Today began as they all have. We woke up at 7-ish and had breakfast, departing for the Rosa Blanca school at 8:30 a.m. When we arrived, some of the children were outside of the school, simply waiting for “those Americans” to come bring them our translated stories, crafts, snacks and hope. They don’t realize that they bring us as much hope (if not more) than we can give to them. You can see on the faces of all of us who are missioners that we have all been changed by this experience. Not a single soul among our contingent has been able to turn a blind or cold eye to the wondrous love of our savior found in and amongst these people.
After being warmly welcomed back into Rosa Flores, our work began in earnest. The VBS team split off, accompanying the students into their classrooms (they are using 3 classrooms for VBS), the biggest of which had some 47 students in the classroom. The team tells me that today was something akin to lightly controlled chaos. Everyone had a great time. The kids here have great attitudes and are so interested in simply being loved.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team split up to finish painting the school. We have now completely transformed the inside of the school (save the classrooms themselves). We’ve painted every wall in the school, including the entrance and a mural inside the courtyard. We’ve also repainted all the doors and window bars on the first floor. What was muted and a little sad when we got there has now become a lively and engaging palette.
We did stop at lunchtime today to go up into the mountains to have lunch at a restaurant that is on a coffee plantation, overlooking some of the most beautiful vistas I have ever seen. I’ve uploaded a picture from that area to let you catch a glimpse of the majesty of the views.
We worked the remainder of the afternoon as a complete team, finishing up the rest of the painting. I’ve included pictures of the hall wall paintings in previous days and today have included a picture of the mural, which is a tree growing out of a planter in the school courtyard looking upon a mountain “candy” sunrise. We’ll take more pictures tomorrow of the entire school for you.
We returned, had a dinner of pupusas, hot chocolate (direct from the cacao bean) and a wonderful sweet bread for dessert. Here’s what some of us had to say about today:
“We find God in the pages of the Bible, but we also find God where we are.” My question in response to that is, “Where did we find God today where we are?”
Not hard to find God on that beautiful mountaintop with all those gorgeous flowers.
Then we had to come down from the mountaintop and deal with our unfinished business, and there is always unfinished business and there always will be. Everyone just jumped in and did what they needed to do. God was coming through you all as you shifted your priorities and plans to do what needed to be done. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mural created by the light of an iPhone. That was creative, good and very satisfying. I don’t think I’ve seen that done.
“There’s a light that no darkness shall overcome.”
I saw God in the teamwork, working together. We walked about last night what Jesus told us to do and that was loving one another and we we’re doing that in action by working together.
Did you hear the wonderful letter from the little boy in our class? It was simply beautiful. It was saying blessings and listen to God and he will show you the path for your life. It was from a 6th grader. It was precious.
I like the idea of the tree you have placed on the mural and that tomorrow the kids will put their handprints on it as the leaves. How it images the notion of the tree of life, a real theology of life. I think what really makes that meaningful for me is that life is a consequence of community and that is what produces life. Everyone working together and making it happen together. It will be wonderful to see that happen and give that some embodiment to the children. Then you made a comment as we were all finishing and the verse from the poem was being written. “What will be good is, as the school grows so will these branches and the children will be able to add more to the tree as the school grows.” I thought that was a great insight. So it’s a process that lives.
I think today I found God in me. Because I was just terrified to tell the story today. There was nothing wrong with it, but I didn’t have any prior experience with the story and the words were so hard. I said, “Lord let me get out of the way” and He did it. He really was working through me today. He was holding me up.
I was so impressed with what you guys did today [with VBS -Ed.]. The kids were so happy, there was a little bit of chaos and you guys handled it really well. They were so excited.
It was happy chaos. They were so excited about everything they did.
I thought a few times they were going to take Wiley and I out and go for the beads. They loved the beads. And they all wanted black pipe cleaners. And they loved the acting. They all wanted to act.
It’s wonderful if you are tired to know that you have done so much and yet have this feeling left that you haven’t done enough.
There’s so much more to do.
There’s nothing better than having work that you are eager to get started on. It doesn’t happen much at that work where they pay you.
I think in watching the children, how much it meant to them to be seen when they wanted to show you their crown they made, or a picture of their family, or have their picture taken and then see it. For them to be seen made me stop and think about how different our lives would be and how different we would relate to one another if we had that same awareness in the way we conducted our lives day to day. In just seeing people and honoring who they were. So, I saw God in them in the sheer delight of being seen and honored for who they were. We get so busy that we stop seeing each other. We stop seeing the person in front of us. The person who is at the grocery store, or who does our lawn, or even one another. To see the image of God in these children and be reminded that that image is always present, but we don’t stop to acknowledge it.
Is having a picture of themselves unusual? What if we were to have prints made of them? They would really enjoy having one. It is a rather infrequent thing to get a portrait. This is the first time for them to have a missionary team work with them, apart from their own church parish. We are the first group.
WOW
I think it would be nice if we collected our pictures and sent them back to the school for them to have. The pictures with them and the things they did. If we made a book for the school.
I got a gift that surprised me and knocked my socks off. One of the teachers, Delores, painted a picture for me. And I was kidding her on Saturday when she was the only one here and called her el jefe. Of course she’s been heavily engaged with the kids there. It sort of came out of left field and it was like, “Wow, that’s really cool.” It’s a picture of a pond and a sun with some trees. It’s done it pastels (or something similar).
That’s super cool.
She’s a great teacher. She radiates calm. They listen to her and respect her there.