Monday, December 13, 2010

Got up this morning to a brisk breeze of low 60s. I had to get up in the night and turn down the fan. Mary has been cold when she gets up around 60-ish. Unless the temp is extremely hot or cold, I don't pay it much mind. I know that back home (in Rogers and Searcy AR) they are having teens and snow. We'll have a rude awakening when we get off the plane is January!

German picked us up at 10:30 this morning to head to the feeding at the Dump. We made it into town with no flat tires or breakdowns of any kind. yay! We were a little bit early, so while we waited on Pastor Miguel to meet us at the Stop Light (which doesn't work, but it's a good landmark for a meeting place), German walked to a street vendor and bought us a watermelon. He cut it himself so that he could be sure that it was fresh and clean and ready for us gringas to eat. It was yummy!

Juan Pacheco had finished teaching his morning class at the English school (near by) and he had stopped at the fruit vendor, too. He came to say hi to us and we invited him to join us at the feeding. We all ate slices of the watermelon. It was good and came in handy for entertainment when Mary and Pastor Miguel started spitting/shooting watermelon seeds at each other. Pastor Miguel needs a little more practice, but Mary got him good a few times. I tried to shoot one at Mary and it went sideways and hit Pastor Miguel. German just ignored our childlike behavior and read his paper. He was standing in front of the van and used the windshield wiper as a sort of magazine rack. He uses those wipers for many things, including hanging wet cloths from them one day as we drove into town. Very resourceful!

We piled into the van and headed to the Jericho church, where we met Pastor Calderon and his merry band of cooks and servers. They work very hard to cook the food for the feedings. It takes much work and they are faithful to pull it together. We headed to the Dump and waited outside a little while for the truck with the food to arrive. We watched some of the people come out of the dump dragging different things that they can turn in for money by recycling or even sell misc stuff. There were a few guys pulling these round things that looked like big cardboard drums. They were all tied together and they drug many of them at one time. German said that wire and cable ship inside the containers. Sometimes people use the empty containers to store clothes and other household items in instead of furniture. These guys piled these all up and set them on fire. German said it was probably to burn away the paper and keep the wire rims to sell.

When the food truck arrived, we drove into the Dump. It's a fairly new location and has a scale to weigh the trucks and a little office building. There is some construction on a bigger office building. There was a little boy on a horse that rode along with our little caravan and yelled to the workers and other people to follow and have food. The horse looked fairly healthy for a Nic horse, and Mary noticed that someone had given its mane a flat-top hair cut.

The ladies set up shop and started portioning out the food. Mary and I got to help. Pastor Miguel, Pastor Calderon and a lady from Jericho church all shared about Jesus and led singing. We had plenty of food for everyone. That is always nice. German took mine and Mary's cameras and took pictures for us. He holds a camera in each hand and shoots the same pic each time. It's funny to see him at work.

After we finished serving, Mary and I got our cameras and took some pics. Mary can always get people to pose and have fun. She even got one guy to pose showing his muscles! We had a good time with the people there. This was the third feeding that Mary and I got to help with while we have been here just the two of us. Since Pastor Calderon's team does so much of the work, it's something easy for us to be able to share in doing. We are blessed to work with them.

After the feeding, we went to On The Run for a bathroom break and to get some food. Pastor Miguel and German had some food at the feeding, so they weren't hungry. I got my favorite sandwich combo and gave German the drink. Mary and Pastor Miguel each had some papas fritas (huge french fries). It was yummy.

We headed over to the Concrete Pit area. Pastor Miguel took the megaphone and walked around to gather people. We talked with them a little bit about Voice of Hope and how we would like to come back to the area to do more with them. (last week we visited with them and then did a feeding one day) Today, we passed out New Testaments and talked about Salvation. There were just a handful of people and most of them nodded knowingly about Salvation. I asked if there was a church nearby. They said there is one about 4 'blocks' away and another in the neighboring area. We told them that we want to share the salvation message to those who don't know Jesus, and for those who do, we want to help equip them to be disciples to share the Good News. They liked the idea of classes and different ways we can help them to share. We will be going back to take some toys for the kids next week. it's a good start for getting to know the needs and to reaching the area.

