A Sweet Night

Last night was one of the best nights I’ve had here. Through a strange and unplanned series of events, I asked the house mother of the Griffin Boys (my absolute favorites…ages 4-7) if I could show them a movie on my computer. I threw my comforter and pillow on their floor and they all gathered around me as we watched Curious George (in Spanish). In some ways it was a bitter sweet night because I knew that one sweet boy, Bryan, would be leaving to go home with his mom the next day. It's not a "good" home as best we can tell. Anyhow, I sat on the floor with one boy on my right thigh, another bony rear end on my left, one directly in front of me, one was draped over my shoulder/back, and one lay on his stomach and rested his chin on my shin. I couldn’t have been more happy as I lazily rubbed their backs and heads and enjoyed my time with them. Sometimes, one boy or another would get restless and he’d move to the lab of Abigail, the house mom. At one point I looked over my shoulder and saw her hand on Bryan’s head, her head bowed as she silently prayed over him. What a sweet night.

"Helping" a Fisherman

Last week on our free day, we missionaries went again to the beach. It’s close, easy, and cheap. While I sat under the shade of a palm tree, I couldn’t help but notice a good size boat (not a ship) pull up onto the beach directly in front of us. The young tyke stayed in the boat, but the other two young men heaved on a net to pull it on the beach and up beyond the incoming waves. I watched as they opened the net and began to pull out the fish one by one and throw it into a bucket. I suddenly had the urge to go help them. It was so easy to image that this must be similar to how the fisherman of Jesus’ time earned a living. My urge got the best of me and the next thing I knew I was asking in Spanish if I could help. They looked at me like I had two heads. So I repeated my question. One asked me, “You (actually) like doing this?” I replied, “I don’t know, this is my first time.” After a pause, he said OK, so I started to “help”. I wasn’t afraid to mess with a fish since I’d fished many times with my dad and sometimes my grandpas when I was a kid. The fish weren’t as slimy and as hard to handle as I expected, however many of them were very tangled in the net. I quickly learned there was a right and wrong way to do this job, and it was not nearly as easy as it seemed. Also, within about 2 minutes, I noticed that not only were my arms itching and burning simultaneously, but so was my neck on one side. Only a minute or so later, one of the young guys encouraged me to try to stay out of the net (which is impossible) as much as possible because of jelly fish. It took me awhile, but I finally figured out that “jelly fish juice” was on most parts of the net from times where jelly fish had tangled with the net. There wasn’t anything visible on the net (re: the jellyfish), but anytime a bit of water spritzed on me or when the net hit my skin, it caused it to react as if I’d touched a jelly fish. I refused to stop what I was doing and was determined to tough it out along with the guys. But you can believe I headed for the shower as soon as the catch was done. I guess they’d become accustomed to it. Unfortunately, I found out that I was so focused on getting the fish out of the net, that I didn’t notice that not all of the fish were being thrown in the bucket. Yet, I tossed every fish I touched into the bucket. So when we were finished, the guys had to dump out all the fish and sort them. So I guess I wasn’t but so much help. They told me that they were unable to sell a certain kind of fish. They then washed out and folded their net and headed inland. I wished someone had their camera...but it's not worth risking it in the sand and salty air. But it'll last in my memory for a long time. It was a really special experience.

Preparing for Christmas

For those of you that may think that the mission field can't possibly have as much Christmas chaos as what you're experiencing....you just may be wrong.

Let's see there's gifts to buy and wrap for 80 children, stockings to stuff, 7 Christmas trees to be put up, decorations to be hand made, trees and houses to be decorated, Christmas pageant to be prepared and rehearsed, children's hand bell choir to be organized and rehearsed, gifts to be purchased and wrapped for the kids in Oasis, teams to host just before and right after Christmas, various Christmas parties to throw and attend for the kids and staff, and 350 sponsor Christmas cards to be written, translated, decorated, folded and placed in an envelope that needs to be addressed, sealed, and stamped to various parts of the world. Yes, there's plenty to be done here too.

