I am currently sitting in our town, Rurrenebaque, in a cute little cafe called Roots. The student missionaries from Familia Feliz come here so often that the owners recognize us every time. Not only does it have yummy food and drinks, but it also has wifi for us to use to write our blogs.
As I am sitting here and thinking about these last two weeks, I am really overwhelmed with how good God is to me and all of us here at Familia Feliz. It is a bit difficult to figure out what to write about when so much of our lives here consist of simply doing life with these kids. But I have decided that in this blog post, I am going to give you a glimpse into the last two weeks that have been average and simple, but also pretty wonderful.
Below: one of the quiet evening sunsets here.
Every morning I get up early and head out to the garden to check on all of the plants and water them before the sun gets too hot. This is one of my favorite parts of the day because every time I get to see new plants sprouting. I had the kids do some planting this last week, and now nearly everything we have growing was planted by them. The kids often help me in the afternoons for a couple of hours, girls first, and then the boys. We tried having the girls and boys work together at first, but I quickly realized that when teenage girls and boys are together, they're often much more interested in eachother than in working in a garden. The amount of work we get done when they are separate is astronomically more than when they are together.
Below: Two of our older girls right after finishing garden work.
Flirting is not the only struggle we sometimes have with the kids working in the garden. One day, I handed some of the older boys sunflower seeds to plant alongside some climbing melons. They were immensly excited, but not for the reason one may think: They wanted to eat the seeds. One boy, Angel, popped a seed in his mouth, looked at me, and said, "Teacher, es muy rico!" All of the boys immediately ran to him each begging for some seeds to eat. I knew we would not be getting any sunflowers this year if I didn't intervene soon, so I attempted to explain that if we planted the seeds, we would get lots of seeds to eat from the flowers that grew. I went to my house to get more sunflower seeds after they had eaten nearly all of the other ones. On my way back to the garden, I was greeted by 7 teenage boys running at me, nearly knocking me over, all begging to hold the packet and "plant" the seeds. I eventually gave those sunflower seeds to one of the older volunteers who I knew would be sure to plant them in the ground instead of in her stomach.
However, some of the challenges of having the kids do the planting don't show up until after the fact. During one of my rounds to check on the plants this week, I came across a place where we were supposed to have sunflowers sprouting. I was quite amused to see that sunflowers were indeed sprouting -- about 6 were piled in one hole. This was more of the work from the older boys before they had decided that the seeds were more fun to eat than to plant. This week, we also had the kids harvest more grapefruits, sort and distribute oranges to the houses, and harvest plantain bananas. The kids really are so much fun even if they do not always plant seeds correctly!
Below: Some of the challenges of planting with lots of kids: too many seeds in one hole. :)
Below: watering, sorting, and harvesting produce!
We had several garden victories and blessings in these past two weeks. For one, we finally got a hose hooked up that can reach all of the way to the garden. We hope to put in a sprinkler system soon, but right now the hose is already a drastic improvement from hauling and dumping water on each of the hundreds of plants and seeds by hand. Another victory is that we finally got all of my plant cuttings of Katuk, Cassava, and Cranberry Hibiscus transplanted into the garden. And an even larger victory is the fact that the much-dreaded leaf-cutter ants have not been eating our plants. These ants are rather large with pinchers in front of their heads. They can destroy an entire crop in a single night by cutting and carrying off all of the leaves. There are so many of these ants all over campus that they create visible dirt trails in the grass where no grass grows because so many ants walk there every night. I was curious to see if the ants had found the garden yet, so I went out to check one evening after dark. I found a whole train of them going right beside the garden, and they had cut one of the plants that was directly in their path, but they were not going after any of the rest of my plants. Amazingly, they were walking right by, within a foot of rows and rows of new tender leaves, paying no attention to them. God is truly blessing and protecting these plants.
Below: some of our plants!
The angels assigned to Familia Feliz have been a bit busy with keeping critters out of the garden these last two weeks. I was standing in my kitchen washing dishes one evening, when I heard a sound through my screened window. I listened more closely and suddenly realized it was a horse whinneying. Right then, I saw a streak of a horse run past my window. This horse was stuck on campus for hours that evening, and none of us knew where it came from. All we know is that it probably won't come back again if it can help it, because it got the scare of its life being chased off campus by 14 little boys yelling and running. Although the horse was right next to the garden, it does not appear that any plants were trampled on, which was a big blessing.
