Catching Up…

“When you’re safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you’re having an adventure you wish you were safe at home” ~Thornton Wilder~

MrPages photo journalled his whole adventure. His pictures are awesome and we’ll work on getting them up soon.

Here’s a teaser of MrPages and the Orphanage Soccer Team:

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…jiggety jig.

Home, and busy greeting MrsPages and the little pages.

See you in a few days.

After thirteen and half years of marriage, I am sitting here with butterflies in my stomach. I am so nervous about seeing MrPages again.

I feel like I’m on my first date with him again.

I fussed over my hair: three hairstyles, before I settled on one.

I fussed over my clothes, changing them twice.

I fussed over the house, cleaning everything I could.

Now I’m sitting here, not quite knowing what to do, my stomach fluttering away, my hands actually shaking…

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickest fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Christina Rosetti

1 hour, 16 minutes, 33 seconds…

Einstein: Time goes slower as the speed of light is approached.

MrsPages: Times goes slower as MrPages arrival approaches.

“The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.” — Arnold H. Glasgow

I’d make a bad farmer!

Well, not actually mañana, but tomorrow afternoon we move to Managua to spend the night before getting the airport dreadfully early on Wednesday morning. So, this is my last post from in-country.

Tomorrow morning is work morning to clean up and finish anything small, then a party for the kids where there will be pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and each child at the program will get a bag of school supplies and a small toy or a baseball hat.

The goodbyes and hugs have already started, as some of the workers will not be there tomorrow, and some of the kids will be in school (though we expect a high rate of hookey just to attend the party).

There has also been the unfortunate last minute frenzy of meetings to determine what to do with the remainder of the money that all of us have come with from our churches and other donors. Unfortunate because it means that Lester and Darlene spend all day translating these meetings for us instead of doing anything else they need or want to do. We appreciate them so much, they have had a very difficult time and are still being helpful and gracious. What an amazing couple.

The money that our home church sent with me to be used for food for the people in the village outside the orphanage gates has been alloted. The director of the orphanage has a few projects that it will fund:

• A work-for-food program in which people who come asking can do jobs that need doing around the grounds (and there are a lot of them, both people and jobs) in return for some beans and rice or other food. I moved two hundred pound sacks of rice and beans into Elizabeth´s office this afternoon as a start.
• A course for anyone in the village on how to run a small business. There have been a few businesses started by members of the village but they have died early on because of a lack of basic business skills. How much do I charge? How do I make sure I have enough to make my next batch of product? Elizabeth says that this seminar will give those who wish them the basics of running a business and will increase the success rates greatly. Everyone in the village buys and eats tortillas, but they all go a long way to get them. Someone should be making and selling (the most basic of businesses). Ditto school books and paper and pencils and bread and water and, and, and… This course is definitely teaching people to fish rather than giving them fish.
• MariSol, Roger’s wife, was given a sack of beans, a sack of rice, some coffee, oil, flour and a few other essentials to start her bread baking business. The baking course has fallen through (the company just disappeared) but she is ready. She is so excited, she has a whole area of her house cleaned out and organized for the shop, and Roger has the new addition all planned. This is a family that will be able to provide cheap bread to others and also put jobs and money back into the village. If it succeeds it will be a benefit to the whole area, and if anyone can get it to succeed it will be MariSol.
• Elizabeth has also been given full discretion to use the money for projects, loans or gifts as she sees fit to use. She is a wise lady who knows these people personally and knows where the money can best be put to use for long-term benefit. Pray that she will see the needs that are important.

Pray for safe travel too. We have to drive to Managua tomorrow and then to the airport and fly home on Wednesday.

I can’t wait to see you all, and I wish we were all here together because there’s no way I’m going to be able to tell you how horriffic or how wonderful this place is.

“I wonder what Piglet is doing,” thought Pooh.
“I wish I were there to be doing it, too.”

Howdy all.

We spent the last two days catching up on some tourista things, getting home late both days, so I haven’t been able to post anything.

I plan on entering my notes and diary entries even after we get home, so there will be more.

I will also be posting most of my photos (almost 800 so far) to a series of smugmug.com albums for people to browse, but sending Dennis’ family 10 photos took almost an hour, so that will wait until I get home too.

A few points to tide you over today:

• Fried Cheese is the most amazing food ever created. Bar none.
• It’s incredibly sad that both of the tourist areas that we just visited are pretty much off limits for locals because they simply can’t afford to get there and pay the $5 admission. Pablo was going to bring his wife, because his driving these groups is the only way they’d ever get to see them.
• Mmmmm…. fried cheese.
• It’s like living in two worlds when half the people you know make 50 cordovas a day or less and single cordovas are valuable currency, and then you walk into town and shoes are 280 cordovas for cheap vinyl sneakers. I never know how much is appropriate amounts to pay for anything. For the market, a couple of cords is plenty, but in the city that same amount is just a couple of nickels. They might as well be two totally different economies. A hundred cord note is a five dollar bill, basically, and in some places you don’t even get change from a purchase, and in some places you can’t get change because that’s more than they make all day.
• Do they actually get any meat or milk from cows that skinny?
• Did I mention how awesome fried cheese is?
• Nicaraguan christians are a passionate bunch, full of love for God and each other. The churches are big families and it is very obvious. You can feel the connection that everyone has when you walk in. It’s wonderful, and I wish we could emulate it at home. We can, and we will, and it will start with me.
• Fried cheese fried cheese fried cheese!!!

Might post tomorrow, might not. If not, see you when I get home.

Every morning after MrPages left, the LittlestPage, who is 22 months, walked out of her bedroom, raised her little arms, palms out, and asked, “Where Daddy?”

I told her he was on a trip to Nicaragua.

She would repeat her original question, apparently not pleased with my answer. I gave her the same answer and she would grimace at me and then walk away.

On Monday, after just five days, she stopped asking about him.

In fact, she hasn’t mentioned him much since then, even when we play the short video messages that MrPages left for all the children. “That cute!” she says and then walks away.

This evening as after-meal cleanup chaos ensued, the Littlest Page dragged out her coat and put on her shoes. She came over, looked up at me and said, “Zip my coat up.” I absentmindedly obeyed her request and smiled as she turned to walk away.

Suddenly she turned back, looked up at me with those deep blue eyes, so much like MrPages, and announced, “I go on trip to see Daddy. I go Nickawogwa!”

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father! (Lydia Maria Child)