Day 68-69: Last Things

Yesterday (Wednesday) was crazy y'all.

Those who were feeling it got up early and walked over to the school to help the other gringo teams, since we had neither CDI nor H@ngout things. I had done laundry the night before so that my clothes would have a couple of days to dry. Besides, the VBS wasn't very physically taxing, just a lot of time with kids and translation, so my clothes wouldn't get gross. 

Somehow, I ended up helping the outside crew instead of the inside crew. It was amazing. I cannot get over how unstoppable the Colorado gringos were. The day before, they had chopped down a bunch of banano trees. Apparently, they're very soft; they were cut down with a few machete strokes. They also aren't inherently all that heavy, as far as trees go. But, they are sticky and slimy, especially if they were recently rained on. 

Our task was to remove as much of the debris as possible. We had some trash bags for the little pieces. We had dos wheelbarrows. We had cuatro shovels. We had dos rake-type things. Toby and Chris manned the wheelbarrows. They never stopped moving (except when Toby got stopped for conversation by various people). The stumps are pretty heavy - even if the trunks aren't - because they have the roots and a lot of dirt. The wheelbarrows mostly moved stumps. Another crew began to attack the stumps that were still in the ground; they basically had to dig them out for hours and hours. And they never stopped. The younger kids grabbed smaller branches and pieces and bagged them; pretty gross work, but no complaining and, again, they never stopped. 

Since I didn't have a wheelbarrow or shovel, and the wheelbarrows were vastly outnumbered by the stumps and trunks, I spent the time carrying trunks and stumps directly to the truck/pile. It was fun at first; throwing around big trunks that weren't all that heavy - just a little slimy. Then we got to just stumps. I got so dirty. It was a ton of fun, but slime mud that smells like old banana is an indescribable thing to be covered in. I absolutely loved it, and, by the time we were done, I think I was grosser than I've ever felt before. 

I found a spigot and spent some time washing off my head and arms. I drank a bunch of gatorade. After lunch, we walked to the CDI to wait for the kids to come to play beisbol otra vez. For a little while, I was worried none of the kids would come. Then all of the kids came, lol. 

We had about 14 boys and 4 girls. Georgen y Doña Maria no podian venir, so it was just me, the Colorado Coach Dad, and his son. We successfully walked all the kids to the park; even crossing the big road with no trouble. The kids did so well; I was so proud of them!

So, all of the boys knew how to play beisbol, and none of the girls did. Coach Dad & Son took the boys and played an actual game; it was an amazing feat, given that neither of them speaks Spanish. The boys loved it. They played hard, even the ones who normally don't Participate. 

I showed the girls how to throw and paired them off, but stuck around to make sure Natasha didn't throw the ball into Hillary's face. This was also no small feat, btw. 

After about an hour and a half, it happened. All of the girls at once decided they needed to use the bathroom. All the Sabana (park) bathrooms are pay-to-play, and no one had cash. So, we walked to the AM/PM and they let the girls use their bathroom. Crisis averted. Thanks, AM/PM.

On the way back, one of the girls hurt her foot and decided she would never walk again. She sat down in the middle of the sidewalk near the big road and just refused. She was laughing and didn't seem very pained, but Would Not Go On. Finally, I told her to hop on my back and I would piggy-back her across the big road. She was for it, right until she hopped on. Remember, hours of banana tree slime and dirt. She immediately regretted her decision and started asking to get down before we even stepped into the road. I made her wait until we all got across though. Once we were at the park, she managed to walk the rest of the way to the field and within about 15 minutes was completely better. Funny how that works. We'll call it aromatherapy.

Lagos vino con un carro y drove everyone home in groups. I was so pleased by this, because the idea of walking the kids home was daunting. I found out the rest of my team was at a cafe nearby, having coffee with some of our friends, but I went home and took two showers. 

That night, we had a dance-party/mixer with H@ngout and Añoranzas. I was a little worried the groups wouldn't get along or would stay segregated all night, but I needn't have wondered - I was exactly right. Lol, we had a slow start. I felt exhausted and could not muster the social energy to navigate or just ask people to make friends. I went to buy pizza instead. 

On my journey (well, at the Ready Pizza), I met 13 British people who were in highschool. They ordered a whole pizza each. They were there before me. All of their accents were different, which is weird, right? Maybe not. Idk. I eavesdropped for a while, and finally started talking with them. We swapped "why are you here?"s and talked a bit. Then, I got my pizzas and left. 

On my walk back, I ran into Toby and Chris (of the Unstoppable Colorado Gringos), who were at the Pizza Hut one street down. So, the Westerners all found each other eating pizza. Well, I guess I'm basic.

By the time I got back to the CDI, even though I had been worried about the social dynamic and the fact that everyone was hard-core segregating, nothing had changed. So, being slightly more charged, I held the pizza hostage nd made everyone listen to me for a little bit before we ate. I thanked everyone for coming and told them all to meet each other and talked about how we were two groups, but I figured we could all be friends and how they needed to introduce themselves to each other. Then I prayed and let people eat pizza. 

Deeply moved by my speech, nobody left their circle. So, I went directly to people and pointed at the room and the fact that we were literally in opposite corners and asked them to help me by introducing themselves and maybe even asking the smaller group to dance. I was assured that my message was received and that, as soon as the pizza got finished, they would engage. 

They didn't. But, we all had fun. We taught two-step and some line dances. We learned bachata, salsa, cumbia, y bolero. I use "learned" very generously. The homies really liked Footloose, and asked us to show it to them again near the end of the party. 

