God Don't Owe Us Anything pt 4

It was nice to rest...But its even nicer to get up!!

     The Lord blessed us in that no cockroaches bothered us in our sleep (that we know about). One teammate on the other hand, was not so blessed. He had one fall on his face in the middle of the night!! He woke up and had them crawling in his peanut butter crackers he brought. These are not little bitty roaches..these are JUNGLE roaches! They are big-FAT-make-your-skin-crawl roaches!! But that is just part of the deal! Lovely I know... 

Onward to Work...sort of. 

We ate our breakfast and got ready just like the day before. Extra bug spray today. It rained again last night and was still raining this morning!! Today was the day we were suppose to spread the grass seed for the boys' soccer field, the most important element of the home (kidding!). We looked out from our breakfast room at the land... oh boy. Tyler went to go check but we could even see with our eyes that it was going to be WAAAYY too muddy to work. Kristen stood and announced that it would be fine and that we would spend the morning praying for the boys. We broke off into groups and spread out all over the lodge. This really opened out eyes to the need, the goal of Not Forgotten. It opened our eyes to see that our peruvian brothers needed our prayers, our time, and most of all needed Christ. We were able to see how much love Christ has for us and how much love we have for the boys because we want to worship and honor God alongside with them.  We want them to grow up and be Godly men and impact their city in a way it has never been impacted before. 

Okay...now its time for PHYSICAL work!
YAY! the rain stopped and it was time to get out there and get as much as we could done! We grabbed our water bottles and headed out to the land. When we got there, we saw about 2 or 3 giant piles of damp soil that we were suppose to spread. we had about 3 wheel barrels going down a slippery hill to dump on the soccer field and some people were falling and our method was not getting much done. As americans, we always liked the assembly line idea, so this is what we did: We had many buckets being filled with dirt and passed back and forth and at the same time had someone wheeling a wheel barrel of dirt to be spread. I was a spreader. A bulldozer moved some of the dirt closer to the field so we wouldn't have to travel so far, but it was beginning to get stuck in the mud, so it could not go any further. We did as much as we could before it was time to shower, eat and get ready to see the boys again. We got about 1/4 of the field done. My back was killing me, but little did I know, it wasn't as much muscular pain as the lovely pain associated with a Kidney infection ( I would later find this out when I got back to the states). 

An Evening in the city...
Other than the French market in New Orleans, I have never been to a market before. This was the real deal. I loved it. We looked around the small stands filled with nic nacs and all sorts of stuff. There was a tarantula framed in a picture. I told the lady working the stand " No me gusta tarantula. ahhh!" (I don't like tarantulas. AHH!) and she laughed and smiled and showed me the framed giant moth they had. I smiled and said "Bonita, pero no gracias. Me gusta estos braceletes" (pretty, but no thank you. I like these bracelets). She showed me and told me how much they cost and i bought one or two. I love bracelets. We were here to kill time before going to the boy's center. I came across this booth where a man painted and sold his paintings. He was VERY good. My little sister is also a very talented artist. I knew she would love something like this. I bought her a painting of the river for 10 soles.  We just walked around for the next half hour. We showed up at this lady's store where she was selling some headbands. We asked how much they cost and commented that they were very pretty. She let us try them on and laughed and smiled at us enjoying ourselves. She told us we looked pretty, and we bought the headbands. I left my sunglasses on the table and walked out of the store un knowingly leaving them. She tried to call me back but I did not hear. A few moments later I realized I left them, she met me halfway as I was returning back and gave me my sunglasses. The lady was very very sweet and so full of joy. 

     We all met back near the bus and got ready to go into the city to another market. We all took  a group picture some on the bus some standing outside the bus. Then we loaded up and headed into the city. We got off at a street corner and immediately drew attention. We were instructed not to give money to the beggar children, but if we had any extra food or water, give that to them. Immediately, the cutest little boy and his baby brother ran up to us and tried to sell us popcorn. I had left my water on the bus that I wanted to give away. Men whistled at us and called us pretty. we just kept walking. We walked to this place where you can look out and see the amazon river. It was beautiful. After taking pictures, we walked to the Amazon market. We looked in all the neat little shops. It was here that I found a tshirt for my niece, Kiley. I was trying to get all the gifts for my family right now and keep them small because there would be no room for them in my backpack. 
  We ate at this place that served american diner food, only in my opinion they do it better in peru. the diner was open and people could walk in because there were no doors. The children came back begging to buy popcorn again. some teammates sitting close to the street gave them some food. We attracted some other people as well. When we were finished it was finally time to see the boys for the last time before we went into the jungle. 
   ...Wait..you were coming?

so we arrived at the boys center...and they totally didn't know we were coming. They were shocked and most of them just getting home from school. We all spent that night making bracelets, playing games and such just as we usually did. It was great. I got to know some other boys. We also played charades and joked around. It was great fun. 
   After we left, it really hit Dominique and I that we were not going to get to see them again for a long time, and so we cried on the bus ride home. We listened to music to try to stop crying, but we were silent in our thoughts. Everyone was a little bit quieter at the hotel that night. Most talk was about how we were going to miss the boys so much. Some tried to get it off their minds and look forward to going to the jungle the next day. 
    I got my things packed (well, whatever was laying out that could be packed). So far, no cockroaches were in my bag and I wanted it to stay that way. As I was getting ready for bed, I was reflecting on our time with the boys that night and what we prayed for that morning. It was then when everything started to click. I started to understand and long for these boys to KNOW Christ and to grow up as Godly men. 

