What do you mean I have to say goodbye?

It's funny - Friday's are always a glorious day in the states - usually accompanied by my favorite Starbucks drink in the morning and hopefully a less than usual strain in the workplace for the day. But today was a different kind of Friday - a day to have a great "Field Day" with the awesome kids at the church and sadly, say goodbye. But first...updates.

Chuk Muk - have you figured out yet how awesome that team is? Word on the street is that Holly, Kristen, Tracy, Aaron, and Cesar are the dream team (remember this friends next time you need a random project completed around the house). They painted the inside and outside of their kitchen today - that's in addition to completing the extra porch not planned originally for Gregoria and her family.

CDO #1 - the Mowreader/Shadle team - all that's left is a little bit of the flooring and Cruz' house is DONE! WHOOO! Baudilio was so excited on his progress leaving the site yesterday that he hop-skip-and jumped right into some wild doggie poo...then decided to share it with all of us on the bus. Thanks B! - not.... :) Had to get him back for all of the teasing he's done to the team on the trip.

CDO #2 - our site was wrapped up yesterday and was for me personally a great experience. I had the honor of working (in addition to my team of course) side by side with a very humble construction worker - Manuel. In this culture, work of this nature = livelihood. In no way would they be excited about my enthusiasm to pretend to know how to lay some concrete. But after working with him for a few days and busting out some awful Spanglish - Manuel let me give it a try and was nice enough to tell me I was doing a great job! It was really hard to say goodbye to him yesterday - it felt like saying goodbye to a friend, someone who took the time to show me how to do something FAR outside of my skillzone (seriously, if you don't believe me, ask my husband - I can hardly paint my toenails let alone lay concrete), to be patient with my attempts to make jokes in Spanish while clearly using the wrong words, and to share some of his family story with us.

Also on the CDO #2 site, I witnessed an event that almost brought me to tears. The measurements for the house were slightly off, so we ended up being short one piece of the corrugated metal roof. While discussing what the cost would be to acquire another piece in town - the uncle of the woman we're building for (mind you he's very old) - starts crawling around next to his house, scaling some uneven cinder block and wood, to pull 2 pieces of old, rusted, metal roofing off of his own shelter area to give to his niece. How is it that I have a hard time giving up an extra pair of shoes during spring cleaning, yet this humble old man, is willing to give up more than he can afford to give? Amazing - I'm telling you I continue to have a lot to learn from these wonderful people.

Back to the school/church now - what a fun day. As Tara S. mentioned yesterday, today was the day we shared the Salvation message with the kids (thanks T squared team!) - what a blessing it was to have our largest group yet for this day - 155 KIDS!! Hallelujah, right? After our normal rounds of craft, story/object lesson, and games - it was time for Field Day. So...I did mention that we had 155 kids today right? It was utter craziness - but the kids had a blast. We had a bobbing for apples station (which is truly hysterical to watch), a station for balloon animals/flowers/hats with snack, and a station for toilet paper wrapping. (TP what?) We had 3 rounds of picking out 8 kids to have their friends wrap them from head to toe in toilet paper. Thank you God for not letting it rain during this time! Wet TP x 24 TP-wrapped kids would have = no bueno. I volunteered for the balloon section, but after a thorough interview, it was decided that my balloon snakes just weren't up to par - so Holly and Gloria got to make them. Pssh...just kidding. :) I love watching those kids go nuts for the apples. Totally grossed out that they freely bob for apples after their amigos y amigas just slobbered in the water...but....to each their own huh?

We ran a full hour late, and sent the kids home with some snacks and hugs. In some ways...I'm happy the departure went fast - why?? Because it's torture to say goodbye to those tender faces, those big brown eyes, those adoring hugs and incessant questions, their giggles at my ridiculous dance moves, their total innocence and willingness to love on us. It blew me away yesterday when one of the girls I met two years ago - Delilah - came up to me and told me in plain English - "I remember you, you're Jenn". My heart melted - but today she told me "I'll see you in another year" and she smiled. God - I pray she's right!

Tomorrow we'll have the pleasure of blessing the families we built homes for with a new cot and some food, while praying with them for their new home. Thank you church family and friends for your sacrificial giving to provide these gifts to these people - and thank you God for muliplying these sacrifices to pay for these items and bring these special families into our lives.

Please continue to keep our team in your prayers - it's been a fun, long, exhausting, emotional week thus far - and tomorrow will be a doozy. ~ Jenn

PS - a little tip for next Guatemala trip travelers - if you can't stand next to Tara Mowreader for some reason to hear her tell you all the words - just mouth the word "Pineapple" over and over again - totally looks like you're singing. I mean...not that I didn't memorize all the Spanish songs or anything. :)