Tuesday

my mornings are so incredibly routine. crawl out of bed. turn on kitchen lights per africa rule #2. fill espresso pot. add coffee. turn on gas. light stove. add pot. make oatmeal. turn off gas. cut apple. add to oatmeal. take probiotic, multivitamin and a trio of other necessary medications. this bum shoulder, slow moving parts, this awful abscess that came from who knows what. a variety of intestinal and digestive “issues” that never seem to go away. no water flows from either sink today, and most every morning for almost two months now. my buckets are low today. i take breakfast to the desk in my bedroom, make the bed and sip coffee. with my phone in one hand and the spoon in the other i check emails. nothing. just junk mail from Southern Living Recipes and Runner’s World. i have a voxer audio message from Christine! i listen intently, making mental notes of what to respond to. she fills 6 minutes of my morning with a Southern accent and beautiful, inspiring one way conversation. i don’t reply for fear of waking her. 

i make a guess at the forecast and choose an outfit. today i step outside the norm of baggy linen and choose white jeans. a pair i bought with betty at phipps plaza during a lunch break 9 years ago. and a gap outlet clearance rack nautical stripped tee. Target braided sandals. i have tried to go without makeup. one morning i opted for the extra ten minutes sleep but Beato noticed the second i walked in and asked me what was wrong with my face. his exact words. 

the other morning when i asked one of my newest students how he was doing he told me he was “bright”. he is a smart kid with great vocabulary and a good learner, so i corrected him. i told him how “bright” was not really a state of being, but could be used to describe intelligence. then he said to me, “you are light”. i am sure i looked at him a little confused but smiled and nodded. then he said, “you’re face is light....like a fairy tale”. i am still not exactly sure what he meant by that. but i was flattered. a “fairy tale” is much better than “what’s wrong with your face”. i attribute both to Maybelline under eye concealer and the lack thereof.

in both the morning and afternoon classes we go over non-progressive verbs with prepositions. i don’t emphasize the need to know these terms as much as i simply want them to learn the vocabulary and to practice using these verbs with their correct prepositions. i ask them what they are “accustomed to”, “scared of”, “annoyed by”, “interested in”, etc. both groups have a common theme. out of both groups a majority of students are both “annoyed by” and “scared of” rats. one boy even stands up to show me the hole the rat has eaten in his jeans. their sentences includ, “i am scared of rats biting me in the night” and “i am annoyed by rats eating my food and clothes”. the things they are “disappointed by” are also eye opening, shattered hopes and dreams. this tiny lesson is deeply revealing. their fears and concerns also includ the impossibility of going to university and overall severe lack of money. i had no idea all this would surface. they even reveal dislike of their government, along with the rats and lions.  yes, lions. 

they are all becoming such good friends. i love watching their personalities and learning about their interests. i had a trouble maker from last week apologize to me on Monday morning. i love the way they light up when i recall things about them that i remember. they love being seen. who doesn’t? Anselmo likes to box and lift weights. Stella likes to sing R & B. Jackson wants to be a preacher in Australia. Rofi wants to be a geologist and go to Oxford in England. Trago really wants to go to university to be a doctor but he tells me to pay for university, “it is impossible”. rats are eating their jeans, but here i am telling them they can go to Oxford. 

i recently heard a beautiful made-for-me sermon by Bill Johnson. i put them on before i go to bed. primarily to focus my attention away from the boom of the barraca music and to fill my head with thoughts of the Kingdom as i drift off to sleep. the message was on famine. he told about Isaac planting and getting 100x more than normal out of his crop. i am facing a huge famine and i have to plant a seed. i have to refuse to be intimidated by the power of the famine.he also said that the favor that is upon your life is not for you, but for those over whom you have influence. it resonated with me right away. the favor on me is for them. all this crazy favor and blessing that i have experienced over the past several years, is for these. i want these children to come under these promises and blessings. i want every testimony of how God supernaturally moved me from one world to this one to become theirs. i want to see their dreams fulfilled and God’s favor to hover over their lives. i don’t think i even have to share the testimonies (although i do). i simply need to be here and just be who i am. as i give away myself, the favor goes with it. God put the favor on me, to bring it here to give away. i have been blessed to be a blessing to this world around me. i want to rebuild the way they see themselves. i want to look at the famine of a scrawny kid with rat eaten jeans and see a 100x harvest of a geologist studying in England, Trago the Doctor, Amilcar the Designer, Francisco the Actor. 

this day has exhausted me. i found green grapes at the barraca days ago and i am just now taking the time to enjoy them. $8 but worth every “meticai”.  i have way more questions than i have answers. my vision for my own future grows more and more narrow and yet blurred. for now, i am here. and i will be here, making coffee and oatmeal and planting seeds.