But I've also got to admit to you, that this year this ministry has been truly blessed by excellent teams that have come intentionally to help with Christmas. Robin, from Maryland, was a missionary here when I came to check out this place last December. Robin finished her service and returned home last Feb. Except for my 12 day visit, Robin had everything to do on her own, and she vowed she would return this year and bring lots of nice gifts for the kids. I knew her intentions were good, but to be honest I didn't really expect her to come back. But sure enough, she and two really helpful young women came and made a huge impact. They bought a lot of gifts with them, and then went out and purchased shoes and other items for every kid here. By the time they left, they had prepared individual plastic sacks of gifts for each kid (usually a pair of pants/shirt or skirt/dress, socks, underwear, shoes, and a small toy or two). They did an outstanding job. Of course we missionaries helped out, but by in large they took on this Christmas project head on. Shortly after Robin's team left, a college aged gal from upstate New York came for 1.5 weeks to volunteer. She wrapped just about every kid's gift. Now there's a team here from Florida. They bought and wrapped gifts for the Oasis kids. They were assigned stocking stuffing duties. Oh, they (and Robin's team) also made hand crafts for the Christmas trees too. And a team from Texas is coming on Dec 27th for 2 weeks. I'm sure they'll be helping to take down all the decorations. So, all in all, we missionaries have been really blessed by support this Christmas. To be honest, I think God knew that we were going to have out hands, minds, and hearts filled with other stuff going on and He knew that we would not be able to sufficiently take care of Christmas w/o help. I think God hand chose certain people and teams to come help us out. Isn't it just like God to provide all we need, especially at Christmas?

My special Christmas assignment has been to get the kids to all write and decorate Christmas messages to their sponsors, then translate them, and get them mailed out. I was far from the being in a Christmas mood when I started this project in mid November in this tropical climate. I put on some Christmas music (including my all time favorite Charlie Brown Christmas CD) and invited a few girls to my house to help with the work. We worked and laughed and enjoyed sharing our lives with each other. I didn't put up a tree, but did put a red bow on my front door. And not too long ago I found myself feeling a bit "Christmasy". I'm currently re-reading the Christmas story in the Bible, and even trying my Spanish Bible. And like every year, I'm again struck by the true meaning of Christmas as I envision God's gift of His son. But this year, my vision has increased to thinking about how this gift is experienced by people who live on dirt floors, or by kids that don't have a traditional style family, and by watching people around me who are giving so selflessly because they received this gift.

Wherever you are and however you celebrate Christmas, I thank you for being a part of my Christmas.

(The picture is of me and some of the kids in front of the Christmas tree in the dining room . )

Jokes....Central American Missionary Style, Part I

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road
A: Because it was being chased by a man with a machete.
(It's true....I've seen it happen!)


Q: What's worse than having a next door neighbor with a kid that likes to scream and cry often?
A: Discovering that the neighbor also has a parrot that has learned to scream and cry often just like the child.
(This too is true, and is my current reality.)

Graduation

School is done differently in this country. We're now in our summer break and a new school year will begin in January. They make a pretty big deal of graduation from kindergarten as well as 9th grade and 12th grade. The picture below shows most of our little ones. The ones with the green ribbon around their neck are the kindergarten graduates. The girl in the blue/white is Beatrice, who graduated from the 9th grade. She's quite a gal and has lots of potential. The high school graduate is Diana. She's been here for about 10 years, and just left about a week ago to go live with a family member. She's hoping to get accepted into a local Christian University. If so, her current sponsors will also pay for her college education.

Days of Tears

About a week ago, we found out the names of the children on the ISNA list that would have to leave 3 days later on Thursday Dec 13th. 5 names were on the list...mostly teenagers. A week earlier, completely by surprise, a mom came by with the appropriate legal papers to obtain her 3 children. This happened on our day off, so we didn't even get a chance to say good-bye. It seems to be a good mom, so we're happy for the children and hope the mom can care for the children appropriately this time. Then a couple days later, Diana left. This was expected since she was our oldest kid, 19, and just graduated from high school. She said a tearful good-bye at our church service and then left with her family. So, in the week before the big exodus, we'd already lost 4 kids.

On the 13th, we missionaries gathered early in the AM to talk and pray with the 5 kids slotted to leave . It was really tough. We cried our eyes out. Unfortunately, nobody knew what time their family was going to come, so we spend most of the day trying to be productive yet waiting for the final good-bye. The kids congregated on a park bench and just sat and huddled together the entire day. Some of them were going to have to say good-bye to siblings, and all of them felt like they were loosing siblings and/or best friends. At one point, I sat on the bench with the kids. One kid on my left knee and leaning her wet face against my chest. Another kid was under my right arm. Another kids was sitting on my left and holding my hand. By mid afternoon, 4 of the 5 kids and their family member were on campus. So B&B put them in the big van and took them all home....a really emotionally hard task. The 5th kid, Tito, was angry that his grandmother hadn't shown up.

