A Planting of the Lord.....

I love sunflowers, especially the ones I used to buy at a local grocery store in Washington. They had brown centers which were big and then smaller yellow petals. I'm not a rose lover (there may be some of you gasping right now, who doesn't love roses?...) but after having my arms sliced during a thorn to pruning shear battle with a climbing rose, I am done. Anyway, the sunflower is a happy flower, like daisies. It's face strains towards the sunlight. And when their time is over, they bow their heads and look humble as if they have given their best and understand that their time is fading. But the resurrection side is they give TONS of seeds, don't they? And their glory continues...
These happy flowers represent each and every child that we have here. As I have thought and meditated on this little school, the word 'flourish' or 'florecer' in spanish has become my word for the next coming year. My desire is that these children flourish. That this is a happy place for them and they will know that they are loved. Well, as I have pondered and pondered, one day as I was inside the school taking a looksy at what had been accomplished that day by our workers, I came across this:

growing right smack dab in the middle of the computer lab! Not another one in sight. Here is a sign of things to come. I trust that they will flourish inside these walls (and outside too). And so I trust that they will learn to gaze upward to the One who can cause them to grow and have strong roots in Him.

And this will be the end result.....ahhh......

A VERY JOYFUL ADVENT

A Christmas Thought

There is a child in each of us waiting to be born again. It is to those looking for life that the figure of the Christ, a child, beckons. Christmas is not for children. It is for those who refuse to give up and grow old, for those to whom life comes newly and with purpose each and every day, for those who can let yesterday go so that life can be full of new possibility always, for those who are agitated with newness whatever their age. Life is for the living, for those in whom Christmas is a feast without finish, a celebration of the constancy of change, a call to begin once more the journey to human joy and holy meaning.
Let the soldiers stomp through life. Let the cold winds blow. Let the birth points of all our lives be drowned in obscurity. Let the days seem mundane and fruitless. The crib in Bethlehem justifies them all. Jesus has been here before us. Bring on the days of our lives. We have a God who has already walked them and found them holy making.

–from In Search of Belief by Joan Chittister (Liguori)                    

And Here are Those Pictures.....

This is at the top of the stairs. On the left hand side of this pic, on the side where the small picket is, we will have a reading nook with a tree hanging over it, in the corner. Underneath the bench, we've created a 'cage' that will hold all our stuff animals. We will put a sign over it..."The Zoo".

Here is the front door! Beautiful and solid...not going to move during a earthquake, I imagine. I am grateful that our workers didn't fall from the second story, they said the school is pretty solid.

Hard to see, but these are the stairs - made of cedar and each one is very thick.

 

 

We built a wall of benches which hold the hospital mattresses that were donated. We are going to cover them with the colorful Mayan material. Underneath is lots and lots of storage.

 

 

Here is the bottom of the bench that will hold the stuffed animals!

 

 

Here is that tree that will hold wind chimes, bird's nests, and wooden birds! To debark this small tree took an incredible amount of patience. I told Will it would be easier if we just put our parrots on it, they could debark in minutes.

 

And this is the backside of the school. We'll have a small outdoor patio below this ledge but we are
going to have a firepit beyond that. Will is going to have some palms planted in this section of the school and Glen is going to construct an aviary for the parrots.....and speaking of parrots, this has nothing to do with the construction of the school but here is Amorita getting ready to rumba :)

and here on top of a wooden reindeer that I made for a craft fair that the women and I are going to have this Sunday:

Unfolding of a dream.....

