaving them here is also not much of a choice. Even though Snoops will disappear for a few days at a time, he always comes back and is ready to be fed and that’s part of the worry…these cats are dependent on us to feed them.

Xander is another huge issue. What to do with him? We’re hoping that Day Felix might take him because Xander knows him and likes him…and Felix knows how to handle him. But we also know that Felix won’t and isn’t able to take care of Xander the way that we do…he will become a thin, mangy Nica dog and that breaks my heart. Plus, I have to confess that he’s just part of the family and is used to living well. He’s used to lots of hugs and pats, playing with his toys with us and chewing on his chew bones. That would all stop. But taking him with us is not feasible. There’s no way to make Xander a condo dog and there’s no yard to keep him in. Xander will have to go also.

All of that “letting them go” business is enough to make me sick at my stomach and sick in my heart. I just keep praying that God will give us a clear answer and clear assurance that they will all be okay but right now, I don’t know how that will happen.

So, all that being said…I hate the thought of moving! But, the place we’re going to move to is not all bad and we think we’ll be much more secure there. It has 24 hour guards and is a gated community. No one who doesn’t live there comes in without having to leave their ID at the guard house. It also has a security camera and guard dogs. There is a high wall that goes all around the complex. It is not a huge complex but is large enough that it will provide a nice, secure area to get out and walk in. We’re both excited about that prospect. We’ve not been able to do that without worry since we moved here. The complex also has a tennis court, a playground area and a swimming pool. Not sure that any of those pose much interest to us.

This complex is one that is one that doesn’t keep empty units for any length of time due to the security factor and the size of the condos. Most are pretty small here but in this complex, the units are a little larger. There are a lot of missionary families who live there. And most of them are young with small children so the noise factor will certainly be there but I don’t think it’s going to be as disturbing as the fireworks, gunshots and mortars that we hear on a regular basis now. In the small cul-de-sac type area where we will be living, there are also folks from Korea and there are Nicaraguans. The landlord does speak some English which Jim is happy to hear. Our next door neighbor on the attached side of the condo is a young couple with a two year old little boy and she is expecting another baby in a few months.

We are actually going to be moving in to a condo of some friends of ours who will be going back to the States. It is a 4 bedroom, 3 bath unit although the bedroom downstairs is used by them as more of an office area and I’m sure we’ll do the same. Their condo is a little different than the others in that they closed off an open area upstairs last year in order to make it into a small bedroom for their new baby girl. Although the condo does have more rooms than does our house here, the rooms are much smaller. Even so, I think we’ll be able to fit our furniture in it if we move a few things around a bit.

Downstairs on the ground level, is a small living room, the eat-in kitchen, the study/bedroom with a walk-in closet, a bathroom and a nice sized walled-in laundry area that has bars across the open roof area. Upstairs is an open area in the hallway and three bedrooms. The master bedroom is small but it has a built in wardrobe and its own bathroom. The spare bedroom also has a walk-in closet plus its own bathroom. The other room upstairs is the created bedroom…it’s a small room but is big enough for a twin bed and can also be used for storage if necessary. There is a small deck off the master bedroom that overlooks the parking area…not much view from any of the windows. That’s a real negative compared to where we are now. The yard is non-existent…just a small little patch of grass in front and there is no covered parking which will be miserable during the rainy season.

Our friends had bought 4 ceiling fans and installed them in various rooms in the house, including the kitchen and the living room and they also put in a small window air conditioner in the small room upstairs. They are going to sell all of those to us which will be nice to have. The two bedrooms upstairs also have built in window air conditioners that come with the condo. I think I’m more excited about the idea of a ceiling fan in the kitchen and living room than I am an a/c in the bedroom but I’m sure that will probably change this next March and April when it’s so hot here. The showers already have widow-makers in them so we’ll have hot water showers and not have to buy more widow makers. The kitchen is a little short on cabinets but my kitchen here is, too, so I’m sure I’ll manage with what I’ve got.

The plan right now is that our friends have to be out by November 30th and they are flying home just a few days after that. Because they have a team in during that week to help them get ready to leave, they will be staying their last few days with the team. We are hoping our landlady will let us stay for the first week of December and just let us prorate the rent. That would give the condo maintenance people time to clean and paint whatever needs to be painted (and with 4 kids, I’m sure there’s got to be some touching up to do) and give us time to move without trying to do it as a marathon event.

So, that’s what we’re looking at in the next few months. We’ve not said anything to our employees yet and won’t do so until the time is closer as we will need them to stay with us until it is time for us to go. Since the move won’t take place until the first week of December, we will be obligated to pay all of our employees their 13 month wage plus severance pay and holiday pay along with their regular pay. Believe me, that all adds up to a chunk of change! Adding that to the usual first month’s rent, last month’s rent and security deposit that the condo complex requires, this is a sobering thing to think about financially. We’re praying our current landlady will be honest enough to return our security deposit here to help a little with the expense on the other end but neither one of us have high hopes as she’s not honored her word in any other aspect of our dealings with her. Even with the expense we’ll be facing moving, Jim says we’ll still be better off in the long run. Although the condo’s rent is higher than here, what we’ll be saving each month in wages for the three fellows will make it a more sound financial move and that’s not even touching upon the peace of mind we’ll have for safety and security.

So, I know we’re going to be making the right move…it’s just not going to be an easy one. We would really appreciate it if you would please pray for timely jobs for our employees, good homes and protection for our pets and favor with our landlady so that we can make this move with causing the least amount of pain or hurt possible to anyone or anything else. We have some rough days ahead of us in the next few months once we begin making these decisions known. Thank you for your prayers.

We've begun!!!

2010-09-05T21:26:00.000-06:00

WHOO-HOO!!! WE’VE BEGUN!!!! We broke ground last Monday morning for the new addition to Danelia’s and I don’t know that I’ve ever been so excited and energized by a muddy hole than I have been by this one! The heavy rains have made digging a challenge but the work crew we’ve hired is certainly up to the task. Adrian, the job foreman, actually laughed at how excited I was when I saw the guys working. He has been so good about explaining each step of the process as we’ve made quick visits to Tipitapa this last week.

Danelia is storing the first load of cement bags in her living room in order to keep them dry and to keep them from being stolen. When we were there on Monday, they also came with a truck load of sand which they quickly shoveled in to a mound blocking Danelia’s front entrance…so much for the idea of them neatly shoveling it off to the side!

In spite of the rains, they have been able to get the trench dug and the water drainage pipe laid and began digging the septic. They have also gotten the large foundation rocks laid and are now working on laying the concrete blocks on top of them. The dirt that is coming out of the giant hole for the septic system is being used to level the ground inside the structure. They have already torn down Danelia and Arturo’s outside shower in order to be able to construct the back wall so they now have to go next door to their neighbor’s house and use her outdoor shower.

I think Danelia is a little shell-shocked at how quickly the workers destroyed her side yard and removed her little wire fence. Of course, with all the rain we’ve had, it’s a muddy mess both inside and outside her house but even so, she’s so excited that the dream is becoming a reality.

Even the neighborhood kids are excited about all the activity. Most are too young to really have a firm grasp on what this will mean for their cramped little classes, but they are definitely feeding off the energy of all the adults that are involved…and of course, they love climbing on the building materials stacked outside in Danelia’s tiny front yard.

It wasn’t even 10:00 yet and it was already getting really hot that Monday morning. Danelia and I sat in her rockers right under her ceiling mounted little oscillating fan. We looked around at the cement bags, the tracked in mud and the mound of sand right outside her front door and we began talking about what God was doing in her neighborhood. That led to a conversation about how so many who come to Nicaragua want to go to the highly publicized La Chureca, which is the city dump where several thousand people live (no one knows the exact number) and El Timal, both which have become almost tourist attractions in themselves.

I felt a pang of guilt when she said that. I remember all too well our visit to La Chureca our first year here. I was as curious as the next person about what it would be like there. I certainly wasn’t prepared for what I saw. I can remember thinking with such sorrow and sadness that women were raising their children in that environment. Since living here, I still feel that sadness and sorrow but it is somewhat tempered by the fact that I have heard and read about numerous highly-funded organizations, both mission organizations and NGOs, from all around the world that pour so much money in to those areas and yet nothing seems to change, not much anyway. Mothers still prostitute their children, drugs flow freely and violence continues.
I’ve also seen many other areas where the poverty is just as extreme but the people live differently. I know poverty makes for desperate situations and I also know poverty is often a good “hook” to bring money in…there are two sides to argue surrounding La Chureca and El Timal and I can see both sides…but I also definitely understood what Danelia meant.

We talked about how life in those places is not the “norm” for most of Nicaragua and Danelia said that it makes her sad that places like that get so much attention and receive so much help. In her words, she believes that they just “take and take” from the government and the gringos who come to visit and that most of the people who live there have no desire or intention of changing their circumstances. She said it makes her angry that they take the donations and so many of them turn around and sell them in order to buy drugs or alcohol. She said that she wished more Americans had a truer picture of what life is really like for the majority of Nicas because she feels that so much of it is distorted for wrong intentions. It was interesting to hear her point of view on things like that.

She told me that there were thousands and thousands of neighborhoods just like hers where they, too, struggle every day and that they have the same kind of destructive behaviors in many of their homes. She said the difference is that she sees that in her neighborhood, a few of the parents want something better for their children and that they are willing to take that step to try to make that happen.

We talked about how God has given them a wonderful opportunity to bring light to that darkness in that barrio and she thanks Him every day that this “dream” of a place of hope in their neighborhood is about to become a reality. She almost brought me to tears as I listened to her talk. I saw her face soften and her eyes glisten as she began talking about all the things she can see this building being for the families who live there.

Talking with Danelia that day was a good reminder of why we are doing what we’re doing in spite of the challenges we face. I kept thinking on the way home that this was such a work of God and that no matter how many problems might crop up such as prices already increasing in some of the materials due to the demand as a result of the destructive flooding we’ve had or volunteers failing to show up, that God will complete this good work in His time and in His way. I can’t tell you how inspiring all of this is and how exciting it is to see mud-caked men being used by God to build His house of hope there.

We are paying Adrian as the foreman and he has hired several workers to help him. These guys seem to vary from day to day. We also have some volunteer labor who has actually shown up which is the most exciting thing for us…that there are people in the neighborhood who are willing to help however they can. Very few men have come forward although we had five who said they would but the ones that have, are so much appreciated. Even Miguel was there yesterday morning, moving dirt! That was such a great surprise! The women have been more faithful with their part, bringing food or donating a little money to help with the drinks and food for the workers. I was really touched the other day to see one of the moms bring a small plastic bucket of beans and rice and some cuajada (a type of cheese) on a piece of paper and give it to Danelia. She told her to give it to the workers and that she was sorry that there wasn’t more.

I thought of the little boy who gave his five small loaves of bread and his two fish to Jesus. It was enough. It’s always enough when Jesus is in control of it. We have seen Him multiply and stretch in ways that we never could and He knows that if this project is to be completed as we would hope, then He is going to have to that again.

We did find a toilet and sink on sale at Sinsa even cheaper than we could buy it at the market. Sinsa is always so expensive so I questioned the salesman to make sure the price was right and he assured me it was. So, we purchased them and then drove to the warehouse to pick it up. Of course, we had to wait outside in a waiting area for over an hour to get it put in our car, but for what we saved, it was worth it.

We also got another donation of lots of bits and pieces of school supplies from Susanna that different groups had left with her that were leftovers from projects. For the most part, there’s not a whole lot of any one thing but lots of a few things and everything will most definitely be used… a couple of bottles of glue, a package of pencils, a few sharpeners, etc. which will all come in handy. I’m always excited to get those kinds of things, but the thing that got me the most excited was there was a globe that had been left! That’s something that would have been pretty costly for us to buy here and it will be so good for the kids to be able to learn how to use one. Such an unexpected blessing!

Earlier this week, I found a set of 5 children’s Spanish books that have all kinds of children’s stories in them. Books are truly special and this purchase made me dream even more about making a small reading area in one corner of the room with a bookshelf and maybe a rug of some sort for the kids to sit on. I want to create a love of reading in these kids. Danelia actually shared the same idea with me yesterday and we laughed at how often we both have the same vision for this little concrete box.

Today, I found the website of a company in Canada where I can buy some children’s Spanish books at a greatly reduced price and I am really excited about that. Typically, those books are higher than when they’re in English which is so frustrating. Several of these are even Christian books which is even more exciting. I methodically went through all the categories and have managed to find about 23 books for less than $100! I love bargains! So, I am going to try to get them ordered in the next day or two so that hopefully, they will come while we’re in the States and we can bring the first load of them back down with us when we return. Books are heavy and they eat up our airline weight allotment for our luggage pretty quickly.

Our other big dream? Danelia and I both want to someday be able to paint the school – this would be really special as their homes are all gray concrete blocks so a painted room would be a bright, cheery treat. Danelia told me she would love to have some kind of mural on one of the walls like she has seen done in the hospital and I have begun searching the internet for mural stencils that we might be able to use to paint a scene on. A few years ago, we did something similar to that at one of the hospitals here but it was on a much smaller scale. I wasn’t sure if I could find anything or not and sure enough, I have. So, now it has been added to our ever-lengthening Wish List.

So many Wish Lists remain just that…wishes. But God has started bringing some of those wishes to fruition. We are deeply grateful for those of you who have already donated to help us with this project. Everyone, including those who had a part in giving of the very generous donation from an adult Sunday school class at FBC in Cassville, the Willard Lone Star Baptist Church’s kids who gave their VBS money and the young woman who was here last month and left her change for us…everyone who donates to this, regardless the amount, is an integral part of what God is doing here. You have enabled us to get a good start on this and I just want you to know that there are not enough words of thanks for that. You are making a difference…our blessed Hope is here and change is coming!

Washed away...

2010-08-21T08:30:00.000-06:00

Just got word from Day Felix that there were homes that were washed away last night in his barrio. He lives in a canyon and lots of people have built on the hillside. He told me that instead of coming here this morning, his wife & Freddy's family are doing their laundry with the rain water they've captured. He said there is a lot of damage back in his neighborhood. We haven't heard yet of any injuries.
Every day brings a new challenge to these people. Their local school has been closed for 2 weeks due to various things and with the additional problems of gangs, drugs, robberies in broad daylight, crop failures, fires, floods, lack of dependable utilities, police refusing to help...it just goes on and on for them. I'm amazed by the resilience of these friends of ours.
Day Felix lives far enough back in the canyon that the paved road ends about a kilometer before his house. Even in good weather, we don't drive back there due to the terrible condition of the road...lots of really deep holes, big rocks, muddy spots. During the rainy season, Felix can't even ride his bicycle down that road. I can only imagine how it must look this morning. We need to add good roads to our list for which to thank God...I would suspect that even the worst road in Barry County is better than some of the road conditions many are facing here this morning.

Stormy weather...

2010-08-20T23:36:00.000-06:00

There are so many things I want to write about…big things, little things, current things: the building project, the kids at CINAFE, our visit to some friends in another town. All are things that I want to share but God has put something else on my heart tonight. I’m supposed to be getting the kids’ English lesson ready for tomorrow in Tipitapa but God won’t let up.

It has been raining hard off and on for 4 hours now. We have numerous wet spots on our ceilings throughout our house. We just had workmen here a few weeks ago who were supposed to have repaired the roof…obviously, they didn’t. I have towels down in front of the bathtub as the water is now seeping in around it. Jim and night Felix have been taking turns sweeping the water away from the front door so it doesn’t come on in to the house. That happened yesterday.

The rains have been tremendous at times the last few weeks. We’ve not only had torrential rains, we’ve had some of the most magnificent lightning and thunder that I’ve ever witnessed. It has been both beautiful and frightening at the same time. The wind the other night was so strong that it blew down one of our platano trees…that usually only happens in the dry season as well as blowing the rain in around our window frames. The phrase, “God’s fury unleashed” comes to mind…but I know that this couldn’t even compare to what that would be like.

The heavy rains and the problems they are bringing with them for us are minimal. But we have friends who are on my heart tonight. Our employees all live in homes that are most likely flooded tonight. Several have dirt floors. I can’t imagine what they are dealing with as I write this. Day Felix has a roof that leaks when it rains and so do Danelia & Arturo, Miguel & Elizabeth, (yes, Elizabeth is back…that’s another story for another day), Teresa, Esmereyda, Margarita, Myrna, Claudia, Martin, our students in Tipitapa, our neighbors out back and on the hillside…so many.

A leaky roof in the houses of Felix, Danelia and Arturo (and the others) is far worse than our leaky roof. They will be having water running in through the holes in their roofs. All have old zinc roofs on their houses and have numerous rusted through places. I just can’t imagine what tonight must be like in their homes and I’m worried for them.

Life is so hard here for so many people…actually, for just about everybody. It’s just a matter of degree. The neighborhood where Freddy and Felix live is without water and electricity. The water company said it will be 5 more days before they get the well repaired. The electric company said they might be able to repair the blown transformer on Monday. Meanwhile, we’re loaning 5 gallon jugs filled with water for them to have drinking water. Tomorrow morning, I have no idea how many people will descend upon our house as I told Freddy and Felix that their families could come here and do laundry. We will do another water run tomorrow afternoon when we get back from Tipitapa.

This kind of weather is very hard on the elderly and children as they are the most vulnerable for respiratory illnesses and right now, that’s running rampant. Even some of the kids at CINAFE are experiencing bronchial problems. I know that next week, we’ll have folks who are sick with fever, cough and sore throats. It’s a tough cycle.

The rain is letting up some now. I don’t know if it’s over or if it’s just a period of rest between the tempests. So, I think I’m going to go to bed now that the sound of rain is not quite so deafening on our roof. But before I do, I would like to ask you for a favor. When you get ready to retire for the evening and you are able to walk across a clean, dry floor and can crawl in to a nice, clean, comfy, dry bed, please thank God for such a blessing. If you’re reading this, you obviously have electricity wherever you are, thank God for such a luxury. When you turn on your tap and you fill your glass with clean, uncontaminated drinking water, please take a moment and thank God for that ability. If you should have a cough and you take something to alleviate the discomfort from it, thank our heavenly Father for His provision of medicine.

And finally, please take a minute to pray for our friends who don’t have the same luxuries that you and I have and that we so often take for granted. Please pray that God would protect them, their families, their homes and their belongings. Not everyone will sleep as well as you and I will tonight.

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

Willa Cather

Dog Day Afternoon...

2010-08-08T11:10:00.000-06:00

I started this Saturday night but didn’t get it posted until Sunday morning…

It was so hot at Danelia’s this afternoon! We were missing five kids in class today as there’s still so much sickness going around. But the 20 kids who came to class ensured that it was nice and toasty in her living room. Danelia’s little ceiling mounted fan wasn’t on and without any air moving, it was like an oven. I was so hot that the “glisten” just poured off of me, often running in to my eyes! Yuk! When we get the addition built for the kids, we are buying a pedestal fan that can blow at hurricane force and I’m going to park myself in front of it every Saturday afternoon! Not really…we’ll make sure it’s an oscillating fan and I’ll share the goodness with my little cohorts.

The heat today didn’t seem to bother the kids much though. They were all ready for class and they love sharing what they’ve learned. Most of them now know basic greetings, basic good manners, several introductory phrases, eleven colors, numbers to twelve, several emotions, the parts of the face, plus their vocabulary words of apple, arm, ant, banana, ball, bear, clown, cat, carrot and today, they learned dog, duck and dinosaur. They are so much fun and I think we’re all having a ball!

Each week, we review what we learned the week before plus random parts of other previous lessons. The kids love this part as it’s become a game as to how fast they can respond with the correct answer. There’s no doubt the kids learn much more quickly with oral review versus the written word. We have found that correct spelling is not a priority in this culture. Information is still passed on orally much more frequently than through the written word. And even though Spanish is a phonetic language which makes spelling much easier to learn than in English, I’ve had to learn that if we can get down the oral skills first, we can work on the spelling later as many of these kids still struggle to read simple words in their own language.

Working on their dictionary page

We recently began making a bilingual “picture dictionary” and each week, we have a new letter that’s our focus. Obviously today, we studied words that began with the letter “D”. The kids have their dictionary page which always has 15 pictures with both the English and Spanish descriptive words. The kids color those pictures and then on the other side of the dictionary page, I have some sort of corresponding exercise for the kids to do. It may be a word find, a choose-the-right-word, a fill-in-the-blank or a dot-to-dot but it’s always something that requires the kids to work with some of their new words. They have to turn their dictionary page back in to me as I’m saving them to make a booklet out of their pages when we’ve completed the alphabet. We also usually have at least one other type of coloring or worksheet page that goes along with that day’s theme, whether it’s the letter of the day or another subject that we’re studying and those, they get to take home at the end of class time.

Creativity!

And a "howling" good time was had by all!

Proudly showing their puppets!

Today, we made lunch bag dog puppets as “dog” was one of our “D” words. The kids had so much fun making them and each one’s dog looked a little different than their neighbor’s …just like in real life. Some ears went up, some out and some down. Some tongues were hanging straight down, some cocked to the left and some to the right. Some had close set eyes and some had a dog that had one eye higher than the other. All were beautiful in the eyes of their maker…much like we are in our Father’s eyes. It really was such a fun activity that it made last night’s late-night cutting out the parts well worthwhile. The kids were so excited to be able to take these puppets home with them.

While we were working on the puppets, a little boy who looked to be about 10 years old or so, came to Danelia’s door and just stood. She went to talk to him and then called me to the doorway. She asked me if I still had any packets of the antibiotic cream she knows that we keep in our first aid kit. I told her I did and asked Jim if he would please go out to the car and bring some packets in. Jim went out and I asked Danelia why she wanted the packets. Evidently, the little boy had come to see if the gringos had any medicine for his hurt leg. I looked down and saw on the inside of his calf, two large, really nasty looking burns that already looked to be infected. It almost made me sick to look at it. I asked Danelia if he had been to the doctor. She smiled a sad little smile and shook her head “no”. She said that his mother probably wasn’t at home enough to take him.

Jim came back with the packets of ointment and Danelia took them and told the little boy he needed to wash the burns out really well. I felt queasy even hearing her say that. I asked if he burned his leg on a cooking fire and he told me that he burnt it while riding on a motorcycle. It looked to be a really bad burn. I reiterated that he needed to go to the clinic as soon as possible and be treated because his leg was infected and the infection was going to spread. I told Danelia and him that the cream was not powerful enough to heal the burns on his leg. He nodded his head okay and left with the antibiotic ointment.

I wished I could have tried the burn cream that Karen and Dwane had brought with them from Honduras but the little kid wouldn’t have anyone to be able to help him clean and change the dressing in the manner and on the regimen that it needs to be changed. He’s pretty much on his own and wanders the neighborhood. I can hardly bear thinking about how badly his leg will become infected before someone will do something with it. These kinds of things continue to be the things that bother me so much.

Back to the kids at school…last week, we studied the parts of the mouth and also talked about how important it is to brush their teeth every day at least twice a day. They all know that but the reality is that toothpaste is a costly item here as are toothbrushes. Some of these kids didn’t have brushes of their own. We had bought enough tubes of toothpaste at Pali (a small box type grocery store chain) to give each child a tube plus a new toothbrush. It was really something to see how pleased the kids were to get these things. One of the little boys, Serghi, seemed to be especially happy with his new possessions. He hurried out after class to his father who was waiting in the road and eagerly showed him his new toothbrush and toothpaste. His dad smiled and lifted his hand in a wave of thanks.

Jim forgot to take pictures that day but let me assure you that every child was just as excited as Serghi. I thought about how something that most kids in the States take for granted, these kids viewed as a gift of value. Those kinds of moments are so humbling.

