We also had a goofy looking Sponge Bob Square Pants pinata that we filled with candy and let the kids go to town. We bought juice (jugo – I think) and cookies and gave those out as well. I don’t care what country you’re in children love sweets (well and a lot of adults do too). It was fun to see their faces and to watch Greg (Team Brady) run around with a trail of about 15 boys following. Between the two teams here, there are three men, so they’re pretty busy with the little boys when we have time to play with children.
We were warned at training camp to hold everything with an open hand, meaning not to grasp everything we think we know. Specifically they told us to lightly hold onto who is on our teams, which countries or ministry sites will be going to, what we will be doing, what to expect, etc. We were also told that a good phrase to describe the World Race is “hurry up and wait.” As Americans, we all have our own watches and we are very aware of time. In Guatemala, time seems to be relevant, but just not in the same way. So we’re told a meal is at a certain time and we rush over to where it’s supposed to be and wait a while until we eat. We were told that we had some time yesterday afternoon, so I went to internet chicken to post some blogs. While we were there we got picked up by the van and were told we had to go because we were already a couple hours late for our next meeting, so we roll into the van again (see my photobucket for pics of the van–will update Saturday afternoon).
We end up in front of this house and they open this garage type room that is filled probably two feet high with clothing – many of the clothes seem donated from America with weird sassy sayings on them. Two guys get in there and start piling the clothes into our arms. We’re told to walk around to the front of the yard and pile the clothing onto the ground. There were about 10 people carrying these armfulls of clothing and we each took probably 7 or so trips – tons of clothes, and we stack them about two to three feet high in the yard. Then a ton of women came out (many just jumping into the pile and sitting in the pile) and start sorting through the clothing. This is a local clothing ministry of one of the pastors and it seems to bring the neighborhood together; people are able to take as much as they want and there is an offering plate if anyone would like to give. I commented to one of my teammates that it was interesting to see this side of the clothing donation because I’ve never been in another country when the people actually receive the donations. Seriously though, some of these clothes were ridiculous and I can understand why they were donated but everyone seemed to really appreciate them. It makes me wonder how much clothing at home do I really need? What would I be able to give up?
We did our dances for the children again, so goofy, so fun. Then it basically turned into a dance party. For some reason whenever they turned the music back on all the World Racers started dancing and before long we formed a conga line with the children. It was a good day but a long day and we hadn’t gotten much sleep from the night before.
So, we get back and we’re all exhausted and then we’re told that tomorrow morning we will be going to church, that we will be leading it for the children, and that it will be for three hours. What?! We initially seemed overwhelmed, but most of us are still at the point where we’re accepting the challenge of the World Race staff to have positive attitudes. I know I’ve definitely bought into the fact that our attitudes will make or break this experience. We prayed about it and were able to come up with some ideas on what we were going to do.
We ended up going to church – again a very beautiful church; soon I will start posting pics of these places… And we were told we only had to spend 1/2 hour with the 9-12 year olds and 1/2 hour with the younger children. We did a couple songs and dances and then we were done. Those ninos were adorable. I remembered a song from Spanish class called “My Body Makes Music” – Mi Cuerpo Hace Musica – so we taught it to both groups because it’s one of the few songs in Spanish we all know.
Tonight I shall give my testimony at church and before that we’ll clean up the local soccer field because one of the guys connected with the ministry has the day off and wanted to be able to serve with us. So those events will be shared in my next blog. Hasta luego!
