64/365

Daylight fades to evening dusk and lights create shadows in unexpected places. Dust covers nearly every surface, and so too do bright papers with letters. We play a seeking game, searching out letters in a mixed up pile, another step in learning to decipher the code. Upstairs, bigger kids begin to construct light circuits and another group sits around the table, ready to create images of light and dark. 

Eight students registered for my class, and tonight only one shows up. He's a bright one, and the two hours pass in a blink. We unscramble letters. We read tag-team style; he takes the letters and I take the text,
"A,"
"told,"
"B,"
"and,"
"B,"
"told,"
"C,"
"I'll meet you at the top of the coconut tree."
We sing and jump and wiggle and write. Watching a kid learn, making the connections, that can be a thrilling process.

We're trying a new thing at the community center, registration-only classes one afternoon a week. In these couple of hours, we hope to go deeper with these kids, deeper in knowledge, deeper in time together, deeper in relationships. We know that there is opportunity for so much more than where we currently are. It's a learning process, on every side. For kids in this place, habits form slow. Days and hours don't mean as much in a place where calendars and watches rarely show themselves. We never know who will attend when the afternoon arrives. On this cool and rainy day, attendance was down. But the weather is only a guess as to why. We consider that all too many other reasons could be behind the absences.

And so, I'm ever aware that every time we have together with these kids is important. I'm ever aware that we have no time to waste, not in teaching, not in learning, not in our speech, not in our actions, not in how we love. Our prayer is always to show and speak of our Lord's goodness, that we would be His witnesses in this place. 

"Skit skat skoodle doot flip flop flee."

(Quotes from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault)

63/365

The good news is that finally, finally, I won a round of lotería. The bad news is that we were playing at the good-bye party for my buddy and office mate so I found my excitement a bit tempered.
And then my husband accidentally gave away my prize.
Alas. Some days are like that.

Does anyone else remember days as good news, bad news? I often wonder, am I the only one who perpetually wrestles with life's opposites? The only one who sees the sides and can't exactly be completely for one or the other? Does anyone else contend with those inner arguments while living very much in the out-there-right-now?

And then I found this essay, and realized, maybe others think on these sorts of ideas, too. Maybe I'm not the only one quite sure she doesn't have all the answers. Loree Ferguson Wilbert writes:

My desires must be for something higher, God himself and his kingdom.  

This is why I glad to not be a registered anything or pledge allegiance to anything on this earth. My allegiance is to God, to his order of things, and my optimism is rooted in the coming kingdom, not in the fruition of all my "disordered loves." The world is in disarray: children slaughtered in schools by people with guns made for slaughtering, mental gymnastics abound by barely clad women talking about objectification, wars and rumors of wars, and everyone thinks they're the real optimist, the ones with the real solutions. But God's kingdom gives us permission to grieve at what is while hoping for what is to come at the same time—to be true eternal optimists.  

It might be on the picket lines that our points are made, but it's at the tables where progress is made. It's there where we can be honest about what is terribly, terribly wrong, but also true about what is beautifully, achingly good. 

Tonight at the table we didn't make much progress. But we ate really well and we laughed a lot and we were together, minus a couple, for the last time for a while. And all of that was indeed "achingly good." I want to keep erring on the side of "true eternal optimist."

62/365

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike. 
- John Muir, The Yosemite (1912)

(an afternoon spent walking through Bentsen State Park)

59/365

"Thank you. Thank you all for your friendship and for your kindness to us."

A group of us took three of our neighborhood guys out for tacos the other night, to celebrate a birthday. Now all three are teenagers. And have no doubt, they eat like teen boys! When we left, we asked one of the boys how many tacos he ate.
"Cuatro. Y cinco mas."
Nine tacos!
He reported the other two also had nine each, but there was some dispute about that.
Let's just say, the boys out ate the rest of us.

Afterward, we continue on to bible study. We arrived with time to spare, so before starting, they played Sorry. They had not played before, but it must have been something of a hit, because when the study ended and the adults sat around talking, they got up and started a new game. (and completely unrelated, I recently learned my Enneagram number and now I understand why I've never enjoyed Sorry...)

