Guatemala, Monday, July 29, 2013

Wow!  106 children to love on!  Our team had a wonderful day loving on the 106 children now at the center.   After a quick tour of the facility we began helping the nannies with bathing and dressing the children.  We quickly learned the “routine” and were all experts in childcare before noon.  By the end of the day we were pretty tired but very satisfied with our accomplishments of the day. It’s hard work loving on these kids!  Paul and Jim (the maintenance crew) were able to hang curtains in the Canary room, which made Zoila (the nanny) very happy.  They also are continuing to work on replacing the base boards in the front lobby and hallway.

The following is written by Josh Freeman and how he saw “patience” and “understanding” as he served today:

It’s the first day at the center!  Everyone is excited to pick up those smiling faces and just love on them for a week.  This is my 4^th trip to Guatemala so I kind of knew what to expect, but nothing could have prepared me for what I had to do for my first task.  I am in the “chicks” room.  The chicks are the toddlers who are just started potty training so the morning routine can be pretty chaotic, with 17 kids who have to sit on a pot and not move until they are finished.  Well, the kids have perfected the ability of not getting off the pot as they are told but instead they just scoot around on their pots, all over the bathroom…they are NOT getting of their pots.  I was helping them get dressed, but then the nanny gave me an awesome job… clean out all the pots.  Needless to say I was not very excited about that at all, but I went ahead and did the job.  I have been saying to myself for days now that I would do any job to the best of my abilities that the Lord would have me do.  Well I now know that God has a sense of humor and I have learned that next time will say… “ I will do anything God puts in my way except clean out pots!”  (JK)  Amazingly, the Lord gave me the strength and understanding to get through all while doing it unto Him. I just kept saying “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me… I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me… work for God not for man…work for God not for man.”

Everyone finding their job and meeting the children.