I’m sure you can tell that I love being with the kids in that little neighborhood. They are so precious and are such a delight to teach. I can’t help but think about how wonderful it is going to be when we are able to move the Rayitas de Luz Ministry in to the new addition. And each day brings us even closer to making that a reality. We have been praying for wisdom and guidance with this project and God has been so faithful to clearly confirm that this is the direction He wants us to go. We know that unless the completion of this building is in God’s will, then it won’t happen. And this is what we’re making clear to Danelia and the parents. We want them to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s not “Jim and Lynne” who are building the addition, but rather that it is God who is working through the giving from so many of His children to build it.

We have 3 parents so far who have committed to help with the building of the addition. That’s not a great number but it’s something. We’re praying more will come forward and help in one way or another as the building actually progresses. They had asked if we would provide food for them if they worked. We told them “no, we’re providing a place for your children to come to be safe, to learn about Jesus and to help with their education.” At first, I was annoyed that they would ask but then I realized that this country’s culture is all about asking. I wondered what message God had in that for me…

We are planning on breaking ground next week. Jim is supposed to have the final figures on the building by the middle of this week and if it gets a thumbs-up on our end, then we are asking the contractor to get started on it. Our plan is to get it finished before we return to the States in September and we’re trusting God to finish providing the funds to do so.

We will almost double the current space we are in which will seem almost luxurious to all of us. The new addition will be 23’ x 11’, long and narrow like the side yard it will sit in, but still much bigger than our existing space. I am so looking forward to the day that we can actually walk around a “classroom” without having to ask someone else move out of the way. Currently, Jim can’t be helping one child without me having to ask him to move to the side so I can get to the end of the table to help another. One day soon, we will be thinking our classroom is so spacious!


Crunching numbers...

We are also putting in a septic system so that the kids will have a sink and a toilet…again, a wonderful luxury for this neighborhood that has only outhouses. We do not have to do this according to the mayor’s office but since the laws tend to change from day to day - especially with a gringo project - if the city should ever decide to come check out the facility, we will be ahead of the game in already having an enclosed bathroom with running water and a flush toilet. Plus, we are going to have to redo Arturo and Danelia’s outside concrete shower as the new addition will take that space.

We were hoping to be able to build this for not much more than what it cost to build the little house in Los Cedros last year, which measured about 14’ x 14’, but material costs have skyrocketed this past year and we’re also wanting the addition built to withstand the frequent tremors in the area. We have had various local people who have quite a bit of construction experience to give us pricing estimates and all are very close with the cost. So I guess it is what it is. What that amounts to is we are now hoping to be able to build the addition for about $2500.00 (including labor) plus another $500 for furnishings – such as tables, chairs, shelves, a teacher’s desk and assorted supplies.

A few years ago, with a monthly paycheck coming in, that would have sounded pretty cheap but living here now on faith, that figure can some days seem like an impossibility to attain. Still, we believe…no, we know, that with God, all things are possible. As a matter of fact, He has already shown us His faithfulness to provide in some of the most extraordinary ways. In the last few weeks, we received word that a very generous donation was made to Deep Water Ministries which we will apply towards this building fund. Plus, the Lone Star VBS kids donated their offering to us which is also going to the building fund. Then, we had some high school and young college-aged girls here who had the opportunity to visit the kids in Tipitapa and several of the girls also made donations. We even had someone who gave us their Nica change as she was leaving to return to the States…this change amounted to a little over $3.00. I have to say that I was as excited and as thankful for that $3 as I was with each of the other donations. Each “cordoba” we receive, is another sign that God has this well within His control. Those recent donations mean we have now reached almost half of our goal and that’s a week before we are to break ground!

Some would panic about that…I think it’s exciting to see God working in this way and I know that God’s timing is perfect. Because we have accumulated ½ the money, Adrian, the contractor, is willing to build the building ½ way and then wait until we have the remaining funds to complete it. It’s a benefit to us to go ahead and buy as many of the materials as soon as possible in order to try to keep the material costs down. So, the way I see it, when God sees fit to finish the funding, it will be the right time to finish the building!

Of course, Jim and I talk about this opportunity a lot. We are both so excited about the potential uses this new concrete “box” will provide for the families in that neighborhood: Bible studies, the classes for the kids, neighborhood events, and so on. We truly believe this is going to be a concrete sign of change and hope for a people who have seemed to have lost the ability to have either.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about is a way to provide some storage capabilities for materials for Danelia. Jim and I stopped at PriceSmart today on our way back from Tipitapa and I found a really cute plastic cubby set which will be perfect for Danelia to keep supplies in. Initially, I thought about buying two of them so that each one of the kids could have their own cubby but that would only give us 24 cubbies and we usually have more students than that on Saturdays. I also wrestled about going ahead and buying an “interior” thing when we don’t even have an “exterior” built but there were only three of these cubby sets left so I decided I better get it while the getting was good. I have been almost giddy all night just thinking about how great this colorful little piece of plastic is going to look in that new classroom! Who knew I would ever be so excited over plastic?!! The kids will love it…and so will Danelia!!!

All in all, today was a wonderful day. The kids were so much fun with their dog puppets and the finding of the cubby rack was a great surprise. I absolutely delight in how God shows us His faithfulness and His love like He has today. I also am reminded of how God works in so many ways and through so many people to accomplish His plans. It really is very humbling and at the same time, very exciting to be on this end.

I’ve never become comfortable in asking for help but I am asking that if this project is something that God puts on your heart to support, we would be deeply grateful. We also want to stress that when we receive a donation that is earmarked for a specific use, we honor that request. Otherwise, if we receive a donation that is not necessarily designated for anything specifically, we then direct those funds to the area where we happen to see the most need or where we feel they can best be used. I want to be very up front with you about this. Right now, this addition is very much a priority with us. That’s not to say we no longer give in other areas, as we do and some of those recipients will be mentioned in this month’s newsletter, but for right now, the addition is an area where we will be directing much of our “unmarked” funds. If you would like to help specifically with the building addition, you can indicate that to Mandy, our daughter who handles our finances on that end (address on the right) and if you should choose to do so, please know that you are making an investment in the future of these children and the local community of Danelia's neighborhood. We are praying God will multiply His blessings upon you for your giving and that He will stretch the funds to cover all that is necessary. We’re excited!!!

Emily's Team in Tipitapa...

2010-07-29T21:28:00.008-06:00

Two weeks ago, we had a terrific Saturday at Tipitapa…I’m just now getting time to finish this blog that I had started that night! That was a fun day from beginning to end, in spite of the rain which tried to dampen our spirits! We had the privilege of taking 4 teens (Kari, Eva, Andrea & Abbey) and 3 young women (Emily, Rhonda & Rachel) to Tipitapa with us to minister to the kids at Rayitas de Luz. Most of the girls on this team are members of various Mennonite churches who connected right before coming to Nicaragua to meet their team leader, Emily and a friend of hers from church, Rhonda. They have a full schedule with and we were so excited that they chose to include meeting the kids in Tipitapa as one of their days’ activities.
Our day started out with us dropping some things off at CINAFE before heading over to Huembes market to meet up with the girls. They wanted to get some shopping in first and it was a good location for us to meet them at to go on to Tipitapa. We were able to re-connect with some of our favorite vendors there as we hadn’t seen them for several months and at the same time, we were saddened to learn that Anna, our Christian friend who worked there, had left and no one seemed to know where she had gone. I was glad that I had gotten to pray with her before we had left for the States in March and I know that if we don’t get to see her again here, we will see her again someday in heaven.
Because we could only take 3 of the girls with us in our car, Emily hired Oscar for the day to transport the other 4 in the group. He is one of our Nica friends that we had met through Karen and CINAFE and is a taxi driver. Oscar is a little more expensive than taking a public taxi but he is worth the extra money as he is a safe and honest man and that peace of mind is well worth the additional cordobas.
We arrived at Danelia’s house shortly after 1:00 and stepped in to her small living room to be met by 30 children all packed in like sardines!!! Many of the kids were sharing little plastic chairs and stools that had been borrowed from various friends. After introductions were made and the welcome greeting issued, the kids sang several songs for us and then showed off their English skills. It wasn’t long before the smell of something yummy began to whet everyone’s appetite. We knew that Emily’s team had wanted to pay for lunch for all the kids, so we advanced the money to Danelia last week and she and several of her friends had been cooking over a wood fire since early morning in order to feed all of us some really delicious chicken, vegetables, rice and platanos.
All the kids were so excited and I’m sure it was the combination of having visitors and coupled with the anticipation of also having a great lunch. Plus, it was the 6th birthday of one of the children, a little girl named Wendy. So the mood was definitely celebratory. Danelia asked me to pray so that we could get started on lunch. We were so packed in the living room that we couldn’t even join hands but our hearts were definitely linked together.
I wish there was a way to adequately describe how close the quarters were there. Danelia had set up a cloth covered wooden prep table between the already bulging living area (ultimately holding 30 kids plus 10 adults including Danelia (a number I can’t even imagine ‘tho I was one of the 10) and their unbelievably cramped bedroom. They had moved their small television stand & tv plus one of the regular school tables in to their bedroom which greatly diminished the area of maneuverability in that room, as well.
Arturo was in charge of dispensing the drinks (Rojita – a red, syrupy sweet drink and Orange Fanta) and their neighbor lady, Myrna, was in charge of filling the small paper plates with food. They stood on one side of the table and I stood on the other. Abbey went around to the back of the house to put ice in the cups and then handed them to Arturo to fill. Arturo would hand me two cups at a time and I would then hand them to one of the several girls standing behind me. They would pass them on down the line making sure each child had a drink. We then repeated the “bucket brigade” move with the plates of food. It was so crowded that there was no other way to do it. We could barely turn around to hand the plates to the person behind us. But it was fun, nonetheless, to see the kids’ faces as they received their plates of piled-high food.
By the time everyone had finished their lunch, it had pretty much quit raining. Usually, the ground dries pretty quickly but there had been several days of heavy rains so the ground around Danelia’s house was saturated which created a slippery, mucky mud that would suck your shoes right off your feet. We had, for the briefest of moments, wondered how the team was going to be able to play with the kids with it being so muddy out. Silly us! A little mud never stopped any of these kids and it wasn’t going to do so that day, either.
The girls were amazing and so good-natured about just going along with playing games in the muddy mire. Several of the girls are members of a very conservative branch of the Mennonite church and so they always wear skirts or dresses and head coverings. I was concerned how they would fare with all the mud…they did fine! Their flip-flopped feet and legs were coated with the slimy stuff but it didn’t seem to bother any of them. If laughter was the gauge for a good time, there’s no question that the team and the kids all had a great time!
After about an hour and a half of bubbles, balloons, Frisbee, tag, hide and seek, etc., it was time for us to go. We had another time of prayer and then lots of hugs and some organized picture taking and then loaded up in Oscar’s taxi and our car and we headed back to Managua. If the conversation of the girls in our car was any indication of how good of a time they all had, I think the day was pretty successful in terms of encouragement and intercessory prayer.
There were lots of questions and we had the opportunity to share some of the ways we had been seeing God work. Just being able to share those stories with someone face-to-face is a faith-strengthener in itself. I think we all can sometimes be guilty of forgetting God’s faithfulness and focus instead on the challenges we are facing.
I’ve told you before that this is a very oral society and it is not at all uncommon for stories, directions or explanations to be repeated several times over. This is done to ensure that the teller and the listener are perfectly clear on all points. I used to find that a bit annoying…but now…I can see such great value in doing that. We need to tell and re-tell what Jesus has done for us. We need to be free in repeating how and where we have seen God move. It is of great benefit to those who are listening…but it is also of great benefit to the one who is doing the telling. Remember the hymn, “I Love to Tell the Story”? It’s true…I do.

I love to tell the story
of unseen things above,
of Jesus and his glory,
of Jesus and his love.
I love to tell the story,
because I know 'tis true;
it satisfies my longings
as nothing else can do.

I love to tell the story,
'twill be my theme in glory,
to tell the old, old story
of Jesus and his love.

I love to tell the story;
more wonderful it seems
than all the golden fancies
of all our golden dreams.
I love to tell the story,
it did so much for me;
and that is just the reason
I tell it now to thee.

I love to tell the story;
'tis pleasant to repeat
what seems, each time I tell it,
more wonderfully sweet.
I love to tell the story,
for some have never heard
the message of salvation
from God's own holy Word.

I love to tell the story,
for those who know it best
seem hungering and thirsting
to hear it like the rest.
And when, in scenes of glory,
I sing the new, new song,
'twill be the old, old story
that I have loved so long.

Yamuleith is dancing tonight...

2010-07-21T22:22:00.005-06:00

We received a call a little bit ago from Erika, the woman who had been Yamuleith's foster mother, and the news that I've selfishly not been wanting to hear finally came - Yamuleith went home to be with Jesus tonight.
After my initial meltdown, God comforted me with a detailed image in my mind of Yamuleith, healthy, strong and dancing gracefully with her beautifully delicate face glowing as her once-blind eyes behold the unimaginable beauty of her Wonderful, Merciful Savior. That picture alone brings me more comfort than I can express. She is safe and can no longer be harmed. She once was blind but now she sees. She once was lame but now she dances. She once was lost but now she is found. She is completely healed in every way and she is seeing and experiencing the wonders at this very moment that "our hearts always hunger for."
I thought at first my tears were because of all she had to endure and suffer through in her brief life but I realized a little bit ago, after watching Yamuleith dance in worship to our King through the window of my imagination that my tears tonight are not for her but are for myself.

Wonderful, merciful Savior
Precious Redeemer and friend
Who would have thought that a lamb could
Rescue the souls of men
Oh, You rescue the souls of men

Counselor, Comforter, Keeper
Spirit we long to embrace
You offer hope when our hearts have
Hopelessly lost the way
Oh, we hopelessly lost the way

You are the one that we praise
You are the one we adore
You give the healing and grace
Our hearts always hunger for
Oh, our hearts always hunger for

Almighty, infinite Father
Faithfully loving Your own
Here in our weakness You find us
Falling before Your throne
Oh, we're falling before Your throne

You are the one that we praise
You are the one we adore
You give the healing and grace
Our hearts always hunger for
Oh, our hearts always hunger for

Our CINAFE Kids...

2010-07-11T22:48:00.001-06:00

No, we haven’t dropped off the face of the earth…but sometimes, it feels like we’re hanging on for all we’re worth to the edge of it! I find that when I get the time to actually sit down and write a blog, that I’m apologizing for allowing so much time to lapse between writings…this time is no different…I’m sorry!!! Remember when I used to bore you to tears with my musings on the incessant crazy Managua drivers or the simple beauty of the ox-pulled carts going to market in the early morning hours? I don’t know about you…but I miss those days! Life now is too hectic and too filled with worries and problems. My prayers of late have been that God would help me open my eyes again to the wonder that this place held for me when first we came to be aliens and strangers in this land.
So, you may be wondering what we’ve been doing lately. A lot. We are now the “official” overseers of CINAFE, the child’s protection center where we’ve been spending the majority of our time since the beginning of the year. This is also known as Fortress of Hope and if you are interested in knowing a bit more about our new “home away from home”, you can read their latest newsletter at www.fortressofhope.org.
There are so many changes taking place right now there…some we are implementing and some we are trying to maneuver through. The CINAFE board made some necessary changes in personnel at the beginning of the year, before we came on board, and as a result, some of the new people who were put in place have discovered that they are not necessarily a good fit with CINAFE. Because we are a government approved child protection center, we are also accountable to the Ministry of Families. With the ideas and the values of the current presidential administration being executed, the stress level of facilities like ours goes up incrementally. Working with these government agencies is not for the faint of heart! Consequently, we are once again, going through some personnel changes. This means our stress level is going up incrementally!!!
And talk about stress…right now, we are currently looking for a new physician, a new social worker and a new director! I have recently been speaking with other Americans who run facilities similar to ours and have found out that this kind of turnover is not unusual. Maybe not. But it is discouraging. We are a ministry-run facility and all of CINAFE’s financial support comes from donations just like most ministries. That means that we operate on faith and a shoestring budget. It also means that those who come there to work professing they want to be involved in growing God’s Kingdom but leave because they can make twice as much money at a call center makes us the rest of us scratch our head, try to somehow lengthen the shoestrings and remember our faith is what holds those shoestrings together!
The kids though are amazing! We still have fifteen children, ages 2 ½ to 16. I say “still” because that could change at any moment. There is now a government program that is designed to remove all children in child protection centers and reunite them with their families by the end of 2011, based on “the rights of the child”. In theory, this sounds great…but our fear is that these kids are going to be put back in to the same situations from which they had to be removed.
We’ve already received word that at least two and maybe another 4 might be leaving us soon. I just can’t even imagine what CINAFE will be like without them there…and I can’t imagine what their lives will be like if they’re not. For all the toils and troubles that we’re working through at CINAFE, it’s still a haven for these kids.
Let me tell you a little about these tough little survivors. Erika is our oldest…she just turned 16 and there is a possibility she might be leaving us soon to return to her family in El Salvador. She’s a quiet girl and is most comfortable when she’s got her friends around her. She is always watching and observing and she doesn’t easily trust but she has a great affection for Karen and Dwane, the couple in Ohio who were instrumental in starting CINAFE. I think she is torn about returning to her family and although she will miss the other kids at CINAFE, I truly believe she will miss seeing Karen and Dwane when they come back here for visits. When I first met Erika, I asked her what she thought she would like to be when she grew up and she told me a car mechanic. I was surprised at that answer and asked her why and she told me it was because they made a lot of money. I reminded her of that the other day and we both laughed about it.
Francela is also a pretty girl and a very smart girl when it comes to reading people. She is very sociable and does not like being alone. She will be 15 this year although she looks older than that. She has a beautiful smile and a determination to live a life different than the one she came from. That determination can work for her or as it sometimes now does, against her.
Selena is 13 and is also a girl who looks older than she is. She has such a friendly personality and there is no pretense with her. What you see is what you get with Selena. She has a head for business and already knows how to negotiate to get what she wants. I think one of the things I really enjoy about Selena is her ready smile. She is very childlike in so many ways and still loves to play games.
Sugeyling has to be one of the prettiest Nica girls I’ve ever seen. She is a natural beauty but she doesn’t see herself that way. She is a very quick learner and I’ve found she has an aptitude for English. She wants to travel to Russia some day. Sugeyling’s favorite color is black and she loves rock music. She is always polite and helpful and I love to be around her…but she doesn’t know Jesus and every time one of us try to talk to her about Him, she becomes very hard and quiet. She’s one I worry about a lot.
Minerva just turned 13. She’s entering that awkward stage and is not comfortable in her own skin. She’s very shy at times and yet she craves attention. She often seems much younger than her years and is struggling to find her place in this world. Sometimes, she does not do well with authority figures or her peers and yet she will bond very quickly to someone she is drawn to knowing.
Aida is 12 and is one who has a special place in my heart. She informed me the other day she wants to now be known as Elizabeth! When we first began at CINAFE, she was hard and closed off and refused to let me even put my hand on her shoulder. What a long way we’ve come in these few short months. Today, when she saw me after being gone to her grandmother’s for a week’s visit, she threw her arms around me and hugged me like it had been years since we had seen one another. Aida is very smart but she treats her school subjects like she does everything and everyone else…she does/accepts them on her own terms. She can quote numerous scriptures and has memorized long portions of Psalms.
Those girls all live together in one house called the Estrellas…the Stars…and they are.
Mariana is 11 and is another one who always seems to have a smile on her face. She is much lighter in complexion than the other children there. She even has freckles. She is another one who is quick to help and just beams when given words of praise. She has an ear for English and tries to mimic my words as closely as she can.
Wendy turns 10 this week. She loves to tease and is always up to something. She’s definitely a creative thinker and if not kept in check, can quickly find herself in some kind of mischief. She is always in motion and loves to participate in any kind of activity that involves movement of some kind.
Esmerelda is another one who is a very pretty young girl. She is 12 and is most comfortable in the role of tomboy. She can hold her own playing soccer and is tough as nails when she gets hurt. She’s just now starting to realize that it’s okay for her to enjoy nail polish and wearing dresses and she’s acquired a real affinity for cute earrings. I think we may be losing our “tomboy”! One of the most remarkable things about Esmerelda is her voice. She has a gravely low voice which is always a surprise to anyone who first hears her speak.
Fernando has only been with us since the beginning of the year. He’s a lovebug and is usually one of the first to come give us a hug when we arrive at CINAFE. He, too, always has a smile on his face which belies his quick temper that often gets him in hot water with others. But just as quickly as his temper flares, it’s gone and he’s back to his sweet smiling self. Fernando is 11.
Those four share a casita and are called the Delfines or the Dolphins. We just recently had a team in who helped us do some remodeling on one of the casitas so that Fernando could have his own room and the girls are sharing another room. I know they all are more comfortable with their new privacy.
Our last casita is called the Arco Iris…the Rainbow house. Reyna is 10 and loves to play games. She is the mancala champion and delights when she wins. She is another one who loves to be hugged but like the others, it’s taken us time to get to that point with her. Sometimes she’s all smiles and other times, a smile is hard to coax but either way, if the opportunity presents itself, she has her arms wrapped around me…sometimes making it difficult to even walk. Reyna and Esmerelda are sisters.
Daniella is bright eyed and as curious as they come. We don’t know exactly how old she is as she was found abandoned when she was smaller. We are guessing she is around 5 or 6 years old and her birthday is celebrated on the day she came to CINAFE…that really was a new “birth”day for her. She is another one who likes to tease and is often laughing and giggling. She also has a stubborn streak a mile long and the challenge lies in teaching her when it’s appropriate to use it and when it’s not.
Reynaldo is 9 years old and has such a great smile. He loves to jump out and scare us, laughing hysterically if he thinks he’s accomplished his goal. He is a typical little boy, scooping up bugs, playing with cars and just making noise for the sake of making noise. His glasses make him appear much more studious than he actually is. He is Reyna and Esmerelda’s brother and is often a favorite with teams as he’s just got such a great little personality.
Milagros is a child that everyone is drawn to as she has big beautiful brown eyes and is so petite and fragile looking. She often has a very serious look on her face and it can take her a very long time to warm up to someone. Once she has made that decision to be friends, she also loves to tease. It’s just that she is another one who communicates on her terms only. If Milagros is unhappy, everyone within earshot knows it. It’s amazing how someone so little can have such big lungs! Milagros is 6 and is Reyna’s, Esmerelda’s and Reynaldo’s sister.
Belen is last but not least…but she is the youngest. Again, we are guessing at her age and we estimate her to be about 2 ½ years old. She has the best little smile and pretty much runs the place. She really misses the kids while they’re at school and is always excited when they come home each day. She is Daniella’s sister and so we celebrate Belen’s birthday at the same time as Daniella.
So, now you know just a bit about the kids who help brighten our days here. I watch them play, study, do chores and fuss and I marvel at how well they function for the most part. I won’t share their individual stories but I will tell you that each one of these children has good cause not to laugh or to trust anyone and yet, almost every one of them is quick to flash their smiles and to hug and be hugged. Some may attribute that to the therapy they receive from the psychologist at CINAFE but I believe the reason they are flourishing there is because Jesus touches them through those who work there and who truly love these precious ones.
One of our daily prayers is that God would bind the enemy and keep him far from the children at CINAFE. We pray protection and healing for them. We pray that they will learn how to act and react in appropriate ways to the situations they will face in this life. We pray that when we talk to them about Jesus that He will soften their hearts and open their ears and most of all, we pray that there will come a time when we know these children not just as “our CINAFE kids” but also as our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Walking through the door...

