My Sunshine

Yessenia arrived here last fall while I was volunteering, and one of the first things that happened between her and I was a serious talk about how she hurt my feelings when she stole all my chocolate. Little did I know.. that incident foreshadowed some things that would shortly come to pass. Yessenia makes me laugh, always. She has joy in her spirit, because even when she’s asleep and I lay my hands on her to pray I always start smiling or laughing. Another thing that is sure to elicit a laugh is a review of what she’s got stashed in her cubby. Yessenia has a tendency to rescue trash that she deems as treasures shortly before they end up swept into the garbage, and I often find the fruits of her scavenges hidden with her underwear. Things like empty sardine cans (I don’t want to think about what happened to the sardines), various inedible fruits from trees in the yard, barbie legs, heads, and other plastic body parts, etc. I enjoy trying to imagine what goes through her mind as she decides such things are imperative to keep.

However, I sometimes find things she’s hidden that do not make me laugh. My art supplies, my perfume, the garbage from my raisins, my candy, and my hot cocoa packets, my five hundred peso bill. Actually the funny thing about that was that she stole my money and tried to buy two pepitos (like popsicles) from Estela with it. Fifty cents worth of merchandise with a fifty dollar bill, lucky for me Estela is very smart and knew exactly where that money came from. So anyway, my joyful little munchkin has some issues with stealing. She’s told me she wants to change, but.. so far it’s not going so well. (She ate my hot chocolate powder yesterday..) But I still think she’s hilarious. The other day we were making our beds in our room, and she started babbling to herself so I asked her what she was saying, and she says, “I’m speaking Chinese, because my dad came from China and he taught me.” Which isn’t true, but I showed her where China was on the map anyway and told her it’s pretty sweet that she’s half Chinese. Ahaha.

My other new favorite Yessenia story is about mayonaise. Whenever she wants me to sing her to sleep I sing her “You are my Sunshine” because it just fits, and I cannot figure out what words in English sound like “mayonesa” the Spanish word for mayonaise, but she’s started asking me to sing her the mayonaise song. Haha. So.. one night instead of “You are my Sunshine” I sang to her in Spanish about mayonaise on corn, which is how Mexicans eat corn, and I told her that I wrote it especially for her. A few nights later I had forgotten about that, and so when she asked me to sing her the special song that I made her I asked her what it was about, and she said, “Vegetables.” = )

there is one, there is one.

Last August I started the prayer journal that I am still using; lately I’ve been re-reading what I wrote a year ago and it is incredible for me to see how richly God has filled the pleas I placed before Him. I am struck by how all throughout this year He has drawn me to different places, but always placed me firmly in the midst of people who have helped to nurture and support the love for Him that has been growing inside of me. These past four months have been exactly that. Papa Elias and Mama Tere are both extraordinary pastors, their son Obed is one of the wisest men I know, Estela is my closest friend here and an incredible, holy, strong, beautiful, wise woman. The girls that live in this house with me are like sisters, and they love Him. I could go on.

At the beginning of this month while we were at the beach Obed caught me alone with my Bible during dinner one night and asked why I wasn’t eating. I had started fasting dinners on the first of August, for something important and personal and I explained that to him. I didn’t think much more of that interaction with him until last week, when we were all together to talk announcements and such, and he started talking to everyone about how he was inviting us to fast with him that coming weekend for an important friend of ours. He said, “and that friend is Brittany” and he explained how those who wanted to would be fasting breakfast and lunch on both Friday and Saturday, and that we would break the fast with dinners both nights. Then he asked who wanted to join him, and almost every single person raised their hand. That’s a lot of people willing to go hungry two days in a row for me: talk about feeling loved and supported.  So we did it. Obed, Lucia, the older girls and I were putting on a Vacation Bible School in a poor community not too far from here, it was hot and tiring and we were hungry, but we fasted together for my intention. It was beautiful.

Today Citlali told me that she’s continuing that fast for a week, that it’s something she decided in her own heart. She has a toddler to take care of, she has to be with us during meals to make sure Katia is putting more food in her mouth than on her face, she has her chores, her school, but she’s going hungry all week in order to focus her prayers on the same thing that mine are focused on.  Amazing.

