Everyday life in Chile is pretty interesting. We wake up, eat, and leave to make it to school by 9. Mornings have been hard just waking up early enough to get things done but we somehow end up making it on time to school, haha.
We work right now at a special needs school and man are the kids cute! Haha! They are full of life and always want to talk to us no matter how many times we have said you don’t know Spanish- but it ends up being a lot of laughing at each other and pointing to various things. We spend the time in the classroom helping out when we can, coloring, and learning Spanish words while teaching the same words in English. It’s a good system till someone gets into a fight then it’s downhill from there. The lord is for sure testing my patience as some of the girls try and get attention negatively (let me tell you it works, they know how to push buttons). But it was funny because chessie and i were talking about how she’s an older sister and since I’m a younger sister, i know exactly how to make her mad. So at the school I’m placed in her shoes and she is giving me the tricks to the trade on how to not feed into the negative attention. It’s hard, honestly props to my sister, Emma, i don’t know how you deal with me, haha!!
Then we leave school around 1 to make it back in time for lunch. We rotate who cooks with one of the girls from Casa Espranza.
Side bar: not sure if i mentioned it or not but we are living in a halfway house for girls called Casa Espranza. It’s goal is to break the cycle of girls getting kicked out the orphanage and falling into bad relationships and never learning to support themselves. So us 8 girls get to live with around 15 (ish?) girls all in one big house!! It’s so fun getting to know them and speak Spanish to them and just laugh and share meals with one another.
But! The food is really yummy and it’s fun to get to know the girls over meals.
Then we have chores for around the house. I, so far, have cleaned the chicken coop, done many dishes, sanded cabinets, and carried a refrigerator! It’s lots of different things but all helps in some way- even if it’s little.
Then we have time to rest, but that looks different most days for me. Sometime I work out, play volleyball with Morgan, nap, or other things that need to get done.
Then it’s dinner time and we have a light dinner (lunch is the big meal in this culture). We all eat together and drink tea (I’m teaching myself to like tea- anything is good with huge spoonfuls of sugar, am i right??) then have a devotional time. It’s a sweet time hearing the word in Spanish and English. Then my favorite part is when they ask for prayer requests. At first i assumed that not really anyone would say anything but then actually a lot of girls open up and share struggles or highlights from the day. So that’s a sweet moment where we get insight on their lives.
Then we end the day by running around on the basketball court playing soccer or basketball or scootering. Then team time and then sleep!!
Long days but they are so great! It’s fun times finding things to do when we are without WiFi but it produces awesome memories with each other with good talks and fun times.
Happy to be where my feet are spending it with the people I’m with