2010-06-15T22:34:00.004-06:00

So…what do you do when you ask God to open a door and a door opens…but it’s not the door you thought it would be? This door looks like it leads to a direction unknown. Unknown is scary. Do you gently close that door, turn your back on it and rationalize that it must have been the wind that blew it open…and wait for God to open a door that is expected? Or, do you view the door as a divine portal to see God do something amazing? This door definitely leads to a direction unknown. Maybe, unknown is adventurous…and maybe a little scary.
Jim and I’ve opted to go through this door. We made the commitment several years back to follow God wherever it is He wants to take us and to do whatever it is we believe He’s calling us to do. As a result, He’s taken us through plenty of doors that we wouldn’t have gone through otherwise. There’s no doubt that we’ve stepped way out of our comfort zone and there’s no doubt that it has cost us on so many levels. But, even at the few times I’ve felt like I was at my lowest here, I don’t think I could have ever walked away from the challenge He’s put before us. Rest assured, that has absolutely nothing to do with who we are…it has everything to do with who God is. We just happen to believe Him and trust Him and so we have been blessed to see Him work in ways I believe we would never have witnessed otherwise.
We know that His plans that include us are bigger than us. Reminding ourselves of that often helps us to walk through those adventurous doors. But don’t think for a minute that they still aren’t scary…they are. We question as much as anyone else… “Is this the right thing to do?” “Is this what God wants?” “What if we didn’t hear Him right?” “What if we fail?” I think the last question is often what it actually all boils down to…no one wants to fail. I guess that fear is what makes us ask all those questions. But really, when I think about it, the only way we can fail is to not be obedient to what God is calling us to do. What the world views as success or failure is no longer the measurement we want to use. God’s pleasure and displeasure are far more powerful motivators these days.
So, saying all that, I want to share with you that we have stepped through yet another door…another scary, adventurous door. We are going to build a school!!!! And the reason we are doing that is God has shut every other door and has flung this one wide open. We have done all the analyzing, the questioning and lots and lots of praying. They all led back to this door.
I’ve told you about Ministerio Rayitas de Luz…Danelia’s twice-weekly after-school school which she started in her home as a direct result of our being “evicted” from the church where we were holding English classes and Bible study. I’ve also told you how we’re busting at the seams in her little living room. (Forgive the poor grammar…it just fits here.) The door for renting another place wasn’t just shut, it was slammed shut and securely bolted! Every place we looked at or asked about, the answer was “no” or the price was ridiculously high.
We began to question if this was something God wanted us to continue with or not. Silly question. Of course God wants His Word shared, with adults and children. God really impressed on me that just because we were being met with opposition to find a place to teach His Word and to show His love did not mean His answer was “no”…it meant that the need was great. And it meant that He had something else planned.
About a year and a half ago, Jim and I first began going to Danelia’s house to visit Kenneth. This was when he was so terribly sick. At that time, Jim and I began discussing the possibility of adding an additional bedroom on the side of their little 2 room house but I have to admit that was me wanting to do that and not a leading from God. But I believe God used that desire of mine to start laying the groundwork for what was to come.
I am sure I’ve probably told you about Arturo and Danelia’s house before. They are blessed to live in a little block house with a concrete floor. The front room is their living room. It has one window and a wooden front door which leads out to a tiny little front yard. The living room is where they receive guests and it reveals they once experienced more prosperous days when they both worked before Kenneth became sick.
There is a television stand which holds a small television and some small knick knacks. There usually several plastic chairs in the living room plus they now also boast three rocking chairs which were gifts from some people in the church. The sewing machine bought for Danelia used to sit in front of the window but she has moved it to a corner to make better use of the space for the students. There is also a short wooden table which Kenneth would use as his bed during the day when he was too weak to sit upright for any length of time.
The house originally was one larger room but Arturo divided off the sleeping area with sheets of plywood. He left an entryway which is defined with a hanging curtain. The bedroom is a dark room. It has a window in it but it’s covered with material for privacy. This room has two beds in it, a matrimonial (which is a double bed) and what looks to be like a ¾ size bed. Lindsay and Kenneth share this bed except when Kenneth is sick and then all four are in Arturo and Danelia’s bed. The two beds but up each other. There is no closet…there’s no room for one. Most of the clothes seem to be neatly stacked on a box of some sort and If I remember right, there is a small shelf unit which holds food, pans and perhaps some other clothing. There is also a box which holds the few toys the kids have…most of which we have bought for them.
One corner of the bedroom also serves as an indoor kitchen. There is a two-burner propane stove top, similar to a camping type stove…again, a reminder of better days. Danelia uses this when the weather is bad or she is fixing something that doesn’t require a lengthy cooking time. Propane is a costly expense for them these days…but so is buying wood or charcoal.
The wooden back door opens out to the covered “porch” area which is actually used as an extension to the house. Their pila (a concrete washstand pictured to the left) is there so that’s where dishes are washed and clothes are laundered. There is also a makeshift shower that Arturo made some years back. The porch contains an outdoor cooking area where Danelia cooks over an open fire. The back yard is fairly large by Nica standards. Their outhouse is out by the back fence.
There is a fence made of sheets of rusty tin that separate the side yard from the back yard. Their lot is long and narrow and as a result, the side yard is also very narrow although Danelia has made good use of the space filling it with flowers and shrubs. It is this place that Jim and I had once thought would be a good place to build another room.
It hasn’t taken long for us to realize that the Rayitas de Luz school is definitely filling a need in the neighborhood. Within just a few weeks, Danelia has had to say that she can’t take any more students. Her eighteen students more than fill up her living room twice a week. The kids are sitting on borrowed chairs and stools. That number is up to 22 on Saturdays for our English class. There absolutely is no more room in her living room and I’ve noticed the last few Saturdays, we’ve had children standing out in the yard, listening to our lesson.
We have discussed the various options available for having a larger space for both Danelia’s classes and for ours. Renting a building or house in the immediate neighborhood has not panned out. The answer has consistently been “no” which I have to say has been a bit discouraging. We were so sure that we were going to be able to find something.
A large ministry in Managua has a branch in Tipitapa and they have actually heard about what we’re doing in this little living room. They offered us the use of their very nice, large facility in Tipitapa and supposedly, at no cost. The problem is that they are located on the opposite end of the city. This makes it virtually impossible for the children to attend either Danelia’s classes or ours. They would have to take a bus or taxi to get there as it’s too far for them to walk. That’s an expense they can’t afford. Moving the school out of the neighborhood would set up a situation that would exclude the very children we are trying to reach.
We were all flattered that this ministry would offer their building to us even though we knew that it wasn’t a viable alternative. But the temptation was there. Danelia and I sat and talked about it that day. It obviously was a very attractive offer and the truth is that no matter where we established the school, there would be children who would come, but as I told Danelia that afternoon, I feel that it is important that we remember why she wanted to do the school in the first place and to remember who it was she wanted to minister to through it. I told her that I just didn’t believe that bigger was always better and that we needed to be faithful to do the work God put before us and let Him worry about growing it later on. We talked about being salt and light in her neighborhood. I told her I believed God would bless her for being faithful to His work. She told me she believed He already had…she still had Kenneth.
So, this is where we’re at. We’ll soon be tearing up Danelia’s side yard and begin construction of a 5 meter x 8 meter addition to her house which will serve as the new Rayitas de Luz school building! This equates to about a 16 ft. x 26 ft. space. The picture at the right shows the side yard now and this is where we will build the addition. Of course, usable floor space will be a little less as that’s the measurement from outer wall to outer wall. It will be a one-room classroom with three doors and two windows. We are attaching the school to the side of Arturo and Danelia’s house and so we are going to go ahead and put in a passageway door in their living room to connect to the classroom. That way, in the future, if the school grows to the point we need to expand again, and the opportunity opens up for us to move to a larger facility, the addition will become usable space for the family.
We are most likely going to build a block construction addition. This will match the existing structure, is the cheapest type of permanent structure and is the one that will work best in this climate. We will probably also go with a concrete floor – again, the most cost effective. Our roof structure will be made of the corrugated zinc that is so popular here. Again, this is a cost effective decision and will also match the existing roof on Danelia and Arturo’s house...hopefully, minus the holes! Those roofs are so hot with the sun beating down on them but they are also much cheaper than the clay tile roofs. We will have iron bars installed on all the doors and the windows as the school will not only be a beacon of light in the barrio, it will also be a target for thieves.
We are setting the addition back a little bit from the front edge of Danelia’s house. This is to leave a small “green” area where she can still have a few bushes and flowers. We will put in a small walkway and a step that goes down to the front yard of Danelia’s and continue the walkway to the edge of her yard where the dirt road begins. This is really a very short distance. We are also discussing the possibility of replacing the rusty little strands of barbed wire that currently goes across the front of her property with a fence of some sort and a gate that can be locked.
We will need to put in a small septic system for the latrine. The city won’t let us use the existing outhouse for the school. This was not an expense we planned on but one we understand that we must have. We will also wire the building for electricity. That’s a decision we’re making based on our own comfort as well as hopeful thinking. I would love to have a fan going on Saturdays and who knows? Perhaps someday, the barrio will have electricity in the afternoons again! And of course, we’ll need paint for both inside and out. Danelia and I both want to make the school a welcoming place for the kids.
We have prices now on enough tables ($30 each for tables that seat 8 children) and chairs ($5 each) for twenty-four children and I’ve been scouring the city, looking for teaching materials and school supply bargains. I have even had dreams about bulletin boards! I do think I better understand now why most schools don’t have the very things I would think would be standard items. What is available is costly, so we are keeping our eyes open for used items that could be utilized in the classroom.
Last week, we had a guy come and measure and is supposed to give us an estimate this coming weekend on the cost of materials and labor. We thought his preliminary bid of $3000 to be awfully high, especially since the extra $400 latrine cost was not included in that number. We made it clear that we thought that was out of line and asked for him to look at it again, get some actual prices and get back to us this coming weekend with some tighter numbers. Unfortunately, that’s what happens when someone finds out that Americans are involved…their greed overtakes their good sense. Hopefully, we’ll get a much better figure from him this weekend.
As a precaution, we’re taking a Nicaraguan friend of ours to Tipitapa with us this weekend. He has years of construction experience and has built numerous churches and schools in conjunction with American teams. He is a good Christian man and volunteered to go with us as a favor to us. He is going to look at the sight and then give us an itemized list of current realistic costs for each step so that we can be both better prepared and better educated in this process. We do believe God will provide for this school but we also believe that we need to be both wise and good stewards of His resources.
I have to tell you we are so excited about this. Of course the planning stage is always the “fun” part but honestly, I think we’re all really excited to see how God’s going to make this all come together and we’re already seeing Him work. We have been trying to come up with ideas of fund-raisers that would be practical for the neighborhood. Just one look around is enough to make one discouraged. It would be so easy to think that there just is no way that anyone there would ever be able to contribute to the building fund. But God has already opened the door for us with several ways to get the community involved.
There was recently a group from South Carolina who left enough shoes to fill several totes. Some are used and some are new. Most are children’s sizes but there are a few adult sizes. They had wanted them to go to a poor community in…of all places…Tipitapa!!! We had the shoes donated to us from someone who knows we are working in this area and told we could do whatever we wanted to do with them. We took them to Danelia’s house and I explained what I wanted to do with them. Danelia became so excited and could hardly wait to get going on this project.
We decided to sell the shoes at an extremely reasonable price with all the proceeds to go to the building fund. She is selling the shoes for 10 to 20 cord a pair which equates to about 50 cents to a dollar a pair. I know that is ridiculously cheap for a brand new pair of shoes…but being able to buy a new pair of shoes for a child for less than a dollar will be such a blessing in that barrio! Plus, we know that God can make that dollar go further than we could if it were 20 times that amount
Our other fundraiser is going to be our Money Plant project. There is a group that we will be working with that is coming from Ohio this Thursday. They had asked what they could bring us and we asked for vegetable seeds. We told the pastor that we would reimburse the team for the seeds they buy as we asked for quite a few. We are going to have the kids plant the seeds in paper cups and after the veggies germinate and begin to grow, the kids will go out and try to sell the veggie cups. Again, we are hoping this to be a win-win situation…the families will be able to grow veggies and we will grow our building fund. We’re going to be investing in this particular project as we’ll be buying the seeds, the cups and the dirt but we’re just considering it a ministry expense…we want the kids and their families to have some ownership in raising the funds for the school.
So, that’s pretty much where we are right now. I’m sure we’re in over our heads. In some respects, I’m a little scared about taking this step. I am sure this won’t materialize unless God makes it happen but I’m also sure that this is something God has called us to undertake.
Of course, for every person who thinks this is God’s leading, I am quite sure there is one (or possibly more!) who thinks that it’s a bad idea. We have heard it said that this type of thing is an “ambitious project” and that usually, it’s bigger ministries who undertake such things. It would be easy to buy in to that if our God wasn’t so big. Our ministry doesn’t have to be mega-sized… our God is. The picture on the left is some of the children praying as we finished up our English class last week. The fact they are so precious makes this project even more dear to our hearts.
Maybe our view sounds simplistic but honestly, we’re approaching this in much the same way that we approached moving here. It’s scary but it would be scarier to not be obedient. If this is what God wants, He’ll make it happen with us or without us. We just happen to want to be part of it! I remember Henry Blackaby said in Experiencing God that we are to see where God is at work and join Him in it. There’s no doubt in our minds that God’s at work in this little barrio and we definitely want to be a part of it. I’ll keep you posted on what we find on the other side of the door!

We're here...we're fine...we're tired!

2010-05-25T22:54:00.001-06:00

I can always tell when I’ve fallen behind on the blog…I start hearing from people wanting to know if we’re okay. We are okay…well, mostly. Right now, Jim and I both are sick. Jim rarely gets sick but he’s had a pretty high fever, headache and stomach stuff for the last few days. I’ve had the same thing off and on for the past couple of weeks. We’re both sick of being sick but we’ve come to realize that is just part of us being here. We spend a lot of time with people who don’t have the luxury of good health care or even good basic sanitation. That’s bound to translate to our own health suffering sometimes. It just happens more than we would like!
We’ve also been extremely busy since we’ve come back from the States. Stepping in to the role of being the overseers of CINAFE continues to be both time and energy consuming…extremely. It also allows us to spend a lot of time with the children. We are getting to know them more as individuals and the better we know them, the more complicated we find them to be. Abuse, abandonment, neglect…all have taken their toll on these children. The road to healing is going to be a long one for them to travel… it’s going to be a long one for us walking alongside of them.
Along with working with the children in establishing firm parameters which are held in place through healthy affection and healthy attention, we are also working with the staff and the administration. This culture seems to create a chasm between the two. That is tough in any line of work but when working with abused children, it’s something that has to be overcome. It is imperative that there be an atmosphere of working together for the good of the kids which means that both have to learn to be intentional and deliberate in moving forward.
The very nature of why these children are at CINAFE also opens the door for the enemy to set up camp there. Control and manipulation are major issues and there is definitely spiritual warfare being waged. We’re thankful we’re on the side which will ultimately win the war but I have to say, the battles are fierce and there have already been casualties along the way. There have been recent terminations of some staff members and we are now addressing some behavior issues in some of the children. This is not a job for the faint of heart, that’s for sure. I’m guessing this is where God is going to use a lot of my life experiences of being a mom and grandma…and my natural bent for digging in and holding tight.
When my girls were in high school, we had a foreign exchange student from Japan live with us for a year. I can remember when I grounded Mika for going to a party which I had expressly told her she could not attend, she told me that I was the “meanest mother in Johnson County.” It hurt my heart to hear those words but she never knew that. I responded that I had been in the running for that position and I was glad to hear that I had won it. Today, years later, Mika still calls me Mom and I still have a special place in my heart for my “third” daughter.
I can’t even count the number of times one of my own girls would say something ugly or hurtful or would do something that would scare me half to death. At one point I could have sworn that alien beings had come and invaded their sweet little bodies and had taken control of my darling girls…if I remember right, it was about the age of 14 with both of them. Thankfully, we all lived through those years. Sometimes being a good mom means having to be a tough one, also. Funny how we never think that when we’re holding our seven pound bundle of joy in our arms…
This past week, there was a team of 27 teens (plus 6 adults) who came from a private Christian school in Ohio to work with a local King’s Castle chapter. Along with the other areas they ministered, they spent some time at CINAFE, painting the outside of several of the casitas and just playing with the kids. They had an outing where the kids were included plus several activities with them. I think both groups had a great time!
We helped arrange a ministry opportunity for this team at a small school in rural El Crucero. This is the school where Freddy and Felix’s boys attend. The team did door-to-door evangelism in the community, passing out beans and rice packets and then afterwards, met back at the school where they put on about an hour long program for the students. It was a fun program with lots of Christian based singing and skits. The students absolutely loved it!
After the program, the school fed all the students and the team with food that was purchased by the team and prepared by the school. There was enough food fixed to feed 300 people! Because they were feeding so many, Jim and I had to go to a sister school in another community to borrow one of their big cooking pots for them to use that day. It was a great collaboration and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves that day. We also had some doors opened to us that day for some possible future ministry opportunities. I just love how God does stuff like that!
The update on Yamuleith is not so encouraging. She remains in the hospital and although she is better than she was the day we called the ambulance, she still suffers so much. Her foster family has said they don’t want her back as she requires too much care. She has begged not to be returned to her father and step-mother. The facility we had hoped might be able to take her has said they can’t. Our options are quickly running out. I’m afraid that the government’s social services department is going to have to get involved. This probably won’t be the best thing for Yamuleith but we no longer have a good choice to make. We are faced with the lesser of two evils at this point and the burden of what to do weighs heavily on us. This is such a serious matter of prayer for us and we would appreciate your prayers as well. We obviously need God’s wisdom and guidance on this.
Kenneth continues to do well. He’s awfully slow in recovering from the effects of the last chemo but each day, he seems to grow stronger and he is more and more upbeat. We are in constant awe of how God has worked through this little boy and his family never misses an opportunity to give God all the glory!
La escuela de Las Rayitas de Luz (The Rays of Light School) is rapidly growing. This is the after-school school that Danelia, Kenneth’s mom, has twice a week in her living room. She started with 10 students almost a month ago and is now up to 18. An opportunity came up to rent a house which we could use for Danelia’s school and for us to use for our Saturday English class. We had been praying about it the last few weeks and we were ready to make a commitment to rent it for a year. We took the money to do so last Saturday when we found out the man had failed to meet with the family three different times. I guess it appears that maybe he’s not so sure about renting the house after all. We were all very disappointed but we also are all in agreement that we need to wait until the house and the timing are of God.
Another house did open up but that man wants to sell it and not rent it and the price was out of our budget by a long shot. So, we didn’t even entertain that thought for any length of time. We continue to pray God will open up something for us before long as Danelia’s class continues to grow in size but her small little living room doesn’t!
Our Saturday English class with the children also has experienced growth just in the two weeks we’ve had it. We were supposed to have 11 students our first week and we ended up with 18. This past Saturday, we had 21 and we were asked if two more could join. We are packed like sardines in Danelia’s as it is but neither of us can say “no” to these kids.
These are kids who want to come to school! They want to learn! They are unbelievably well-behaved and respectful. And they are learning about Jesus every time they walk through the door, whether it’s for Danelia’s school or for English class. We have already gotten prices on chairs, tables and basic supplies and so now, we are just waiting for God to open up a building for us. We are absolutely loving this and we are so excited to see what God is going to do next with this little school!
We actually attended a meeting with some of the parents last Saturday after class. Danelia called them together to introduce us to them and to discuss their participation in their children’s education. The feedback from the parents was excellent. All of the parents praised Danelia’s efforts and were very pleased with what she was doing. With tears in her eyes, one of the moms talked about how her son hated regular school and never wanted to go. She is a single mom and life is very hard for her. Bayron is a shy little boy and he has not done well in public school but he is thriving and learning with Danelia. His mom said he loved coming to our English class and she said she has seen such a change in him the last few weeks. She thanked us all and we knew her appreciation was sincere. Seeing the look of hope in her eyes about her son’s future makes teaching in the hot, crowded little “classroom” (Danelia’s living room) worthwhile for all of us.
We have recently been attending a new church called Covenant Church. It’s a small congregation and is a bit more expressive in their worship than our previous church but we have felt very comfortable there. It is a church that has both Nicaraguans and Americans in it and we like having a more balanced mix plus it also has a Thursday night Bible study which we are really excited about. They are currently going through “Forgotten God” by Francis Chan. I was given that book by James, our pastor at FBC, when we were there in March and had just started reading it when I found out that was the study they were offering! It’s a good book and we’re enjoying the study.
Well, that’s it in a nutshell. There isn’t a day that goes by that something hasn’t happened that I wish I could share with you. The problem is that rarely do I find the time, or maybe I should say, make the time, these days to sit down and do it. It seems like every day, our plans get changed due to some “emergency” that needs to be taken care of immediately or some Impromptu meeting that must be attended or some “forgotten” task that must be managed. These are needs that we are trying to meet to help others and we are ultimately, hurting ourselves in the process. We have found that we are now working literally 7 days a week…that’s too much, regardless of how “good” the work is.
We are now in the process of trying to implement a schedule that is not quite so hectic. We know this is not what God wants us to do. This kind of busyness is detrimental in so many ways. It’s not healthy for us physically (we’re both exhausted right now as well as sick), nor emotionally, nor spiritually. There will always be needs and if you make yourself available, you will always be needed. But you won’t always be in God’s will. It’s such a simple concept and yet seems so difficult to maintain.
That being said, I’m going to bed. Jim’s already there…I wanted to post some pictures but I don’t want to disturb him by getting the camera…he needs to sleep well tonight. So, I’ll post some later. Besides, it’s late, I’m tired and we have a 7:00 a.m. meeting tomorrow morning with the staff at CINAFE. It’s important that we be there. Tomorrow morning is usually the day we take Raquel, the director of CINAFE, to the market and to Pali to buy groceries and supplies for the facility…but we had to do that this morning instead because Teresa, the cook, is going to be gone tomorrow…which meant we didn’t get to have our English class there this morning.
We also will need to go buy some supplies for our English class in Tipitapa that we have each Saturday plus for the school’s Sunday’s Mother’s Day celebration there. We have been asked to attend. We have to do that tomorrow as we have English class at CINAFE on Thursday plus a meeting with Raquel following class and then there’s our time that we try to spend with the kids there each afternoon. Friday, we have to take one of the children to the dentist and then it’s Saturday and Tipitapa and….See what I mean? It’s as hectic living it as it is trying to read it! Good night all. May God bring His rest to all of us tonight!

Rejoicing...

