Day 7: Yikes.

Yikes.

Lol. I'm tired, you're tired, we're all tired, so maybe I'll make this short?

Today was really good, but definitely a lot.

Oooh, plot twist: I just found a bag of sour gummy worms and chips (not the same bag, two separate items) and will likely find a second, sugary wind. Plans for brevity have been abandoned.

SO, I woke up this morning at 4 AM, because Alexis was feeling really sick :( That's no bueno, we don't like it. We aren't sure if it's adverse reactions to all the wacky diet and just environmental difference here, or if it's the stomach bug that swept through the whole Ohio team before we came. 

Eventually, we both went back to our rooms and I stayed up for a while, praying, 'til I fell back asleep. She stayed home and rested today, but isn't feeling much better. We're gonna investigate the meds the Ohio team took if she doesn't feel mejor tomorrow. Please pray for her!

I woke back up around 9 and Don Rodrigo walked Matthew, Izzy, and I to the bus stops that are helpful to us. After a tour around our neighborhood, we came to one bus stop that basically serves all of our needs: Bus to near-ish the CDI, Bus to near-ish Campus, etc. So, I promptly forgot about all the other bus stops and that's the one we'll use...eventually. 

We got back from our tour just in time to order Ubers (we'd missed the bus possibilities and had no cash) to the CDI for our pre-CDI CDI meeting. It was a really good meeting, though it was all in Spanish. I mostly kept up with most of it, but I also kept either forgetting to translate, or starting to translate and then getting lost, so I think a lot of the team just had to sit there during that meeting without a lot of understanding, which is NOT my goal as a leader. (we got to talk through the meeting tonight though)

After the meeting, we ate some sandwiches (PB&J is everything), got ready for the kids, and did us some CDI.

Update: I put away the Tronaditas, and ate the gummy worms I pulled, so my boost is running out. There's lots to say about the cool philosophy of ministry the church here has towards these kids. They're so set on empowering them to succeed in life and partnering and trusting God and holistically investing in them. They're so gospel-centric and grace-emphasizing and yet have good boundaries and discipline... It's unreal y'all. The CDI is one of the most life-changing, powerful ministries I have ever seen. Please pray for them. 

It was so good to see the kids. Do you remember Jeikol and Jeremy? They're brothers. Jeikol I had to be pretty firm with a few times last year, and he responded by showing a lot of anger. Yet, when he saw me today, he lit up like a Christmas tree and ran to hug me (there were not many hugs last year). Jeremy came over and hugged us, then went and sat down and started crying because he was so happy. Things like that do things to your heart that you can't really undo. 

Today was a little chaotic, but we talked about Job and our feelings and drew emojis and practiced pronunciation in ingles. It's hard to describe your own accent to someone. It's very hard to describe your own accent to someone in a different language, lol. We did some math and played some games and did a lot of homework. There were piggy-back rides and ninja and some mean playing and unkind jokes. There was praying and learning and good stuff. The kids didn't like the sandwiches we had for them (to be fair, they were left-over from the field trip on Saturday)

After the kids left and we cleaned up and packed up, we took an Uber home (again, no cash yet....who's responsible for this team's finances anyway?)

We found out we are too far away from our favorite taco place to order tacos, but we finally found some dinner and spent the evening planning out our lessons for the CDI. We made some great progress. I got to sit with Alexis and talk for a while, which was really lovely. I'm not ready for her to leave.

Related to our CDI lesson planning, I have a question for you. Feel free to comment if you have a good answer. If it's really good, we'll probably honestly use it in our lessons for the kids next week. We may also talk about it with our H@ngout homies here. Ok:

What is a good, one-sentence definition for "Respect" from a biblical perspective?

Yea, I'm tired. I've been thinking a lot recently about something I'm calling "emotional modesty," but I think I'll have to wait to go off on a long tangent about it.

PRAYERS!

Prayer really matters, y'all. Please do take some time and pray

-for Alexis to feel better!

-for our team (especially the 1-week portion) to make the most of the remaining time here

-for us to walk closely with God

-for the church here to be blessed

-for the CDI to be protected and provided for 
-for the kids at the CDI to lean into living like Jesus in their context
-for H@ngout to be protected and grown
-for the students to lean into living like Jesus in their context