I had my first bump in the road here last week! I can’t
pretend that every day is fun and games here because it’s really tough some
days. This culture is so different than my personality and if you know me at
all you would know how true this is. I am very matter of fact, by the books,
focused on rules and every last detail, etc. and that’s just not how life is here.
Last week I was getting so frustrated and just needed to take a little break. I
was so thankful for the weekend because I needed to recharge and refocus my heart
because it was getting off track with God and my attitude needed to be checked.
I am so thankful for the people God has placed in my life at
this very specific time. My parents, Cassidy (my roommate), Jesse (my friend),
and Tim (my boss) – they all reminded me to focus on the good things, see the
good in people, and continue to pray for strength and patience every day. There
is so much good in people around here but sometimes I get so focused on the
other details I need to be reminded of that! I also needed to be reminded that
change here takes time and progress isn’t going to happen immediately. They
have all reminded me that God is with me wherever I go and whatever I do. I’m
not going to change this culture or succeed at making rules for them to follow
– it’s never going to happen. And that’s not why God called me here. I’m here
to teach kids about God and show people the love of Jesus. I’m here to worship
with them, laugh with them, cry with them, and live alongside them. While doing
all of this – I’m reminded daily that God needs to be center of my day, all day
long. Remembering that and praying when I want to pull my hair out keeps me
grounded and able to see the good in the situations we face. I also made a “friendship”
bracelet with two strands to be a daily reminder to me. One strand is to remind
me to keep my mouth shut when I want to say “well this is how it should be done”
and one strand to remind me to pray about it. God is changing my heart and I
have chilled out, but I still need a daily reminder – so this bracelet isn’t
coming off anytime soon! J
Tim sent out this quote to all of our MH4H team and it couldn’t
have been more perfect for what I needed to hear last week -
“I used
to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that
he will guide me to do whatever I’m supposed to do, what I can do. I used to
pray for answers, but now I’m praying for strength. I used to believe that
prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change
things.” – Mother Teresa
So NOW after my attitude was refreshed - this past week was
much better! J
The first week of our Thrive for 5 program I noticed this little boy, Lensly, had
a cut on his hand. It was like the size of an almond on his tiny little hand and
it was fleshy/open, really raised, and looked like it was kind of pussing. It
was pretty bad and looked like it had been that way for a while. One day he was
sitting in the front row so we called him up to put a Band-Aid on his hand and
prayed over it. We had been cleaning it with alcohol pads, putting Neosporin and
a Band-Aid on it for a few days and the end of last week it was looking worse.
So Monday we continued to do the same thing, and it kept looking the same but
we were not sure what else to do. On Wednesday we called Lensly to the front again
and took off his Band-Aid to find it looked SO much better! Cassidy and I looked
at each other with huge eyes that said to each other, “Woah! Only God could
heal this thing!” It honestly looked like it needed much more than just Neosporin
and a Band-Aid, but that was all we had. The cut isn’t raised anymore and looks
like it is healing properly and almost looks like a scar. God can heal anything
and I can see that first hand here! As I said, there’s no way it could have
healed that well within a week and a half with just Neosporin, it was a nasty
cut! God is the ultimate healer though and He has the power to heal even the
worst cuts! All we have to do is trust in Him. J
And that’s comforting. We do what we can, with what we have, and God will do the
rest!
On Thursday we were riding back from Savanette on the
motorcycles and our friend Natao got hit in the shin with a big rock. It was a
huge welt RIGHT on his shin and he was in a ton of pain. An ice pack and ibuprofen
wasn’t helping so he wanted to go visit one of his doctor friends to see if it
was okay but we couldn’t find his friend. So we decided to stop at the hospital
and look around for our doctor friends who are in our English class there. We
were walking in and praying that we would see someone we recognized! (There are
usually 45 in our class and usually no electricity in the room at 6AM so we use
flashlights – and it’s hard to see all the faces!) We were walking down the
hospital hallway and at the end we see a very familiar face with a big smile
waving at us. J
We said “We need your help! – Nou bezwen ou ede!” Funny things is we just
taught them that saying that morning – I don’t believe in coincidences! ;) All
the nurses wanted to help and brought Natao in immediately and checked his leg
out, gave him a shot, and wrote him a prescription. We were walking to the
pharmacy in the hospital and realized none of us had any money on us because we
left in such a hurry. We were saying this to each other and the pharmacist walking
by overheard and told us to come anyways. He gave us the prescription ibuprofen
for free because we were his English teachers. J
The hospital treats missionaries for free anyways, but in this situation we
weren’t the ones needing the help, it was our friend – and they were still
generous! God was definitely present in that entire situation that day. We
found the people and got the things we needed and that was only because of God!
After having such a crappy end of the week the previous week,
I feel like this entire week has been so much better! I have been clearly able
to see God working here and He is certainly changing my heart to look at the
people instead of just the details of the projects we are working on. The
children we work with in the Thrive for 5 program are absolutely adorable and
they make my job so fun! J
Every single day we have more kids that want to hug us, hold our hands, high
five us, and just smile at us in general. The parents are warming up to us more
and more each day as well. It feels good to be accepted in Pignon and Savanette
and begin to grow our network of friends. J
God’s doing some big things here and I can’t wait to see where this adventure goes!
Thank you so much for the continued prayers! There are joys
and struggles every day and prayers are what we need the most! J
Xxo
Tampico
p.s. below is a picture of Lensly and his hand! :) he's a doll!
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