2010-05-10T17:53:00.002-06:00

Started to write about my visit with Yamuleith but didn’t want to wait to let you know about the amazing news we received Saturday while in Tipitapa. Danelia had called and asked if we could come to her house early before class. I was worried as I knew that she had taken Kenneth this past week to have his liver and abdomen checked.
We stopped and got our usual load of fruits and veggies to take to them and got there a few minutes after 11:00. As soon as we came down their road, we saw Kenneth out riding his bike. He seems to love his bike! We pulled up in front of the house and Danelia came walking down the road to meet us…we must have passed her on the way but I hadn’t notice her as there are always so many people out walking around.
We greeted one another and Arturo and Danelia asked us to come in and sit down. Danelia asked me to sit in one of their plastic chairs next to her. I could tell she was nervous and we spent a few minutes just making small talk. Finally, I told her that I thought she was worried about something and asked her if she could tell me what was wrong.
She looked at me for a minute and her face got very red. She told me that the new pastor at their church had decided that we couldn’t hold our classes there anymore, effective immediately. Before I could even react, Danelia apologized and said that the pastor was very jealous of us…I’m not sure how that can be as we just met him for the first time last week. He had asked us for a ride to his house in Managua when we were leaving and I had thought we had a good visit all the way to his home. Guess it wasn’t that great, after all.
Danelia said that he didn’t want us there as we were Baptists and that he was afraid we would want to “change” everyone. She said that he said he had to protect his church and that we could not come back. Danelia was getting angrier and angrier as she continued telling me of the conversation she had had with the pastor.
Danelia and I had talked about this a little last week. Evidently, the pastor had mentioned something to her earlier about us being there. When she introduced us to him, he seemed polite enough although he was perhaps a little stiff. She had told me then that he had asked if we were making the people pay money to come to our classes. She assured him we were not. He then asked her if we were asking anybody to give us anything. Again, she assured him we were not there to take anything from anyone. She said that she told him we were there to help the community by offering the classes for free and that we had been very well received by all of them. He told her that there are Americans who want to come her to take advantage of the Nicaraguan people and that they needed to be very careful about us.
I had noticed last week, while we were all waiting after class for a thunderstorm to end, that the Pastor was sitting by himself and not talking at all to any of the people there. The kids were playing back by him and he only watched them, never smiling at them. I asked Danelia if he was a good pastor and she said yes, but that he didn’t talk to anyone and that he seemed very serious all the time.
On the way back to Managua, he seemed friendly enough. He asked us how we knew Danelia and her family. He asked how many students we had each week in our classes and how long we had been teaching there. He asked what our denomination was (asking us this time) and what church we attended in Managua. He also wanted to know what other ministry work we had done and what we were currently doing in Nicaragua and how long we were going to stay here. He wanted to know where we lived and he wanted to know if our children were Christians. We talked about the difference of knowing about Jesus and the difference in having a relationship with Him. I didn’t think anything about his questions as Nicas are very curious people. I didn’t realize we were being interviewed. It looks like we didn’t fare too well with him.
Danelia was very upset and her eyes were filled with tears. She kept telling me that he was jealous of us. I was puzzled by that comment but I assured Danelia that it was fine and that his decision didn’t change anything between us. I told her that God was in control and that she and I love, worship and serve the same God. I told her that it didn’t matter to me what the name was on our churches as long as we knew Jesus Christ alone is our Lord and Savior. She agreed and she told me that she was so sorry that the pastor was being that way.
Danelia said she had served in that church for a long time and that she was angry that the new pastor would come in and do something like this and would not even listen to her. She said that all the people who knew us there were very glad we were there and she was very afraid we would be offended. I told her we were not offended at all and that although we didn’t necessarily like or agree with that decision, we could understand that the pastor wanted to protect his flock from those he might perceive as a threat.
I asked her if she wanted me to go ahead and teach English to her students or if it would be better if I didn’t. I told her I didn’t want her to have problems with the pastor because of us. Her face immediately brightened and she told me she definitely wanted me to teach and that she was afraid that I wouldn’t want to come back anymore because of the pastor’s decision. I told her that I would love to teach the kids. Danelia said that she was trying to find another place for us to teach. (There’s another whole story with that but that’s for another blog).
I asked her if the students knew what had happened and she told me no and that she hadn’t had time to tell them. At that, I felt sick. I didn’t want them to think that we had just decided that we didn’t want to teach them anymore. Danelia said that she would get hold of all of them and tell them what happened and that we were trying to find an alternative location.
About that time, Arturo stuck his head around the corner and said that it was time for some good news. I asked what the good news was and Danelia and Arturo looked at each other and she began to tell me about her visit with Kenneth’s doctor this week. The head of the oncology department asked to speak with her after they had the results from his liver test. She said she was very nervous to go talk to him as he was the doctor who had been so blunt that Kenneth was going to die and that nothing could be done to save his life, but only stretch his time here.
When Danelia had told him some time back that she believed that God had His hand on Kenneth, the doctor said that he had seen too many mothers who had said the same thing and then watched their children die. He told her that her faith wasn’t going to save her son. This was the same oncologist who lost his own son to the same type of cancer as Kenneth. I can understand why she was nervous to see him again.
When she went in to talk to him, there were several other doctors there. They had Kenneth’s reports and test results. They said that something had happened that they couldn’t explain. Kenneth’s kidneys and liver were fine. Recently, there had been 3 small tumors appear in his abdomen in addition to the 3 larger ones in his chest. All of those are now gone – his chest and abdomen x-rays came out clear! His blood work is good. He’s started to gain weight. He has new energy. His color is good. He hasn’t had a fever for several weeks and he hasn’t had any pain at all. They said they have one more thing they want to do and that’s to check his bones – probably more x-rays, I would imagine and he’s to have that done on Wednesday.
She said the doctor told her that the chemo could not have taken away that cancer as it was too far advanced. He said again that at best, it would only prolong his life. He shrugged his shoulders as he told her that they weren’t sure what was going on. She immediately told that room full of doctors that she knew and that it was God who had healed Kenneth and that she knew He had a great plan for Kenneth’s life.
Danelia broke down at this point and sobbed. She said that every child that had been in the same room with Kenneth each time he had been hospitalized has since died and she said she would often wonder if Kenneth was going to be next. She said that her life had become centered around prayer and that in those prayers, God told her that she was to serve Him by helping others and by being bold about what God has done in their lives. She said that God told her that she isn’t just supposed to tell others about Jesus but that she is to show others the love of Jesus.
This is where I got teary…this woman…this family…they have such mission hearts. How many folks have I known who had so much and yet gave so little? Too many…too many. Too many Christians have Heaven in their hearts but don't share it with those who are dying to an eternal death. For Pete’s sake…there are Christians who don’t even share with their brothers and sisters in Christ, let alone with those who aren’t believers! But this family shares what they do have with those who don’t have. My goodness, how God has used this family to open my eyes to the sin of selfishness in my own life. You know, when God’s conviction pours over you, He has a unique way of using the very thing that breaks your heart to heal your heart.
Back to the generosity of Danelia…here is a good case in point – the lady who cleans at the church also has been diagnosed with cancer. Her name is Claudia and she has leukemia. She is one of our students and she loves English class. What first struck me about Claudia wasn’t the scarf that covered her bare head but her beautiful smile. When Claudia smiles, that smile moves upward and her eyes sparkle like fire. She loves the Lord and that love lights up her face.
Claudia has five children and she is the sole supporter of the family. When she became sick, her husband left. She struggles to feed her children and even though she needs to be worried about her own health right now, her children are her priority. We have seen her clean when she was sick and in pain. Her job is physically taxing and she works hard at it. Claudia takes pride in what she does and is thankful that the Lord has provided her a job. Mopping and cleaning here is not an easy task at any time, but in the rainy season, the work is even harder but Claudia’s floors shine as brightly as her smile.
Danelia told me two weeks ago, that she had been sharing the Sustagen and the milk that we had given to Kenneth with Claudia. She told me that right now, Claudia needed it more than Kenneth since we were helping them with the added fruits and vegetables and that Claudia was getting weaker from the chemo.
Danelia was initially a little tentative about telling me that but I told her I was glad that she saw a need and that through what others had given, that God was helping her meet that need. I told her that’s what missionaries did. I told her that’s how we were able to help them was through what others had given to us. She thought about that for a minute and then nodded thoughtfully.
I had brought an extra can of Sustagen that day for Claudia and asked Danelia to make sure that Claudia would receive it. Danelia assured me that she would and said that she knew it was going to be a real blessing to Claudia and that she knew Claudia would be so grateful. So are we…let me just say right now, thank you for helping us meet these kinds of needs.
Okay, I digressed with my story about Danelia speaking with the doctors…back to it. Danelia said that she reminded the doctors that there were people in her church and in the United States praying for Kenneth. The head doctor said he remembered that she had American friends. He asked her if she was still going to church and if she still had faith. She said she was and the doctor said very softly not to quit.
She said she didn’t know why he said that because the tests show that Kenneth is “cancer free” and that she and Arturo know that God has done a miracle of healing in Kenneth. She began to cry again and I knew then how difficult it was for her to be free from that fear that has had its fierce grip on her heart for the last couple of years. She kept saying the tests show that there are no more tumors.
I put my arm around her and told her that God does indeed have a great plan for Kenneth’s life and that if he gives him many more years or whether his time here with us is short, it is a time that God has chosen and it is part of His plan. I told her that Kenneth’s story has been told many times and that there are so many who have come to know our Lord in a deeper way because of him. She slowly nodded her head in agreement. I told her that God was using Kenneth to soften the heart of the head doctor and that because of him, all of those doctors had heard about Jesus. At that, Danelia’s smile returned.
And now…our walk of faith continues. Only God knows what He has planned for Kenneth. I’m ashamed to say that there is that part of me that says maybe we are rejoicing a little prematurely, maybe we need to wait until next week’s results…but then there’s this Voice inside of me that says, “In whom are you putting your faith, your trust, your confidence…in man or in Me?”
So, for now, we are filled with joy and are praising His name, thanking Him for His faithfulness to Kenneth and this family. And regardless of what the bone test shows this week, our God is still our God and He is Lord! He is the same yesterday, today and forever. His name was Jehovah Rapha…is it not now?

He said, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you.” Exodus 15:26

Rough reflection...

2010-05-03T16:47:00.002-06:00

Since this is a holiday weekend, I’ve had lots of time today to catch up on my blogging. As I’m typing this, I realize it’s still hazy out…I can’t see the hills on the far side of the lake today nor can I see the volcano. I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty miserable later on today. As it is, even with all three fans going here in the bedroom, I’m sweating.
We had really heavy thunderstorms last night…several hours of unbelievable lightning and thunder. ..it was quite a show. And miraculously, our power stayed on through it all! Although the storms brought cooler temps at the time, it was still difficult to sleep with the amplified light show. And today, it’s just hot and sticky!
There’s been lots of activity out back. With this being a holiday weekend (it’s Labor Day here), the squatters on the hillside have decided that it would be a good time to bring electricity in to their community. They started early yesterday morning by digging holes across the road to set their electric poles…which are actually slender trees they have brought in and have cut all the branches off of them. There was quite a crowd out there…I decided it wouldn’t be the smartest thing to take a picture of them while they were working as they are stealing the electricity off a power pole up the road a little ways. I’m wondering where they “bought” the electric wire from…
It just seems so crazy to me that these are the same people who are avid supporters of the current government…and yet they’re stealing revenue from the government run electric company. They are also the same folks who participate in the religious parades of their patron saints…I am sure they would call themselves religious and are quick to use the phrase, “Gracias a dios” – “Thanks be to God” but they are blatantly stealing. Baffling…
On Friday, Raquel who is the director at CINAFE, asked us to take her, the cook and one of the girls to the market and then on to Pali, which is a grocery store here. It’s like a box store and is one step above the market and one step below a regular grocery store. Some Americans shop there but not many as the regular grocery store is so much more comfortable. Pali doesn’t have near the selection and if you want your groceries in bags, you must pay for them. You are also responsible for bagging your own groceries and getting them out to your car…or to the bus or taxi. It’s a bare-bones shopping experience and not nearly as much fun as the market but it’s also a little less risky…so I guess it’s a toss-up as to which I prefer.
We went to the market first to buy some fresh fruits and vegetables. We had taken Raquel the week before and took her to the stand that we buy from. Raquel still lives at home and so her mother does the shopping. They live in a neighborhood that is quite a distance from our end of town so she wasn’t at all familiar with the Israel market.
Last week, when we went, the vendors, Juan and Gloria, were very glad to see us again and we were given all kinds of free fruit. They basically ignored Raquel until I introduced her and told them that she was there to buy produce for a children’s home. Gloria assured me she would give her a good price. Raquel and I smiled at each other…we both knew that Gloria was going to try to get every last cordoba that she could…it’s how it is done here. Both parties bargain until they come to a price they can agree on.
This visit, Natalie was back and she and Gloria had a tougher customer with Teresa, the cook. Teresa is very saavy about shopping at the markets and she knows good produce from the lesser quality stuff. We basically turned her loose with Gloria and Natalie. Raquel more or less watched and Francela (one of the teen girls from CINAFE) wrote down all the prices on their list. Jim and I ate bananas while we watched the women fuss back and forth about the prices. The market is always busy but it seemed even busier Friday. We didn’t get there until the afternoon so the selection wasn’t the best but that didn’t seem to stop the shoppers from coming. I suppose it was because people were getting ready for the weekend.
As we were finishing the shopping up at the market, a little girl appeared and just kept staring at us. Gloria brought her over to me and introduced her as her granddaughter…Natalie Maria who is four years old. She is in her first year of preschool and told me she likes school but she likes to play better. She was the cutest little girl and she had to show me that her neck was sore. Her neck did look raw and irritated and so I asked Gloria what was wrong and she told me it was heat rash. I asked Jim to see if we had any candy left in the car and there were a couple of pieces. I gave them to Natalie Maria and told her I hoped her neck felt better and immediately, she was all smiles.
We got everything loaded and then went to Pali. It was packed. Pali is always a noisy, busy store and rarely do you see any manners being exercised. People cut in front of you in line, they push you out of the way, move your cart or reach across your face to get something. The first time we went, I was intimidated. The second time, I was a seasoned shopper! And although I don’t resort to any of the above behaviors, neither am I a shrinking violet when it’s time to shop. It’s kind of like driving here in Managua. You just keep moving and drive your cart both offensively and defensively at the same time. It’s controlled chaos at its best!
We had to get a few things for ourselves so Raquel, Teresa and Francela took a cart and began to shop and we did the same. We each got in a different line so that we finished up about the same time. While waiting to check out, we heard several big claps of thunder and then it began to pour. Finally, it let up some so that we could get out to the car and get all the groceries loaded.
Raquel wanted to get some cheese and cream from the cheese man who was selling his goods from a little stand set up right by the road. We all walked over there…Jim and I were curious and just observed the process. The vendor realized we weren’t buying anything so we basically became invisible. But he cut off a little piece of cheese for Raquel, Teresa and Francela to try…he knew those were his customers. American’s don’t buy his kind of cheese.
Raquel bought 6# of cheese and 4# of cream. The cheese was a soft, white cheese and the cream thick and yellowish. The cheese was sliced off a large block that was wrapped in a towel and it was weighed. The guy was really good and was almost perfect with the amount he cut. The cream came in little bags and each bag weighed a pound. The cost of the cheese and the cream came to less than $15.
I asked the gals when we got back in the car if that was good cheese and they all agreed that it was. Raquel told me that they came from the cows in Juigalpa. I asked if that was a better area for cheese and cream and she quickly said that it was. She said that there is a saying that Juigalpa is where the rivers are made of cream and the rocks are made of cheese. The Nicaraguans are such a poetic people.
We had planned on going on to PriceSmart but Raquel received a call that one of the accountants was at CINAFE and waiting on her so we hurried back to drop the gals and the goods off. We then headed over to our copy place to pick up some material we had copied to possibly use in some future children’s classes.
On the way to the copy store, we noticed there was an unusually high number of police on some of the streets. They weren’t working per se, (stopping traffic to write tickets), but were standing as though waiting for something or someone. We wondered if there were going to be more demonstrations or if perhaps, the president or a foreign dignitary was coming through. We both assumed it was in anticipation of a demonstration of some sort as the police were unarmed. They generally just stand by and watch when those occur and rarely get involved, even when there is violence occurring and people being hurt. This is an area where we judge these guys based on our own cultural beliefs…we believe the police should “serve and protect”. We don’t see that happening. I think they are more in place to try to increase revenue. It is becoming more and more a lawless land…
When we were beginning to pull in to the copy store parking lot, which is located across the street from a university, we were shocked to see such a large number of students gathered there. There were buses that were unloading students, not picking them up. When we got inside the copy store, I asked them what was going on and they said it was because of the holiday. This was almost 4:00 in the afternoon so we were surprised that they were just starting to assemble…it looked like it was going to be some party.
We left the copy place and were the next to the last car allowed to go on the main road. We saw the police were beginning to close off streets and we began meeting lots of buses coming from the other direction…all of them waving Sandanista flags. It looked as though the Labor Day afternoon gathering was going to turn in to another excuse for a political demonstration.
Traffic had come to a standstill and Jim and I both were uneasy. There were homemade mortars being shot and lots of whooping and hollering. We were on the outer lane but had a huge culvert on the right of us...we were stuck. I took several pictures but because I took them when we were moving, they didn’t come out. (Our little digital camera does not have the capability of stop action photography so unless I’m perfectly still, our pics don’t turn out. Frustrating because we or our subjects seem to always be on the move! ) Even so, I only took a few pics because for the most part, we decided to try to stay as inconspicuous as possible. We saw that many were drinking and that many of the truckloads that were passing had young men, waving their machetes and flags. The “people’s party” looked to be intent on raising cain somewhere.
Thankfully, we were soon able to start moving again and passed dozens of buses on our way home, all headed toward a central meeting place…they reminded me of lemmings going to the sea. We found out from our guard that there were going to be very few city buses running until Tuesday as the government had hired the majority of them to bring in loyal party members from all over the country to celebrate the government’s stance on taking care of the working man. I have one word for that…Ha! It would better serve the people if the “government” would get out in to the barrios and see how their people have to live. Sadly, though, I doubt if it would make any difference…greed, graft and corruption seem to remain the driving force in politics here. I can’t help but think that if Christians would do what Christians are supposed to do, that things would change. It makes me scrutinize myself and my witness even more.
Remember that children’s song, O Be Careful Little Eyes What You See? I’m about to issue that warning here…you might not like what you’re about to read. As I usually do, when I am convicted about something, I want to share the conviction!
I am currently reading the book, In His Steps, by Sidney Sheldon. I may have already told you that… It’s a fictional story that was written in the late 1800s and it began the WWJD movement years later…it’s a book well worth reading and according to Wikipedia, I’m not alone in believing that. “First published in 1896, the fictional book has sold more than 30,000,000 copies, and ranks as the 39th best-selling book of all time…” If you’ve not read it, I heartily recommend it. If you know me very well, you know I am a reader but I’m very careful about what I read and what I recommend. I have no hesitations in endorsing this one.
But as sometimes happens when I’ve read something really powerful, I’m haunted by the message of this book so that recommendation comes with a warning. More than a trite saying found on rubber bracelets, the “What would Jesus do?” question has been plaguing me at the oddest times. It’s more than me asking the question of what would Jesus do? It’s what I then do with the answer.
The effect this book has had on me has been much like Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper and The Autobiography of George Mueller. That thought occurred to me when I reflected upon us being in the middle of all those soon-to-be demonstrators. What would Jesus do if He were in the middle of a potentially explosive crowd? Would He be frightened and wish He were somewhere else? Oh, yeah…He had been in the middle of that type of crowd and He had also been in the middle of the crowd after it had exploded. So, what did He do? He remembered His mission and He remembered why He was sent on that mission…and His heart broke for His “people group”.
Reading this book has really jarred me. It is so easy to get caught up in the politics of this country…and in the politics of the States. The Three Big O’s (Oprah, Obama and Ortega) won’t save us and our politics won’t save us. The only Savior is Jesus Christ. If only our fervor for Him was as great as our fervor for political debate or for the queen of talk shows. (Don’t let me get started on Oprah!) What a different world we might live in.
We blame Satan and sin for the terrible conditions of the world…I don’t argue his involvement in the deterioration of morality. But maybe the reason he’s been so successful in his mission is because we’ve been such failures in our commission. Maybe we need to examine ourselves a little closer and take some personal responsibility for the current state of affairs. What have we, as followers of Jesus Christ, done to confront evil in our world? In our nations? In our cities? In our neighborhoods? In our homes? In ourselves?
Have we taken any action at the risk of personal loss to confront evil in any of these areas or is that the very reason we’ve chosen not to do so? Have we been willing to soften the gospel message so as not to offend? Have we been willing to close our eyes to compromise so as not to disturb? Have we substituted conviction with complacency? Have we been willing to live a life of excuses? What is Jesus going to do with those? What is Jesus going to do with us? What is He going to do with me?
Sigh. Thank you, Charles Sheldon, for making me question so many things…you have disturbed my comfort zone.

Answered prayers...

