Hey all :)
Again sorry this was late, but I'm almost caught up from our lack of Internet :)
Wednesday was our last day in Santa Tomas :)
It was also my little sister Bridget's birthday :) happy birthday Hun,
Back to Santa Tomas we went today,I have to be honest... Today was hard on me, Pam didn't come to site with us so the interns were in charge... Scary I know lol
One of the members of the team from columbia even called me his little Pam of the day... I never stopped moving, someone was always calling my name or lost in translation, I struggled a little today, almost lost my cool a couple times, rolled my eyes and said the serenity prayer a lot... This job is sometimes taxing, it challenges you, I was so exhausted by the end of the day that I was acting as some would say foolish, you know that point when your so tired all you do is laugh because if you didn't you'd just cry, that was me at the end of the day...
Seeing as all the lumber was already on site we spent our time actually fixing the church... Oh and By the way Natalie monitoring a construction site is dangerous business lol, let's be honest what do I know about construction... I was quite pleased with myself when I remember the Spanish word for posthole digger , a cabador, I even got to use one...what?!?!
No but in all seriousness somewhere along our day I found myself trying to translate a conversation between Charlie the Columbia mission Team leader and Andres the Peruvian equivalent to our contractor, we were discussing the spacing that needed to be left between the wooden boards, to allow room for the boards to swell during rainy periods, well hey you learn something new everyday, because I sure didn't know boards, huge dense boards of Amazonian wood would swell in the rain, I also didn't know that you have to hang a window frame level if you want it's wooden shutter-like doors to open and close, or if you want the window to latch... I learned that lesson the hard way... But all and all the construction moved along we changed all the boards on the front and back of the church and left the material for their congregation to finish the rest :)
It was really neat to see Americans and Peruvian working side by side to come together and build this church, the sense of victory experienced when those wall finally made it up, was amazing, and trust me I know, because I translated it back and forth lol, even though this project took us a lot longer to complete than anticipated, we left Santa Tomas grateful that we had the opportunity to share in this congregations fellowship, it was truly inspiring to see our teams work together to get those walls up.
At bible school, which we conducted right outside the church that was being reconstructed, chainsawing hammering, and wood crashing was our background noise as we were working with the children of Santa Tomas :) today, we cover the story of Jonah's disobedience that lead to him being swallowed up by the great fish, or whale depending on your interpretation. The pastors wife Maria read the passage to the children, then she'd ask them questions, she always begins bible school by asking the children Quien Vive? Or Who lives? And all the children will shout Cristo! Or Christ! There is something so amazing about watching children, some not even five years old have such a passion and interest in the lord, our craft today was a to cut out whales and create little pockets on each whale, a flap really where each child could stick there little Jonah figure :) it went over really well and the kids really seem to understand the message :) here are some pictures from bible school...
Maria doing the lesson...
The kids mostly paying attention... Lol
Allie Grey helping them color their whales :)
all in all today was a hard, long, amazing day... There were points I struggled, got frustrated or overwhelmed, their were points where I wanted to grab a can of bubbles and runaway... Go off and play quietly with the children, but walking back out of Santa Tomas understanding the joy I felt helping people, whether it be by translating for them, or coloring a whale with them... Truly made all the stress of the day worth it... And when it boils down to it, work especially work done for the lord isn't always supposed to be easy... I think the stress, mental and physical exhaustion and the strong emotions brought out by what I'm doing down here is supposed to challenge me, maybe even change me...
On a side not relating solely to me, and for a little added humor... A also learned today it is best to lead by example... So everything I'd tell someone to watch their step because let's say it's slippery walking down to the boat... I'd slip and demonstrate, or when we were walking back from dinner I fell into one of the holes I always tell people to avoid, don't freak out mom I didn't really fall, it's not a huge hole or anything... It was more like getting my foot stuck... But since I was in flip-flops I do have a small bruise, after devotions me and Pam were walking around the El Jardin property and I fell again, this time with purpose I have a nice little bruise going down my leg now, but hey I didn't bleed so in my book today was a success one the coordination clumsy scale... It's really ironic, one of my jobs down here is to prevent people from stumbling and falling around in the sometimes dilapidated areas, and now every time we go somewhere everyone in our groups the foreign mission teams, Pam and Ben spend all their time trying to keep me from hitting the floor... It's really just too funny!!!
Well that's all forks, stay tuned :)
Location:Iquitos Peru
