Nicaragua Day 6: Thursday

Devotional was at 6:30 as usual.  Again Adrian asked if anyone prepared something, and again he was met with silence.  Jorge then turned to me and asked if I had something I'd like to share.  He must have seen the fear in my eyes because he moved on quickly! 

We are a bit early to the drill site, so Ernesto drives us to see the school.  This is it:  one big building with bars on the windows, divided into maybe 4-6 big rooms.

 This is the well Living Water put in at the school.

 This is the first well we've seen by Living Water, and we're surprised at how close it is to the well we are currently drilling.  I guess it makes more sense to put in plenty now than to come back later and have to fill in the gaps.  And 1/4 mile is still a long way to carry a bucket of water!
The children are waiting for us when we return from the school.  Rosa and Katarin have already had their bath but are already filthy.  It's a losing battle with those girls and all the dust!  Several boys play soccer and frisbee in the road with the men drillers.  The drillers don't get too much time with the kids, so this is special for them.  Juan Carlo asks me to be on his team; luckily it was a short game because I think I might have been a disappointing teammate.
We head to the class area and allow the kids to carry our stuff only after instructions to be very careful.  Estabana, one of the moms, is with us from the very beginning today, maybe to make sure all the kids behave.
We start with Karen's Bible story, Fish for breakfast.  She does a great job and the kids love the story, the goldfish crackers Theresa brought to share, and the craft.  Theresa asks Estabana to have kids come up row by row to do the stations of the craft.  Estebana has her own plans and sends them up one at a time; that woman knows how to keep the chaos at a minimum!  The glitter fish looked great; even a mom made one, and I can imagine it hanging in a special place in her home.  This was my favorite craft of the week!

We take a break from the lessons since the drillers have a minute to play.  The kids love the change of routine and the new faces!  I help Karen teach her "care of the pump" lesson to the moms.  This is another really important lesson since the well is useless if they don't know how to care for it and keep it uncontaminated.  Thankfully there's still some time for me to play with the kids too.  I play soccer with some, and then play frisbee with Daniela for a long time.  She is one of my favorites; she seems so respectful, thoughtful, and caring.  We don't talk while we play but that feels okay.  My spanish has vastly improved since being here, but I'm still not good at extended conversations.  Eventually we give up frisbee for jumproping.  I give it a try and make it 14 jumps; the kids are so impressed that I have to try again.  That jumproping is hard work!  Kristin and Kent also give it a try.
We head back for lunch.  A big moment came for me when I was asked to pray for lunch and actually did it!  I am TERRIFIED of praying out loud!  Peanut butter and jelly for lunch.  At some point on Thursday, we found out that this would not be our last day in the village.  We will have to come back on Friday morning to put a few more pieces on the well and do the dedication.  I'm excited to have a little more time with these people I have come to love so so much.  Dan gets bit by a dog in the village, and much discussion happens about rabies possibilities and treatments.  He handles it so well; I would be freaking out!
After lunch, several kids gather at the fence around us.  Theresa can no longer resist the urge to feed them and gives each child 4 goldfish.  The rest of us worry that suddenly there will be more kids and not enough crackers to go around.  It all works out, though, and the kids were so excited!
The cows wander by, and we know it's time to head back to class.  After lunch, I hand out name tags to the kids who weren't there in the morning.  In the process, some kids take off their name tags from the morning, just so they can have a new one.  Who knew a masking tape nametag would be so exciting!
Theresa reviews the Good Samaritan and has the kids act it out.  They love the Bible stories and have even requested them!  It's so exciting that we can share them with them.

For her craft, she has the children color the injured man, and we tape it to their shoulder as if they're carrying him.  My kids would've removed him immediately, but he hung on to most shoulders all day!  Then we let them have some free-coloring time.  They enjoyed the markers and did some great artwork!

I took lots of pictures of the kids as they colored.  I just wanted these faces to always be with me; I don't ever want to forget.

 This little girl (who alternated between 2 different names) was very sweet and participated in crafts but would not play any of the games.  Her mom died earlier in the year.  She was also a little mother and loved taking care of the babies and blowing bubbles for the younger kids.

 I spent a lot of time playing frisbee with Guadalupe.

 Jason Antonio.

 Brando.  His fancy shoes with shorts crack me up, but he is lucky to have such sturdy, protective shoes.  Several kids had only plastic slippers.

 After the coloring, we make bead bracelets from my original Bible story, the ones where red is for the blood, black is for sin, etc.  The kids don't listen very well to each description, but the bracelets turn out better than I expected!  Then it's playtime again!  The drillers are working later than usual, so this a longer day for us, and I am feeling it.  But the kids are so excited when Theresa's "sports bag" (a white trash bag) comes out.  JUGAMOS! JUGAMOS!  (Let's play!)  PELOTAS!  PELOTAS! (Balls!)  POPITAS! (Bubbles!)
While the kids play, the moms look through one of the children's Bibles that we brought.  It bilingual and has lots of pictures.  They were poring over it, drinking it in.  I did NOT want to take it away from them; it just seemed wrong.  After some discussion, we let them keep it and the mom agreed to return it to the church when she was done.  How many opportunities do you get to share the Word with people and see them soak it in like that?  It's something I will always remember. 

After a LONG day with the kids, it's finally time to go home.  This is what the well looks like so far.

 

This is the plaque that will be on the well.

The cows coming home.  It was a daily event.  They went out at 1:30 and came home at 4:30.

Setting the plaque.  On Friday, the finishing touches will be put on!

Back at the compound, it's grilled chicken for dinner.  It was sooo good, probably the best food so far!

Kristin and I discuss our favorite kids, ones that will stick in our minds forever.  We also talk about how we hope to be changed by this trip.  Our common list included less materialism, more quality time spent with our own kids, and more time spent on things that are really important.  It's been such a blessing to experience this trip with such a good friend; it's the first mission trip for both of us!

 

As far as my "meanwhile in San Antonio" segment goes, I didn't receive anymore pictures from Troy.  I know he had his hands full with our crew and was doing a great job getting school done!  On Thursday, he took 2 boys to preschool and Reef to soccer.