2010-05-03T07:00:00.000-06:00

Our latest answer to some personal prayers came as such a surprise. I am not surprised that God heard these prayers…I think I’m surprised that He said “yes”! Truthfully, I wasn’t expecting that and I have to confess the reason for that is because I kind of felt like those were selfish prayers and I was even hesitant approaching God with those wants. I cannot pretend that these were real needs, they weren't. But they were real wants.
If you remember, I have mentioned several times how much I would love to have a freezer but every time we have looked at them, we have felt like they were just too cost prohibitive. Our desire to have one is very similar to the reasons we had before we were given one in the States…that was an extremely generous Christmas gift to us from my mom. That’s when we still had the kids with us and our refrigerator’s freezer just wasn’t big enough. Well, that’s the same reason we have been wanting a freezer now…except we no longer have our much-loved family living with us.
Since the temperatures have been so hot lately, (today, it’s only 91 but the heat index is above 100 degrees…nasty!) Jim is buying ice about every two days and having to keep the freezer compartment of our fridge filled with an ice bag leaves little room for anything else. Recently, the little meat market where we sometimes go to shop, had a really good cut of beef on sale for about $2.30 a pound. I would have liked to have bought some extra meat to freeze but knew our space limitations and could not.
I also thought that if we ever got a freezer, I could buy some ice trays (assuming I can find some) and make our own ice and bag it. We can refill a 5 gallon bottle of water for even less than what a 10# bag of ice costs us. I don’t know how practical that actually is but I know that when I really want something, I can come up with all kinds of ways to justify getting it!
The benefits of a freezer would be endless…or so I rationalized. Buying extra meat when it’s on sale was just the beginning of my dreaming. I could buy fresh mangos when in season, cut them up and freeze them so I would have plenty for mango bread throughout the year. I would have room for a veggie soup container…I always would save leftover veggies and toss them in a Lock ‘n Lock in the freezer and when I would have more month than money, I would make vegetable soup. I could keep my flour and pancake mix in there so I wouldn’t have to worry about bugs. Or extra bags of milk so I wouldn’t be caught without milk…which rarely happens, by the way but it helped to add it to my list of “why”. Or if someone should bring us bags of nuts or chocolate chips or York Peppermint Patties…I could throw them in the freezer.
I had a long list but I was pretty sure God didn’t really need me to justify yet another of my “wants”. We have managed without a freezer for 2 years now and I know in my heart, I didn’t have to have one…but it sure would be nice if we did.
Well, the other day, we received an e-mail that is sent out to the ICF community (International Christian Fellowship which is the church we attend). It is mainly for people in our church but anyone can sign up to receive it and it is a great way for folks to communicate needs. Items wanted, items being sold, meetings, announcements, etc. are all communicated through this means. We always read these with great interest and the few times we have seen things we have wanted, we are generally too late in responding to get them. Usually, no matter whatever the item is that is being sold, it goes really fast.
I just “happened” to be checking e-mail when this particular e-mail came through Friday morning and I read that a couple was going to be leaving Nicaragua and they were having a sale of their belongings. This type of notification is the one that draws the most interest in the missionary community. We are all looking for items that we would like to have but either cannot obtain here or cannot afford if available.
I immediately recognized the missionaries’ names…I think they are among the last IMB missionaries, if not the last ones, still in Nicaragua...and obviously, they aren’t going to be here that much longer. We found out they are going to be moving to Santiago, Chile in July.
Now I have to tell you that these sales are usually fever pitch events. I quickly scanned the list to see what they might have for sale and lo and behold, I saw the words “freezer”…I saw it twice! They had an old upright and a newer chest freezer to sell. I was so excited and called Jim to look at the ad. He said he thought the prices were good and so I asked Jim if he would call them and get some info. The whole time he was dialing the number, I was preparing myself for the disappointing response of “I’m sorry…they’ve already been sold.” Much to my surprise, they had not!
Long story short, because we were going to be in Tipitapa the next day when Karen and Loren were actually going to be having a garage sale for many of their smaller items and taking reservations for the most of the larger items, they told us we could go ahead and come out to see them to see if we might be interested in them.
We arrived at their home, which is not terribly far from where we live, and found only one other missionary there looking at items. I expected there to be lots of people but Loren said that most people were just calling and reserving the items over the phone. My heart sunk. We happened to know the other missionary that was already there. He and his wife have the orphanage where we use to volunteer when we first came here and it’s always good to see both of them but I figured he would be interested in the same items we were interested in. He wasn’t!!!
I didn’t expect to find the freezers in such good condition. The chest freezer turned out to be only a year old and looked to be as though it were in like new condition. The price was very good, a little over half of what a new one would cost us, and though it was the more expensive of the two, it was the right size for the two of us. The catch was that they wanted to continue to use it until July when they would be moving to Chile. The upright freezer was also a great size for us and although it had a couple of broken pieces on the inside and had suffered some cosmetically, it was definitely functional. It might need a new seal at some point but it is working fine for now. The price was very reasonable for it (at least it’s reasonable for Nicaland) and it could be moved at any time.
Jim and I talked about it. The $100 freezer would be fine…but what if the seal failed and we had trouble finding a new one? We would then be in the same shape that we’re in now but worse…we would have frozen food to store and no freezer to store it in. The brand is a Tappan and is at least 11 years old as they brought it with them. We’ve not seen that brand here at all.
After a lot of discussing, we decided we would go ahead and buy both of them, use the upright until we can get the chest freezer in July, and then, if we decide we want to get rid of it, we can donate it to CINAFE or to someone who needs one. I was so excited…we were going to get a freezer!!!
But wait…there’s more! God must have enjoyed seeing me grin from ear to ear, because He wasn’t through with the surprises. Karen also had a washer and dryer that she was selling! We don’t need a washer but oh, my goodness, wouldn’t a dryer be so nice to have, especially with the rainy season just starting? But, I didn’t have high hopes. Almost all dryers that we have seen for sale have been electric and we would have to have one that ran on propane. I asked her if it was gas or electric and I couldn’t believe my ears when she said it was gas!
Again, it’s an old Maytag dryer…another appliance they brought with them from the States, but they have had very few problems with it and it was running while were there and it seemed to be doing just fine. I think they use it all the time, from what I gathered, but we would use it only when the weather wouldn’t permit us to hang clothes out. Our “solar dryer” works great and when there’s the slightest wind, I don’t even have to iron anything. So, a dryer really would be a luxury. The price was a great price…again, compared to the other used dryers that we’ve seen here, and it was a gas dryer, to boot. Everyone we know who has a dryer has said that it’s the one luxury they wouldn’t want to give up…I’m not so sure about that but I’m willing to find out for myself! Again…a July acquisition item as they have teams coming almost up to the day they are leaving so they will need to keep it until then.
Wow…three appliances…could it get any better? You betcha! They were selling the 100# propane tanks that they had. This is another item that we have talked about getting but couldn’t justify the price as we felt like the 2- 25# tanks that we use (we always keep a spare) worked fine for us. But, with us getting the dryer, it made sense that it would be a good idea to get a big tank and use it for both the dryer and the stove. And the added benefit to that is that it is cheaper to do that than to refill the tanks plus the gas truck would come here and change the tank out for us and Jim wouldn’t have to take the tanks to the store anymore. Jim was extremely happy with that item!
There was one more item that caught our eye on their list of items to sell. I knew we were pushing the edge of our “want” envelope. We hadn’t needed any of the above items but I have to admit that I was so excited that we were going to have a few things that were going to make life a bit easier here. Did we dare even ask about this last item? Why not? It wouldn’t hurt to look, would it? The item in question were bunk beds...they had a total of four to sell.
We asked to see them and Loren took us out back to a combination tool and guest house they had behind their house. He was surprised when we expressed interest in the very plain and narrow set that was in the corner. There was another set that looked much more “American” and he had just assumed that would be the set we would want. We had initially thought we might like to purchase a better set of bunk beds than the one we have, but once we saw what he had, our focus changed. We were no longer interested in a set for us. We saw a set that would be perfect for Kenneth and Lindsay.
The set we chose is a set that Loren had made up in Matagalpa when they lived up there. It is of solid cedar so that termites are not an issue and it is very solid. Most of the bunk bed sets we see here are made of hollow metal tubing and are very prone to bending and rusting. This set obviously wasn’t going to have that problem. And because it was shorter (less than 6’ long) and a little more narrow than a single bed would be, it would fit in Arturo and Danelia’s bedroom.
The other selling point was that the beds could be taken apart so that they could work as two individual beds, so that if they ever had the need, they could separate them. (That’s something that our beds can’t do…when separated, they are too flimsy to act as individual beds). Another bonus with the set for the kids is that the colchones (roll-up mattresses) will come with them! By getting the kids bunk beds, that will enable each of them to have their own bed so they no longer have to share a bed.
So, right now, some of the things we have chosen are on “layaway”! Everything we bought came to less than $900. I don’t think that’s bad for two freezers, a dryer, a 100# gas tank, a set of bunk beds and the colchones. I know that sounds like an awful lot of money…and it is. Believe me, no one knows that better than we do. But, we also believe that God enabled us to find these items in such good condition and at such good prices for here. With the exception of the items we will be donating, we can always sell the others if we should no longer have need of them and although we probably wouldn’t recoup all that we spent, we could certainly get some return.
We gave Loren a $200 down payment to hold the items and as soon as we can find someone who will let us borrow their pickup truck, we can go ahead and get the empty gas tank, the upright freezer and the bunk beds. The other freezer and the dryer will have to wait until July…but I’m not complaining. Are you kidding me? I am not just excited that we will finally have a freezer…and a dryer, but more than that, I am so excited that we were able to see how God worked this out to bless us. As a matter of fact, that was exactly what Loren and I talked about. He was happy that his items were going to be a blessing and I was thrilled that we were going to be blessed in this way!
There were lots of other items that would have been “nice” to have but truthfully, we are trying very hard to live less complicated lives here. And from my own personal perspective, I find that too many times, “stuff” complicates. That probably doesn’t sound that way after I just listed all these things we’re buying but honestly, we don’t live a terribly “high” life here. So many of the things we took for granted two years ago, we have gained a new appreciation for now.
We still have yet to go to a movie or go for a weekend at the beach or out to dinner at a really nice place. We have one very small television and Mandy just sent us a DVD player this year for Christmas for our huge collection of 3 or 4 dvds! We don’t have a swimming pool. We have only one car and it’s almost 12 years old and well-used. We use our action packers as our end tables…I’ve just stacked two to a stack and covered them with towels. We don’t have any dressers…we use stacked storage cubes instead. Our everyday dishes and glasses are plastic. Most of our furniture is hand-made and as a result, has lots of “character”...some folks would call those mistakes. And we don’t have air conditioning.
But we will soon have a freezer and a dryer! And that makes this mama very happy! And it also makes me extremely grateful that God has brought me to the point that I can recognize and appreciate the ability to be thankful for buying an 11 year old freezer and dryer. That’s the real gift in all of this…the gift of being a work in progress…of God changing my heart, my values and moving me towards being a less selfish person. I have a long way to go yet but I just want to say, thank you, God, for changing my perspective as much as you have in the last two years. You are indeed, the God of answered prayers.

Felix is sick...

2010-05-02T10:51:00.001-06:00

Well, Felix was late but he did come to work. It didn’t take Jim but just a minute to realize he shouldn’t have. He was in so much pain and he looked awful. Jim just took him back home. The visit to the other church will have to wait a week.
Felix has been complaining for some time of pain in his lower back, fever, nausea and occasional pain in the lower left quadrant of his stomach. We told him he needed to go to the doctor and he finally did. We helped him with the bus expense as that seemed to be the stumbling block for him going. Can you imagine? Our worry is no insurance…his is bus fare. That’s the difference between public health care and private health care…that is, that’s the first difference you see. Public health care consultations are free and private health care consultations are costly. That’s as good as it gets, trust me. It goes downhill from there.
Felix saw the doctor. He told him he “probably” had parasites and began treating him for that. Felix got a little better but that was short-lived. His complaints returned. The doctor then said that he needed to quit eating beans (mind you, that is the family’s main source of protein)and to drink lots of citric juice, like pineapple, orange and lemon juice. “Lots” when you are poor is very little. Once again, he felt better for a few days and once again, his symptoms returned. The doctor then decided that Felix was sick because they were drinking contaminated water and so now, Blanca boils their water.
He has been to the doctor 3 or 4 times in the last month and each time, there has been a different diagnosis and another round of antibiotics. The “free” visits to the government-run clinic in El Crucero are possible for Felix only because we are able to help him with his bus fare and the subsequent medication that the doctor prescribes for him. There is a clinic in his barrio but they are even less-equipped with staff and medications.
A few days ago, Felix came to work and apparently, he had been sick all day. We were gone until early afternoon and when we got home, we saw one sick man. Jim took him home and Felix said he was going to try go to the doctor that afternoon. I gave him money for the bus and a little extra in case the doctor prescribed any meds.
Since the next day was his day off, we didn’t see him again until Friday. He told me then that he had gone to the doctor Wednesday afternoon and that the doctor had prescribed another antibiotic and one pill for pain. He said he had a kidney infection and that he should start to feel better in just a few days. He had enough money from what I had given him on Wednesday, to buy the medication.
He came to work Friday and once again, Jim took him home early. Saturday, he told us he felt better but when we returned from Tipitapa about 4:30, we could see that his color was not good and he was feverish. His eyes are starting to look a little jaundiced. He went back to the clinic in his barrio and they told him he needed to have some tests done and that they think he might have kidney stones. He is scheduled to have a sonogram done on Tuesday morning...that is his late morning to come to work because Freddy come early.
Today, he is in so much pain, he can hardly walk and he is quite feverish. I am worried about him. I would not be at all surprised if he does have kidney stones and as bad as that is, I’m hoping that it’s not anything worse than that. We tried to get him to go to the hospital ER but he said the doctor told him he had to have the sonogram done first. So, he has to wait…and stay in pain. Jim asked if he could have the sonogram done earlier but he said that was the time they gave him the appointment. It is typical here to have to go to a specialized lab or testing place to have any kind of lab work or electronic diagnostics done…that is not free and I know Felix is worried about how much that is going to cost. I would imagine this is another area where we can help him.
We told him this morning that he needed to go home and rest. He kept apologizing and I told him that his health was more important to us than our plans for the day. I told him I wasn’t worried about it and I didn’t want him to be worried about it either. He said he did worry. We also told him that if he is still sick in the morning, that we wanted him to stay at home. He said he needs his job. I told him he had his job and that we wanted him to get well.
Today was payday and I think that was one of the reasons he came to work. We paid him his full week’s wages, which was extra this week with Saturday being a holiday (Labor Day). What we’ve been doing goes against everything we’ve been told. Almost without exception, we have been told that we cannot be lenient with our employees because they will see us as weak and will take advantage of us. I cannot believe even by the wildest stretch of my imagination that Felix is trying to take advantage of us. If he is, God will take care of that on His end. But either way, we’re not here to guard against being taken advantage of, we’re here to show the love of Christ. And right now, I think our guard needs to be reminded that God loves him and cares for him and that God is telling us that He can use us to be that reminder. We are always so blessed when we are faithful to be His blessing to someone else…makes me wonder why there are so many times I question and even resist that call? Today is a good day to ponder that.

Sunday notes...

2010-05-02T08:38:00.001-06:00

We’re going to go visit a different church this morning and it doesn’t begin for another couple of hours so I thought I would get these updates written really quickly.

Yamuleith: She’s continuing to battle the infection in her body…I would ask that you keep her in your prayers. We are trying to boost her nutrition so that her body can help fight off the infection…the possibility of sepsis is a reality and one of my Stateside friends who is a nurse and has had some experience with these kinds of wounds, told me that she is also at risk for infection in the bone. Oh, how I wish that she were here now…

Kenneth: The test on his kidneys (which was nothing more than a urinalysis) that he had done last Wednesday indicated that he didn’t have any infection in his kidneys and that was no sign of any blood. We’re trusting God that his kidney’s are functioning as they should. He goes this Wednesday to get his liver, abdomen and chest checked again…they want to see if the tumors in his chest are growing. He still has the on-and-off fever and now, is sometimes short of breath. I’m praying that it’s just the weather that is causing the shortness of breath…the air has been so heavy lately. His color was better yesterday and when we went by the house before class to drop off the fruits and veggies for this week, he was outside with the neighbor boy, riding his bike! That was a good sign!

Miguel and Elizabeth: Neither has made any move for reconciliation. We didn’t see Elizabeth yesterday, she didn’t come to class, but we did see Miguel and spoke with him for awhile. He said that his mother said that she didn’t want Elizabeth or any other woman to come there to live. He told me he didn’t know what to do. I told him I understood why his mother felt that way to a point. There’s some pretty compelling evidence that points to Elizabeth having recently taken some money from Mama’s house. Stealing continues to be a problem with Elizabeth and when confronted with it, she refuses to say a word. Miguel feels torn between his family and his wife and has hard feelings towards both. Jim asked him if he thought if he and Elizabeth would have a better marriage if they lived somewhere else, apart from his family. He said he didn’t know, maybe. I disagree. At one time I thought that might have been a solution to the tension that exists in this family dynamic but I don’t believe that anymore. I don’t think the problem with Miguel and Elizabeth is a location issue, I think it’s a heart issue. And until the two of them are ready to humble themselves before the Lord, this problem is going to continue.

CINAFE: We are supposed to go there this afternoon and do another planting activity with the kids but our day guard has yet to show up so I’m not even sure if we’ll get to go to church, let alone to CINAFE. He has been sick this week so I’m not sure if that’s the reason he’s not here or if it’s because it’s a holiday weekend and there are hardly any buses running. Anyway…it is getting to the point we are busy 7 days a week and we are going to have to sit down and write a schedule for us. We are now helping with taking the director and cook to buy groceries, transporting to appointments, going to buy necessary materials, etc. We need our day of rest. It is hard for us to say no to all the needs but we know that if we don’t get our boundaries in place, we will become too tired and then resentful. I never know what God has in store for us but I do know that’s not God’s plan for us. I think with the exception of doctor’s appointments, if we can get a schedule written for when we are available to help, that will ease things up some…I remember wondering what I was going to do with my time when we made the decision to not return to Los Cedros…not a problem!

Well, I will go ahead and get ready for church and we’ll see what happens. If he doesn’t come, we will listen to an on-line sermon and I’ll get some long-overdue laundry done. Until next time, we encourage you to:

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Yamuleith Part 4

2010-04-30T23:16:00.003-06:00

It's late and this is long but it's finally written almost two weeks after the fact. The story of Yamuleith continues but this particular account is finished.

Erika stayed Friday night (her first night at the hospital) with Yamuleith and I said I would come and relieve her for several hours on Saturday afternoon so she could go home and check on things there. We called Miguel and explained the situation to him and we all decided to go ahead and cancel our classes in Tipitapa so that I would have that time available.
Erika called and wanted us to go by her house first and pick up Yamuleith’s special air mattress that she sleeps on. It is supposed to help some with preventing the pressure wounds but I’m not convinced. Erika also wanted us to bring a plastic chair so that she would have somewhere to sit in the room and to buy another plastic water bottle for her to use there.
About an hour before we got ready to leave, it began to rain and it rained hard. As we drove in to the barrio where Erika lives, we could see that the water was rushing across one of the low places in the road. The water was emptying in to the drainage ditch by the road and it was a swirling, boiling mess. Jim stopped and we watched it for a few minutes. I immediately felt panicky…I am scared to death of water, can’t swim a lick and just the thought of going in to that rushing water almost paralyzed me with fear.
The only thing I could hear was the voice of Ron Hearst from KY3 Weather in my head…he was cautioning not to try to drive across any low water bridge area that is covered by water…let alone rushing water! But obviously, the other three cars that went around us had never heard the sage advice of Mr. Hearst. Jim patiently sat there and said quietly that he thought we would be fine. I wasn’t so sure but I finally said that we would just do it.
We got across fine…although I think I may have had a mild heart attack in the process! One of the twins met us at the house to give us the mattress and the chair. We then had to go back across the raging Rio Grande to get back out on the main road. We lived through it…obviously. But the trip to the hospital was slow going as many of the streets were flooded and those that weren’t had trash and debris that had washed in to the roads making them a giant obstacle course.
We stopped at the gas station to get a PowerAde for Yamuleith…not for the drink but for the bottle. I called Erika to let her know we were in the parking lot and she told us to come back by the ER door again. She had her son, Erik, go to a window near the ER and handed her admittance card through the window to him. He then met us at the ER waiting room (the outside area) and gave me her admittance card. He told me that I had to go through the front door and show the guard the card and then Erika should be waiting for me in the hallway. I felt like I was some sort of undercover spy having to sneak in to the hospital this way.
Jim went to park the car and wait for Erika as he was going to drive her and Erik home while I stayed with Yamuleith. There was the usual crowd of people waiting at the front door and Erik carried the chair and mattress to the door for me. I showed the guard the card and he waved me in. We started in the door and he stopped Erik and told him he couldn’t go in. So, I took the stuff from him and started through the door and the guard stopped me, telling me I couldn’t take the things in. I told him they were for a patient and he wanted to know what I was bringing in and why. Well, I thought the chair was pretty obvious but I told him the chair was so that I could have a place to sit and that the mattress was a special type of air mattress for the patient. He looked at it, touching it and lifting the edges of it and then looking at the motor. He then said, looking at me quite suspiciously, that the hospital didn’t have that kind of mattress. I told him I knew that and that is why I was bringing her mattress from home. He asked to see the admittance card again and then looked at me. I looked back.
Finally, he said that I needed to have permission to take it inside. I asked him who I needed to talk to get permission and he then said I had to have a permission slip…with the emphasis on the word for paper. Okay. I realized the game was just beginning. So, I smiled and then asked him where I could get a permission slip. He pointed to a window inside the hospital lobby. I asked if I could take the things in to the lobby with me as I didn’t want to leave them outside. It was his turn then to smile and he told me “no”. He repeated again that I needed a permission slip to take the things inside because the hospital didn’t have a mattress like that. What-ev-er!!!
I took a deep breath and told him again I didn’t want to leave those things outside while I was inside. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say…”That’s not my problem, lady.” I looked up and saw Erik walking towards the parking lot to go find Jim, and I hollered at him and had him come and stand by the chair and mattress.
Of course, this whole mini-drama was great entertainment for the crowd waiting. The guard having the gringa jumping through his hoops must have been great fodder for later conversations. I imagined that the people who had crowded around the guard and me must have looked like they were watching a tennis match as their heads would turn first toward the guard and listen to what he had to say and then in unison, they would turn towards me to hear my response.
I went to the window which was a solid piece of glass with a small circle cut out for the purpose of talking. This probably is sufficient if one speaks and understands the language extremely well. I wasn’t looking forward to trying to communicate through this little opening with the woman behind the glass. Not a problem…the lady was on the phone and apparently, wasn’t in any hurry to get off. I stood and waited…and waited…and waited. Finally, she finished her call and without raising her head to look at me, she asked what I wanted.
I started out by saying I was sorry that I didn’t speak Spanish very well and that it was difficult for me to understand but that I was told I needed to get a permission slip from her to bring in a plastic chair and a special mattress. She told me that I could bring in the chair but I couldn’t bring in the mattress because they had mattresses for the patients. I told her that this was a special mattress that was filled with air because the patient couldn’t stay on a regular mattress. She told me again that they didn’t have that kind of mattress in their hospital. Again, I said that was why I was bringing one in.
She then asked to see my admittance card. I handed it to her and she examined it very closely before giving it back to me. She wanted to know where the chair and mattress were and I pointed to the door. I told her the security guard wouldn’t let me bring them inside without the permission slip.
She got on the intercom and called for a supervisor to come to the lobby. About that time, I spied Erika down the hallway and motioned for her to come and help me. She shook her head “no” and turned and walked the other way. Great. I realized that she was afraid that they would ask for her admittance card and because I had it, she was in the hospital “illegally”. I knew I was on my own with the next level of administration.
I thought I would probably have to wait some time before the supervisor showed up but it was just a minute or so until a grumpy-faced woman appeared. She looked at me as though I was more of a threat than a nuisance. When the other lady explained to her that I wanted to bring a special mattress in to the hospital, the grumpy-faced lady looked at me and told me in a very irritated voice that they have mattresses there for the patients. I explained, yet again, that this was a special mattress and the patient needed it. She glanced around the lobby and asked where was the mattress. I motioned outside. She told me to go get it.
I went back to the door and opened it, hitting the security guard in the back. I apologized and reached for the chair and mattress. Fat chance I was going to get to bring it inside now after clobbering the guard with the door. Of course, he asked to see my permission slip and told me for the umpteenth time that I had to have a permission slip to bring the things in the hospital. I was in awe that he was still able to utter his little speech without showing any signs of irritation. I, on the other hand, was tiring of the whole rigamarole. I told him the woman at the window wanted to see the items. Of course, he didn’t believe me. I motioned for the two women to come to me and by some miracle, they complied. The guard told the women I needed to have a permission slip. I couldn’t even begin to follow what came out of the supervisor other than I knew she had an extremely impatient tone to her voice. I could identify.
The guard nodded his head and I told Erik to bring the things inside. He hesitated. I told him to get the chair and mattress and carry them inside. He quickly grabbed them and I thought for a split second that the guard wasn’t going to let him in but I think he realized that particular power game was over. The supervisor had continued to talk and her voice hadn’t softened on iota.
Erik sat the chair down in the lobby. Both women were puzzled when they saw the mattress and the pump. Obviously, they both were expecting something that looked more like a conventional mattress. The supervisor told me that the hospital didn’t have any mattresses like that. I told her I knew that and that was why I was bringing the one from the patient’s home. She asked to see my admittance card and told me that they had mattresses for their patients but they didn’t have any mattresses like that. OH, MY GOODNESS!!! This was like a cross between the movie “Groundhog Day” and the old Abbott and Costello routine of Who’s On First!!!!
I reiterated that the patient needed a special type of mattress and that it was her personal mattress. I told her that I knew the hospital had mattresses but that the patient needed this special mattress and that was the reason I had gone to her house and was bringing it to her. The supervisor and the other lady talked between themselves for a minute and finally, the first lady went back in her office and came out with the pad of coveted permission slips.
They then wrote a very detailed description of the white plastic chair and the mattress and the pump, recording every detail, and all the manufacturing info that was printed on the pump. The supervisor signed off on the permission slip and as she gave it to me, she told me that I would need to keep that permission slip as it was then the only proof that those items were mine. She said that when I took them back out of the hospital, I would have to show that slip in order to leave with them so that they would know I wasn’t stealing the items from the hospital. It took everything in me to keep from saying, “You don’t have this kind of mattress in the hospital”…but my good sense kicked in and I realized it would be counterproductive…even if it would have been funny. I mean seriously…how could I steal something from the hospital that they don’t have???
I thanked the ladies and asked if Erik could carry them for me and they said that he could but then he would need to leave….he didn’t have an admittance card! AARGHH!!! Erik and I walked down towards where I had seen Erika. She was waiting in a group of people and when we got close, she motioned for us to join her. She then took us to Yamuleith’s room. I glanced at my watch…it had been almost thirty minutes since I first tried to enter the hospital. Security companies around the world should have their employees trained at this hospital!
Yamuleith heard my voice when I walked in to her room and she smiled and said my name. I saw she was lying on a patched stained sheet and was covered with a thin hospital gown. She had two IVs going and her “pillow” consisted of a small plastic bag of water wrapped in a towel and another towel rolled up adjacent to it. It was hot in the room. The windows were open and because they had no screens, the flies were buzzing in and out. She was sharing a room with two other women, both much older. Each had someone with them. The room was small and crowded and there was just barely enough room for two people to stand between Yamuleith’s bed and her roommate, Gloria’s bed. It was noisy with everyone talking loudly and at the same time.
I went to Yamuleith’s bedside and touched her face and asked how she was. She told me she was better and then asked me if I had brought any carne asada with me. That’s a grilled meat here and Yamuleith loves it. She gets it only when the gringos come. It didn’t look as though she had been bathed yet. The bandages on her knees had been changed and her ankles rested on bags of water, similar to the one under her head. Her voice was weak.
Erika quickly gathered up her things and got ready to go. I gave her back the admittance card so she would be able to get back in to the hospital. She told me that the nurse had said that I needed to write Yamuleith’s name on the chair…I didn’t have a marker and neither did the nurse. Erika worried someone would take the chair. I assured her I wouldn’t let anyone have the chair and so she and Erik told Yamuleith good-bye and they left. I called Jim and told him to watch for them and then I began to visit with Yamuleith.
As I talked with her, I tried to take in all that I was seeing. The paint on the walls had peeled, leaving large bare areas that showed various degrees of grime. The room’s bathroom had a sink, a toilet and a shower. The shower didn’t work and seemed to be a storage area for mops and cleaning supplies. The toilet looked like it was in need of a good cleaning and there was no toilet paper. The sink’s leaky pipes emptied in to a cracked bucket which sat underneath the sink. The bathroom light was so dim that it was almost non-existent. I felt sick…somehow I knew that the private hospital would have provided much better care. I realized more than ever the chasm between those who have money and those who don’t. We were on the “don’t” side.
Yamuleith said she hadn’t slept well the night before. I’m sure she missed her own bed and I’m also sure she was in such pain that it must have been difficult. While we were talking, Yamuleith insisted I sit in the chair right by her bedside. She had a fan blowing directly on her but she asked me to turn it off as she felt cold. I felt her and she was feverish. The nurse came in and hung a third IV bag…it was her antibiotic. As she walked out, the lady who was tending to Gloria, noticed that it was leaking all over Yamuleith’s bed. She also realized that I didn’t speak Spanish very well and so at that moment, she made it her personal mission to take care of and to educate the uninformed gringa on how things worked in a government run hospital.
She went out to the nurse’s station and called the nurse back in. She looked at the IV and said that it was fine…obviously, it wasn’t as the sheet was getting soaked where the shunt part lay. Her answer was to move it off the bed. So, what that accomplished was that the antibiotic was dripping all over the floor. I wondered if Yamuleith was getting any of it at all. The nurse told me I could get the mop and clean up the floor. As I started in to the bathroom, Gloria’s friend was horrified and she quickly took the mop and mopped it up for me. I thanked her and she told me how awful the hospital and the nurses were there. I agreed but I wished she wouldn’t have said it quite so loudly...I knew Yamuleith had to have heard that.
Yamuleith and I visited. I asked her why she liked carne asada so much and she smiled. She told me when she was a little girl that her father used to fix it. She told me that she had six older brothers. I didn’t give any indication at that point that I knew about what had happened to her. I asked her if she could walk and run as a little girl and she told me she could but when she was 13, she had become very sick and that after that, she couldn’t walk anymore. She said that she was always very sick after that. She became very quiet and I could tell she was thinking about things. I stroked her face and quietly whispered to her that I was so sorry that she had had such a hard life. She whispered back, “gracias, Lynne”. She had no tears but I did.
About that time, a nurse came in with a stack of paper plates and handed me one. It had some rice with just a smidgen of chopped up beef, carrots and onions mixed in it and ½ of a boiled platano. I asked Yamuleith if she wanted to eat and she said that she did. So, I fed her, bite by bite. It was a trick to feed her as she was lying on her side. I had to turn the tablespoon that Erika had brought at such an angle that it allowed me to get the food in Yamuleith’s mouth and yet do so without dumping the rice all over the bed. After a few mishaps, I got the trick of it and Yamuleith methodically chewed each bite until it was well chewed before she swallowed. I couldn’t imagine how difficult that must be, eating every meal in such a position. Several times, I would have to stop feeding her so that I could scratch her nose for her or rub her eyes. I realized more than ever how dependent she is on others to meet her every need.
As I was feeding Yamuleith, the other lady in the room had said good-bye to her family members a little bit earlier. The doctor had come in to see her and she said that she was having trouble with her heart and breathing. He had a nurse take her blood pressure (with the old manual pump up arm band) and told her that her blood pressure was fine. The lady complained that her stomach was hurting. He had her lie down and he listened to her chest and stomach area. He said that she needed a good night’s sleep and the nurse came back in and gave her several pills. The lady finally lay down and pulled the sheet up over her face, trying to block out the overhead light and some of the noise. She was lying so still that the thought crossed my mind that she looked like a corpse. I immediately thought of that scene several days later when I found out that she had died the next day.
Yamuleith slowly drifted off to sleep. Periodically, she would wake up and call my name. I would reassure her I was still there. She would have me adjust her sheet, move her legs, get her a drink, move her head, fix her “pillow, move her arm and so on. Finally, she settled into a deep sleep. I had brought a book to read and a bottle of water. I began to read and all of a sudden, I felt like someone was watching me. I looked over at Gloria’s bed and she was sleeping and her caretaker was busy writing in a notebook. The other lady was sleeping under her sheet. I glanced at the door and there stood three women, all staring at me. I was somewhat taken aback. They didn’t budge…they continued to stare. I smiled at them and one of them returned the smile. The other two continued to stare but no one said anything. I went back to reading my book and tried to ignore the three staring women. It was a bit unnerving to say the least.
Finally, Erika came back about 4 hours later. It was almost 8:00 p.m. Yamuleith continued to sleep. I wanted to kiss her good-bye but didn’t want to disturb her. So, I quietly gathered my things and Erika walked with me out to the car. She didn’t think it was safe for me to walk outside by myself…I have to say I was glad she was with me. Although the crowd was smaller, there was still quite a gathering at the door. We said our good-byes and I got in the car.
I told Jim all about my evening and we were able to laugh about the funny things…and he let me cry about the rest. I had no idea that night that we were just taking the first steps down a very long road. It’s been two weeks since we called the ambulance to come and get Yamuleith. She continues to battle the infection that has ravaged her body. Some days look very promising…others make for restless nights. There isn’t a day that goes by that we aren’t asking God for healing.
Sometimes, I wonder how much more can she endure? How much more should she have to endure? It is so hard to imagine all that her body and spirit have been subjected to in her life. I haven’t received any answers to those questions. What I do get is a reminder that God is still in control.
I find that this walk of faith is sometimes its most difficult when it encounters those who are the most vulnerable and have been the most abused. I don’t understand so many things but I don’t think I’m supposed to...I don’t think it’s my right or my place. And honestly, how on earth could I ever question God and how He works when I hear Yamuleith praise His name? Maybe that sweet conviction will help me sleep tonight.

