This is an incredible woman that we will call C! She is a career missionary in Oaxaca and has helped our team travel to the village (about 6-7 hours away from Oaxaca), has helped us get supplies for our house, defeat the swarms of bugs, taught us how to flush toilets with buckets of water, how to shower without an actual shower, and so many other things. Seriously guys, this woman could write a book on Survival 101. Before she came to Oaxaca, she was a missionary in the jungle in Peru and also in Bolivia, so we were in very capable hands.
J! Ya'll, we probably would have never been anywhere on time or ever understood what was going on without our awesome translator. Don't let the glasses and dimples fool you though. He can be sarcastic and witty which who wouldn't be if they were working with three gringas?! (American women) But seriously, this guy is so cool. He also taught us how to hand wash our clothes, make authentic salsa, and killed a wasp's nest that was forming in our window for us. But really, we wouldn't be able to have any relationships with people in the village without him helping us to speak Spanish correctly and interpreting our Spanglish nonsense to the other villagers.
So, I have to warn you. I'm going to be brutally honest in this blog. I might share more information than you wanted to know. However, I think it's important to understand the struggles in order to celebrate the victories. So, here we go. I'm going to try to do a day by day recap to give you a better idea of everything that happened this last week.
Monday: Anna Beth, Brittany, and I pack up and are ready to leave by 9:30 am! Our clothes had some issues in the washer the night before and were soaking wet when we put them in the dryer at 2:30 am. At 9:30 am, they are still wet. "What a great way to start off," I thought to myself. But I have resolved to try to not complain about any situation. After all, God is Sovereign, and He has purpose in each and every situation. C and J met us at the strategy house, and we begin our six hour car ride and basically force J to like us (Anna Beth, Brittany, and me). Poor guy. He probably wasn't expecting us to be so crazy, loud, and full of bad dance moves, but by the end of the car ride, we were already like family. Or at least we made him like family. Haha! San Caliente* is a coastal village, and so of course, we had to stop at the beach.
After our small detour, THE GRINGAS HAVE ARRIVED!! We get to the house, and I think I hit a world record with how much I sweated the first minute we were there. It is SO HOT! Try to imagine being inside of a boiler room. Then imagine twenty people are in there with you. Then multiply that by 2. That is how hot it was at first. It took me a little bit to get used to. Anna Beth was smart and brought a camp shower. It is like a bag that you put water in and hang on something. It has a small nozzle to let water run out. We have a large cement above ground tank outside our house where that we fill up on Wednesdays and Sundays (those are the days the water is turned on by the city so that the villagers can have water), and a large drum in our bathroom that holds more water. Brittany's church, Crosspointe, had a team in the village to teach English classes. We ate dinner with them (some delicious gorditas that the church women made) and got to meet them that night. J is staying with a family from the church that has a son that is our age we will call Y. We brought J to their house, and I am like barely functioning at this point so all I can say is "Estoy muy cansada." Which means I am very tired in Spanish. Wow. Great first impression on these gracious people that we are going to be working with all summer. We return to the house, and while setting up the bag to take a shower, there was a large roach that was eyeing me. After unloading everything all day and getting used to life in the village (flushing toilets with buckets of water, not being to walk around barefoot for fear that small worms could get in my feet, and the intense heat), I was exhausted and just wanted to cry because I couldn't even shower without fear that a bug was going to latch itself to me and suck my brains out. The Amazing C saved the day though. She brought some essential oils that are relaxing and put a few drops in the bathroom, so I could shower with the bag in a more calm state. At this point, you might be thinking wow this is so intense did anything go right for them? But, there is good news guys! Our house has electricity! We have a microwave, a small fridge, and some heating elements that we can use to cook on. The pastor and his wife let us borrow one of their fans to help cool the house off. We also slept with all the windows open so the cooler night air could roll in. I set up my hammock that night and tried to get as much sleep as possible.
Tuesday: I woke up at about 4 am to a rooster crowing. Our neighbors also have pigs that began making alot of noise as well. Not to mention the dogs that roam the streets and bark all day. At this point, I was praying, Lord, please quiet those animals like the closed the mouths of the lions when Daniel was in the lions den. For my sanity, please Lord. And either He shut the animals up, or He helped me fall back asleep because I quickly fell back asleep. I woke up in my hammock at about 7 or 8 am and saw a bug that was about to try to cuddle with me. I freaked out so bad that I flipped out of my hammock and hit the floor. Good morning. C was already up. We had bought some mangos on the way to the village yesterday, and so we sliced those and put them in our yogurt. We didn't have any pots and pans yet or vegetables, fruits, and meats. In this village, there is a market that comes on Tuesday that has fruits, vegetables, eggs, meat, knives, forks, spoons, etc. So, we went to the market that morning to buy our food for the week. We also got some utensils while there. We also met the woman that runs the hotel. She was formerly a he. We asked her if she would be open to allowing us to have English classes at the hotel so that people could come and learn English. Some people in that village are not going to go to the church even if its for an English class due to intimidation or scars from the church or whatever, just like in America. Also, this allows us to build a relationship with her. She was extremely excited about us doing that and just wanted to know when we wanted to start. (We aren't sure of our schedule yet at this point, but we are planning to start classes there once we get back to the village. ) That afternoon, we went to Huatulco, about an hour or more away, to get more supplies. The women from the church are so sweet. They gave us pots, pans, and dishes to use while we are staying there, but we still did have some more supplies to get like fans, clothespins, ropes, and stuff like that. At this point, I was in some intense culture shock. I hated Mexico, Spanish, and all bugs everywhere. I hated the heat, and I just wanted to go home. Brittany, my amazing teammate, reminded me though that this is just satan trying to steal our joy. Satan wants us to be miserable so we will be ineffective for God's kingdom. Wise words. I just began praying that God would provide strength and joy. We got all of our supplies in Huatulco and started heading back to the village at about 8:30 pm that night. C's truck was loaded down, and we got caught in a bunch of rain from a tropical storm. At this point, I'm in the back seat, and I can get carsick on some curvy roads. These roads wind back and forth through the mountain, and so they are like the curviest of curvy roads. Anyways, I feel as if I'm about to puke, and so C stops the car, and I go out in the rain and try to throw up. It is at this point that I start hysterically laughing at the crazy events of the day. I couldn't help but think to myself, Oh my goodness, I'm in the middle of Mexico, with a fan on my lap, in the middle of a tropical storm, trying to puke on the side of the road. This is ridiculous. Anyways, I couldn't throw up, but my other amazing teammate, Anna Beth, let me sit up front since I was struggling so much. It is also helpful to note that J, Anna Beth, C, Brittany, and I ALL get car sick. So, we were all praying the prayer Lord, please give us stomachs of steel. Anyways, we finally made it back to the village, alive, and without any one puking. Thankfully, it wasn't raining as hard when we returned, so we unloaded everything at like 10:30 pm. Then, we took showers and nestled into our hammocks to try to fall asleep.
The above picture is a picture of one of the paved streets of the village. The church is on this street, and as we were walking to it, we saw the fog descending on the mountain. Beautiful. This blog post is literally the first two days. They were pretty intense. I'm going to write another blog post tomorrow about the rest of our week in San Caliente*. I want to make a huge point though. God is gracious. While the conditions are kind of rustic, we have more than some people have in our house. Electricity, water, hammocks. Some people must go to the springs in order to shower and wash their clothes, and don't have electricity in their houses, but God has graciously provided for us a nice home with fans and plenty of space. He is so gracious to me even when I don't deserve it. Gloria en lo alto!
I loved this post and I know God is pleased with you and your team. I can imagine Him smiling down on all of you as He walked with you through this week.
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