Nicaragua: Birthday, Eggs, and Work

I am in Nicaragua to visit Eduardo, who is in Nicaragua to do a construction project on his mom's house. She has a wall that surrounds the house, as is typical, but it was very low and did not really offer any security. So Eduardo has been hard at work, with another guy or two, mixing cement and building the wall nice and high. He is up around 5:30am each day and works until it is just too dark to see.

Monday was his mom's birthday. Two sisters and thier three kids came over to the house along with his uncle and aunt. I swung the kids in the hammock and spent a while talking to his uncle. I actually met him in Costa Rica, too. I really like the uncle and aunt. They have been married 30 years and still seem smitten with each other. At one point, everyone was in the house doing things except for the uncle and I, and he took the opportunity to explain to me that he could do anything in the world...except live without his wife. The two of them stayed so late however, that I had to excuse myself and go to bed. There is a certain time of night when my brain just stops registering spanish.

Nicaragua: feeling at home

I'm down in Nicaragua for the first time! It was planned at the very last minute, but I am here to visit Eduardo and his family. I arrived on Saturday. My first impression of Managua, the capital city, was from the air: the city is HUGE! But I love cities and was ready to explore. Eduardo picked me up at the airport and it took about 15 minutes by taxi to get to his mom's house. I met his mom before I met him in Costa Rica, so it was nice to see her again and she welcomed me warmly. I got to meet one of his sisters that I had not met before and her son as well as his grandfather. They all share the small 3 bedroom 1 bathroom house. His mom has lived here for 40 years, so it is where Eduardo grew up. There was lots of meeting, and some eating, and a trip to the little market too. The market reminds me of the one in Bolivia, but much smaller. And it is just a few blocks walking distance.

There are lots of churches very close to the house and we heard the praise music much of the day. In the evening, Eduardo and I took Leo and Diana to a service. I recognized several of the songs and it was fun to have the kids with us. Eduardo and I were back in the market in the afternoon with his mom and they wanted me to try all kinds of foods. So I had a burrito and a hot dog and they bought a bag of turtle eggs that they will cook tomorrow.

Nicaragua is definitely the dirtiest place that I have visited, there is a lot of trash in the streets, but I still really like what I have seen of the city. I feel welcome, not like I stick out like a gringa, and am happy to be here!

129,000 children with no family can't find a place to call home despite 10 million church-going families in the USA

I was at a church to represent CIN on Sunday. It was a small church, still new and meeting in a school gym, and they were celebrating their first annual Celebrate Adoption Sunday. I don't recall ever being in a church service devoted entirely to adoption, and this one got me thinking. So I did some research, and this is how the numbers broke down:

510,000 children are in foster care in the USA
129,000 of those children are ready to be adopted
300 billion is the approx. population of the USA
20% is the lowest estimate that I could find for the number of people who attend church on a regular basis. So hopefully it is actually more than that.
60 million then is the approx. number of people in the USA that regularly attend church
4 is the "normal" family size, with 2 parents and 2 kids
15 million would be the number of "normal" sized families that regularly attend church
10 million is a more probable number of families in churches, since many singles also attend church

With 10 million families regularly attending church, why can we not find homes for the 510,000 kids in foster care????

Even more so, why do we still have 129,000 kids just waiting around for someone to decide to love them and permanently invite them into the family????

If we have been Christians longer than 2 days we know that God has COMMANDED us to care for the fatherless. So what are we doing?!?! We are living in sin. Caring for these children is a command to every single Christian just like loving our neighbors and observing the sabbath. Departments of Children and Families should be overrun with calls from Christian families asking for available children. All the group homes should be closed because all the kids are in families. And no child should ever be placed in an institution because there are no families and the group homes are all full (I used to work for an institution and I personally know foster care children who were placed in my program simply because there was no other place to put them.) Neighborhoods, church bulletins, and community posts should be plastered with fliers from Christian singles who have been certified to offer babysitting services for foster care families.

Christians should be clamoring for the chance to care for these children.

If you aren't clamoring, this is your warning. You will be held accountable.

Another Surprise

At 6:45 this morning Felicia’s brother and nephew were at our door again. This time another of Felicia’s brothers was with them. He is another very large man. So they came in to visit and Felicia was cooking again and Steven was off to the bakery again. Poor lady, she thought she was going to make breakfast for two women and a boy and was surprised with three large men in addition. How gracious is she!!