We came back through town and stopped at a used book store that was closed the other day. They had one little section of English paperbacks, but they wanted $5 for them. Mary said no thanks and we left. But I got to take a few pics of the store. I like getting pics of the different businesses.

We then got back to our side of town and Pastor Miguel decided to ride with us to the house so that he could ride back with German. Pastor Miguel was really wound up today. He and Mary were like 2 little kids in the van. Pastor Miguel likes to tease Mary about, well, just about everything! He speaks a teeny amount of English and she is learning Spanish, so it's mostly body language. They were hilarious today.

After getting back to the house, I took a quick nap and Mary read for a little bit. Then we took our walk along the beach. Today, the seashells were everywhere. The last time we walked, there were hardly any shells on the beach at all. It's so strange how different the beach can be at the same time every day. Anyway, Mary found some interesting shells today. I didn't take my camera or phone on the walk, because I didn't want to worry about them getting wet. I wish I would have had one or the other with me today, as we saw so many shells covering the beach, and also, 2 different fish washed up on the beach. One was a regular looking fish. The other had a very long, pointy nose. It was really weird looking. They washed up after we walked by and within a few minutes of returning, there they were. God always gives us something new and different to look at on our walks. Kind of like how He gives us new and different things to see each day, if we will only notice.

German and I had a nice talk today about recognizing that everything we have in our lives come from God, and how we can trust Him in all circumstances. He shared with me some of the Bible stories that Juan had shared with him earlier in the day. We also talked about how important it is to look for counsel from Christians and not just worldly friends. We need to encourage, inspire, correct and pray for each other. I enjoyed our talk.

Most of our beach is plain, brown sand. Sometimes it's packed hard, sometimes like marshmallows to walk on, and sometimes so soft and loose that it's hard to go far without exerting a lot of energy. You never know until you start walking, as it looks the same sometimes. It reminds me of my walk with God. I never know what it will really be like until I experience it. I can't rely on what it might look like. It can be different each day. Surprises may pop up just like those fish appearing where we just walked by today. There is one spot on the north end of the beach that has a lot of little pieces of shells that have been broken off of bigger shells. It makes me think of the things that God needs to 'break off' of my life to shape me into something smooth to be useful for Him. And those little broken pieces are good for their abrasive power on my feet, to make them smooth (like getting a pedicure!) So many things in our lives are deemed harmful, uncomfortable, useless... but God uses ALL things to make us the child HE wants us to be. Whatever He chooses to use is fine with me, as long as HE is the one using it! I have to remind myself of this all the time. Feel free to remind me of this when I'm whining about something not going my way!!

We finally heard from Christopher tonight. He and Evelyn weren't home when we went by to pick them up for church yesterday. He didn't answer his phone. Mary was worried about them. Perhaps Chris was in a motorcycle wreck (he goes to work in Managua during the week and returns to León for the weekends). Perhaps Evelyn went into early labor. Mary had so many things going on in her mind. I called him and caught him on his dinner break. The first thing he said was "Hello Mother. Sorry I didn't call you about yesterday, but I took Evelyn to visit my mother and my phone battery went dead and the charger wasn't with me." I told him that was okay and that Mary had been worried. I put her on the phone and she got to talk to him for a few minutes. She felt much better. We are supposed to have dinner with them on Sunday, so it will be nice to see their faces and spend time with them. And Mary can relax now.

Tomorrow is another workday at the house. We're looking forward to getting the Christmas stuff ready for the families at the Sewer Pond and the Concrete Pit. And we will probably do more Spanish lessons, too. Mary is really studying hard and I'm so proud of her!

Time to close and get another good night's sleep. Resting in God's hands is the most comfortable place to be.