A Simple, Happy Week

Above Photo: Blue, the resident parrot, came to visit the garden.

This is going to be a little shorter of blog post, especially since it has been a pretty simple, basic week. But I am so content with how this week has gone. I am really loving life here now -- I love its simplicity and combination of hard work and happy times.

Last Thursday evening, I arrived back at Familia Feliz around 10:30 pm after a wonderful day off. I knew that I needed to go out to the garden to kill leaf-cutter ants, though. So I pulled on my boots, put on my headlamp, and headed out with ant poison to go ant hunting to protect the garden. I found an ant trail and started following it. The trail continued on into some bushes, so I climbed through the bushes in the dark. However, I wasn't too concerned since I had boots on. Finally I gave up on finding the ant hole that night because the trail went too far back into the forest. When I climbed out of the bushes, to my dismay, I realized that I had burrs all over me: on my shirt, on my pants, and worst of all -- all throughout my hair. I tried to get them out on my own but eventually gave up and went to Kelsey's house where she helped me get out the 30+ burrs from my hair. What a crazy late-night adventure.

Below: A moment to showcase garden produce: honeydew melon, maize, cowpeas, watermelon, sunflower, pineapple.

The next day was Friday, which meant it was a super buy day. Sometimes Fridays are decently calm, but that was not the case for this Friday. I woke up, had worship, made breakfast, and then headed to the garden. There, I hand-pollinated the corn. It sounds like a much more complicated process than it is, so thankfully it was actually finished pretty fast. Then I answered some emails and responded to comments on my blog. Then I practiced for special music with Kelsey and Justin. Kelsey and I enjoyed getting to play violins again. I am finally adjusting to the 3/4 size violin and am able to play in tune a little bit easier with a smaller instrument than I was used to. It was such a HOT day on Friday! I sweated the entire day. My face could not get dry -- it constantly had little rivelets of sweat running down it no matter how many times I dried it. Later that afternoon, I headed out to the garden to harvest cucumbers, cowpeas, and squash. It was our first harvest of cowpeas, so that was exciting! I happily took cucumbers, peas, and squash to the houses!

Below: Produce!

Hermana Emi was excited about receiving all of the garden veggies. I was starting to leave the house when her son, Isaac, came running out and told me they had something for me. When I walked back into the house, Hermana Emi handed me a muffin that she said was her daughter Emily's "experiment". Then she handed me a piece of fried vegetable. She said "It's your garden zucchini! We cooked it today!" For the rest of my vegetable drop offs that day, I was not only carrying a crate of vegetables, but was also munching on fried zucchini and an "experiment" muffin.

Then it was time for worship, after which, I made no-bake cookies for our SM gathering. Every week it seems like we have a bigger feast than the last week at our gatherings! This week we had breaded cauliflower, 3 different options for drinks (2 of which had boba pearls in them), cookies, no-bake cookies, corn chip snacks, sour patch kids, and buttered noodles. It amuses me because we have such a random assortment of food, but we are all so excited about every dish even though it is a strange assortment!

Below: Our SM feast!

Sabbath was a very good day! Kelsey, Justin, and I enjoyed doing special music at church. I don't know if I have mentioned it before or not, but there is a girl from Germany who we met in the airport on our way here. She was coming to do an internship at a hospital in Rurre, but she didn't know anyone. So, we made an effort to keep in contact. She visited Familia Feliz one Sabbath and hung out for the whole day. Then, she texted me last Friday saying that her mom and sister were visiting, and she would love to show them the orphanage and get to say goodbye to us before she left Rurre. I was super excited to get to see her again! She and her mom and sister came for all of church and then ate some lunch with us too. They were so kind and brought clothing to donate and yummy treats for the kids! It was really wonderful to get to spend time with them.

Below: Special Music.

Sabbath afternoon, after a nap, I spent time at the Flores. I really enjoyed getting lots of little girl snuggles and doing lots of hair braiding.

