A Little Bit of Everything: Long but informative.

Well, I have been crazy busy and so I have a lot to blog about, but no time to do it. Here goes a sort of summary of the last couple of days. (these are carrots that I bought in Zunil, a mountain village on our way home from Fuentes)

BoyD has graduated to a big boy bed! We turned his crib into a toddler bed this last weekend with the fear that we would be up all night putting him back in his bed. Well, we closed his bedroom door, he went to bed just fine, and he woke at 7am and got up and knocked on his door to get out! It went incredibly well. We put him in his bed b/c we are going to be travelling a lot very soon and having to take around 2 pack-n-plays would be much more difficult. Anyway, this morning he woke up at like 6:30 and we weren't ready for him to get up, so we put him back in bed with some books and he was content until 7am when I went to get him up. Hopefully it will stay that way.

BoyD loves his preschool. The first day, he didn't really want to talk about it (he said...Mom, will you not ask me again what we did?) I guess I was nagging. But, the second day he told me all about it and sang me a song in Spanish that he sang at school. Pretty cool.

He didn't go to school this week b/c he has the chicken pox. He was vaccinated so it wasn't very severe, but he has the little blisters that itch and all that, so until they all scab up he can't go to school. Sigh.

We got a package brought to us from the US filled with cloth diapers that I bought used on line for half the price. they are these awesome diapers that work like disposables but you wash them instead, and we are going to save SO MUCH MONEY! This way the pre-school can also do cloth with him. Very cool. And almost all of the diapers are 1 size fits all so I don't have to worry about which diapers are BoyD's and which are BabyM's.

BabyM has started to scoot. She isn't crawling just yet, but she really doesn't need to b/c she can get to wherever she wants to go by rolling, rotating, turning, and scooting. Nothing is really out of her reach anymore. Also her hair is really long.

I am going to start a women's Bible study here in my house pretty soon. Please be praying about this. The women who are interested are Gladys: the woman who works at our house. She is completely uneducated (although she can read) and loves the Lord but is living with her boyfriend. The next woman, Hortencia is a great friend. She also loves the Lord, but doesn't go to church b/c she likes the reverence of the Catholic church but she isn't Catholic. She has serious problems with a church that takes and doesn't give, and she believes demonstrative worship is incorrect and irreverent. (Loud instruments as well). Another lady is Edna, our language teacher who as far as we can believes in Jesus, but claims no religion. Interesting, but her first real encounter with the Bible has been with Brandon during language school. The other woman is Nelly, a CAM missionary (a Guatemalan) who loves Jesus and is in a sense discipling me. Very mature believer. Finally, there is a woman from our church but she might not be living in the country much longer, and she also works during the day. Please pray about timing and interest.

We are going to the city this weekend for a Peacemakers conference with CAM. It will be really good to fellowship with some other CAM missionaries and to get some additional training.

Finally, I went to the orphanage today. I forgot my camera, so I will take it next time to get some photos. It was fun, challenging, strange, a little frustrating, and incredibly sad. We had 22 7-9 year olds, both boys and girls. We played a name game, we read John 3:16, we made those salvation bracelets with the 5 colored beads, we drew, and we gave them a snack (gelatinas...homemade jello in baggies) It was hard b/c I have no authority with these kids. Some of them wanted to please me and so obeyed, while most just didn't care. They only obeyed when it benefited them. They were very easily distracted (2 hours is a long time for a 7 year old to sit still) and I don't think I really communicated anything that I wanted to communicate. By the time we got to explaining the significance of the colors, they were tired and antsy.

One of the little girls is there b/c she had fallen off of a 2nd story landing more than once, and the hospital where she went advised the authorities. They sent her to this orphanage and no one has come to visit her yet and it has been several months. Another little girl is there b/c her father is in prison and her mother is dead.

When it was snack time, a bunch of other kids came into the cafeteria (where we were working) for their snack and they all wanted some of the jello that we brought, but we didn't have enough. It was really sad. They were eating some sort of gelatinous mush in cups. Not even Nelly knew what it was. Anyway, there were quite a few mentally retarded or otherwise disabled kids that were hanging out where we were. They wanted jello, so we snuck a few of the extras to them. They kept hugging us and following us around. There was one little mentally retarded girl in a wheel chair (like 6-8 years old) who kept reaching up for us to hold her, or hug her or something. I just leaned down and hugged and kissed her. I wasn't sure what she wanted. It was so incredibly sad. As we left, we walked by the little ones eating their snack. There were 8 or 9 little kids (1-3 yrs old) sitting on a curb eating their snack. Several were filthy in clothes that were old and didn't fit right. Finally, when we left, one little girl was hanging on Nelly and told the woman who let us out that Nelly was her mommy.

I just kept thinking that all of these little children are alone, without parents. I am not sure which is sadder, that some of them have no family at all, or that they have family, but have been taken away and often times not even visited by what family they do have. The little toddlers not getting read and rocked to sleep. They mentally retarded don't get someone to cherish them and believe in them.

I wept at the sadness the entire way home. I am still crying. 2 hours a week is not enough. I am going to ask you to please pray for more workers. I would be happy to organize curriculum and everything if there were just more people who would be willing to love on these children. My heart breaks as our Lord's heart breaks for these little ones. Please pray that God will bless this work, that we would know how best to minister.