Life Updates...

2010-04-28T21:54:00.007-06:00

I promise I’m trying to finish the blog on my day in the hospital with Yamuleith…but life keeps interrupting…and there are other questions that are being asked so this blog is going to be just a catch-you-up-with-other-things blog.
We were getting ready to eat lunch today and were planning on going to get some copies made of some manuals and then head on over to CINAFE...but life interrupted. Felix was vomiting and had a fever. He was complaining about his kidneys hurting and that he had low stomach pain. Jim loaded up Felix’s bike and took him home. I gave Felix 100 cord for the microbus to go to the doctor in El Crucero which would leave him a little bit in case he needed to buy meds…assuming they’re not overly expensive. So…we didn’t get to go to the copy place this afternoon and Jim ran by and checked on things at CINAFE.
He also stopped by the grocery store to get a few things. And bless his heart, he brought home a little bag that had some mini York Peppermint Patties that he found at the store! In the States, we would have no choice but to buy a bag of these if we wanted the little candies…and I could probably eat the entire bag! But here, they tear open the bag and sell the little pieces of candy individually. They do it because it’s much more affordable to buy one piece of candy than a bag. But I see it as forced portion control. Whatever the reason, sometimes I think the Nicas are way ahead of us!
Immediate news on Yamuleith…she was running a high fever and then they got that under control. She was starting to improve a little but was then diagnosed with pneumonia and anemia. She then had to have 3 units of blood. She has been diagnosed with MS and possibly lupus…another doctor has said that he’s not sure of those diagnoses. She now has started running another fever and the two “crater” type bed sores are once again getting worse…and this is happening in the hospital. Thoughts of her and her situation fill my mind almost every waking moment…and many of my dreams on my restless nights. My heart aches to have a “good” answer for her care in the days ahead. That “good” answer seems to be as elusive as a good night’s sleep.
Kenneth is also not doing as well as we had hoped he would after his last round of chemo. He is to have tests done this week on his liver and kidneys to try to determine the amount of damage that they believe the chemo has done. They already know that his heart has been damaged. His color is not good and he has dark circles under his eyes. He does not want to eat and runs a fever off and on. He has been very lethargic lately.
The doctor said that he wanted to put him on a special juice diet and to discontinue the balanced in addition to his regular meals. He also said he wanted him to quit taking the Sustagen and go back to the PediaSure. He said he wanted Kenneth to begin a daily drink regimen of a juice made of strawberries, green grapes, green apples, cherries, celery and honey. Those fruits are high in anti-oxidants and I understand that they might very well be beneficial but there are a few problems with that directive. To begin with, all those fruits have to be imported in to the country…that translates to some pretty expensive fruit juice.
We could not find cherries anywhere in this entire city. We found cherry pie filling at $6 a can and maraschino cherries at $8.80 for an institutional sized jar and that’s it. We opted for the maraschino cherries and told Danelia to rinse them well and to understand they are already sweetened and have probably lost most of their beneficial properties in the process used to make them candied.
Purchasing the other fruits was also a bit of a challenge but that was more about getting past the sticker shock. We found really small Granny Smith apples at one of the grocery stores for about $1 a piece and thankfully, the price of the celery was more normal. But grapes and strawberries were another story. We found them at several places but the quality wasn’t the best. We opted to buy them at PriceSmart. I now understand why the store is called PriceSmart…paying those prices smarted!!! Strawberries were $5.46 per pound and the grapes were $6.79 for what appeared to be about a quart sized plastic container. The honey, a local, organic honey, was about $4 for a 16 oz bottle. What we bought would be less than a week’s worth of juice and yet we couldn’t buy a larger quantity as Danelia doesn’t have a refrigerator and we knew the berries and grapes would mold. So frustrating!
But, actually, I’m glad we weren’t able to buy a large quantity of those items. Danelia told us that Kenneth doesn’t like the juice and feels sick when he drinks it. So after two weeks of that regimen, the doctor has now said he can go back to just eating more fruits and veggies. We all think that is a better plan as we feel it is a much better balanced diet and we can definitely buy more of the local fruits and veggies for the same amount we were spending on those few imported items!
The other positive in that is PriceSmart once again has PediaSure in stock and although the signage indicates it’s about $5 higher for a can with less product in it than the Sustagen, when we bought it this time, the price rang up less than $2 more! We love how God surprises us with such things!
Yesterday was Kenneth’s 10th birthday!!! When I asked him what he wanted for his birthday this year, he became very quiet and shy and would not tell me. His folks only laughed and I saw Danelia shake her head slightly as though she were telling him “no”. I told him that I only had girls and that unless he told me what he wanted, he might just end up with a new doll! That brought a smile to his face and a firm head shake of his own. We went through this several times, each time, me saying some girly item, like a new dress or perfume or nail polish. And each time, he would grin and shake his head no.
Finally, I bent down and told him to whisper in my ear what he would really like to have…he looked at his mother. She looked at me and I told her it was okay. He whispered “un bicycleta”. I looked at Danelia again and she looked embarrassed. A bicycle was one of those things that would be way beyond their means.
The “grandma” in me wanted to buy the newest and the best bicycle we could find. Jim is that occasionally needed voice of reason in our family…and he exercised his voice. So, he took Felix with him to the market on Monday morning and they found a boys bike that was in pretty good shape overall. I struggled with giving a “used” bike as a gift but knowing the difference in prices, I overcame that and hoped that Kenneth would love it anyway.
We took the bike, a cake and some groceries to the family yesterday. Kenneth was thrilled with the bike. When we arrived, Danelia was in the middle of “school” with 13 small children. There was a small piñata hanging about the wooden table that sometimes doubles as Kenneth’s bed. The children were all seated around the table and as soon as we walked in to the door, they all stood and greeted us. We were so shocked at how well –behaved and well-mannered the children were. Then I realized it was Danelia’s school kids. I will explain that in a second.
Kenneth immediately came and gave us hugs. I saw that he stole a peek outside to see if we had anything with us. The bike was in the car but he didn’t realize that. I thought I would see a look of disappointment on his face, but none appeared. He went back to sit down with the other kids. We told him to come outside with us for a minute and Jim got his bike out. It was so good to see that great smile of his. Of course, all the kids had to come see what he got. He obviously wanted to try it out but we had interrupted class time so the bike ride was going to have to wait.
Now to explain all the children…Danelia has started a Christian teaching ministry in her home for some of the at-risk neighborhood children. These are children who could easily fall between the giant cracks that exist in the education system here. Many of them are from a single parent home or from less than desirable home situations…drugs, alcohol, abuse. Some cannot afford to go to school and others are from families who just don’t send them.
Danelia feels a real burden for these little ones. She was involved in a program through her church which currently has a similar daily after-school program for their church kids. They have a four-fold area approach to teaching the kids. Each day’s teaching covers the lesson from a spiritual aspect, a cognitive aspect, a social aspect and how to apply the lesson in a physical way. They also receive a light meal each day. It’s such a great program and it is funded by an international organization but the church opened the program only to church member’s kids and would not accept any of the neighborhood kids. Danelia really struggled having to turn children away because they weren’t “members” of the church.
She has been praying about this for some time. Kenneth’s recent health set-back with the finding of the three additional tumors has prevented him from going to school. This has added to his depression. Danelia said that she believed God was leading her to start a similar type “school” in her own home. She said that Kenneth could at least continue to have some type of teaching and that it would be such a benefit to the other children.
We have come alongside Danelia to help her with some of the costs of this endeavor. She began two weeks ago with 10 students. The kids come two afternoons a week and they all crowd in to Danelia’s small little living room. Thank goodness they’re small! A pastor from another church has loaned her some little plastic stools for the children to sit on. We have supplied the kids with notebooks, Bible “fun” booklets, pens, pencils, erasers, crayons, colored pencils, glue sticks, scissors, rulers, etc.
We also supplied enough empty Pringles cans (which I had been collecting over the last 1 ½ years…I knew I was saving those for a reason!) for each child to have one and we gave Danelia a packet of colored paper so that the children could cover their cans and then decorate them. These serve as their “pencil boxes” to keep all their supplies in. Mandy had given me three fun colorful collapsible totes which I adore. God thought it was a good idea to use one to store the kids cans in…He was right.
Of course, this endeavor costs the families nothing…only the effort it takes for the children to come. Naturally, Danelia was thrilled with the kids’ supplies. She had confided earlier to me that she was afraid that the children might not come because they couldn’t afford to buy their notebooks…an expense of about a $1 per book. But she was ecstatic when we brought her a whiteboard and markers for her to use with her class. She kept thanking God for answering her prayer and then thanked us repeatedly for bringing it to her. That kind of gratitude always humble me. We are used to hearing “thank you” when we give gifts…we heard that in the States. But there is something different between the well-mannered “thank you” and the utterances which overflow from a deeply grateful heart.
Danelia has already gained three more students…she said she couldn’t turn them away. She’s a good teacher and a good woman. It’s obvious she loves these children. The meal part has not yet happened. This family has such giving and generous hearts but they don’t have the resources. So, right now, the food will have to wait. But Danelia dreams and her enthusiasm is contagious. Her dreams are quickly becoming mine.
She shared with us that she dreams of building another room on to the house so that the children have a schoolroom with space but it would be separate from their own home. She wants to make it bright and cheery and welcoming...her house is small and dark. She and Arturo have talked about where they could build it and where the doors and windows would be. She wants it to have a nice floor that would be easy to keep clean. She dreams of having a new “bathroom” (an outhouse) for the children. The fun of dreaming is that you don’t have to be realistic in your dreams and Danelia dreams big. She wants a small refrigerator, a better cook stove (she cooks over an open fire) and enough dishes so that she could provide a good meal for the children and she dreams of someday having school five days a week.
I love this woman so much. They live in a 2 room house and all four of them sleep in the same small bedroom and often in the same bed, when Kenneth is sick. There are no closets in this house…there is no need for any. Clothes are washed, ironed, folded and stacked on a box. Their kitchen is outside. She doesn’t have a sink, she has a pila, a concrete sink, which serves as the area where dishes are washed, baths are taken and clothes are cleaned. Their toilet is out back by the fence and it is an outhouse. But it is always clean.
Most people I know, and sadly, I have to include myself in what I’m about to say, would want to build a new room on to their house for their own use. Most would want new furniture, new appliances or a remodel done because they were bored or dissatisfied with what they had. Few would have such unselfish dreams. I’m so glad we know one of the few.
While talking about the folks in Tipitapa, I want to let you know that Miguel and Elizabeth have separated. I can’t say I’m surprised but we are terribly disappointed. Right now, neither want to try to reconcile and sadly, both are rejecting what God’s Word says about that. In counseling with them, I was faced with the fact that they know it, they acknowledge it, but their own selfishness and pride seem to take priority over their desire to obey Him. I am both exasperated and broken-hearted with both of them but even so, we continue to pray for repentant hearts and restoration in their relationship with the Lord and with each other. I am anxious to see if Elizabeth comes to our English class next Saturday.
And speaking about the English class…we continue to have that class with the Bible study class following. For the last couple of weeks, the church has scheduled events which have conflicted with our time, so we have had to cut the classes short. We may have to either change our class time or look for another location in the future.
This Saturday, I will also start teaching a class to Danelia’s school kids while Jim is teaching the adult Bible class. She has asked me if I would be willing to do that as she wants the children have the opportunity to study English. These kids are younger kids…most are from 5-10 years of age so it will be a “fun” class, with worksheets and coloring pages. Los Cedros taught me how much they enjoy those kinds of things and I’m so glad I kept hard copies of all those things. That will make it much easier for developing a curriculum for them.
CINAFE, the children’s home, commands most of our time and attention these days. We are there almost every day, working in one capacity or another. I continue to teach the staff English two days a week…and they are an awesome class! It has actually turned out to be my favorite class yet as they really want to learn and they put out the necessary effort to do so. We have become comfortable enough with one another now that we laugh a lot and the atmosphere is very relaxed.
Jim often uses that time to take care of the endless small repair jobs that need to be done there. You can only imagine what kinds of things a facility with 15 kids needs to have fixed…ripped screens, leaky plumbing, broken hinges, broken toilet seats, broken curtain rods, etc….right up Jim’s alley!
I continue to work with the kids but because we have been asked to temporarily take on some added responsibilities there, we have had to rework our schedules there. The last few weeks, much of our time there has been taken up with more administrative duties. We have had several staff meetings this past week and we’re working alongside the administrator to help her with some budget concerns and personnel issues.
It would be so nice to think that Christians are somehow above all the human struggles that happen in this world, but that’s not the case, is it? Lack of good communication, whether intentional or unintentional, often causes hurt and anger and creates distance. And the healing process can be very painful. But thankfully, this is a terrific group of people and I think they all desire the same thing so now, we’re just working on teaching and implementing some better communication skills and we trust God to do what we can’t.
The temperatures here have been miserable lately. I think the heat is worse this year than it was last year. We are in the mid to upper 90s every day now with the heat index usually about 10 degrees higher…and out house is a good 10 degrees higher than that! The storm clouds build every day which makes the weather oppressive. I hate to see what our electric bill is going to be as we’ve had the fans going non-stop when we’re home.
For the last couple of weeks, we have had three fans going in our bedroom…one on Jim, one on me and one on Xander. His panting was keeping us awake! We’ve even gone to bed and left the bedroom door open…this door opens up to our little back deck and usually at night, we close it, lock it, and put the Charlie bar up against it. That should give you some indication of how hot it is in our room. The picture was taken at night and we don't have very good lighting in our bedroom so I'm afraid it isn't very good but you get the idea of how much our pampered pooch loves his fan!
We actually bought two ceiling fans from some missionaries that were moving back to the States. We had planned on putting one in our bedroom and one in the living room…the two hottest rooms in the house. When Jim got ready to install them, he discovered that the light fixtures in the ceilings are held in place only by the electric wires and the sheetrock. So, we can’t even use the ceiling fans!
But there’s hope on the horizon…we had another rainstorm today! That’s the third one we’ve had here so maybe the daily rains will start sooner this year. The late afternoon storms really help to cool it off and if we could just have cooler nights, we could tolerate the hot days better.
Well, I think I’ve got you up to day with life in general. Jim and I will celebrate our 2 year anniversary here tomorrow. Two years ago, we never dreamed we would be doing what we’re doing or seeing God work as we have. Every day is different. Someone asked if it was any easier now…the fact is, life is hard for all of us, regardless of where we live. The causes here may be different but the result is the same. People suffer. And some days, that includes us. But there are also mountain-top days where we can almost see the North Pole from here. And we continue to feel privileged and blessed to be on this adventurous journey God is taking us on. And we thank you for joining us as we go!