Below: Hair Braiding and Fabiola :)

It was Ticiane's birthday that day. She had been asking me for weeks if I could give her a garden sunflower for her birthday. Every time I went to her house, she would ask me again if I could bring her a sunflower. Saturday night came and it was her birthday party. I went to the garden to get her a few sunflowers, wrote her a note, and then headed over to her birthday party. When I walked in with the sunflowers, she had the cutest reaction. She just got a look of complete awe on her face and stared at the sunflowers while just saying, "Wowwww, thank you teacher! Thank you! Wowwww." I wish I could have videoed her reaction. It was amazing to see how in awe she was of the sunflowers. I bet God was so happy to see her admiring His creation so much.

Below: Tici and the Sunflowers 🌻 and birthday party photos.

Then, the birthday party commenced and we had lots of fun. Tici seemed to really enjoy her party. It was bittersweet to watch the party because she is one of the kids who we are not sure will be here for second semester next year. We sure hope she can be, but because of certain circumstances, it will take a miracle for her to be able to stay. When kids leave Familia Feliz, they are often not going to loving homes, and almost always not going to places where they will learn about Jesus. As I watched Ticiane's beautiful smile and dancing eyes at her birthday party, I was so grateful that we got to give her a special day. As I sat and watched, I hoped so much that even if she leaves next semester, she will remember moments like her birthday party, where she was surrounded by people who love her so much and value her immeasurably. And I hope and pray that no matter where she goes, she will remember how loved and valued she is by us and most importantly, by Jesus.

Below: Tici and I.

Sunday was also a super full day! I woke up, watered the plants for a long time while listening to a Spanish learning podcast, and then I went back to the house. I did some laundry and then started planting! Hope blessedly brought 10 seeding trays for me in her suitcase when she arrived last week, and I was so excited to use them! What a blessing they are because they are so organized, don't fall apart when I water them (like the cardboard egg cartons I was using before did). They also hold in moisture for so much longer so that I don't have to be constantly watering them. I planted 400 seedlings of Soybeans, Watermelon, Honeydew Melon, Long Beans, Lettuce, Spinach, Cilantro, Basil, Dill, Chives, Collard Greens, and more. Then I planted 8+ Moringa Trees! We have had people generously donating to the agriculture program and that has made it possible to get pots to start lots of trees growing in! At one point while I was planting, little Salim, one of the Leones, stopped by and was excitedly me to name every plant I had planted: all 400 trays plus the trees and other starts I had going.

Below: Lots of plant starts!

Below: Salim, the little boy who stopped by to see the plant starts, asleep at lunchtime.

Then, I went to the garden and harvested cowpeas, checked up on the squash, weeded, and harvested our first spinach! It is a Japanese variety of spinach that is tolerant for tropical conditions, so it is thriving! For supper, I tried a new experiment with a way to cook the scallop summer squash because the house parents don't know how to cook it and want me to teach them. If any of you have favorite squash recipes you're willing to share, I'm sure we would all appreciate them! Then, I ant-hunted and went to bed.

Below: Garden produce — spinach, sunflower, and cherry tomatoes!

Monday was a good day! In the morning, Kelsey and I got to workout. It was my first workout since Dengue and I was soo sore after, but it felt so good! Jayden's parents also arrived for a visit on Monday. We were all happpy to see them, and I was also happy because my thoughtful mom sent me a lot of nice stuff with them. She had told me that it wasn't a very exciting package -- mostly just practical stuff. As I opened the package, I was appalled that she hadn't thought I would be very excited. She had sent lots of seasonings, ground flaxseed, powdered soy milk, pumpkin seeds, powdered lemon juice, and even a garlic crusher! There were seeds for the garden too, among other things. I called her and she said that I probaby wouldn't have found flaxseed very exciting a few months ago, so I guess I value things so much more once I'm without them for a while. I happily called my boyfriend that night to tell him that "I'm never gonna have to eat flavorless food again because my mom sent lots of seasonings!"

And most important of all in that package was my English Bible. I had ordered a journaling one to take with me here before coming, but Amazon glitched and my order did not arrive. So I only brought my Spanish Bible to Bolivia. I have been reading the Bible on my phone since getting here, and I have missed a tangible Bible soo much! Then when my mom tried to send my English Bible with Sierra when she visited, but USPS ran late and the package didn't arrive in time. When I found out that she couldn't bring my Bible, I was so sad that I cried. I had been so excited to finally have an English Bible and was so sad when I couldn't after all. However, finally my Bible came with Jayden's parents, and I have so been enjoying it. It was such a happy day when that package arrived! I'm so thankful for my sweet mother who worked so hard to send me nice stuff. I'm also grateful to Jayden's parents for lugging the package on their way here.

