I’m so sorry everyone that I didn’t post anything yesterday—life
here has been pretty chaotic as of late!
Each day seems to be filled with new demands, new surprises, and new
opportunities. I’ve gotten lost and
un-lost in San José, I’ve answered calls and emails, I’ve designed a newsletter,
I’ve conducted interviews, I’ve played soccer, I’ve not gotten lice (praise
God!), I went roller skating, I created a homemade video, I participated in
more meetings that I care to count, and I’ve also eaten more soup than I care
to think about. And I’m sure there’s plenty more I’ve simply
forgotten to mention J
Last week, Lent started and the community here at Casa Adobe
wanted to do something to honor this time as well. After much discussing (and maybe some gentle
arguing) we came to compromise: we would all commit to eating only soup for
dinner. And since three of us living
here are vegetarians, the soup we make needs to be meat-free. So why did we choose soup of all dishes? Soup has a beautiful way of bringing many, sometimes
differing, elements together into one pot and, after much simmering and
stirring around, the end result is a delicious dish. We hope that this
blending and coming together may be symbolic of what our community here feels
during this time of lent. It’s going to be challenging but also
fun, seeing how many different types of soup we can invent J
 |
| Showing the kids their video :) |
And now to the biggest event that happened (or didn’t
happen) this week: Yesterday we were
supposed to have our first big meeting with a local association, something like
a town meeting, where we would have presented our project (remember the one to
fix up the local soccer court?) and hopefully gained their support. The plan was for the kids to do all the
talking, to present their side of the story, share why they’re interested in
working in this project, and ask the community representatives if they would
commit to supporting their efforts. We
even spent time this past week filming the kids and the court, including actual
game shots as well as personal interviews of several kids as to what changes
they’d like to see and what problems exist right now that need to be addressed. The final product was pretty inspiring and I am
so proud of how involved the kids were in making it. So, we went armed with our 5 volunteers (ages
7 to 15), a poster we all made, an outline, and our cherry-on-top—the video. Unfortunately, as we were walking to our
meeting, we found out that in fact the association was not going to be meeting that night and we weren’t really given a straight
answer as to why not. We heard several
guesses—the president was at a concert and therefore couldn’t attend, the
association was in legal trouble and meeting with a lawyer—but who really knows
where the truth lies in this situation.
So, after all our hard work, a monkey wrench was thrown into the
mix. Now we must learn the lesson of
patience as we wait to hear when the next meeting will be. Please keep us in your prayers as we continue
working on this project with the kids and with the community.
I also have to apologize again—I will not be able to post anything
for the next two weeks as I will be out of the country. Rachel, Guissell, Jim and I will be traveling
to Honduras for a conference being held there in the capital Tegucigalpa. This conference is going to be half spiritual
development and half work/meetings.
Rachel, Guiss and I will be participating as best we can, offering our
input as observers and sharing the experiences we’ve had thus far in our
community organizing project with the kids.
Us three girls are also going to stop and stay a few days in Guiss’
hometown in Nicaragua, to see her family and the place where she grew up. In all, this trip should be an intense time
filled with making new friends, traveling to new places, learning new things,
and growing in our walk with God. Please
pray that our energy will not run out and that our patience and optimism may be
never ending. Stay tuned!
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