I know that I have said that every day has been special, but today may have been one of the best days of my life. Sometimes the smallest acts of kindness make the biggest impact on a person. I will explain later in this post...
First, I will start by saying that we have been blessed with the most amazing crew SIFAT could have provided. Our translators and helpers are truly gifts from God. I spent quite some time today getting to know Danny (sp?), the translator for VBS. She was born and raised in Quito, Ecuador and started learning English at a very young age, but continued throughout grade school and college and continuously watches American sitcoms to learn more about our language. She is one of the most kindhearted people I have ever met and loves the Lord with all her heart. Here is a photo of her laughing at me while I tried a different species of lemon that is grown in Ecuador (please excuse the bad hair and lack of makeup 😳).
The lemon was being used for a special salsa made in Ecuador called aji. We went to the market with the lady from the kitchen to buy the ingredients and then learned how to make it step by step. By far the most amazing salsa I've ever had!
We switched posts today so I got the pleasure of working with the VBS kids. What a blessing those children are! It is amazing to me how children who have never known what it is like to be loved are so open and willing to give you all the love they have. Jose, our SIFAT representative for the week, explained to us tonight that the first time the children were approached by a group of Americans, most of them ran and hid. Now, they run up to you and embrace you with open arms and open hearts.
We started off by reading them a story from the Biblia 😊 and then gave them a corresponding color sheet and craft. The craft was to make their own crown decorated with jewels and beautiful colors. They loved getting to wear them after they were finished.
The little boy in the above photo was mimicking the "duck face" he had just seen in a photo. He nailed it.
After we finished up, it was play time. We brought the kids beach balls, kickballs, frisbees, and more! Needless to say, they could play with those things all day and never get tired. Me, on the other hand, not so much. I was exhausted after a few minutes, but the smiles on their faces kept me going. I played volley (volleyball to us) with two little girls for quite some time. One of the little girls decided to go play with something else, but the other (Nicole) stayed and we kept playing. A few minutes into our game, a man showed up on the street corner with what appeared to be a container with peanuts or popcorn, but I really couldn't tell. Nicole motioned for me to hold on for just a minute and she walked over to the man. As I watched her, she pulled out some coins and gave them to the man. At this point, I'm thinking that this could be really bad because of the whole taking things from strangers mentality, but he reached into his container and pulled out a popsicle. After he cut the top off of it, he handed it to her and reached in and pulled out another and did the same thing. She took them both, walked over to me, and handed me the other one. It may not seem like that big of a deal to you, but I had to hold back the tears as I took it from her. The fact that this little girl would take what little money she had and buy me something with it made me realize how much she appreciated us being here and spending time with her. I should have been the one buying her the treat, but instead that simple act of kindness changed my world. As we went over to the sidewalk to eat our popsicles, I couldn't help but wonder what if everyone were just like her. We sat there, no words being spoken, and communicated on a level I never thought possible. Just because there is a major language barrier between us doesn't mean that we aren't making a difference and that we can't reach these children. God is working through us in the most wonderful ways.
The construction team mixed concrete for the top layer of the holes that we filled and did an amazing job. Here are a few photos...
No trucks. No mixers. Just people, buckets, and hearts of gold.
Tomorrow morning, we are going to visit a different site in the morning that some people from our team worked on previously. Each day things become more heart wrenching, but in a good way. I cannot wait to see what is in store for the rest of the week!
I will leave you with this photo of the sweetest little boy and Jaci. Please pray for these children and for us as we witness to them the rest of this week.