In addition to the 5 above, there were other surprises. One little boy, Wilfredo, had been on the ISNA list, but the mom hadn't returned the phone call. We were told that if the mom went to the ISNA govt. office and obtained the paperwork, then she'd be allowed to take her son. In response to the situation, Wilfredo said "if my mom wants me, she'll show up". At the end of the day, Wilfredo's mom hadn't come. We missionaries were leery of the mom to say the least, so we were kind of glad, but heartbroken for Wilfredo. However, the next day, the mom showed up. Plus, 2 middle school boys had anticipated leaving on the 13th to go home on a 3 day pass for Christmas. However this mom also showed up with the needed papers, and they also suddenly left on the 13th. Their 5 year old brother was left here and if all goes well, he may be picked up in about a week. There were 4 other siblings that were also allowed the 3 day Christmas break at their mom's house. The mom decided she could care for one, so 3 of the 4 were returned to the orphanage.

When all was said and done, 12 are now gone (8 on the 13th), and we expect one (Tito) to be picked up tomorrow by his grandma. And one more may leave in the next week or so. We're all trying to recover. The house moms/dads, the siblings, the kids that feel like they are siblings, the Benners, and we missionaries are trying to catch our breath and still being caught off guard by things that suddenly remind us of one of the kids. We continue to pray that God would protect and guide those that are no longer with us, and he would comfort those left here (particularly the siblings). I know many of you prayed for this situation. We missionaries send our sincere gratitude.

Pictured below are the missionaries and the 5 kids scheduled to leave on 12-13-07. Left to right: Bobby, Samuel, Tito, Britney, Jonathan, Wendy, Tania, Griselda, and me.

Chicken Pox

To the tune of a childhood song:
One little, two little, three little chicken pox,
four litle, five little, six little chicken pox....

Man oh man did we have chicken pox around here about 3 weeks ago. Fortunately, none of our adults or older kids got it. First Hector got it, then all 6 little boys in his house, a day or so later, all the little girls, etc. And it ran like mad fire all around school too as you can well imagine.

One little boy in the Oasis community came to our our tri-weekly Bible story and feeding program. He looked absolutely miserable. He was covered in blisters, but he wouldn't let me look too closely at him. They didn't look like chicken pox blisters to me. He had clear fluid filled blisters on his face, in his ears, on his trunk, arms, lets, etc. You could hardly find 1" btw any blisters. He even had sores in his mouth, poor thing. He said he'd had a fever, and denied he had any pain, but was itching terribly. Two days later, with permission from the administrator here, I took a staff member to go check on the boy and to possibly take him to the doctor. It ends up that he lives in the house I described in an earlier blog. The house has a side-ways turned mattress springs as one it's walls. Anyhow, the blisters looked much better, obviously healing. Unfortunately, his 3 siblings were in various stages of the same condition. I guess it was some form of chicken pox? I also discovered that he had gone to the MD a few days earlier. All they gave him was generic Tylenol, nothing for the itching! Can you imagine having a serious case of chicken pox and having nothing to help the itch? Or can you imagine being the mom of 4 kids with chicken pox without being able to give them any itch relief? Of course I warned them, particularly the dad, about the dangers of getting chicken pox and how to prevent it's spread.

Now several weeks later, all looks good.

critters and other stuff

You know you're an El Salvadoran missionary when:

• A bat flies through a room while you're sitting around talking and nobody blinks or thinks anything of it. (Reality: we only have occasional bat sightings, and usually one one or two bats, not bunches of them. Don't want to scare off anyone that may want to visit me.)


• When it feels like something is crawling on your leg and you look down and find a small cockroach, and you flick him off as you continue your conversation. (Reality: we get out food delivered to us in cardboard boxes, which are infamous for containing cockroach eggs. Plus, my apartment is fairly close to the kitchen...another place where cockroaches are infamous. We tend to grow sizable cockroaches here, but I only see one every 2 or 3 weeks, and we also have a pest control guy who treats any needed area with incredibly smelly stuff.)


• When the weirdo critter pictured below is found frequently throughout your apartment. This critter is very light wt. and moves along like an inchworm, dragging behind it's cocoon like shell. Just before his short life is over, he attaches his cocoon like shell to a wall (usually in a corner) with a strong web-like strand.