Below: My beautiful Bible 💗

Much of the rest of the week involved orange tree pruning and miscellaneous garden work. On Tuesday afternoon, I worked with the Guerreros on machete-clearing a field behind the garden to turn into a cassava field as some of my plants are ready to propagate to make more plants! After they all sharpened the machetes, we worked in the heat, chopping down grass and weeds for a while. Do you remember when I was first planting the sunflowers how the boys ate a lot of the seeds instead of planting them? Well these were those same boys, and my mom had kindly sent some dried and salted sunflower seeds to share with the boys. She sent them with Jayden's parents. I told the boys that they could have them when they were done working, and they were soo excited. They quickly lined up holding out their hands for sunflower seeds and thoroughly enjoyed them! Unfortunately, later that evening, I found lots of lice in my hair while combing. I'll comb again in the next few days to try to get any that I missed.

Below: One of our orange trees I’ve been pruning.

Below: Angel swinging his machete clearing the grass.

Yesterday it rained and rained. The rain woke me up at 4:30 am, and I couldn't go back to sleep for 2 hours. That is how loud rain is on our roof! It was great that it was watering the garden, but it also was unfortunate because we had puddles all over the kitchen from the roof leaking. I set up like five different containers and still couldn't collect all of the roof leaks. The bathroom without part of its roof also got a nice rain shower. Thankfully there is a shower drain to help us out.

Below: Our kitchen set up for the roof leaks.

I went out to check on the garden in the morning and was very glad that we had made raised beds. The walkways were all full of water, but although the bed was drenched, it thankfully wasn't in standing water. Hope and I did a lot of weeding that morning, and we found such a cool weed. It is one of those plants that is sensitive to touch, so when you touch it, it closed its leaves all up.

Below: Lots of corn and cowpea sprouts have been coming up!

After lunch and a nap, I worked in the garden for a while. I chopped down the cowpeas after harvesting them so that they can be worked into the soil for Nitrogen fixing. I then worked with the Lillas girls putting a lot of dried leaves and wood chips on the beds for ground cover, weed control, and better soil.

Below: Working with the girls and eating cucumbers.

That evening I harvested spinach, trellised tomato plants, and gave some veggies to houses. All of the rain brought out lots of frogs, and I had one jump on my shoulder as I left the house. I also had one extremely social frog hang out with me in the kitchen, and then move to the bathroom to sit on the shelf while I showered, just to come and hang out beside me in the kitchen again. He was so cute and quite the gymnast. He loved climbing the bars across our window and even would hang upside down by one leg for a little while. He was such a fun little guy.

Below: The frog who jumped on my shoulder, and our acrobatic frog doing the splits in our kitchen.

This blog has shared examples of a pretty average, normal week. Not much out of the ordinary happened. There weren't tons of exciting events (although receiving my package was pretty exciting). And yet, I loved this week. Looking back on it, I realized that I loved it because of all of the little things. I loved playing special music with Kelsey and Justin. I loved braiding the Flores hair. I loved giving Ticiane her birthday sunflower. I loved harvesting lots of produce. I loved delivering food to the houses and watching the SM's get excited about eating spinach. I loved listening to a Spanish-learning podcast a lot and learning new things. I loved working out with Kelsey and finally building muscle back. I loved getting to call my parents while I cooked and getting to call my boyfriend while I pruned orchard trees. I loved finally getting my Bible and getting a garlic crusher. I loved getting to machete the field with the boys and mulch the garden with the girls. I loved it when Hope and I found that weed that is sensitive to touch. I loved watching that frog hanging by his arm and doing the splits while climbing all over my house. I never realize how blessed I am until I sit down and write about it, and then I am overwhelmed with gratitude for this simple, happy life that I get to live. Working hard, playing hard, loving hard, and learning hard. God is so good to me. I hope each of you are inspired to take a look at your week and notice all of the little blessings God gave you in it. At first it may seem like a mundane, average week, but when you look closely, I bet you will find that you live a very rich life -- maybe not monetarily, but rich with the blessings of Jesus.

Below: A picture looking towards the garden on campus. It’s so pretty!