     How amazing it is to see something unfold (like the Opal House) so quickly when it is in God's timing! It seems like it wasn't so long ago our workers were digging the dirt to begin the foundation and now, things are moving right along.
     Awhile ago, Will and I went to visit his sister in Laguna Beach, CA. One day we went with her to pick up her two children who attended a Montessori school. The owner actually has more than one school. But this one I would have to say is enchanting (I've never used that word to describe anything). My thought after I left was that if I had been living there I would be a volunteer, no one would have to pay me. It was designed with children in mind. It had a pen for all those farm animals, like chickens and rabbits and ducks etc. It had a 'house' specifically made for their parrot, siding and window boxes and all. There were little nooks here and there and the school rooms were actually octagonal, like little hobbit homes. They have gardens for teaching the children how to grow their own food and cooking also. We collected photos when we began to dream of having our own school. So here I am watching the walls go up and Glen helping us with those whimsical ideas and I am so very grateful. I have to chuckle when I think of our workers probably wondering why on earth we are putting a tree upstairs in the corner of a reading nook. And the poor man that is chiseling the bark off that tree up to the tiny ends of the branches. I have been collecting ideas, and more ideas, every day knowing that some will fall by the wayside but nevertheless yearning to make each part of that school something that the children will enjoy and call their own. The children and I and Jacklyn have been visiting the school and walking around after their afternoon lessons. They are excited and we dream together.
     We've ordered the Montessori materials which took 4 hours one night (the hamsters must have been on break the computer was running on one wheel). Glen and his helper, Francisco have been cranking out the bookcases to hold the materials, wash tables, coat racks.....Glen just left today and was busy right up to the last 20 minutes. He has always been so enthusiastic and I feed on that enthusiasm. Will too, ofcourse. Will is everywhere these days, running to this hardware store and that hardware store. It's not like we have Home Depot. We were pretty excited to visit a store in the capital that had so much hardware stuff. As a woman who doesn't spend that much time in hardware stores, I look at it with different eyes now :) 
     We have a dear friend, June who is going to be training us in January. God has sent her, no doubt. I would have more anxiety if not for her. She quiets that anxiety over the unknown. The other thing that overwhelms the anxiety is looking at our future students. Little ones who I would like to adopt in a heartbeat. One little boy, especially. His name is Emerson. It takes much self-control not to laugh when I watch him watching us during our lessons in the chapel. The only way to describe it is quiet wonder. His eyes move from Jacklyn, to me and then to Will. He is studying us. I just want to grab him right up, then and there and hug the wonder right out of him. I remember the words of Bill Cosby who once said that he could rule the world if he had about 200 toddlers. Quite true......They are a species of people all to themselves.
 P.S. WILL ATTACH PICS SOON :).......