Another morning, I awoke to see messages on our Student Missionary groupchat saying that "a pig that is the size of a cow" had been seen outside a window at 3 am, and was then seen again over by the garden in the morning. A pig could easily root up the whole garden in one night, so I was a bit concerned. Yesterday, every time it made an appearance, that pig was chased into the woods by tons of boys, both toddlers and teenagers. We are hoping to chase it out of the gate when we get the opportunity, but as far as I know, it is still somewhere on campus. Amazingly, it has not hurt the garden in any way. God is good to protect the garden so much. We are looking into getting a pig-proof and horse-proof fence sometime soon, and we also hope to go find the ant homes and get rid of them. But until then, I'm glad we have a God who is so faithful in protecting the garden and taking care of us.
Although the garden presents a bit of work for me, it has been a little slow these past couple of weeks because most everything for our first harvest is in the ground already. We cannot plant more until mid-October because otherwise it will all be ready during Christmas break when we are taking an SM trip around South America for a couple weeks. Each day I have to check on the plants, water them, and pull a few weeds, but other than that, I mostly have to wait for things to grow. That has probably presented the greatest challenge for me these past couple weeks. I have struggled with figuring out what to do each day and have at times felt like I'm being lazy for not always working in the garden. However, it is through this struggle that I have learned what some of the most beautiful parts of mission work are. I’m going to seek to share what I’ve learned about it in the following paragraphs.
Below: some special moments with these girls.
My church from Virginia so kindly wrote me many notes to bring with me and read throughout the year. I am so grateful for them, and they have been very encouraging. In one of the notes, one of my friends shared with me that she has learned that mission work truly consists of doing life with people. I decided to embrace that concept these last two weeks and have been so blessed. Having less to do in the garden has meant that I have gotten to visit the houses and play with the kids so much more. Some of my favorite moments have consisted of teaching some of the older girls to play guitar chords, mending holes in the little girls' clothes while surrounded by tons of interested little girls watching the process, reading Bible stories to the little boys, and even arm wrestling the older boys at their house. One Friday night after worship, one of the boys got the idea that he would love to arm wrestle me, and ever since then, nearly all of the 13-15 year old boys love to practice arm wrestling with me. I was pleased to discover that I can often hold my own with them, although I always win some and lose some.
Below: teaching guitar chords to some of the girls.
Another night, I was at the Flores house (the little girls' house) to help with bedtime. It was so nice to pray with each of them and hug them goodnight. It is the sweetest thing to have a little girl whisper that she loves me so much and ask God to take care of me and the other SM's in her prayer. Spending much of these two weeks with little arms wrapped tightly around my neck and hearing cute little giggles around every corner is one of the most enjoyable things I've done here. I've learned that just doing life with people — sewing, planting, harvesting, playing, learning music, arm-wrestling, reading, and eating together — is so fulfilling. It is so beautifully simple and also a highly effective strategy for building relationships that can hopefully point them to Jesus. At the end of these two weeks, I can truly say I have had some of my best experiences yet, despite initially not knowing what to do with myself, because I chose to just immerse myself in living life with these kids.
Below: Doing life with these kids is so special!
This week has also involved lots of tarantulas in my house and lice in my hair, but those are stories that will have to wait for another blog. I will end this blog about my simple life here by announcing that I have officially survived doing my laundry by hand twice since coming here. It really is quite therapeutic, although very time consuming. I'm so grateful to God for giving me the opportunity to learn to enjoy living a life full of simple joys and trials. And I’m so grateful He is faithful every step of the way, whether that means keeping a giant pig out of the garden, or giving me the opportunity to arm wrestle the boys.
Below: me and some of the Leones at Friday worship.
Thanks for the inspiring blog. Doing life together is part of God’s plan wherever we are. Praying that you continue to see God’s having all of your circumstances. ❤️
You’re doing such good work for God and His people there! Praying for God to continue to protect you (and your garden🙂) as you do life with your kids.
I’m sooooo very proud of you, Ellie! You have been such a blessing to soooo many people. Love you TONS and praying for you daily!🙏🏼❤️😘🥰🙏🏼