Goat Herder
The first day we were led down that same winding, twisting, up and
down, rocky path they called a road, until we arrived in Ojojona. Our
host led us around the town showing us the important places: groceries
and souvenirs. He showed us how to travel the busses and go to the
next town for even more important things: coffee shops with wifi! We
loaded our arms full of groceries and were shown the short cut back up
an even more terrifying path. (ok, it wasn’t really that bad, but with
arms full of groceries it felt like 10 miles of mountain climbing.)
The next day we hiked the ranch property and prayed over it. He shared
the story behind the ministry and what all they do. He pointed out
potential projects we might be working on. (I was still hearing manual
labor and sweat in everything he was saying.)
But it turned out they needed volunteers to help homeschool their
kids. (I think you can imagine how fast I volunteered for that
particular job). I got to work with the youngest girl, and Bethany
with the oldest boy. Every morning I got to do my favorite thing in
the world: teach. I taught this little 4 year old how to write her
name. We worked on numbers and letters, shapes and colors. And as I
imagine many 4 year olds are like, she is a little stubborn. Some
mornings she would come early and want to start school right away.
Some mornings I had to hunt her down and she would tell me she didn’t
want to do school today.
I love a challenge when it comes to kids. I figured out different ways
to teach the lesson outside of books for those days she refused to
touch anything that even looked like learning. Some days we played Uno
and practiced numbers and colors. Some days we walked outside and
discussed the many things we could find that started with the letter
“f”. My favorite part of teaching is when I can trick the kids into
learning something without realizing it. A squadmate compared that
skill to a mom who hides vegetables in the casserole. In the end we
did complete the amount of book work that was requested by her mother,
but I thoroughly enjoyed those “review” days.
But that was only the mornings.
After lunch I got to join the rest of the crew on their projects. We
filled in a ditch, worked on a horse corral and a soccer field,
stained and sealed the floor in their house, and my personal favorite:
got to be goat herders for a week. While we were there, there were
four babies born. Baby goat are one of the cutest animals on earth.
Just a week after they were born they were already playing little
games and skipping around the field.
Yup, this was an awesome month.
