Kids are so cool.
A huge part of me choosing to take this journey was realizing how much joy children bring into my life. My last job didn't offer much in the way of kiddos, though some may argue that running a college program is close enough. I've heard it said that College students and kindergartners have more in common than they'd like to admit….but college students don't cuddle like kindergartners, or color as awesome as them, so I'm not sure I agree.
Anyways, last month in Antigua, we went into several schools with the ministry that Luis is a part of. He teaches at several schools once a week on the importance of living out your values and how standing for what you believe in can drastically change your life. We helped by introducing ourselves, sharing a little about ourselves, then helping to teach the lessons while Louis translated and acted out different parts of stories. My group's favorite was big strong Louis pretending to be sexy Bathsheba, bathing on the roof. Just imagine…
At one of the schools, they had all ages. Even though we were working with the older kids, we led a few games for the younger kids (go go gadget facilitation skills!). As snack time these girls came right up to me and 2 minutes later I was surrounded by 15 little girls, eating their snacks and jabbering in Spanish, as if of course I could understand them. at one point a little sweetheart offered me a cookie which of course I took and said gracias in my best gringa accent.
All of a sudden everyone was coming up to me, did I want another cookie? yes thank you. Some melon? gracias. A cracker? of course. A bit of my half eaten ham and mayo sandwich? no, but I felt terrible saying it. I had so many things handed to me that I had to start saying no thank you, but then their faces would get all sad and I just couldn't say no. There was just such joy in being able to share, coming from both sides. So here I am in this crowd of generosity being blown away by the hearts of these kids, when my friend comes up and says something along the lines of, ' it's like being at the zoo! one kid fed the monkey, the monkey made funny noises and now they all want feed it and see what it will do next!' it took me a while to figure out I'm the monkey in that scenario:)
I'd like to end this blog with a little treat I recorded for my family- we found a 'dreaded sheep' in the yard next to the school and I tried so hard to get a frog picture with him…to no avail. My mom watched this video and said, 'you're so weird, I love it'
I also want to thank each and every one of you who is supporting me, financially, with prayers, emailing me to let me know what is going on in your life. Hearing from you means so much to me!!!