Yamuleith Part 3

2010-04-23T11:45:00.001-06:00

Friday afternoon, when we arrived at the hospital, it was decided that Jim and I stay outside in the parking lot while Oliver and Erika took care of the paperwork inside. The thought was that if the Billing Office saw that there were Americans involved with Yamuleith, then the price would automatically increase. El Hospital Bautista is a private hospital and although it isn’t the one that most of the Americans prefer, I think the care and treatment there is much better than the government hospitals.
Every now and then, Oliver would come out to the car to update us on what was happening with Yamuleith. The ER doctors had taken one look at her and indicated she needed immediate care. They saw the infected pressure wounds on her backside and said that she needed surgery right away on the area to remove the diseased tissue.
They began prepping her for surgery while Oliver and Erika went to find out how much we needed to pay for the admittance fee. We were told before we arrived at the hospital that it would be between $400 and $500 to admit her and then we would have the ambulance fee on top of that. We were also told that the room charge would run about $125 per day plus we would need to pay for any testing that would be done, all medications used and the doctor’s fee. We didn’t feel like we had any other option and so we had told Oliver that we had the money to get her checked in and to pay for the ambulance and to pay for her first day there plus any meds.
We waited and waited. About 30 minutes later, Oliver called my cell phone and asked me how much money could we pay. I wasn’t sure I understood him so I repeated what we had and what we could pay then and that right then, we would pay $400 admittance fee, the ambulance fee, her first day there and any meds that were used. He told me that wasn’t what he wanted to know. He said the Admissions Office said it was going to be much more than that and wanted to know how much we could pay. I told him I didn’t know at that moment. And I asked him again, how much it was going to be. He said he would ask and he hung up.
A few minutes later, he called again. He said in a very panicky voice that we needed to start praying right then, that God would do a miracle. I became scared when I heard his voice and wondered if something had happened to Yamueleith. I asked him what was the matter and he told me again, we needed to be praying. I asked him yet again, what was wrong and he told me that the regular supervisor in that office was on vacation and so was the doctor who had seen Yamuleith there last year and that the man who was working in that office said that we needed to pay $4000 for the surgery and we would have to pay it right then or they wouldn’t perform the surgery. Oliver had told him we didn’t have that kind of money and the guy was calling his supervisor to come talk to Oliver.
We hung up and Jim and I began praying fervently, begging God to soften hearts and that they would see that Yamuleith needed their care and that they would be drawn to meet the need. We prayed and prayed…and then, Oliver came out to the car. He said that the man would not change the figure and that if Yamuleith was going to be treated there, then we had to pay the $4000 right then. I was sick. We didn’t have $4000 with us and we knew that even if we did, that it was going to be a drop in the bucket of the charges that would soon follow. I didn’t know what we were going to do.
Oliver said that the man told him we had two options. We could pay what they wanted or if we couldn’t do that, he said he could help us out by calling one of the government hospitals (El Hospital Manolo Morales) and making sure she would be accepted there. He said that they would transfer her in their ambulance so that she would get there okay and that he would talk to them to let them know what they felt like she needed to have done.
The only thing we could figure is that either Oliver or Erika felt challenged that they wanted to admit Yamuleith to a private hospital (the admissions personnel would be able to tell simply by looking at Erika and Yamuleith that they couldn’t afford such a place on their own) and possibly told them that Americans were paying the bill or else the ambulance attendants told the ER people that we were at the house and were following them to the hospital. Either way…that definitely was not a time when being an American here was a benefit.
I was afraid that our choice was not a choice. But I called Karen and Dwane on my cell phone…I’m so thankful I had enough minutes…to tell them what we had been told. We all agreed that as much as we did not want her to go to the other hospital, we knew that was really the only direction we could go. Again, I felt sick. I’ve not yet been in a public hospital here that I felt was giving the best of care or would even attain the level of a mediocre facility. There’s no doubt America’s health care has certainly colored our vision here.
Oliver said we needed to come inside then and pay the bill for the care that Yamuleith had received in the ER plus the ambulance charges. He said it was going to be $50.00. We figured that it no longer mattered if they knew we were paying the bill so we went inside with him. We waited and finally Erika got the paperwork to do the transfer. I knew she was upset and I tried to explain that we just didn’t have the money to pay that. She didn’t say much but just nodded her head. I felt so awful that she knew that Yamuleith’s care was going to suffer because we couldn’t pay what was asked. Or maybe I should say, we chose not to pay it. I think we could have but I’m not sure how rapidly or how much the bill would have grown over the following days. It was a lousy position to be in…and a lonely one.
Erika stood at the payment window and the cashier told her that it was going to be $50. I reached in my purse and handed Erika a $50 bill. She gave it to the cashier. The lady looked at Erika and then at me and back again at Erika. I had told Erika I would need a receipt for what we had paid. She told the cashier that we needed a receipt. Suddenly someone else came in to her little area and the two talked very quietly. I could see what was coming. I’ve seen it before.
The lady told Erika that the bill was going to be an additional $44. Erika told me that she needed me to pay the extra money. I took a deep breath and reached in my purse once again. As I pulled it out, I asked Erika why the bill was now $44 more. She shrugged her shoulders. I told her I thought I knew and I said it was because I was a gringa. Again she shrugged her shoulders. The attitude that American’s have unlimited resources permeates this society and a large percentage of the people here think that it is their “right” to charge us more. If that weren’t bad enough, the fact that even some of our friends have a very similar attitude upsets me even more. I paid the money and fumed.
I was furious that Yamueleith still was not receiving treatment. I was angry at the outrageous admissions fee. I was tired of the “rich American” judgments. I was seething that the bill almost doubled at the sight of white skin. And I was tired that every single thing we do here takes so much time and effort.
We finally got everything taken care of and then headed on over to the Hospital Morales. We got there about 20 minutes before the ambulance and the parking lot was full. We tried to park alongside the drive back to the ER but the Security Guard wouldn’t let us. Oliver tried to argue with him, telling him he was a doctor, but evidently, the guard was tired of arguing with people wanting to park there and he basically threatened Oliver by calling over another Security Guard.
The two guards finally said we could park in the doctor’s parking lot since Oliver was a doctor. We then had to walk out and around to the front door of the hospital. There was a small crowd gathered there and we asked Oliver why there were so many people standing outside and he said that they were waiting to go inside to see their family or friend but they didn’t have a permit so they were waiting there in hopes someone would give them one. I was trying to process that procedure in my mind as we walked on around to the back of the hospital to go to the ER area. It was a repeat of what we had seen at the front door.
When the ambulance arrived, Erika and Oliver went inside to the ER with Yamuleith. We weren’t allowed in through the iron bar doors, so we stood outside for some time and waited. It didn’t take long for me to start doing what I love to do in such places…people watch. But, it was a little difficult to do as it seemed like everyone was watching us! At first it was disconcerting but before long, I began to return the stares we were receiving with a smile. A few smiled back but most just continued to stare. That’s an uncomfortable feeling but I suppose it was a little unusual to see a couple of gringos hanging out at the ER entrance to a government run hospital, waiting for news on our loved one just like all the other folks.
There are opposing rows of concrete benches outside the ER and they were filled for the most part. Most folks sat or milled about, but there were a few who were curled up on the bench, sleeping. I wondered how long they had been there, just waiting to hear how about their loved one’s condition.
I guess I need to explain this a bit better. The hospital is a public hospital meaning it is totally supported through government funds. This also means that there is always a shortage of something…nurses, doctors, supplies, medicines…everything. The only thing that is abundant is security personnel. The hospital has rules and there is to be no deviating from the rules. Only those needing immediate treatment and one of their family members or medical personnel are allowed in to the ER. Once a patient is admitted and taken to a room, which contains as many patients as is feasibly possible, only one person can be in the room at a time.
This is controlled (theoretically) through an admittance pass system. There is only one visitor card per patient and this card contains the patient’s name and room number. This is the only way past the security guards who are stationed at the doors. You have to show the card before you can be admitted and then, again, only one person is allowed in at a time. I say this is how it is theoretically as I’ve seen patients with more than one person there to see them but because it is a government hospital, there seems to have been a stricter standard applied to Jim and me.
At one point, I had counted over 75 people waiting with us outside…most were waiting on family members but many were waiting to be seen in the ER. Some would leave and others would arrive but the numbers seemed to remain pretty constant the whole time we were there. They came on foot, by taxi, by ambulance, by bicycle and by private vehicle. Some were dropped off and others were carried in. Some looked to be in pretty good condition, others appeared to be in bad shape. All had to wait their turn for treatment…the idea of triage didn’t seem as though it was being put in to practice. I was very thankful that we had the help of the people at the Hospital Bautista to facilitate getting Yamileith admitted.
The thought occurred to me that this was such a good snapshot of what our “new and improved” health care system in the U.S. could dissolve into in the not so distant future. Socialized medicine always sounds so good in theory and of course, it appeals to those who are in need, but what we’ve seen here is far from what had been visualized and purported as an ideal system. It is a broken system that runs on empty promises and good intentions with the funding having run out long ago. Patient care suffers tremendously. I don’t have the perfect answer…but I sure don’t think this is it. I think man’s natural greed and selfishness gets in the way and interrupts such lofty plans. That’s the end of my political commentary for the moment.
While waiting, only one person actually dared to talk to us. She was a vendor trying to sell pieces of gum. She had asked us earlier to buy gum and we had told her no but she continued to ask. Since our fifteenth “No, gracias” seemed to be as firm as our first one, she finally wandered off to ask others. I had pretty much forgotten about her until sometime later, I saw her heading right over to where we were sitting and she asked us again to buy gum. I noticed, she hadn’t asked anyone around us.
Once again, I told her, “No, gracias.” Normally, I would have gone ahead and bought some gum from her but I didn’t feel comfortable bringing out money in the area we were in. It was dark and the crowd seemed to be a bit rougher than it was when we first arrived. The vendora then reached for a piece of cardboard and held it for me to read. It was in English and it was asking for money so she could buy food. She didn’t look any more impoverished than most of the other people among us. I read it and again told her no but added I was sorry that I couldn’t help her. I’m sure my voice didn’t sound sincere as I was irritated that she was targeting the gringos in the crowd.
She asked me if we had someone in the hospital or if we were waiting to go in. I told her we had a friend in the ER. She looked shocked. She then asked me where we were from. I told her we were from the U.S., but we lived here. Again, she looked shocked. I know her mind had to be racing. Gringos wait at private hospitals for their friends…not at public hospitals. She asked why we lived in Nicaragua and I told her we were missionaries and this is where God had brought us. Her expression again changed and her voice took on a tone of excitement. And I noticed the conversation all around us had ceased.
She asked if we were Christian missionaries. I replied that we were and I was reminded of just how many other “missionaries” are here. Nicaragua has an abundance of Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons who are extremely active and devoted in their efforts to recruit new members.
I thought for a second if those of us who know the Truth would only choose to be as committed to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ as those who are deceived are in sharing their propaganda…wow! What would our world be like? Would children like Yamuleith suffer as she has? Would the Nica people struggle as they do just to have enough beans and rice to make it through another day? Would missionaries continue to live behind concrete walls and serpentine wire? Would hearts change? Would ours?
The vendora interrupted my thoughts. She then asked if we were evangelicals. Now this can be a loaded question and can have a negative connotation or a positive one. I took my chances and just said yes, that we were. She smiled and told me that she was glad that we knew Jesus and that she would pray that He would keep us safe while there. I thanked her and off she went, asking others to buy gum.
In some respects, I felt badly that I hadn’t given her money but my own desire to keep us safe kept my cross body purse closed and firmly locked in position in front of me. As if to ease my mind, a few minutes later, I heard some noise at the little fritanga (a very small curbside type of restaurant) near the hospital. I saw the vendor, eating a plate of food and talking with some of the hospital employees. A little bit later, she was back at the ER area, once again trying to sell her gum. I was glad she had eaten and maybe I was justifying it, but I was glad I had kept my purse closed.
Oliver finally came out and told us that Yamileith was being taken to a room and that they were not going to do surgery that night but just get her settled in. He said he was going to stay there with Erika for awhile and then he would go home. Erika had brought all the necessary things with her that she would need to stay the night with Yamileith. He told us we might as well go home as we couldn’t get in to see her. He asked if I could come the next day and stay with Yamileith so that Erika could go home for awhile. I told him I would. We gave him 200 cordoba so that he and Erika could get something to eat from the fritanga and it would leave enough if Yamileith felt like eating, they could buy her something as well.
So, we left. It was almost 8:00. We were hot, tired and worried. So much had happened that day that I couldn’t even begin to process it all. We stopped and got a sandwich and went home. By that time, it was about 9:00. We called Karen and Dwane and updated them. Jim turned on the water tank and we took our showers…it felt good to stand in the shower and just let the tears flow. It was the first time that day that I had a moment alone and felt like I could do that. And flow they did.
There was a sense of relief that she was in the hospital but also a sense of unease that she wasn’t in the private hospital. I felt guilty and sick at my stomach…should we have gone ahead and gotten the money to pay the $4000 admittance fee at the Baptist Hospital? Should we not have insisted she go to the hospital at all? What kind of care was she going to receive there? Would she have been better off at home? Stories of people leaving a public hospital in worse shape than when they arrived are all too common. The questions just kept coming. And I had no answers. It was another fitful night of sleep.
Next blog, I’ll tell about my visit with Yamileith.

Yamuleith...Part 2

2010-04-21T09:06:00.001-06:00

Friday morning at a little after 7:00 a.m., we got a phone call from Dr. Oliver. He said that Erika had called him the night before saying that Yamuleith’s fever had spiked and that she was very sick and needed her antibiotic. We had priced this particular antibiotic the week before just so we would have an idea of how much it cost and were shocked at the price. It ran around $90 for two weeks worth. I remember thinking I was glad we didn’t have to buy it that day…I guess I jumped the gun. No wonder Erika needed help with it. Evidently, Yamuleith has gotten to the point that the regular regimen of antibiotics just can’t handle her infections anymore.

I’m not sure why Oliver didn’t go over there then but it may have been too late in the evening to have found any pharmacies open. Anyway, he said he was going to go to a discount pharmacy and find out how much the antibiotic was so that he could come by and get some money from us. He would then go on over to their house.

About an hour later, Oliver was at our gate. Jim gave him the money, reminded him to keep the receipt and told Oliver that he wanted him to check her out thoroughly and Oliver said he would.

Jim and I were waiting for PriceSmart to open. We wanted to run by there and then on to the grocery store to buy some food for Erika and the kids. Their situation had been weighing heavily on both our minds, so when I asked Jim if we could go get some things, he quickly agreed. Normally, we would go to the market but we knew it would be really busy at that time and parking would be an issue, so we just decided to go to the stores and get what we needed so we could get on over to Erika’s house.

When we pulled up in front of the house, Erika’s 12 year old daughter, Julissa, met us at the door and quickly ushered us in. Erika gave me a quick kiss and greeting and then began telling me that Yamuleith was very sick. I stepped to the bed and noticed that once again, Yamuleith was laying face down with a pillow under her tummy. She looked so uncomfortable that I asked Erika about her position and Erika removed the small piece of material that she had draped across Yamuleith’s bottom. I saw that she had numerous large pressure sores (also known as bedsores) all over her back and backside. There were two areas that were covered with two pieces of 4x4 gauze.

Erika began to remove the tape to show me the largest one. Yamuleith’s face scrunched up in pain and she moaned. I reached out to try to soothe her and I was shocked at how hot her body was. She was burning up with fever. I asked Erika about it and she said that when Oliver came earlier, that she had started Yamuleith on her antibiotic and had just given her a pain pill not long before we arrived.

Erika continued to pull off the tape. I knew what I was about to see wasn’t going to be pleasant but I can honestly say I’ve never seen an open wound like that before in my life. I felt a wave of nausea come over me and for a second, I thought I was going to have to sit down. I hadn’t seen anything even close to that since we had visited the children’s burn ward at one of the government hospitals here a few years ago. There was no formal prayer but just a silent plea that God would keep me from reacting the way I felt.

The largest wound was between 2 and 3 inches across and was extremely deep…forming what I can only describe as a crater on her backside. The child doesn’t have an ounce of padding there and I knew the wound must be getting close to the bone. I don’t have the words to describe how horrific that place was. I have since tried to do some research on such things and what I saw is considered a Level 4 pressure wound which has the potential to be very dangerous to someone in her condition. It wasn’t bloody per se but it was just a crater of raw flesh. I am not indicating that this is what she has but the first thing that came to my mind is that must be how those with that flesh eating disease must look. It is an image I don’t think I will ever forget.

The heat, the odor of her apparently leaking colostomy bag and the sight of such a wound almost got the best of me and I really did feel queasy. I told Erika to cover it back up and asked her what Dr. Oliver had said when he saw it. She basically told me that he didn’t uncover any of the bandages but instead was more concerned about Yamuleith’s fever and pain as that was what she was complaining about.

I was furious. I have to say that I think that’s how I deal with such things when I don’t have the luxury to sit and cry my eyes out. I could feel that anger rising up inside of me. What I was seeing was unacceptable and the fact that this was what this absolutely helpless child was enduring just about pushed me to my breaking point. I think I understand very well the “fight or flight” reaction. I was scared. Yamuleith was weak, feverish and full of infection. I was afraid we might lose her. I had no choice…I had to fight…flight just wasn’t an option.

I took a deep breath and I calmly told Erika that Yamuleith needed to go to the hospital. I told her that the wound was very serious and that it was badly infected. She agreed but didn’t know what to do. She also was afraid of what would happen since she told me that Dr. Oliver hadn’t looked at the “bad place.” I told her I wasn’t sure why he didn’t but that wasn’t important right at that moment. That what was important was that we needed to get Yamuleith to the hospital that day.

Erika began telling me why it was so difficult as she had no one to stay with her other children. I listened for a minute and then told her that we were going to bring in some groceries, run home and make a phone call and that we were then going to go get Dr. Oliver and bring him back with us. It’s not that I wasn’t sympathetic to her situation…it’s that Yamuleith’s situation was the priority. Erika sensed that I was very serious and simply said, “Okay”.

Jim and I went out to the car and I did something I haven’t done since I got the call 3 ½ years ago that my mom had died…I leaned against the car and just cried out, “Oh my God…why?” Jim put his arm around me and rested his chin on top of my head. He held me for just a second and said, “Let’s get the groceries inside.” That’s exactly what I needed to hear. I do much better when a wave of emotion is about to pull me under if I have a task to focus on. I love my husband…he knows me so well.

We hurriedly carried in the groceries with Julissa’s help…25# of rice, 15# of beans, a gallon of oil, 4# of sugar, 2 bags of pinolillo (a corn drink), pasta, eggs, tomatoes, carrots, chayote, potatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, bananas, papaya, and apples. We also had bought a rotisserie chicken thinking that it would be simple then for Erika to make sure that Yamuleith would have some protein. Needless to say, Erika and her children were thrilled with that.

I think Yamuleith’s mind was somewhere else at that moment…I’m hoping it was somewhere where she was free of pain. Her voice was weak. The knots of anxiety in my throat and stomach were growing. I had been wiping her face and forehead with a wet towel. She told me she didn’t feel good. I told her I knew that. She asked me if she had a fever and I told her yes. She said she liked the cool towel on her face and I told her I was glad it was helping. She told me she was sick and I told her that yes, she was.

As usual, she said my name with each sentence. I’ve not yet figured out why she does that but I find it so special that she’s one of the few people here who does a pretty good job of pronouncing my name. I imagine her hearing skills are so honed to compensate for her blindness that she is just that much better at mimicking gringo sounds than most folks are.

Yamuleith called my name again but her voice was very soft. I bent down to just a few inches from her face and asked her what she wanted. I expected for her to tell me she wanted a drink or to be repositioned. She said, “Lynne…help me.”

That did it. The tears were going to come. I kissed her face and told her we had to leave to go get the doctor to come and help us but that we were going to help her. I put on my sunglasses so that the tears wouldn’t be so obvious to those who are blessed with the gift of vision…you might take a minute right now and thank God for your own gift of eyesight. We told Erika what we were going to do and told her to get Yamuleith’s things together for the hospital. Again, Erika told us she needed to find someone to take care of her other children. She knew Yamuleith needed to go to the hospital, she had even verbalized that to me, but I think the whole situation was just too much for her to cope with right then.

We ran home to get some cash to pay for the ambulance and the hospital admission, called Karen and Dwane and let them know what the situation was and what our plans were. We then ran by CINAFE to get Dr. Oliver. I told him that Yamuleith was very sick and needed to go to the hospital and that I needed him to go with us to help us with the process. I realize now that I didn’t give him an option. He chose to drive his own car which would prove to be a good decision. We then drove straight over to Yamuleith’s.

Dr. Oliver again checked her out and when I told him he needed to check the wound on her backside, he put on gloves and removed the gauze pad. His face revealed his shock. He pressed around the area to see if there was any infection coming out. Yamuleith made a little crying sound. I couldn’t bear to watch him do anymore and walked over to where Jim was sitting on the couch. He began asking Erika questions, wanting to know why she hadn’t told him how bad the wound was when he was there earlier. I think he was afraid we would be upset with him for not seeing it earlier. I already was but I was more concerned with getting Yamuleith to the hospital.

He then asked Yamuleith questions about her pain level and began moving her limbs back and forth. I was getting close to the end of my rope. That child needed care and needed it right away. I told Dr. Oliver I wanted him to call the ambulance. He told me that he wanted to “make sure of things” first. I took a deep breath and got the towel wet again. I finally was tired of trying to keep the edge out of my voice and made it very clear that I wanted him to call the ambulance right then. He called the hospital and asked for an ambulance to come right away.

Getting the ambulance to come was another issue. After the earthquake in 1972, Managua rebuilt in a haphazard manner, with lots of little block and lean-to houses. Streets no longer have street names but specific addresses are given by landmarks. That works okay if the landmark is – or was – well known, but if not, then it can become a little dicey. We waited almost an hour. Meanwhile, Yamuleith and I repeated our earlier conversation…time and time again. And each time she would say, “Lynne…help me,” my anxiety level rose another notch.

Dr. Oliver then bent over her and began to talk to her. She told him that she didn’t want to be sick and that she wanted to be able to be up so that she could go out and serve the Lord…and then, she began to praise the Lord, talking about His goodness and His mercy. Not once did she say a word about feeling sorry for herself or questioning why someone, who has a spirit that flies far above the rest of ours, should be trapped a prisoner in her own body.

Oliver broke and his tears flowed freely. Before long, he was sobbing. The living room is very small and it was impossible to not be a voyeur of this intimate moment. Later when we discussed this, Oliver told us that he couldn’t believe that Yamuleith’s desire was only to serve God. He talked about those he knows who are in perfect physical condition, have an abundance of material blessings and they do nothing but complain and want more. I think we all had faces and names fly through our minds at that moment…and if we were honest, our own would be among them.

Oliver assured her that she was serving God from her bed and that she had no idea how many hearts she was touching and lives that were being changed because of her. I saw a tear roll down Yamuleith’s face…the first I had seen. Oliver said he was at the top of the list of changed hearts. He later told us that God did something in him during that time he was talking to Yamuleith and he said his heart was changed.

We all gathered around Yamuleith’s bed and we prayed over her, asking God to strengthen her body, to heal her wounds, to give the ambulance attendants, the doctors and nurses hearts of compassion so that they would treat her gently, to protect her from unbearable pain and to make sure she received good medical care. We thanked God for His provisions and His hand of protection and we thanked Him for that sweet precious child who has captured our hearts. All of us had wet faces by the end of our prayers.

Finally, the ambulance came…almost an hour after being called. Three attendants came in and did a quick evaluation of her condition, asking Erika and Oliver questions. We moved the couch and her wheelchair so they could bring the gurney in to the house. I was afraid it wasn’t going to fit through the doorway but It did…no room to spare, but enough room to get it in. They opted to lift her using the sheet but still ended up dragging her across the mattress due to the inaccessibility to the bed. She cried out. I just cried.

I had no idea how watching all that would affect me as it did. In my life, I have seen many people experience great pain…some of those were people whom I loved quite dearly. For some reason, watching Yamuleith experience that pain was every bit as disturbing. There is just something about her vulnerability of body and her strength of spirit that have made a huge impact on me. In spite of all that she has experienced in this life, she retains a child-like innocence which is wrapped in a wisdom beyond her years.

Erika went with the ambulance (which took off like a shot, bouncing wildly over the bumpy road…I worried about how Yamuleith was doing) and we followed Oliver as they were taking her to the Hospital Bautista and we didn’t know where it was. We had to stop at the gas station as Oliver had to get gas. At that moment, my phone rang and it was Moises, one of the board members at CINAFE. He asked about what was going on with Yamuleith and so I told him. He told us to wait there and he would be there within minutes.

Evidently, he had come to Managua (he lives in El Crucero) and actually, was not far from the gas station. He was bringing us some money that had been set aside to help with Yamuleith’s care and had no idea all of this was transpiring. God is ALWAYS on time! What an answer to prayer because even though we had brought money with us, we didn’t have any small bills on us which we were afraid we would end up needing. And that’s exactly what Moises brought for us! God is so amazing…

I have to go now but I will continue in the next blog about Yamuleith and the hospital…

Quick note...

2010-04-20T22:25:00.002-06:00

Just a quick note...
I'm sorry I haven't gotten more on Yamuleith's story posted...we've been running non-stop the last few days. She's still hospitalized and I should have more info tomorrow. I will also get the second part of her story done tomorrow...or I'm planning on it anyway.
Kenneth goes to the hospital on Wednesday for his check-up following this last round of chemo. It has hit him hard and he's not doing very well.
The children at CINAFE are facing some tough times right now...I'm not at liberty to discuss them but suffice to say, please pray for ALL of these special children...CINAFE, Kenneth and Yamuleith. We love each and every one of them. And please check back tomorrow for more on Yamuleith...I'm thinking positively.

Yamuleith - Part 1

2010-04-17T12:20:00.005-06:00

I started this last night. I will be leaving for the hospital again in a little bit so I won't get to finish it right now but this will get you started on the story of Yamuleith.

