Catch-up time:
We went out to El Melonar yesterday and delivered the
translated letters that some of the FBC Cassville kids had written to students
there. The children were so excited to
get a letter with a picture! They really
enjoyed seeing the faces of their new friends.
While there, Prof. Mario also had me work with the kids for a few
minutes on their English. Since this was
a surprise, I had nothing planned. So, I
started reviewing the vocabulary that the children had learned from the
Creation Story taught by the FBC team a few weeks ago...and those kids were
able to respond correctly (or close enough) to almost every question I asked
them! The fact that these kids could
still remember something they had not had reviewed with them for a few weeks
was so exciting! We couldn't have been
more pumped with this kind of response!
While there, we were able to meet a new student who had just
started school the day before. Keyling
is a very quiet young girl who is in the 5th grade and is about 4 weeks behind
the other students. She lives some
distance from the school and was not going to attend but Mario had encouraged
the family to go ahead and send her. We
told her that when classes resume after Semana Santa (Holy Week which begins
tomorrow), that we will have uniforms, school supplies and a backpack waiting
for her. She was so excited!
And…I just realized that I still have to tell you all about
the week that the FBC Cassville team was here!
What a great week that was and it was so wonderful to see God working as
He was. I’m going to have to share all
of that in another post. Just not enough
time to do so in this one.
I still have not seemed to have caught up from life during
the last few weeks…I’ve actually been pretty tired. The team came March 3rd and were
here through the 10th…that week flew by! We stayed in Managua after taking the team to
the airport to tearfully see them off and Jim spent the next two days getting
the paperwork for us so that we could leave for Costa Rica to renew our
visas. We left for C.R. on Wednesday and
were able to return to Managua that same evening. I won’t go in to it here but I will say that
we sure won’t be doing that again in that way!
But, one of the positive things we were able to do while at
the border, was to bring our friend, Walter and his mother, who live in Rivas,
up to one of the hospitals in Managua. Walter
and Faber, another young man whom we’ve gotten to know somewhat, are the two young
men we always rely on to help us with the border crossing process on the
Nicaraguan side. What is so amazing is
that they always seem to recognize our car and I think they actually remember
us because of the questions they ask! Not quite sure how to interpret that! J
Both of the boys are very good with us and because this can
be a time-consuming process, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to watch others who
work there as they interact with other folks crossing the border. I’m very thankful that God led us to Walter
and Faber three years ago. And for those
of you who have followed us since we’ve arrived, Faber is the young man to whom
we once gave a ride back to Rivas and who asked us what a missionary did, which
led to a really good conversation with him.
Okay…back to the story…Walter’s younger brother, José who is
17 years old, had been hit by a semi three weeks before and was still in
serious condition. While we were there
at the border, Walter received a call from his mother and she said she needed
Walter to leave work and take her on the bus to Managua, that José was not
doing well and she felt like they needed to go asap. Walter and José’s father had been there for
the previous few days and it was his mother’s turn to go sit with him. We offered to give Walter and his mother a
ride to Managua which would save them their bus fare. Walter was so taken aback when I asked if
they would like a ride…he called his mother immediately and told her to go to
the bus stop on the highway that goes through Rivas and we would come and pick
her up on our way home. I think she must
have had to wait several hours before we actually got there. We thoroughly enjoyed having their company on
our trip back to Managua and as we dropped Walter and his mother off in front
of the hospital, we also felt led to help the family with the some of the costs
they were incurring with meds that were not being provided by the hospital. It wasn’t much, but we knew that it would be
of some help and considered it a privilege to be able to help this family whose
son had always gone out of his way to be a help to us.
Next update…we have a new housekeeper. Long story short, we felt the need to make a
change asap and although this was someone we had met earlier and had decided
against at the time for various reasons, we felt that God was definitely moving
us in that direction to hire her at this time.
After a lot of prayer, we had made the decision to go ahead and
terminate the lady who was not working out for us and to hire Ileana if she was
available. Before I even had the chance
to call her to see if she would be interested in a job, she showed up on our
doorstep, asking to come to work for us to pay off a small loan we had made to
her a few months ago. That was such an
affirmation for us that we were making the right decision as we had not discussed
this with anyone else at all!
And so, Ileana started working for us this past Monday...and
oh my goodness!...what a worker she is turning out to be! We actually had to go out and tell her that
it wasn't necessary to sweep the backyard!
A very typical thing to do here but not one that we feel a need to
incorporate in to our way of living.
:) We couldn't be more pleased
with the job Ileana is doing. She's very
proactive about finding things to do as she whips through her daily tasks in no
time. I think she does an even better
job cleaning than did Margarita and that’s some pretty high praise coming from
me at this point. Several of the things
I most appreciate about Ileana are her humility and her honesty. I'm truly hoping this all works out.
I wrote last night on Facebook about our unseasonably heavy
rain storm and the leaks in our kitchen.
Today, Jim was up on the roof trying to seal any areas he thought might
be responsible for the waterfalls coming down our kitchen wall that we
experienced last night. He also cleaned
out our gutters so that hopefully, with the next bout of rain, our rear patio
won't be so prone to flooding.
