The internet has been out all week, please forgive my delayed update! I am alright! I returned from the first Zacapa “grocery trip” to find a severed electrical line. The night that we managed to fix it however, a windstorm came through, and the satellite was thrown off it’s course… ohhh....
The inability to stay connected with home has proven to be one of my most frustrating obstacles. Ha! This fact, I’m embarrassed to admit, especially considering all of the other quandaries I’ve faced since arriving! Still, the support I feel from home is SO ENCOURAGING. Your emails and comments are like a weekly dose of energy. Thank you to everyone for offering advice, recipes, service projects, prayer and smiles. I love keeping you all updated and involved in this mission.
Without this communication, however, general mission life has proven to be a daily encouragement. Like the villagers around me, my routine slows down to the simple pulse of work, food, sickness, children. I am humbled daily by the big picture. Up here in the mountains, we have little control… it’s pretty obvious God’s holding the reigns.
Although my Spanish is far from perfect, I decided to speak at church last Sunday.
My testimony was about my current love for HARD WORK. The men at church smiled when I mentioned my work, for it's true! Every time the villagers visit my apartment, I am outside hoeing in the garden, or moving cement blocks from one pile to another. Everyone laughs to see a woman buckled under the weight of a heavy wheelbarrow!
In my short (and slightly nervous) church message, I went on to speak of the cucumber seeds I recently planted, and the close care that I give them daily:
Every morning I move the seedling flat into the sun, water gently, and scrutinize the leaves for insects. How nerdy I am, but I’ll admit that if I had a ruler, I would probably measure the leaves!
“How ridiculous,” you all must be thinking, “Who has time for such meticulousness?” Yep. The women at church laughed as well.
I then pointed out that, despite all of my hard work... my care for these seedlings is nothing in comparison to the simple breath of God. While I carried the heavy seed box into the yard the other day, my roommate Melanie pointed out a large tomato plant growing out of the cement in from of our apartment. YES. THERE IS A TOMATO PLANT GROWING OUT OF THE CEMENT. It has 4 little green tomatoes… I don’t know who planted it, or how it got there or how the little fruit has done so well in the cement. But then Freddy, my right-hand-man wearing my old Camp Illahee t-shirt, said, “Look Sarita… it’s a gift from God.”
That’s how easy it is.
With that, please pray for this guy... Mariano. He has been sick ever since I arrived, and I just don't know what to do for him. He won't go to the hospital (which is a common thing around here) and he probably weighs 70 pounds. No fever, nothing noticable... it just seems that he doesn't care about living. I can only give him rice.
But I don't want to end on such a sad note. This is a picture of Santos, who came to my apartment recently to show me his toy: A beetle tied on a string. A little gross, yes... but what fun!
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