Finally, the Big Day
I worry a little bit that so many of the pictures we've shared with you up to now -- balloon figure making in San Diego, the well-manicured, walled compound of the City of Children and our wildly costumed skit performances -- might lead you to believe that our trip is just an out-of-the-way vacation at our sponsors' expense.
But, as David Alexander put it, today we began looking on the other side of the wall.
One of the many makeshift homes that are everywhere.
Today, we were out in the community, starting on the house we're building. Imagine raising a house in three days? Something biblical about that. Except these homes, unlike ours, consist of two rooms, don't have indoor plumbing and cost about $3,600 to construct. Sort of takes the miraculous out of raising it in three days.
The home last year's crew built. Hey, Jesse B., look, they've added a room already!
Raising the first wall 2009.
We worked at the church, cooking and distributing food and clothing for the surrounding community. Not only do they flock to receive a free hotdog, they're just as enamored with the discarded boxes that the oatmeal came in. For them, that small box could become a closet or drawer for clothing. It could become patch material for a house made of crates and tarps. It could become a matte for a child's bed or carpeting for a dirt floor. These are creative people. Life forces them to be.
What will this empty box become?
Leaving filled...for today...with food and hope.
We also began doing some painting at a local school. We're told that the City of Children kids who attend the school feel such pride that their peers will see us their American friends doing something for the school.
So we're moving in many different directions, working at the orphanage and in the community and praying that God will magnify the use of every talent, every man hour and every dollar that we spend in His service.
Even in the City of Children, what appears so lavish a complex, providing so much material blessing and love and care and spiritual instruction for the children here, is still lacking the one thing the kids long for most. There isn't a child here who doesn't wait for the day a parent or family member will arrive at the gates of this city and take them home. And that, for all that we give, we cannot give. Only God can.
In truth, aren't we all awaiting the day our Father takes us home? The children here are just more attuned to that longing than perhaps we are.
And, as far as this being a fun vacation...it is. There is wonder-full fun to be had in making a difference and doing something of value and purpose for someone other than yourself. It's a deep felt joy. And we are here to vacate.... Vacate our ties to the many things that distract us at home and keep us from seeing what God is doing in our lives. We're vacating ourselves from daily pressures and stress that is inevitably tied to the stuff that owns us. So, yes, this is the fun-est sort of vacation imaginable.
And so we thank our many sponsors for the blessings they are giving this place and these people...and to us.
God bless you.
- Nelson
Callie is crowned...I mean capped.
Callie showing the form that made her today's Festival of Sharing cap recipient.
P.S. The Festival of Sharing of hat was awarded this evening to Callie Kerbo for jumping in with the school painting crew today. Congrats, Callie! And, congrats to all of our parents! You're kids are doing some amazing things here. You may only get out of them three words when they get home - something like "it was good" - and so you may never know all the really cool and good things they did this week. You may never know. Lord knows.
