Hola. I'm going to start by answering one of the most common questions I get from group members: I speak very little Spanish. What I do know is a collection of seemingly random words that in fact are grouped nicely into three categories: tools, Jesus-words, and food. In the life of a Back2Back intern with a healthy appetite, these are pretty much the three most essential categories in which to be bilingual.
This past week was a bit different from the standard week as we had two groups here simultaneously. One was a medical team made up of physical and occupational therapists, while the other was a group of young people from North Carolina. Now that I'm out of college I'm allowed to call people that are still in college "young people". The medical team worked exclusively with the kids at the special needs home: assessing their abilities, giving them therapy, and also creating videos with therapy instructions for the caretakers so that the best possible care could continue after the group left. They were an incredible blessing for the kids, caretakers, and the staff here who now know how best to help the kids at Rancho. It was so cool to see the relationships that they built with the kids when they spent a whole week with them. Most groups only get to spend a day or two with kids from a given home before moving to a different home, but not this group. I saw a child who is typically stone-faced and quiet whistle and purr and laugh until he could hardly breath and was drooling all over the place. I saw a little girl who never seems happy, stuck in a cycle of crying until so exhausted that sleep overcomes her and then beginning to cry upon waking again, sit contentedly in the lap of one of our interns for an entire afternoon. I saw such an outpouring of love towards the kids at Rancho, and it reminded me so starkly that there are so many different ways to show the love of Christ to others.
The young guns showed off their youth. They were some of the hardest workers I've seen since I've been here. Their attitudes towards their friends, the staff here, and God were much more mature than I expected when first met them. I wish I would have had more time with them this week, but I was often with the therapy group and unfortunately cannot split myself in half. I did enjoy hitting the volleyball around with them though, something I've missed a lot while here.
It is weird being more than halfway done with the summer. I still have no idea what is going to be happening when I get back to the states. Other than playing beach volleyball and playing with the dogs, I really don't have any long term plans. Not to say that I don't want plans, if I could have had it planned before I left, that would have been sweet. Once again God is just playing the "you gotta trust me" card, and every card He's got is kind of a trump card, so I'm just trusting that even if I don't have a plan, He does.
In other news, it has started to rain here a little bit. When people said "rainy season" I expected an every day torrential downpour, paddling our vans like boats to get to the children's homes. I may have set some lofty expectations, but I still don't think the rainy season has quite begun. It rained maybe three or four nights in the last week, and only a little bit one morning. Watching the storms roll in over the Pacific is pretty awesome though. Elections happened in Mazatlan, Felton won. Yippee. All that really means for me is now that the political craziness is over we can go get late night Mexican food again. Hallelujah.
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