For this blog, I’m backing up to my team’s first full week of ministry (links to my teammate’s blogs are on the left! Don’t forget to subscribe). When we first arrived, we were doing a lot of prayer walking – that simply means going around, meeting people in the community, and asking how we could come alongside them in prayer. On the very first day of prayer walking, our translator, Jose, took us to a little library. He knew the woman, Maricela, who worked there and how hard she worked. We met with her, we prayed for her, and we quickly asked when we could come back.
The library is about the size of a living room in a suburban home – so, my South Shore friends should be a be to picture that easily! There are books in two corners, with a small yellow table for the children to work at near a side door, a couch next to that, and a desk and dresser in the last open corner where Maricela can keep supplies.
There’s a range from baby books all the way to long fiction books and encyclopedias. Children are there as soon as Maricela opens the doors at 9am, since the schools here are split by grade level into morning and afternoon shifts. In any given day, there will be 15 – 40 children at the library at any given time. They help her take the locks off the windows and doors to open the library up and let in the wind and sunlight. Then they start taking down books to use for the homework they have to do.
The children have to trace and fill in country maps by hand, they have to use the encyclopedias to look things up, and then when they’re done they find other books they like, or they color and do crafts. I know that to a lot of you, you’re thinking it’s like your childhood – but to this millenial that seems like a BIG task for kids so young.
All the while, Maricela – the only worker – is there to help them. She helps them find books and guides them while simultaneously trying to wipe down as many books as she can (they get very dusty very quicky), keep them entertained with crafts, and read to them, asking questions about the books. This leaves her very little time to put the books back in order on the shelves, create by hand and put new checkout slips in books that need them, tape and glue broken books – because, in her words, we can always save them -, clean the room, and the 500 other small tasks that pile up.
The library is run on donations and all the books are donated as well. An American woman was the one who started the library and handles that aspect – with the biggest donor being her daughter – while Maricela is here on the ground, stewarding what is donated in a truly impactful way.
I’m not saying all this to paint a bleak picture. I am saying this to PRAISE Maricela. She has an amazing passion for books and the children. She doesn’t complain and always has a smile on her face. God made her and put her in this place for such a time as this. The way she pours into her work and her community is so admirable. She even took the time to make six small purses for my team to show her gratitude for our help!
She has her own problems, of course, but God has been faithful in sending help when she needs it. When she hurt her knee earlier this year, another team, not on the Race, came through and took over the library for a week so she could take the time to rest – and they prayed for her knee as well. So, God provided not just help but also healing, as she was able to return to work after that. Now I am confident that God will continue to provide and the infectious joy that He has placed in her will impact more and more people.
Please join me and my squad in praying for Maricela and the library in Madroño. Pray that the Lord strengthen and renew Maricela day by day. Pray that the three day vacation she is taking next week would be restful and that her family would be free from sickness – she and her daughter have been sick. Pray that donations of books and funds would come in an abundance so that they can move to a larger location. Pray that the library would be a light in the neighborhood: a safe place where people can learn and feel hope. Lastly, pray that while we’re there we would both have opportunity to show and speak the love over God over the lives of the children and Maricela.
