As I mentioned a couple blogs ago, my team has been working with another team at a local school/daycare facility. It's government funded, so it's "free." The kids here range from infants to 12 years, and they show up around 8am and stay until 5pm. They're split up into 7 classrooms, so we usually have at least one of us in each room and sometimes 3 or more in the baby room.
Poop:
I've mostly been in the baby room, and let me tell you- those kids smell. I know babies <2 years old are usually perpetually snotty and drool-y and are prone to gross blowouts… but I'm convinced these blowouts are worse in Guatemala, probably because of all the beans… I have firsthand experience with one of these from a particularly funny kiddo. Wet blowout on my shirt fresh from naptime. Delightful.
There are about 17-19 of these little guys with one teacher. One. She's a pro at changing diapers. Most of the kids have at least 2 layers of clothes on and they're always sweating like crazy. There's no way the one teacher can keep up with it all! Poopy diapers, sweat, drippy noses, crusty noses, slobbery chins… there's just no time to really play with them individually.
These kids SO precious and they've become more dear to me than I expected. When we first started going to this school, the kids would just stare at you with their huge brown eyes. A few of the braver ones would come sit on your lap, but if you weren't sitting down on the floor, they most likely wouldn't approach you. Maybe it's just a stranger thing or a "You look like an alien! What are you??" thing, but even after a few days some of them just would not smile. But at the end of a couple of weeks, we've developed relationships with them (as much as you can with a 10 month old), the older kids, and especially the teachers. These ladies work so hard to serve the children at this school, even though sometimes it seems like conditions are so primitive (no hot water to wash things, a few balls for the kids to play with, wooden high chairs with scraps of fabric to strap them in, dirty rags to wash the tables and the kids' faces, 1 cook for the whole school, etc.), so it's been so rewarding to see the relief it's brought them to chip in as much as we can in the little time we've been here and to give the kids some much needed one-on-one love and attention.
Plays:
In addition to "just playing" with the kids, we've been planning activities with them in the afternoons. The kids have classes in the first part of the day, then they eat lunch and have naptime, then the afternoon is open for activities. It's been difficult with the language barrier, but luckily there are 3 fluent Spanish speakers between our two teams! Praise the Lord!
We've done a few skits so far: the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den, David and Goliath, Noah's Ark (the kids pretended to be the animals and even made masks!), etc., and some songs and Bible verses to go with them. Mostly we're trying to communicate general themes of God's provision, faithfulness, strength, and protection.
Playgrounds:
Our other goal with the school was to build a playground in a section of the courtyard that was previously just a patch of dirt. We had about $500 USD to do basically anything we wanted in the area, so we asked the teachers and our contact (Glenda) what their ideas were. Glenda ended up taking us to a place where we purchased a 2-swing metal swing set, a slide, monkey bars, and a seesaw for about $300 USD. That left us $200 to get concrete, mulch, tires, and a plastic bucket to use as a tunnel. THEN we ended up finding the mulch, tires, and plastic bucket FOR FREE, courtesy of some local businesses! Praise the Lord!
It's been a tiring couple of weeks of ministry feeding babies, cleaning up after a bunch of kids, washing dishes, playing with kids who don't speak the same language as you, and carrying playground equipment around Quiche, but what an incredible way to start out the World Race! This next week (Mon- Thu) we're being switched with another pair of teams who need a break from doing construction in the area, and it'll be better for the kids to not get so attached to us if we're going to be leaving soon anyways. We'll get to go back next Friday and the following Monday to finish our project and say goodbye to the kids and the teachers and to celebrate all God has done in this month! It might not seem very exciting on the outside, but you can see a different brightness in the people at this school since we've been here- all because of the Presence of God we carry with us. And even though it doesn't seem like we did a lot, seeds have been planted, and we know God's Word does not go out and return empty.