Stop watching life, and live life

I am guilty of being an observer....

Most people say I am quiet; that they never hear much from me. The truth is I'm not shy, I am just watching. I love to watch people's behaviors, how they react to things, what they do. I am constantly assessing people. Not to say I am constantly negatively judging people, because I am not, I'm just trying to figure them out. I do not necessarily pay attention to words because actions speak louder. You may say that if you won the lottery, you would give it all to charity, but if 28 million dollars ended up in your bank account tomorrow, we will only know if you meant what you said by what you do. 
   I always try to critically think through my options. If they are wise decisions or not, if they are a "safe move", if it is a realistic goal are things I consider. But have you ever thought of this as sin?  Up until recently I have not. You see sometimes by observing, I miss out on what is going on around me. I am too busy watching other people and trying to analyze the excitement going on around me that I do not even participate. 
    The thought just hit me the other day to stop analyzing other people's behavior and enjoy the people, enjoy the setting, and enjoy God. He puts me in a place of rejoicing and excitement and what do I do? I watch other people celebrate and be happy. Not saying that this curiosity is wrong, but I am just trying to stress that enjoying others and celebrating with them is a gift. When we do that, we think "My great God! he is so wonderful, he has all of us connected here together and we are full of heart-felt joy for knowing each other and knowing you -individually and collectively!" The enjoying of people should lead to the enjoying of God who created those people. So I urge myself and others like myself...to live in the joy of today, in worship of the creator, and stop watching it. 

God Don't Owe Us Anything, Ya Dig? Pt 3

        Work day 1: Breakfast-
It was 8 am and time to get going!! We got up, got our work clothes on, sprayed on more DEET and headed to breakfast. Peruvian breakfast is very similar to American breakfast. Eggs, toast, jelly, bacon, and...coffeeeeeee!!! The coffee was THE BEST coffee ever. If you ever drink coffee from Peru, it is a true worship experience. It was very strong, so if you don't like that, like me, you have to put more sugar in the coffee than coffee mix (it was peruvian instant coffee). Tyler, Kristen, and Allison explained a little bit of what we would be doing that morning while at the table. After we ate, we gathered our work gear and headed out to the site.
      Time to get down and dirty!!
and we did just that! Before we left, we were all looking to fill up our water bottles so we would have water to drink. It had not arrived. I knew we were just going to buy water from the lodge or something, but I was so use to just going to the fossett and getting some water at whatever temperature I desired that this was a shock to me. Kristen and allison bought us 3 large bottles of water to fill up the cooler so everyone could get some water from it. We all only filled out bottles about 1/2 way so that we were sure the whole team got some. Down at the work site there was a big pile of wood posts laying on the ground and muddy from the rain that we were suppose to work with that day. We were to clean them off and sand them down as much as possible, then they were to be painted on all sides with tar. With 2 people working on one post at a time, this took a while, but was quite fun. I wore a tie dye shirt that I loved...needless to say, it is not wearable anymore haha. But I'll take it with me when I am doing dirty work in the future! we all hung our water bottles on a tree as if they were ornaments. The water finally arrived just in time for a break. We were making pretty good progress, though all we were doing was cleaning posts of wood and sanding them, then covering them with tar. It took us all afternoon to finish that job (there were many posts), but it was finally complete. We were to go back to the lodge, shower, and get ready to go to to the center to see the boys. Again, it took us a while to shower. The bus was due to pick us up at 6. We Americans do not notice, but we are freaks about being on time. If we are 10 min late, that is understandable, but anything after 30 min is absurd to us. In South American countries, the bus could be 2 hours late and it not be a big deal. It wasn't late and we got on the bus to go to the center in the city.

        We were having dinner with the boys and were so excited! when we got there, dinner was almost ready. We talked a little bit and played a game of UNO and then it was time to eat. we all picked a table and sat down. One boy from each table was to get everyone at the table's food and drink.  We all ate, and whatever we didn't eat, the boys gladly took care of it for us haha just like any other teenage boy. After dinner, we played games. We played UNO, some played soccer, some put together puzzles (they like that), some made bracelets, and some played charades. I played Uno with some of the boys. Then I went to see if Luiz or Mario would show me how to make a bracelet. They tried to teach me...but my spanish skills were not that good. Also I did not understand his demonstration. Luiz and mario called me and a girl on my team Loca(crazy) and made our bracelets for us. Julio Cesar came over as well and make me a bracelet and a ring(from the leftover string).Soon it was time to say our hasta luegos (see you laters). It was so much fun being with the boys. We got on the bus and headed back to the lodge. We were tired but filled with so much joy! Walking up the driveway to the hotel, we saw a giant toad, probably as big as a pro football and a beetle the size of a baseball!! Pretty much take any bug you would see in the woods in America and make it 5X the size and you got jungle bugs. We all brushed our teeth and went to bed (spraying on bug spray of course- we don't play).