My mom's friends

My small group’s current Bible study is to read the very short book of Ruth.  For the first week, we are to read the first two chapters and then answer the study guide.  The first question is:  When you think of loyalty, what comes to mind?  My answer is that loyalty means that someone is always with you supporting you all the way.  The second question is: When have you had someone support you during a difficult time?  What did that mean to you?

My family has always been there for me every step of the way from saying goodbye as I went away to college in another state to sending me off to be a missionary in Mexico to letting me go live on the border town of Juarez when I was engaged to welcoming a foreigner as my husband to moving to Costa Rica.  They may not have always agreed with or understood my decisions, but they have always been supportive.

Another set of people that have been so supportive – loyal if you will – are my mom’s friends.  As I type this, it brings me to tears when I think of their kindness and generosity toward me.  These ladies have done so much for me that I could never repay them. Before my mom’s cancer diagnosis, during her illness, and after her death, they have helped me in countless ways.  I don’t have room to mention them all in this blog, but here are just a few:

Sitting with my mom at the hospital and hospice, planting flowers in her yard, providing a place for my grandmother to stay, planning the reception at my mom’s funeral, preparing meals, providing restaurant gift cards for my family, taking me out to eat, going through and distributing her things, keeping in touch with and visiting my grandmother in Florida, throwing me a baby shower, giving David presents, and sending me birthday and Christmas cards, amongst many other good deeds.

I don’t deserve their kindness.  They don’t really even have to keep in touch with me anymore now that my mom is no longer here.  I know that they do these things out of their friendship with my mom and that I’m just the benefactor of the loyalty that they had for her.  Even though it’s been four years, what they’ve done for me has not and will not be forgotten.

I wish that everyone had such good friends.  My mom’s friends were her friends and whenever I reference them to others, I always say “my mom’s friends”, but I truly feel that it’s appropriate for me to say that they’re my friends too.  

It's not your ability, it's your availability.

As we planned on moving down to Costa Rica last year, I was asked to be in charge of the administrative side of things once we arrived.  When we got here, someone more capable than myself had filled that role so I was left without a specific assignment.  This is not the first time that this has happened to me.

When I went to Mexico as a missionary in 1999, I was going as a logistics coordinator to organize mission trips coming from a church in Del City, Oklahoma.  Upon my arrival, I learned that this partnership had fallen through and I didn’t have an assignment.  So I filled in at the IMB’s main office for Mexico and I helped out on a church planting team.  Though I had not anticipated these changes, it all worked out for that is how I met my wonderful husband.

In hindsight, I am glad that I did not have an assigned role when we moved here.  While I had many days when I was bored, I am now thankful for the six months that I had to get adjusted to our new way of life which is very different from living in Alpharetta, GA.  I can see that God was giving me time to get used to things before He rocked my world in February of this year by making me the small groups assimilator.  I was originally just helping my husband in his role as the small groups director, but as the church grew and we kicked off enrollment for small groups, I had my hands full with making sure everyone interested got plugged into a small group according to their age, location, marital status, etc. – no small feat!

At the end of April, I was given an additional role as Waumba Land (nursery) director.   Our wonderful WL director (and pastor’s wife), Ashley, moved up to lead family ministries (newborn to 14 years old) and put me in charge of children newborn to five years old.  While I have no formal training in children’s ministry nor do I feel called to lead this area, I willingly accepted the position.  When I was in college, I went to a special BSU meeting at UGA where I heard Tony Campolo say, "It's not your ability, it's your availability".  I don't feel that small groups assimilator and children's ministry are my calling, but if that is what is needed, I am available!  Not that I know what I’m doing, but under Ashley’s tutelage, I’m getting the hang of things.  I had no idea all of the behind-the-scenes work that is involved on a daily and weekly basis to make sure that the two Sundays a month that we meet run smoothly!

Waumba Land (ages 0-4) and UpStreet (ages 5-10) volunteers
at the hotel where we'll start meeting in August.

My main responsibilities include:

• Coordinate the volunteers for two services twice a month.  (This is harder than one may think.)
• Recognize volunteer’s and children’s birthdays.
• Send new children’s parents a welcome e-mail.
• Update enrollment and attendance records.
• Submit attendance records and expense reports.
• Print out updated sign-in sheets, new volunteer nametags, worksheets, etc.
• Buy the supplies needed for activities, crafts, and snacks.
• Get the lessons translated into Spanish.

The last two responsibilities are becoming easier.  Volunteers are stepping up to the plate to help find certain materials needed (I have no idea of where to get them because there’s not really an arts and crafts place like Michael’s or Hobby Lobby).  The lessons that we currently use are from the Orange curriculum which is amazing.  Everything is spelled out beautifully for the teachers to lead efficiently.

As I wrap up this post, I would like to ask you to pray for four things:

1. We need more volunteers for the nursery and for the elementary-aged kids. 
2. The volunteers need to come prepared on Sunday, meaning that they have read the lesson ahead of time.  They frequently arrive without having studied the lesson.
3. We are moving to a new location on August 12.  It is a hotel ball room that we will rent bimonthly and have to set up and break down everything each time.  Ashley and others are brainstorming about how to create an attractive (portable) environment from scratch.
4. Enrique and I fill basic church planting roles while here during our term.  Since we don’t plan on living here forever, we would like to eventually replace ourselves by finding local folks to coordinate small groups and Waumba Land. 

Raising Children

Play dates are not in their vocabulary so it’s been difficult to find friends for David to play with outside of school.  Just last week, one of David's schoolmates' moms finally acquiesced to me picking up her son for the afternoon to play with David.  I literally had to beg her!

I’m used to my Atlanta mommy friends and I having play dates and exchanging babysitting favors, but that is not done here.  Most folks still live close to family so they ask their kin to watch the kids.  Since we don’t have family here, we’ve tried to get friends and neighbors to watch David, but they act like that’s a weird request.  Fortunately, we’ve found a local family in the same boat as us (no family nearby) so we take turns on a weekly basis with babysitting.  

David with his best friend, Matti.

Our neighbors have also come around and we’ve watched their baby girl a few times and David’s gone across the street to play with her while we have small group.

Since it’s not the cultural norm to leave your child with someone who is not family, newcomers tend to be leary of leaving their children with us in the nursery at church.  They’ll ask their nanny to stay with them the whole hour!  That may happen just the first Sunday or for a couple of Sundays until the parents see that we are providing a safe environment for babies and kids to have fun and learn about God.

Birthday parties are a big deal.  As stated in one of my earliest blog entries, Wendy’s has a party room and an employee hired specifically for party planning!  One of David’s classmates just turned three so David and all his friends were invited to Lauty’s party.  The package included games, face painting (David wanted to be Batman), cake, a piñata, a kid’s meal for each boy and girl, and a cup of coffee and an apple pie for all of the parents!

On the children’s cable networks, commercial after commercial promotes healthy toddlers by giving them formula…until they are three years old!  These preschoolers are already eating regular food, but their diet is supplemented with formula.  I transitioned David from formula to cow’s milk at 12 months so this cultural difference shocks me.  

As mentioned before, I deeply miss the plethora of children’s activities (many free) that are easily accessible online in the States.  Part of it is that I am not aware of all of the events offered in the area, but the majority of the problem is that there is not a central location where all local activities are registered.  Even if there was, there is not much going on for preschoolers.  David is on vacation for two weeks, but we don’t have much to do.  The good thing is that he’s fine watching “Toy Story 2” every single day (some days more than once).  Monday, he goes back to school.  Yea!