• When you're finally able to sleep through the rooster that crows all through the night. However, there is one type of tropical bird that has a screech like "song" that resembles nails on a chalkboard. He particularly likes to sing btw 3-6am and I've yet to be able to sleep through his song when I have my windows open (which is always).
• When your legs have bug bites all over them. I don't get eaten much by mosquitoes, but there is some bug that we call a "no-see-um" that's bit is much worse than a mosquito. I'm told this bug is black and tiny, but I've not seen him because I don't feel it when I'm being eaten. The bites are often very close together and is red and flat. Unlike the mosquito, the bite of this critter can causes insane itching for several weeks....no kidding! The bites I got on the 2nd week of Nov still itch on occasion and the sore hasn't yet healed. In the twilight and evening hours I've learned to wear long pants or use bug spray, which seems to be effective.
• When you save any possible left over from your meals for a pittiful loooking dog just outside the gate. Actually there's a german shepherd dog that's just outside the security gate that looks very hungry, and I now make a point of giving him something to eat every night. I've never been a person to particulary like dogs, but somehow I gain comfort by loving this dog.

Some other things I've noticed:

• I spied a huge possum way bigger than a cat, more like the size of a small to medium dog, calmly walking down the center of the road beside my apartment. He and many local cats and dogs are frequent visitor to our trash dumpster just outside of our main gate. As the possum walked down the road, a german shepherd dog was coming from the opposite direction. They passed only inches from each other and I could've sworn I heard a conversation that went like this: "Hi Fred, how ya doing?" "Oh, Hi Sam, I'm doing quite well. Great night for a walk isn't it?" They seemed to be accustomed to mingling together.


• In Virginia, I can count on huge amounts of leaves to be raked every year. This year I'm thankful that my dad is doing this job for me this year. But do trees here also loose their leaves? After all, everything here is always lush and green. I now know that most trees/shrubs loose their leaves a little at a time all through the year. However, there are a few types of trees that drop most of their leaves twice a year. In Oct the little kids squealed with delight as they kicked around and threw the fallen leaves. Some of the leaves are quite large. See the picture below. By the way, when the leaves are off this one particular large leaf tree, it reveals some type of large fruit high in it's branches. And the fruit draws literally hundreds of colorful tropical birds.


• Thanks to the advise of one of the kids, I've learned that if I don't want my chewing gum to be extra sticky and gooey, then it needs to be stored in the frig. Now it's perfect. I keep my passport in a ziplock in the frig too to protect it from mold/mildew.


• Speaking of mold/mildew, now that it's dry season I don't have much of a problem with mold/mildew anymore. I still occurs, but nowhere near as bad as before. When rainy season comes in May I may have to see if I can afford a dehumidifier or two.
• Currently the temperatures are in the upper 70s or low 80s during the day. When I go to bed at night, my indoor/outdoor thermometer shows the outdoor temp to be btw 73-76, and the inside temp is usually 1-2 degrees warmer. I consider this season to be comfortable. December is known as the windy month and a month where earthquakes are common. However, we haven't had much of either. And the humidity is low too.
• And just fyi....the gas prices here are currently around $3.50 per gallon for regular.

Just wanted to share the above slices of life with you. I hope you're doing well.

Oasis Shoe Project

Do you remember me mentioning Oasis, the community next door that's dirt poor? Well, back in Oct. a good friend of mine in Virginia emailed me and said he wanted to somehow help poor people. After some discussion among several folks here, I decided to start the Oasis Shoe Project that took place in Oct & Nov. We already encourage the people of Oasis to attend our Sunday church service by providing transportation. The shoe project was designed so that if an Oasis person attended our church service three times in the allotted Sundays in Oct and Nov, then he/she (regardless of age) would be given a pair of shoes. The project was bigger and involved much more work than I had anticipated, but it was ultimately worthwhile. Fortunately, I had a great team of people who volunteered to help me every week. You may get a chuckle from some of the following lessons that we learned the hard way:

• Just because a person says that they know their shoe doesn't mean anything. It may just be that a same aged friend has a size 6 foot, thus it is logical to them that their foot will also be a size 6. And a when a young adolescent girl tells you a shoe size, it may be a girls shoe size 6 or a woman's shoe size 6...which are far from the same size. Ugh!


• Shoes here are marked in European and/or American sizes. For example, a woman's size 9 in the USA is approx. a European size 38. Trying to figure out this very inexact science of shoe size conversion is a serious pain in the neck. And just for kicks, sometimes shoe sizes are in Japanese.