God is faithful to us, I think that’s the point of this blog. I’ve been away from home for awhile now, but He has been faithful to provide me with all of the love and support that I need, both through Him and through the people He places around me. I love that.

“Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness, come before Him with joyful songs, Know that the LORD is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the LORD is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.”

Psalm 100

glimpses

“Dear Jesus, I pray for this girl Mina, because she’s already asleep and she didn’t even brush her teeth yet.” -Maria de Jesus

 Stories

 It’s summer break, today Yessenia and Maria invited Uzi over for a tea party, and are currently enjoying cheese puffs off of tiny plastic dishes while conversing about cows, haha.

Last week we packed up multiple truckloads of our belongings, then packed ourselves into the trucks, and ALL of us traveled to Costa Esmeralda (Emerald Coast) for a week-long camp put on by ourselves, especially for ourselves! Jesse coordinated most of our activites, and we began by dividing into eleven “tribes” with each worker being a leader of each tribe. Throughout the week we competed in a variety of games: volleyball, sandcastle-making, a water balloon fight, verse-memorizing, tug-of-war, etc. At the end of the week we awaited the announcement of the winning tribe with much anticpation… “Espada de Dios!” (Sword of God) Obed’s team, made up of baby Katia, two year old Uzi, four year old Zabdi, my five year old Maria, and about four other tiny children. I’m not sure how they won, because they failed to participate in one late night competition (they were sleeping = ) haha) but they beat us all and won themselves a pizza party!

The other day I really wanted to bake something, and decided on oatmeal raisin cookies. The recipe called for baking soda but we didn’t have any so I used baking powder… haha, but they turned out okay. I wish I could have captured Yessenia’s reaction as she tried her first ever oatmeal raisin cookie. It involved spitting out the raisin, clapping her hand over her mouth, and making the most horrified facial expression.. ahahah. Mina, on the other hand, was enthralled by the raisins, and ended up trading all her oatmeal for all of Yessenia’s “pasitas.”

Today Katia waddled over to me after lunch, wearing only a diaper, her face, chest, and protuding belly all covered in carrot soup and black beans, and offered me a little orange fruit she had just found on the ground. I politely declined, but most assuredly appreciated her generosity. = )

This week Lucia is going to run a summer school in the community where she has a mission, and she comissioned me to draw her a little boy and a little girl, which I just completed. Zabdi walked in while I was drawing and said to me, “you draw better than God!” Ahahaha..

Yesterday one of my closest friends here left to live with her family. She arrived here fourteen years ago when she was five. It was sad for us who are still here, especially the girls who grew up with her and feel like they just lost a sister. But, it’s what she wanted.

Maria prayed for God again the other day, haha. “And God, I pray for God, and the angels.” = )

Mina recently told me that she wants to move to Chile, and when I asked her why she said “Because that’s where you’ll be.” Ohhh I don’t know how I’m going to leave them.

My relationship with nine year old Jaime generally consists of him walking past me slowly and staring at me with super wide eyes, and vice-versa. Haha, I once described him to Claire as “He’s the type that will just stare at you forever like that because he thinks it’s funny.” Yesterday he walked over to me, said “take” and handed me two pesos! It was so sweet and I think it’s a sign that we’re real friends now.

While we were at the beach I sucessfully preached for an hour in Spanish! I made some mistakes, the one that elicited the most making fun of me being that I repeatedly used the word ‘lover’ instead of ‘beloved.’ Haha, oh well.

The little baby girl that we’ve had for several months finally has a name! Mama Tere chose Milcah Naomi, which means Beautiful Queen. I love it, and it’s definitely better than “Baby without a name.”

Sara is four, and is the most adorably talkative child I know. Over a year ago her dog Jonah died of unknown causes, but she still talks about him all the time, and recently she told me a story about how robbers came to her house and killed Jonah (which isn’t true, but it’s her minds way of making sense of what happened) and then she looked me straight in the eyes and said completely seriously as she slowly shook her head, “and that’s why I’m never going to get married with a robber.” Oh, it was hard not to laugh.

One of my favorite pictures from the beach: Angela was rolling around and around and around while singing to herself = )