     Finallly, a moment in time when our dial up internet service is running on 4 hamster wheels. No pictures this time, but an update.
     Summer vacation is finally here for the children, which means no vacation for the mothers. The summer, dry weather is upon us which means lots of watering of gardens. I remember how our backyard in Washington was time-consuming but here with 60 acres and lots of side gardens, it's overwhelming at times. We were SO fortunate to have delivered in our container a nice chipper machine. This is what we are going to be working on shortly. We have so many branches all over the place, we will not be without bark chips for awhile. This will cut our weeding time which can be back breaking. The workers are cleaning under the avocado trees now. I thank God for their hard work. Weeding on my hands and knees may be hard but these guys are swinging a machete all day and the brush under the trees are high due to the rainy season. And before you know it, it will be harvest time for the coffee. We are hoping for an even bigger yield this year.
     On the animal side, we had a set of twin goats born from the 'mama' goat. We bought her with her twin daughters awhile back. This was her 2nd set of twins, I think. Anyway, they appeared to be premature, they were tinier than the others. The next morning after they were born, our head worker, Juan, said that he thought they were dying. We found them alone, the mama goat was busy eating and they were crying feebly. Will and I spent the rest of the day trying to feed them formula through a syringe and just holding them. The girl died in Will's arms and later in early evening the other died as I tried to keep him warm in the house. You may laugh, but we even tried CPR. It's pretty desperate but watching anything die is heartbreaking. It was a really sad day. Other things happened that week that hurt Will and I and the deaths of these baby goats was the finale to a gloomy week. I remember the fog and mist rolling in and then the rain begin, it was a sign of how I felt the whole week.
     As for the children.....we have new children, which each week I seem to be drifting from knowing all their names. And some names are just plain hard to remember. But they are still dear to me. We have some of the children who were here from the beginning who have left us. That has also been difficult. They are part of a neighborhood known for being robbers, liars and 'dangerous'. We have had some challenges, no doubt. And when you think you are gaining ground with them, teaching them how to tell the truth, to apologize......Dear Lord, can these children EVER say they are sorry? You find that they would rather stay home and hold their ground than come back and apologize for telling lies. We started serving breakfast to a group of 9 children  from this neighborhood Monday through Friday for various reasons. Two of the children we wanted to see them continue to go to school, they were on a slippery slope and their parents were not helping. Two of the children had problems between their parents and we thought if we could spend more time with them and give them some stability it could only help. Others were just plain hungry. At the end, we lost 2 of them, they actually 'dropped out of school'....they are in 2nd grade. Second grade and dropouts. Their parents do not care and the mother says she can do NOTHING. Already the little boy is becoming a hooligan. To me, a mother who was brought up by my a military father...".Nothing" is unacceptable. I don't have to tell you what I would do if he were my child, but the old expression of 'taking them to the woodshed' comes to mind. Two little girls decided to leave because they felt the pressure of  Will, I, Diego and Jacklyn (I will tell you about her in a bit) trying to get them to study and not fail math. Again, parents 'can do nothing'. Education is somewhat 'valued as abstract', as I have read somewhere recently. To a community that mainly does manual labor, it doesn't seem all that important. And to tell you the truth, it does not guarantee them a job. That is the hard truth. We've had people looking for administrative jobs here and had to turn them away. Still it's disappointing. But I am encouraged by God, daily. And He has given me Will, who also raises my chin when I am frustrated. I am unlearning and learning at the same time. What I know, without a doubt, is developing the children's character and faith is the most important. You can't change a village nor a country without changing a heart. This is what our school will be about. We plan on using the Montessori method and have a wonderful lady from the U.S.  who will be training Jacklyn and I. Maria Montessori actually was using this method of teaching among the poor children of Italy and somehow it came to the U.S. and become one of the most expensive programs (with very expensive materials) for children. We have been using this method of teaching in our the children the parables and stories in the Bible. It holds their attention because we use wooden figures and props.  We feel that the earliest we can teach the children the better and so we plan to start out with preschool, ages 3-5. I'm looking forward to seeing the difference this will make in their developement.
     Now for Jacklyn. One day as Will was picking up the Wednesday group of children, someone mentioned that their was a new family in town and they were gringos (white) and they had 'gringito's small white children. Will had a hard time believing that there was another set of gringos in town. He ended up picking them up for class and sure enough they actually looked very gringo. She had curly blondish, brown hair, blue eyes and the young boy has the same features. Well, the children obviously loved the class and told their family. One of the family members is their aunt. She is a single lady (28) and has received her teaching certificate and is in the process of finishing her thesis for becoming an attorney. She wrote us a letter stating that she would like to volunteer here for a year. She said she had never heard of anyone doing what we are doing. So, she came, she saw and is now a part of our community. And oh what a gift she is to us. She jumped right in and has taken the responsibility of our big kids (ages 10-12), we now have about 17 kids on Friday.  She is my helper Tuesday through Thursday with the smaller children. And she will be the teacher in our school. I remember praying for workers probably over a year ago and the Lord told me He would send them. And He has. She was completely out of left field. Who knew? And she couldn't understand why God was sending her from the coast to this small Mayan pueblo. She said that she did not want to go.
     I am praying that God forms our community into what He desires.  I still wonder at times about our being a women's and children's refuge. We are open to receiving women and children and yet this doesn't seem to be happening here as of yet. I found it interesting that Jacklyn is doing her thesis on women and violence. I am sure that this happens even in a small pueblo like Agua Escondida. One thing is for certain,  I am always being stretched here, and I know this is good. Discomfort is a good thing, it keeps the weeds from growing underneath me. I'm grateful to be here, I'm grateful to see God's movement in our lives. And even when I cry, or am disappointed, or angry and I just want to complain, I know it's the Lord being faithful to change my heart. God, please change my heart......

Becoming Better Off The world would be better off if people tried to become better. And people would become better if they stopped trying to become better off. For when everybody tries to become better off, nobody is better off. Everybody would be rich if nobody tried to become richer. And nobody would be poor if everybody tried to be the poorest. And everybody would be what he ought to be if everybody tried to be what he wants the other fellow to be. Peter Maurin The Catholic Worker

Lectio with the words of Joan Chittister If you refuse to hold things lightly, you run the risk of clinging to a thing long after it has ceased to be good for you. The trick is to hold everything in life so lightly that only death can kill us.