Surprise Guests

At 6:30 this morning there was an unexpected knock on the door. It was Felicia’s brother and nephew. They had come for a visit. So Felicia got up and let them in and woke Steven up and sent him to the bakery to buy bread so that she could make them breakfast. I don’t know what your mental picture is of these two guys, but you should be picturing two very large adult men. I came down to shower and eat breakfast too, and then was off to school. When I got home at noon, Felicia said that they had just left. I’m not sure if that was culturally appropriate or as crazy as I thought it was….

Rice Limit

I think that I have a rice limit. When I am in Bolivia, for the first couple of weeks I am hungry and I eat plenty of the amazing food set out before me. But after about 3 weeks, I loose my appetite. I just don't want to eat. I know the food is delicious, but I have to force myself to consume even small quantities. I couldn't explain it for a long time.

Now I am in Costa Rica. I get delicious food here too. And I have been eating it and enjoying it. But about a week ago, my appetite left me once again. I know the food is good, but I just don't want it. I'm not hungry. Felicia always tries to over feed me, but now she seems really worried about me. She asks if I am dieting. I'm not. I would really like to eat that food! But even when I force myself to eat small portions, it is hard to convince my body to swallow. I'm just not hungry.

I tried to explain to Felicia that I have the same reaction in Bolivia, but it was hard to explain because I didn't know why I have the reaction. The food really isn't that different. I don't eat anything in Bolivia or Costa Rica that I never eat in the US. The only difference that I could come up with was the amount of rice I am eating. In the US I eat rice once every week or two. When I am out of the country I eat it every day, and usually twice (here in Costa Rica usually three times) every day. I think that I have a rice limit and after 3-4 weeks I just can't take any more in. That's all I can come up with.

Don't Look Them In The Eye

The Costa Rican Secret Service goes to my church.

No really.

Every week there are about 20 big men dressed in dark suits with ear pieces and microphones in their cuffs. They roam around the congregation during the service and use hand signals with each other. These are not the ushers; the ushers wear red coats. I am scared of these guys.

The Coming Rain

So it rains every afternoon here in Costa Rica. Yesterday, I was hanging out in the living room with my tico (Costa Rican) family when Felicia told me to listen. We keep the front door open for the breeze, and I also think it is meant to encourage visitors. She asked if I could hear what sounded like the garbage truck. I could. And as we listened it got louder. And louder. It was the rain on the metal roofs and the front was headed our way. We bunched together in the doorway and watched the wall of rain cross the rooftops of the houses farther from us. We watched the rain, in a straight line, come down across the roof of the house across the street, cross the street, cross the apartment parking lot and come sweeping directly to our door. It was incredible!! I am really tired of the rain and deperately miss the sun, but this was a reminder to me that even in its abundance, rain is something amazing.

Mashed Potatoes

Felicia serves me rice every day. At every meal. Today she didn't serve me rice at lunch and so she wanted to explain to me why. She explained that she wasn't serving me rice because she was serving me potatoes. But the potatoes didn't look like normal. She pointed out to me on my plate that THESE were the potatoes. They just looked different because they were PUREED. That's right, I got a five minute explanation of what mashed potatoes are. I like this lady :)

Rough Day but He Made Me Smile

I had a really rough day in class. I haven’t had a grammar class in about 13 years (hey, that’s HALF my LIFETIME now). And suddenly I am in intermediate Spanish grammar. That is really frustrating some days. Today was one of those days. I just couldn’t get what the teacher was talking about. In the middle of the morning, after grammar class, we have a half hour break. Usually I go to the computer room and do some work, but today I went out on the balcony because I saw a small spot of sunshine there. So I stood in the only spot of sunshine I have seen in several days and nearly cried with frustration. Then the bell rang and I went back to class, where the teacher promptly replied that we were going to go to a different room for the day.

The rooms are all basically the same except for one. The different one is my favorite, but I don’t have any classes in it. My favorite room is a rectangle and the two long walls are all windows. It is beautiful. My class was switched to that room and I began to feel some relief. Also, the classrooms are not numbered, but are named after various Latin American countries. So I checked the name of my favorite classroom before we went in to see “where” I was going. And guess what…..it was Bolivia.

I had been having a terrible time, but God gave me sunshine, a beautiful room, and a visit to Bolivia. Sometimes I think He is as random as me…but He surely is good to me.