These guys were barely reading a year ago, and now they will take their turn in reading out loud during the study. A couple of them were drawing while we talked, but kept track where we were along the way. At one point, our pastor, my teammate and friend, who each week spends multiple hours with these guys, asked them a question. The first boy answered super honestly, so much so we laughed at his response, because it was SO honest. The next guy answered differently, but I think, honestly also. The last, I'm pretty sure he was just trying to look good, but he did make us laugh, too. But these are the moments that we long for and that we pray for, real life and conversation beyond the surface of everyday comings and goings.

At the end of the evening, we drove the boys home, just like always. Sometimes that drive has been chaos. But not tonight. Tonight, they joke around and we half listen. Then we heard them call our names.
"Thank you. Thank you all for your friendship and for your kindness to us."
We're not in it for thanks, for certain, but it's pretty sweet when we hear it.
De nada.

58/365

Ironically, the best time to go to the dump might not be when it's sunny, though a spring day is better than the summer. On this afternoon we climbed into the van to accompany our Doctors without Border friends. These faithful offer medical and psychology services at the Isaiah 55 community center once day a week. And so, the day before their clinic, they visit the dump, to tell people about their services. Because of our presence in the neighborhood, because of the ministry to the cart workers, we are known to many in the community, some familiar and trusted faces. One guy looked at me and said, "Don't you live on the street leading to the dump?" "Yes, I do," I nodded. Location, location, location.

Every sense comes into play when you spend time at the dump. In a large area, the ground is scarred black with smoke drifting upwards and across. Sometimes there are controlled burns at the dump. Sometimes the dump spontaneously burns. Even across the charred piles, garbage collectors scavenge for items to be recycled or reused. Plastics remain and endure and persist; who would have guessed that missionary work would propel me towards environmentalism? Plastic sacks wave from trees and posts and other garbage. My teammate comments that they wave like Tibetan prayer flags, and I consider petitions for all the people I can see from that spot.

It can be quiet at the dump, only the wind blowing through to create distraction. Large flocks of birds hover and swoop overhead and depart in mass when spooked. The clip clop of horse and donkey hooves, the irregular rhythm of wheels rolling over uneven ground, warns of a trash cart on the way. Trash cart workers talk quietly among themselves. Their kids play around the cart, around the pickup, around the garbage on the ground. A rooster crows in the background. The high up hum of a small plane patrol causes me to look overhead.

Obviously, the smells at the dump can be strong. Rotting food and decaying trash and disposed diapers lay on the ground. The soil lays dank and dark and especially earthy in the spring after consecutive weeks of winter rains. We walk past a pig pen and the foul odor almost stops in our tracks. The rancid, acrid fumes of the hazy smoke drifting by permeates our noses and our clothes, enough that we seem to hold onto it for hours afterward. Time at the dump gives new meaning to "leaves a bad taste in your mouth."

The ground isn't always solid at the dump. Though dirt paths crisscross the piles of garbage, you might walk through layers on uneven layers of decomposing trash. You try to miss walking through animal waste. We have come to talk to people and we stop often along the way. I reach out my hand to shake that of a man sifting through trash. He shakes his head and turns his hand and tells me that I shouldn't touch him, embarrassed by the grime. I do anyway, and pat his shoulder, besides.

There are workers at the dump, but there are also houses, of sort. Families and individuals have created shelters of pallets or of canvas and cardboard and discarded wood. We can see them standing, leaning, around the perimeter of the landscape, and hidden by squatters in the scrubby oaks just to the south. We consider what it would be like to live IN this place. The health risks are many, burning plastics and environmental allergens fill the air. We continue to cough hours after leaving. The stark landscape must weigh heavy on these souls. The spiritual darkness seems almost tangible, as well. And yet, as we recognize faces and exchange smiles and greetings, hope shows up too. Little kids giggle and hide and peek at us again. We return waves and "Buenas tardes" as we walk through the dump and back down the road home.

I consider that few things show the decay of this world more clearly than a stroll through the dump. And yet, our hope, even among the brokenness and rot and stank of this world, comes from the promise from Christ on the throne, "Behold! I am making all things new... Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." And with that Good News, we'll keep seeking after our neighbors, even at the dump.