It’s 11:45 p.m. and the heat index is still at 93 degrees. It is miserable in the house – must be a good 5 to 10 degrees hotter. You know it’s pretty nasty when you are sitting perfectly still and you still work up a good sweat!
I don’t know if it’s because of this stifling heat or the caffeine kicking in from the soda I had a couple of hours ago or whether it’s simply the constant replaying of today’s events in my mind but whatever the reason, I think sleep is going to be pretty elusive tonight . So that means it’s time for blog therapy again.
I need to give you some background on what we’re dealing with right now. Right before we flew back to the States in March, we were taken to visit a young girl named Yamuleith (pronounced Jahmulet). Karen and Dwane, who are the folks who were instrumental in getting CINAFE started, have been helping with Yamuleith’s care and as Karen was also going to be flying back to the States, she wanted to run by and check on her and Karen also wanted us to meet her. She had given us a little history on her but even so, we weren’t at all prepared for what we were about to see.
I will try to do this as accurately as I can. We’ve heard her story several times and so I’m trying to piece it together to get the whole thing right but there is still so much I’m fuzzy on. She and her family lived in Costa Rica and her mother died. Her brothers were extremely abusive and the family moved around quite a bit.

Finally, due to neighbors complaining about her situation, Yamuleith was removed from the home. She was put back in the home with the father and the brothers ended up bringing her to Nicaragua to avoid abuse charges. Somehow, they traveled back and forth to avoid the law. I’m not sure exactly what happened next.
But moving forward, about 15 months ago, she was found wrapped in a sheet which was wrapped with ropes or barbed wire – I’ve heard both and am not sure which is true – and left to die. She had not had food or water for 5 days. The doctors didn’t think she was going to live. She had suffered major abuse and malnutrition which has caused permanent damage to her body. I am truly amazed that she is still alive even tonight as I write this.
Cesar, a pastor, and his wife, Erika, had brought Yamuleith home to live with them. The pastor is the one who found her and he promised her that he would never abandon her. They are a poor family, who live in a two room house and they have four children of their own – twin boys, Erik & Eddi, ages 14, a daughter, Julissa, age 12 and little Cesar, age 3. The pastor is currently working on the east coast and is gone for 1 to 2 months at a time. Erika, sells beans to try to supplement their income.
Yamuleith is now a special needs child as a direct result of all the abuse she has suffered. She is blind, has a colostomy and a catheter. She is unbelievably thin…Jim thinks she might weigh between 60-70 lbs…and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were less. She has very little movement in her limbs or extremities. Her muscles have atrophied to the point she cannot hold herself up in her wheelchair and has to be tied in to it in order to stay upright. The wheelchair is a plastic chair that has been attached to a wheelchair frame. This is important to know as you have to keep in mind she sits on a hard surface all day. When she is in her bed, she is only able to slightly move her head and several fingers. She is totally dependent upon someone to take care of her every need. She can’t even brush off the ants that crawl across her body.

It would be easy to think that she wouldn’t be able to communicate very well but that is not true. She is a very smart young girl and she loves having visitors. When she’s feeling “good”, she wants to talk and loves to talk about the food she likes to eat…the food that the gringos bring when they visit.
Karen and Dwane have done a wonderful job of helping the family with Yamuleith’s care which is no small feat considering they are in Ohio most of the time these days. And Yamuleith requires a lot of care. They had met her last year through some other folks when she had been hospitalized for malnutrition and they have invested themselves and their resources to help with her care.
Okay, so we met Yamuleith that Saturday night in March with Karen. Her story touched my heart but her sweet spirit and lack of self-pity, stole it. Once again, I thought how we came here to share the gospel, to demonstrate the love of the Lord and to minister to the needy. Once again, God turned the tables. Yamuleith did all those things for us.
Karen asked the family if it would be okay for us to stop by on occasion and check to see how Yamuleith was doing. She assured them that we were good people. You know…that’s a funny thing to hear about yourself…someone having to vouch for your character. It’s actually pretty humbling from both perspectives - that someone might be suspicious of our motives and that someone else had to vouch for us. The pastor and his wife cordially said it would be fine. We didn’t stay long that night but it was long enough to know that this young lady was very unique.
The next day, we went to PriceSmart to buy two cans of Sustagen for Karen to give to the family as she was going to run by once more before she left. We all agreed Yamuleith needed better nutrition and thought this might be one way to help supplement her diet while we were gone. She was also supposed to be having more fruits and vegetables added to her diet but we all had our suspicions that probably wasn’t happening much.
Karen had to leave to return to the States two days later – Monday, March 8th. The date is important. We took Karen to the airport and we assured her that we would check on Yamuleith when we returned from the States. She also said that she was going to have Dr. Oliver from CINAFE check on her while we were gone and that she had suggested that he go twice a week.
We flew to the States the following morning and didn’t return until April 1st. Due to the problems we had with our car, we weren’t able to get out until Monday. Tuesday, we took Dr. Oliver with us and we went to check on Yamuleith. I was shocked at how much thinner she looked. I didn’t think that was even possible. We visited briefly with the family and Yamuleith and then left.
We are in frequent communication with Karen and Dwane – thanks to Skype – and so I mentioned to Karen that I thought Yamuleith looked even thinner. We exchanged pictures that we each had taken of Yamuleith and Karen also thought that she was noticeably thinner. The picture on the left was one that Karen took several months ago. The one that we took last week is on the right. She was in a lot of pain that day but what I want you to see is how thin her arms and legs are. And look at her shoulders and chest...every bone is visible.

We continued to make frequent visits, if not every day, then every other day, often taking a medical supply of some sort or a food item for Yamuleith. We were always well received but my concern continued to grow. We began to see more and more gauze pads decorating her body. They were covering oozing sores.
We were to find out that due to schedule conflict and a leg injury, Dr. Oliver had only been to see Yamuleith a couple of times while we were gone. We found out that she was out of some of her supplies that are used to facilitate her care so we purchased those things and took Dr. Oliver to see her again.
Now here is where my American mindset kicks in…if there’s a problem, we need to “fix” it. And in my mind, there was a problem. I noticed that the rest of the family seemed to be very healthy, several even overweight by Nica standards. I also noticed that there didn’t seem to be a lot of attention being paid to Yamuleith unless we mentioned something about her need, like wanting a drink of water, needing to be readjusted, etc. She seemed to be deteriorating right before our eyes.
If that weren’t enough of a concern, I found ants crawling on her, often onto her open sores. I felt sick at my stomach the first time I saw that. I brushed them off. I tried to rationalize the fact that Nica houses are open and of course, there are ants. And they crawl over every surface possible. The problem is that this was happening to someone who couldn’t brush them off herself, who couldn’t even defend herself from their possible bites. The next day when we returned, small tiny ants were crawling on her as she lay in bed. I began brushing them off again and noticed there were lots of them crawling all over her sheets by the headboard.
I told Erika there were more ants. My voice had to betray my disgust and repulsion. She explained to me that because we (Oliver) didn’t bring the more expensive colostomy bags, that the seal wasn’t tight against her skin and that the ants, as well as flies, were being drawn to the odor. I then asked about what kind of supplies that they needed so that we could get her taken care of so that leakage and odor were no longer a problem.
My immediate thought was that she was being neglected. I was reminded that I don’t see all that goes on nor do I know what it’s like to live in conditions like that. That’s true. But I couldn’t shake my unease. I wanted to make this foster family the bad guys…I wanted to be able to point a finger and shake it, shaming someone, whoever…whoever had been responsible for what Yamuleith was having to endure.
The pastor and Dr. Oliver began to talk about Yamuleith. Oliver speaks very good English so he was translating for us for which I was very thankful. Although I understood much of what was being said, Oliver was able to fill in the details which were crucial in this instance. Without rehashing much of her background, the pastor also said that they had other people (gringos) come who wanted to help with her care but they only would help for awhile.
He said that there was a “missionary” who had come and raised funds locally and in the U.S. to help Yamuleith but ended up taking the money for himself. Pastor Cesar said that he and his family were then accused of taking the money and misusing the funds for themselves. He vehemently denied that. He said that he promised Yamuleith when they found her 15 months ago that he would never abandon her and that they had endured shame and poverty ever since. He said that it is easy for others to be critical of their situation when they are not the ones having to live their life. I immediately felt ashamed for my skepticism. He also told us that in order to bring in better money that he was now working on the Atlantic Coast and was gone for 1 to 2 months at a time. This of course, leaves the burden of care on Erika…who is also busy trying to take care of her own children. While he is gone, she is dependent upon the sale of cooked beans from her house.
Pastor Cesar then pounded the final nail in my shame box. He said that he and Erika knew that we had the spirit of the Lord on us and that we were always welcome in their home at any time, day or night. This was a much more sincere offer than the first time he had welcomed us. He said that he could tell that we had sincere affection and concern for Yamuleith and that we had demonstrated great respect for his family. He said that there had been many big fancy cars pull up in front of his house but our car was the one which always brought help and hope.
He then told us that their dream is that someday, they would like to be able to build a separate room for Yamuleith. He would want a “sealed” room with air conditioning so that they could keep out the ants, flies, dust and humidity. He said she would do much better and that her sores would heal.

I want to tell you that I was on his side 100% at that moment but I don’t think I was. When I am skeptical of something or someone, I have to admit it runs pretty deep…which is so funny when I think about it because I have been accused in the past of jumping into situations before knowing the whole story. I just kept asking God for wisdom and compassion and that He would reveal truth to me.
I know I was pretty quiet that day on the way home. I told Jim that I was wrestling back and forth with my feelings about the family. One minute, I was frustrated and skeptical and the next minute, I felt so badly that they were struggling like they were. I could not nor can I yet, imagine what it is like to be responsible for someone who requires such extensive care. It is so easy to cast dispersions upon those who don’t measure up to our own expectations…it’s even easier when there’s someone like Yamuleith involved. But I know I can’t cast those stones unless I’m willing to take Yamuleith as my own and to be prepared to devote my own 24 hours a day/7 days a week to her. Physically, I can’t do that. Morally, I can’t do that. She’s not mine to take.
So…what do we do here? Do we just let her waste away? What’s the answer? Do we just praise this family for their sacrifice and continue to see ants crawl over the every-increasing bed sores? Do we test our very young relationship with this family by suggesting that she needs better care and then risk offending them to the point we are not allowed to see Yamuleith again? Where is the balance we need in this situation? Is the ever-coveted “relationship-building” process worth more than Yamuleith’s well-being?
Children like Yamuleith are the ones who fall between the cracks. They’re the messy ones…the ones who cause us to find that it is so much easier to be busy than it is to help; the ones who are uncomfortable to be around; the ones whose unimaginable circumstances interrupt our own comfortableness; the ones who shine a bright glaring light on our “religiosity”.
Oh, it would be so much easier to just drop food off, just drop meds off, smile and drive away. But now, now we can’t do that. Not now. Somehow, we have made some sort of unknown and undefined commitment. By brushing ants off this child’s skin-and-bone body, by wiping her oh-so-feverish brow, by holding her bent and twisted fingers and by answering her pleas for help, it is sealed. We are officially involved. Painfully, tearfully, exhaustingly involved. I will finish this later.

Oh Wait, There's More...

2010-04-13T21:23:00.002-06:00

The last blog I wrote, I mentioned that God has a remarkable way of teaching us the things we need to learn. This is a continuation of our first weekend home after a great visit State-side. (And this is a note to Wanda, a very special friend of ours...it's a long one! This should keep you busy for a bit! :0) )
Because it was Semana Santa and Friday was a holiday, all of our employees were given the day off which meant we didn’t have a guard that day or that night. I had already planned on staying home with Xander and getting started on our laundry and spending the day unpacking and reorganizing. I had figured it would be a quiet and fairly restful day at home…that “figuring” was done on the plane Thursday before we arrived home to all the ticks.
What I hadn’t figured in was the amount of time or energy I would be spending repeating the following procedure numerous times throughout that day (and the days following) in trying to eliminate them. I realized I had a routine and rarely did I vary from it. I had started out by calling Jim to take care of them but we both realized early on that wasn’t going to be feasible. I was going to have to deal with the little blood-suckers, as well. And thus began the tick dance.
Initially, I would shudder violently when I realized there was yet another tick that needed my attention…whether it was on the floor, the bed, the table, the wall, the dog…or the worst of all, on Jim or me. I would then hold my breath (why I do that with this kind of thing, I don’t know, but I do) and then having worked up enough gumption, I would make what I’m sure was a horribly nasty face, reach out, pull back, reach out, pull back and finally, forging ahead, I would just do the dirty deed of picking them or pulling them off. The shudder move was then repeated accompanied by the horribly, nasty face.
Disposal was either achieved by depositing them in a plastic container for a mass casting out resulting in a “burial at sea” (the toilet) or they were dropped one by one in to the teeming waters and flushed away. (I am currently doing a Bible study on Jonah…can you tell?) I then would immediately and vigorously wash my hands with antibacterial soap. As I said, this procedure was repeated over and over. The first few days were around here were pretty dramatic, trust me.
Okay…so enough of the tick issue…I’ve probably milked all the sympathy out of dealing with them that I can. Back to the “More”…
We got up early Friday morning, thanks to the neighbor’s anemic rooster issuing his daybreak clarion call…plus it’s hard to sleep in late when you’re fearful to stay in one place or position for too long of a period. A vision of ticks swarming over my unsuspecting, sleeping body was more powerful of a motivator to get up than my alarm clock could ever have been.
As soon as we finished our quiet time and breakfast, I started the laundry. The fact that the water was already at just a trickle was not a good sign…laundry was going to take a lot longer than I had planned. That’s just part and parcel of us living in Nicaragua…I don’t even think much about it anymore…it’s just the way it is. Jim planned on going to go get some money changed and then go to the grocery store as we didn’t have any food in the house. The total lack of food was not a planned event.
I had left the food that would not be good upon our return on the second shelf of our refrigerator. I also had left a note for Margarita telling her she could have that food for her family, but evidently, I must not have been clear which shelf because when we got home Thursday night, there wasn’t anything left…no tub butter, no unopened cheese, no food in the freezer, nothing. That’s one of the pitfalls of trying to communicate in writing with folks who have little education…hmmm…I guess that would include us in regards to our language skills! No big deal…Jim would just run to the store Friday morning.
But it was soon going to turn in to a big deal. To begin with, the car wouldn’t start. It wouldn’t even turn over. We weren’t really all that surprised. After all, it had been over 3 weeks since it had been started and the battery had given us some problems before. But neither of us thought it to be a major problem. Jim would just hook up the little portable charger that we purchased for such situations. He left it on the battery for a bit and then tried to start it again…still no luck.
Jim then cleaned the connections on the cables and hooked the charger back up for a little while longer. Meanwhile, we each had a hearty breakfast of dry, crumbly granola bars – one each. The thought of rationing had already crossed my mind. I was glad we had them in the pantry and I was even more glad that we had our good Nica coffee to wash them down.
Jim returned to the carport. I heard the car door open and prayed that it would start. Nada. I sighed and headed for the kitchen, trying to assess what we would have for lunch later that day. I knew I had some canned soup in the pantry and there were still a few individual packages of saltines. No problem. Hmmm…didn’t I think that earlier?
Later that afternoon, after a tasty lunch of peanut butter, crackers and water, when we knew the battery was going to refuse to be charged, we called Susanna. We were hoping she would be able to take Jim to PriceSmart to buy a battery and if she couldn’t do that, then Plan B was that maybe she could run him to the grocery store so that we could at least get a few groceries…including cat food and dog food. We were dangerously close to being out of pet food, as well.
No answer at any of Susanna’s three phone numbers, but we left messages on all three just to cover all our bases. I also sent her an e-mail just in case there was something happening with her phones and that she wasn’t receiving our messages. Supper time rolled around. We were both hungry…the peanut butter and crackers were great for lunch but didn’t have a lot of staying power. I decided to fix our can of chicken noodle soup. Oops…that can of soup wasn’t chicken noodle…it was cream of celery. I didn’t even try to run that one by Jim.
Okay, I knew we weren’t going to starve to death, but we were getting hungry…and I was getting worried. It was Semana Santa weekend…Easter weekend. There were already a lot of the smaller businesses that were closed. I knew that even more would be closed the next day…
Supper that night consisted of microwave popcorn…and since it was not the freshest of popcorn to begin with, we had lots of unpopped kernels and what did pop was tough…but oh my goodness…it tasted pretty good that night!
Another thing we didn’t have was a bag of ice. And, since it was so hot, our two little ice cube trays were having a hard time keeping up with our desire for cold water…but I have to say, I think we were becoming much more appreciative for each little blessing. And tiny ice cubes? They were a definite blessing!
Friday night, we were without a night guard. And because it was a holiday weekend, I was a little uneasy that we weren’t going to have anyone there. It was a night of little sleep…not because of outside disturbances but simply because I tend not to sleep as well on the nights we are guard-free. It didn’t help that now, Xander seems to be just like a baby who has his nights and days mixed up. He wants to sleep during the day due to the heat and then about 11:00 p.m. and on…he’s ready to play! Which means he barks, jumps on the bed, whines and digs at us. That tick-bitten canine was testing my profession of being an animal lover!
Saturday morning, we were up early again…love that raspy-voiced rooster! We scrounged up two more granola bars. I was pretty happy to have found those tucked in the back of the pantry. We also ate a little bit of some stale cereal…without milk. And it was another day without water…it hadn’t come on during the night. This meant that we didn’t have a lot in reserve in our water tank. And it also meant that we quickly became very conservative on washing our dishes, flushing our toilets and naturally, there were no showers…we took spit baths. Of course, laundry wasn’t even on our radar at that point.
We also realized around 9:00 a.m. that morning that our day guard wasn’t coming. He hadn’t called so we assumed that there was yet another misunderstanding and that he was taking the entire weekend off. Okay, we could manage without the guard. I figured that would also save us some on that week’s payroll.
We tried to call Susanna again. Great. Jim’s phone didn’t have any more minutes on it. I got mine. Neither did mine. Note to self…not a good idea to recharge the phones at the same time…let there be at least a 48 hour delay for the second one. Now what? Nothing. We would wait and hope that we would hear from Susanna. We could receive phone calls, we just couldn’t make any.
Finally, around 11:00 a.m., Susanna called. She had been staying at the hospital with a sick baby and had not checked her messages. She was busy but said that she was going home for a bit and would come by around 1:00 p.m. or so and let us use her car until Monday if Jim would take her back to the hospital. We figured Jim could run to PriceSmart after taking Susanna back to the hospital and then stop by the grocery store.
We also began discussing buying a freezer….again. We have this conversation periodically. We have looked at them and priced them and even measured for them. Because our refrigerator is small, our freezer space is even smaller…which means that our 10# bag of ice that we normally have stuffed in there, takes up most of our refrigerator’s freezer space. That day, a yodel probably would have echoed in the freezer, it was so empty! But typically, it is “full” of ice which leaves little space for anything else.
We have rationalized that if we bought a freezer, we could buy meat, chicken…maybe even ice cream… when we can find it on sale and keep it in the freezer. If we had a freezer, we would most certainly have had some type of meat in it. And if that were the case, we could have had some real food instead of the scavenged carbs we were salivating over at each meal.
The last time we had this conversation about a freezer, it was right after Christmas when PriceSmart marked down their turkeys...we could have bought one for between $20 and $30! In retrospect, I realized I had almost talked Jim into buying a ridiculously high-priced appliance based solely on the price of a marked-down turkey!!! Thank goodness, Jim is not impulsive! As happy as my head was at that moment about my sometimes frustratingly non-impulsive husband, my stomach was a little resentful about the fact.
But knowing Susanna was going to be coming by soon, picked my spirits up. 1:00 came and went. And so did 2:00…and 3:00 and 4:00. And we had no way of calling to check on her to make sure everything was okay on her end. Finally, Susanna called and she was on her way to the pick Jim up. It was almost 6:00 p.m. She had her own problems to deal with so we were very thankful that she made the time to run up to our house to get Jim.
They left to go back to La Mascota…the children’s hospital where she was staying with the baby. It is a fair distance from our house. About an hour later, Jim called me from the grocery store. Due to the hour and the fact that there were already lots of celebrants out drinking, driving and shooting off their fireworks, Jim had decided not to try to go to PriceSmart and instead, headed straight to the grocery store. Thankfully, La Union takes American money because by the time Jim was able to get out, the money-changers had already gone home. We had skipped lunch…I don’t know how much of an option it was at that point…so the thought of seeing my beloved husband walk through the door with food…well, it almost made me giddy!
Saturday night, we were again without a guard which was going to mean another restless night. Actually, it would have been a restless night even if we would have had a guard. Our neighbors had one of their all-night parties…which literally go all night. The loud music, singing and drinking typically last until daybreak and that night was no exception. I think we finally fell asleep around 5:00 a.m. and of course, we then overslept, not waking up until well after 8:00 a.m. We missed our Easter service and communion at church!
What was amazing to me was that overall, I had dealt pretty well with the ticks, I dealt with the dead battery and I was even okay with minimal meals. But for whatever reason, the fact we had missed church on Easter really got to me. I was teary most of the morning. It just seemed that ever since we had set foot on Nicaraguan soil again, that we had been met with one challenge after another.
I thought about what it was that I could take away from all of that. I wanted to find the positive in each obstacle. I wanted to know what God was doing in that weekend that seemed to be filled with examples of Murphy’s Law at work.
The ticks? Affectionately known here as the Plague of the Blood-Suckers…what could be good about that? I was forced to deal with something that I absolutely abhor. Never did I think I could get to the point of popping those bloated little blimps of blood off my dog without an automatic gag reflex kicking in to gear. I can now. And I think God is making sure I don’t forget how to do it as we are still tick-picking here in Ticomo, but thankfully, the numbers are decreasing dramatically.
The dead car battery? We don’t know why, but we feel that it was obvious that God wanted us to stay put that weekend. And what we might have initially considered a huge inconvenience very well could have turned out to be God’s hand of protection on us. Thank you, Father, for the “No” answer to those prayers we asked of You on Friday and most of Saturday to enable us to go to town. We don’t need to know from what you protected us but we do need to be grateful for that protection.
The empty refrigerator and freezer? Once I got hold of the truth that we weren’t going to starve to death and no one was going to have to happen upon our bleached bones, I realized that our lack of food enabled a needy family to have some food. And I honestly was glad that we were able to help Margarita and her family even through a misunderstanding.
No food in the house? Okay, that was an exaggeration. We had granola bars, peanut butter, crackers and popcorn. We had enough and we didn’t suffer a bit. All I have to do is look out my kitchen window and I see folks who can’t say that. God provided what we needed. Proverbs 30:8-9 (NIV) says, “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, "Who is the Lord?" Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.” That verse has new meaning for me now…and I sincerely hope that I have more compassion now for those who suffer hunger pains that are real and prolonged and less tolerance for those who whine and complain that they don’t like what is put before them.
No night guard? We have the One who sees everything watching over us and we never have to fear that He may fall asleep or not show up. He’s here.
No Easter service? Funny…my Bible still has the same Resurrection account and God has blessed me with the ability to read it for myself. Although it is not something I would advocate, we did okay not participating in our Easter service here. And God had already blessed us with a special communion service with our church family in Cassville the night before we left to come back here.
I think that rough weekend was meant to prepare us for what lies ahead for us here...and it’s true, the battles have already begun. It’s always a Mountain Top time when we get to visit our family and friends in the States and this time, we were also able to participate in a wonderful missions’ conference while there. It’s never easy to leave the comfortable and familiar.
There’s no doubt that God has blessed us immensely. I think He wanted to remind us of that. I think He also wanted to remind us that His blessings don’t always come wrapped as expected. Sometimes they appear in the most unexpected way. I think He wanted to remind us that, of course, there’s going to be more ahead…more difficulties, more frustrations, more discouragement…and we are to meet each one of those more situations with more of God. I’m profoundly thankful tonight that He is More than enough.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God;" Romans 8:28