Today seemed long.. I took a van to Antigua before hitting up the orphanage. Alejandro drove and we met up with Cesar, one of the coolest dudes in Antigua. He owns a BUNCH of super awesome clothing stores and wants to donate a new OUTFIT for EVERY orphan. How cool is that? So we dropped off a list of names, sizes, genders, etc. The morning devotion with Ivan was nothing short of amazing. After devotions, Ivan’s daughter (WHOSE NAME I FORGOT AGAIN) showed a picture of a family of 5 of the orphans and shared their story. Their father was a drunk and was very abusive. At the time that they took the kids, their mother was in the hospital because of abuse. Their father would tie ropes around their necks and physically choke them for punishment. On top of all that, their older siblings would sexually abuse all of them. This is just one story of a few kids at this orphanage. 100% of these children have suffered some type of abuse, whether it by physical, mental, sexual, abandonment, etc. The story really touched me.
I painted all morning in the school, because we didn’t finish it yesterday. I did pretty much all trim work, which is my least favorite, but that’s okay. While we were working, some of the older girls came in to help, including Julissa (my favorite little girl). After hours and hours, I turned my zune on with my little mini speakers (yes, they are little AND mini) and turned on some jams. The girls (including Rayann…loser) didn’t know ANY of the songs…until Gone by TobyMac came on. They knew EVERY word! In English! It was so cool!
For lunch, we had chicken and potatoes, which were delicious. I sat next to Alejandro and Katie for lunch, and we exchanged lots of laughs. Katie and I were narrowing down the Guatemalan men we are destined to marry. I believe Katie had a few narrowed down. We came to the conclusion that after I graduate college I am going to move down here, and while I’m gone, Alejandro is going to find me a man, just like him (only closer to my age) and I’ll come down here and marry him. We exchanged some laughs and went off to work.
I spent my afternoon mixing concrete in a giant skid loader and other bigger hoe thing. Not sure, I just know it was a pain and I don’t know how I can hold my arms up enough to type on this computer. After our concrete work was done, I saw Julissa (pronounced you-liss-a) and her sister Jennifer (henn-ih-fer) playing in the next yard. I waddled over (yes, I was very sore) and was greeted by two hugs that about KNOCKED me down. We sat down and played with bubble wrap that one little boy brought over. He was sooooo cute, and after just minutes he was calling me “hermana” which means sister. It just melted my heart. I reached into my bag and pulled out two bracelets (that were meant to go to my friends..sorry guys!) and tied them to the girls’ wrists. I told them it’s because they were my beautiful sisters. They each grabbed a silly band from their wrist (the same one) and handed it to me. It just broke me that they had nothing, but felt the need to give something of theirs in return for a silly little bracelet. I taught them to play war (a simple card game) and it was a lot of fun. Pretty soon, everyone was in! What was so special to me was that when someone ran out of cards, almost everyone was immediate in response. They took half of their hand and gave it to the one without. So no one would ever lose! Now, they might not have known the point of the game is to get all the cards, but their generosity and love of the game was amazing. They didn’t care about who won or lost, just about being with each other and laughing. What a testament to me!
We loaded up the bus and came back to the orphanage. Jennie hopped in the shower first, then I did. Then I ran out to supper. Supper was chicken fried steak, which isn’t my favorite in America, and plus, here, their steak is…well…tough to put in nicely. I didn’t eat much, but Grandpa (who was being extremely rude and eating an ALMOND SNICKERS right in front of me and telling me how amazing it was) let me eat the last half of his snickers! Then ran back to get on my computer before everyone else did! Rayann was in the shower and Katie came and sat at the table with me. All of a sudden, BAMMMBAMBAMM! We hear something or someONE fall in the bathroom…Before seeing if everything was okay, we just laughed. Not just a “haha” but a violent, painful belly laugh. We yelled through to door “are you okay?!?” after a few seconds..through what we we’re sure was laughter or tears, we heard “yep!” Then we laughed harder. Then we went through the scenarios of what could have happened, then we laughed harder. Once we stopped laughing, we hard choking coming from the bathroom, so we laughed harder. When Rayann finally came out of the bathroom, she explained that she dropped her shampoo, then when she bent over to pick it up, she saw a spider and fell backwards, hurting her toe against the wall. I honestly fell on the floor because I couldn’t breathe (note: the oxygen level is muuuch less here due to altitude, making it hard to breathe). Then, plenty of water when into her lungs and she was choking it up all shower. Gosh I thought I was going to die. And yes, Rayann and I are related.
Devotions were extremely deep tonight. We talked about it only takes a little to accomplish a lot if God is involved. Then Chad shared some stories about Alejandro which made me cry, and then we prayed for a long time, in which many of us, including me got on our knees. We always talk about praying on our knees but how often do we really do it?! Exactly! Afterwards, I was feeling very overwhelmed and walked on to the balcony to be alone. After a long while, Brendt accompanied me up there, and we had a very very nice like three hour talk. It’s now past one and I NEED SLEEP. People are getting better! So keep praying! We have a lot of work left and a lot of sore bodies! Thanks for everything! Love you all! Commmmmentt kthanks!
No comments:
Post a Comment