But, what we experienced with water in the kitchen was
nothing compared to what Ileana had to deal with. The storm ruined her outdoor kitchen. We went over today to look at it and see what
we could do to help. She had mentioned
that they would try to cover it with plastic but a wood fire inside a plastic
covered enclosure is not a healthy thing to have…and it’s unbelievably hot and uncomfortable
with all the smoke that swirls around.
Jim did some estimating of what it would cost to build a
simple structure to cover the cooking area and we told Ileana that we would
supply the materials but that her husband and his friends from church would
have to supply the labor. Her husband is
a pastor and we're both still a little hesitant to pursue much of a
relationship with him at this time based on some past experiences. But we know that Ileana needs a kitchen (and
that term is used loosely here to describe any area where food preparation
takes place)and from the looks of the house where they live, it would be a long
time before she could ever have anything other than the plastic wrapped around
the concrete fire pit...and even that is a questionable reality.
Ileana thought for a moment and then thanked us profusely for
wanting to help…but then very gently and what almost seemed fearfully, she refused
our offer! She said that their landlady is not honest
with them, always asking for more money than the agreed upon rent among other
things. Ileana said they don't know if
they're going to stay in that house or not and she didn't want us to spend the
money for a roof over the outside kitchen when she might not even be able to
use it in a month.
Jim and I discussed some other options and we ended up
deciding to get her a 2 burner gas stove top, which is relatively inexpensive
and a full tank of gas, which is not.
This is also beyond anything that the family would ever be able to
afford to obtain on their own but we felt that it was a viable option as they
could take those things with them if they should have to move. We also bought some plastic plates and bowls
so that they could have something to eat out of besides their 3 cooking pans. I will continue to look for an inexpensive
but sturdy set of silverware for them...believe it or not, that's not an easy
thing to find here!
When we came back, Ileana was overwhelmed! She had never had anything a cook top before. She has always cooked over an open wood fire
and so Jim had to show her how to connect and disconnect the tubing from the
gas tank when they're not using it. They
live in a one room house and we want them to be as safe as possible. He had her practice a few times while we were
there so that she would know how to use it.
Because the only surface they have for the cook top is a
small plastic table, the cook top is now sitting on the floor. The only other furniture that they have is a
double bed which Ileana, her husband and Carina, their six-year-old daughter all
share, and some plastic chairs. We are
going to be looking for a small simply made, inexpensive wooden table for them
plus a similar style small wooden shelving unit so that they have something to
put their dishes on and their clothes...which currently sit in a box on a chair. The size of their wardrobes is far from large,
to say the least.
The house is divided in half by a rope with throws and old
shower curtains providing privacy. The living
quarters is on one half of the house and the church, which her husband pastors,
meets in the other half. Her house was clean...but then, when there's not much
in the way of belongings, it doesn't take long to pick up...and there's practically
nothing to dust. I realized as I looked
around that this family lives probably as sparsely as any family I've
encountered. Even many of the poorer
families we have worked with in Tipitapa, Cristo Rey and Los Cedros had more in
the way of belongings than this family does.
I saw Ileana's "groceries" sitting in a bowl in another chair
and saw that they were going to be having spaghetti tonight...mixed with a
packet of ketchup. I can't shake that
image. They did have a small old tube
style television that I’m sure someone had given them. That’s what was sitting on the plastic
table. The other thing I noticed was
that there were no toys for Carina. If I
didn’t know that they had her, it would have been almost impossible to
determine so just by glancing around. Only
a few pieces of laundry hung to dry on the barbed wire fence out back and her
baby picture leaning against a wall were the only indications that there was a
child who lived there. That will
probably have to change at least a little along with a few other things! :)
Ileana's house is a very neatly kept small government built
house and is one of a string of them built side by side and back to back in a
neighborhood behind the city cemetery.
It has the one relatively good sized room and a raised tin roof for
ventilation along with a concrete floor.
There are a couple of windows and both a front and a back door. The outhouse and shower are very basic
structures with just a piece of material serving as the covering for privacy
and are right behind their house. And of
course, the outdoor kitchen is useable in good weather although it sits in full
sun much of the day and would be very hot to stand out there to cook over.
I have to tell you that my instinct is to "fix"
this for this family. To fill their
house with "stuff". To make
their house more comfortable. And...for
whom would I do this? If I were honest,
I would say for me. Their poverty makes
me uncomfortable to see. It's hard for
me to realize or to accept that this is how they have lived most of their
lives. I think that there are so many
things that would ease the hardness and difficulties of life for them and I
want to jump in there and provide them all.
But that's not necessarily the best thing to do.
They are my Christian brothers and sisters...and I am called
to help them. And that's exactly why we
didn't do all the other things today that my flesh cried out to do. I want to help them with things that
matter...not with things that don't. And
so, we will proceed cautiously with this assistance, but I have no doubt that
we will proceed...we just want to do it wisely and as God would have us to do. Today was payday for Ileana...and that's a
start. A steady income. That’s not something they’ve had for a long,
long time. And she now has a place to
cook when the rains come again and she has some nice, plastic dishes for
tonight's spaghetti. I want to do more. God says it's enough for today.