So, we partied pretty late. We walked home around midnight, creo, and I was so tired. I was supposed to run and blog, but, as we were walking, I think I felt God point out to me that my priority needed to be being as present as possible with the kids the next day, so I messaged Alexis and went straight to bed. 

Today (Thursday) was a day of despedidas. I am generally a post-facto processor/mourner (if at all), so all of the goodbyes and stuff were good for me, but I felt so distracted. I'll come back to that.

We got up early, stopped on the way to the CDI to get more sandwich supplies, because we had only gotten enough for one session. The afternoon plans changed, you see, so we had two CDI sessions. This was a really good thing, because it meant we got to see most of the kids today. 

During the first session, we didn't have much structure, and I was feeling too Done to step up and lead in any kind of way, so we just kind of survived it. I walked some of the kids to school. Or was it one kid? I don't remember. Wow, that out of it. Dang. Anyway, on the walk back, I told myself we needed to wake up and focus and lead and stuff. 

It mostly worked, because I felt much more present and engaged for most of the second session. We got to do the final devotional for our verse and tell the kids that if they practice, we left prizes for them next week. Maybe 2 of the kids are anywhere close, and about 7 of them are motivated to try and get there, so we left 10 prizes. Don't tell the kids, but the secret prizes are just American Candy. They'll really be excited about them though. We didn't get to go more in-depth with the devotional stuff with Georgen y Doña Maria. This makes me a little sad, since we had some cool thoughts on how to do it and do it well, based on what Esther nos enseño about the CDIs in Honduras. However, I think I feel confident that there is a reason for it. Someone here needs to take ownership of the devotionals if they're going to become as powerful as we hope. It may even have to lag for a minute, but it will be better as a home-grown program than it would be if we left something we made.

We played Uno. There was some homework. There were 200 paper airplanes. I had to threaten to confiscate some of them that were too kamikaze. 

I have a weird bump in my tongue and it's distracting. 

We came back home after all the kids got picked up. We cleaned a little and packed a little. 

Lagos nos invito to come have dinner. He also invited the whole church and the Unstoppable Colorado Gringos. It was an amazing dinner. There were almost 45 people in a room made for 30. They talked kindly at us. They gave us gifts. They prayed for us. We talked kindly at them. More talking happened. Much hugging. Also, much tasty pizza. It was not too fancy to be enjoyable, but it was really nice.

I sat between Josue, Georgen, y su familia and one of the Colorado Dads with his daughter. I sat across from Toby and Monica and the host family Toby has stayed with before. The son was cool; we were friends because I had his name and said his phone game looked cool. There were a lot of weird, overlapping circles, but it wasn't awkward. It was just the same social warmth and vibe that I love so much about the church here.

Somebody paid for dinner and then there were 10 million hugs. I'm really, genuinely going to miss the church and community here. It was an amazing and powerful summer. I'll post a travel-day post (maybe tomorrow) and some kind of summary of what I feel like God did in me this summer. It'll be disjointed though, I bet. 

We hitched a ride home with the other gringos, and the girls spent some time packing and hanging out with Esther. I went for the run I didn't do yesterday (but shorter than planned (yellow box)). 

Oh, since I know how interested you are in this, here's my boxes: 

You're welcome. 

So, in 4 hours, we'll hop an Uber and head to the airport and fly home. The End. Hm...I still need to shower. Maybe Wordle. Anyway. 

I'm nervous, citizens. 

I've been in a relationship for 102 days and only 33 of them have been in person. Maybe you've seen me when I'm socially on; I can hobnob and connect and generally (i think) come across as a fairly confident and comfortable person. But, I'm actually quiet and really awkward. I don't know how to talk to people when I'm not pretending to be Kyle Kroeger. What if I'm weird and don't remember how to be a person? I'm not very good at pretending to be somebody else around Alexis.

Also, I've been gone for Father's Day, my brother's birthday, my niece's birthday, my baby niece's Birth Day, 4th of July... a lot of family moments. I really like my family and I miss them. But what if they feel like I value a bunch of other peoples' kids and families in a different country more than I value them? 

And, I think my vida is going to be llenada de conflict this semester. En el trabajo, en la casa, con mis amigos, en mi grupo de crecemiento, en mi vida... I can see the pokey bits all pointed at each other, and things just keep moving closer. Conflict isn't inherently a bad thing, as you know. I guess what bothers me is that it's not hard for me to have good feelings towards the people around me. Like maybe I get cranky sometimes or feel some anger or hurt, but it's not hard to look at it from their shoes and forgive and move on, no muss no fuss. So, when people can't do that with each other, I get sad sometimes. And, when people can't do that with me, I have to ask if there's something extra pokey about me that makes it extra hard to live at peace with me, ¿me entiendes? Like, of all the people, I have the most trouble living at peace with myself. I am a civil war sometimes. But, I've always secretly hoped that that's just how people be. But, if I am always rodeado by conflict, maybe it's me. 

PRAYERS

-for me to walk in step with the Spirit

-for good debriefing for my team members

-for the other gringo teams to be productive while here and rest well
-for the church here to continue to be deeply, powerfully blessed
-for God's protection over all the marriages and families in the church
-for my transition back to "real life"

-for Alexis and I to learn how to be in-person well
-for me to get time with my family and for them to feel the love I have for them
-for all the conflict (real and imagined)

-for my HG this year to thrive and be challenged by God

-for deep healing in our cluster

CDI Squad

Most of the whole party