• Many people believe that if their current shoe is a size 6, then their new shoe must also be a size 6, even if it doesn't fit because it's a different style.
  
• Always draw the actually foot, not the shoe because they often are wearing someone else's shoe. (Thus the reason why I purchased a shoe that was WAY too big for a 3 yr old.).


• There's not a single store here, including Wal-mart (called Hiper Paiz) that will give you cash back or credit your credit card if you need to return something. Only exchanges are allowed and it's a pain in the neck too.


• Sometimes I had to buy sandals due to the width of some feet. Men tend to have shoes because of their jobs, but girls/ladies can usually get away with flip-flops which I believe contributed to their feet spreading out and thus being wide.

On at least 4 Sundays we had over 200 total people in our service, about 1/2 from Oasis. The typical attendance from Oasis had been 20-30 people. Every seat and bench was full and young ones were sitting on laps. When all was said and done, approximately 125 pairs of shoes were given away. Of course the shoes were needed, but ultimately we prayed that their attendance in church would expose them to Christ and His love and forgiveness. Thankfully, we had a great series of dynamic and fun speakers during that time period. We pray that we tangibly showed God’s love to our neighbors and also provided good opportunities from them to know Christ more personally.

Thanksgiving

Within moments of waking up, I was acutely aware that it was Thanksgiving Day (even though it's just a normal day here), and I was nowhere near my recliner in my living room where I would typically be found comfortably wearing my sweat pants and t-shirts, and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. I had and continue to have much to be thankful for, yet I admit I was a bit sad and rather melancholic. As a way of contributing towards the big meal, I agreed to peel about 10-15 pounds of potatoes for Bobby to make scalloped potatoes. Yes, you heard my correctly, Bobby was making the dish. Actually he made 2 or 3 dishes. Sadly enough...we're a strange bunch here. 3 gals, 1 guy, and the 1 guy can out cook all of us put together with his hands tied behind his back. (Another sad insight is that even though we come from Texas, Ohio and Virginia and there is 20 yr between me and the youngest missionary that just graduated form college, we all love college football and are stupid when it comes to computers.)

I'm afraid I greatly mislead all of you in my pre-Thanksgiving email. Wilbur Zehr is not the Ambassador here. He's like a secretary. However, he and his family are big wigs in my book. They are an outstanding Christian family and they certainly treated us well. We arrived near 1pm and were treated warmly from the moment we entered the door. Everyone dressed casual and the whole day was very comfortable. We had 15 folks around the table (actually 2 tables) that were moved to the carport-like porch. Remember that it's still 80ish degrees here. The Zehr family is from upstate New York and are here until next Oct when their 2 yr assignment ends and they will be sent to another country for 2 years. They have 3 very nice teenagers. Chiky, Wilbur's wife, is extremely pleasant, and is from Antigua Guatemala, but speaks English as well as you or I. They also invited 4 Peace Corp workers and a teacher from their kid's school. We had all the Thanksgiving standards. We couldn't figure out where in the world they got the onion rings for the green bean casserole, and then Wilbur let out the secret that he uses the commissary at the Embassy, and therefore can get most anything from the USA. For those of you who know my from my days in college, you may be interested to know that Wilbur comes from a Mennonite background and has 2 cousins that lived in my dorm with me in my sophomore year. It's a small world getting smaller.

After dinner and the option of several pies, we sat on the patio furniture (that's usually on the porch) out on the small yard and talked for hours. The Peace Corp workers had very interesting conversations. They had all been robbed and held at gun point. Yikes! But they acted like it was no big deal and just part of life. Hmmmm....

At days end we drove home through the city and saw all sorts of Christmas lights in the nice part of San Salvador. Looked as commercialized as any city back home. When we got back, we went and visited with the Benners for a little. Then we retired to our apartments. That's actually when my sadness overtook me for a little while. Another tradition surrounding this holiday includes decorating for Christmas. And I knew Kim, for the first time in 14 years, would have to drag out the decorations alone, set up the tree alone, try to pass the lights, garland, and other beads to herself as she tried to wrap them around the tree. What hurt me was that I knew she would be hurting. This transition of me living here has been equally hard on her. But I'm proud of her. I called her Thanksgiving night and she had struggled yet persevered and got all the decorations up. And I'm sure that she'll be thankful that I'll be around to put it all away after Christmas. We both reflected on the many reasons we have to be Thankful, and before my head hit the pillow I said an extra prayer of thanks to God for His provision and your friendship.