Baby Shower!

Yesterday, I was able to celebrate 12 weeks of learning and friendships with the women from my childbirth class at AMOS Health and Hope by having a baby shower for them.  My hope is that these 9 women have learned a lot throughout this time and feel better prepared for labor and delivery and motherhood. My purpose is to empower them to be active participants in their health, because often in the hospitals and clinics here they are not given information or choices. They are such sweet women and have really invested themselves in this class, and I am proud of the changes they are making to better their health and the health of their babies.  Here are some pictures from the fun event:

The class is also attended by 2-3 community health workers who volunteer to work in the community surrounding the clinic where the class takes place.  Their experience and wisdom has been a huge asset to the women in the class. This is Juana loving on Jimena during the shower.

We had to play some crazy games, of course, which involved making diapers out of toilet paper and putting on diapers one-handed and blind folded.  The women had a blast!

Each woman received a gift bag full of diapers, wipes, toys, and clothes.  If you would like to donate items for future baby showers (they happen every 3 months), please let me know!

Each women "graduated" with a certificate of completion.

I invited their husbands to attend, but only one came.  We were happy to have him!  My dream is to have Andrew do a workshop for the dads to teach them what their role in supporting their pregnant wife and newborn children could look like.  I often reference what a wonderful husband and dad Andrew is when I am teaching them, and they are always shocked!

One of the women, Adeleida, couldn't make it to the shower because had had her baby two days before, but I was able to visit her in her home, meet her new baby and deliver her gift.

It was such a privilege to visit Adeleida in her home, although it was a real eye-opener for me.  She lives in a one room house made of tin and wood, with a dirt floor and no windows.  I can't imagine what it is like bringing home a newborn to this house, but she seemed so happy.

After visiting Adeleida, I also made a very sad visit to one of the other women, Anelika, who had lost her baby earlier that week.  This is the third baby that she has lost, all very close to term.  I was very nervous about this visit, especially with the language barrier, but I am so glad that I got to see her, tell her how very sorry I am, and give her several big hugs.  I also learned while visiting her that her husband had left her while she was in the hospital.  Please pray for Anelika.  I am very worried about her emotional health and well-being during this extremely difficult time.

Happy Un-Birthday!

 I forgot Oliver's birthday! I had been reminded the week prior, but when I arrived at Tesoros de Dios and saw Oliver on that particular Thursday, I realized that I had no planned way to celebrate Oliver's life other than a spur-of-the-moment "Feliz Cumpleanos!" I asked Oliver how he had celebrated his birthday today. He shook his head "no." Well, I asked him, are you going to have a party or special dinner tonight to celebrate? Another "no." I'm not sure if I understood him correctly, but it made me a little sad and motivated me to pull off at least a small celebration of another year of life for Oliver.

I promised Oliver that I'd find a way to celebrate his life the FOLLOWING week, and decided that we might as well have one gigantic fiesta for ALL of my Tesoros students, as I'm likely to forget their individual birthdays as well. So we wore hats and sang songs and popped balloons and laughed hard and decorated cupcakes together. There is a lot of life worth celebrating at Tesoros de Dios! Happy Un-Birthday to all of my awesome friends at Tesoros!

It's been a while. . .

We've not been very faithful on keeping up with our blog lately! We can blame many things. . .the novelty of life in a new country is wearing out. . .or we've been really busy. . .or it is just so hot here this time of year any extra motion (even typing on a keyboard) causes me to break out in a sweat. But we do want to keep you updated on our lives here, regardless of how trivial they may or not be! So here's a few things that have been keeping our hands and hearts busy.

1) Illness. We've been pretty sick these last few months, taking turns with fevers and puking--a pretty hard-hitting virus that hit us all but Henry. Mae also had a UTI that meant sporadic fevers for 10 days. Charlotte had worms (giving us all incentive to take some anti-parasitic medicine). Mae has fungus in her ears. Ruth has a night cough that just won't go away. We're excited to be well again, but thankful we've been able to be somewhat "functional" throughout the process.


2) Car. Our car has been having some mechanical issues lately. After 3 trips with our trusty mechanic, it is now GUSHING power steering fluid rather than dripping it slowly! We can't drive our van right now, and are relying on our neighbors and the school van to get us through until. . .next Thursday! We just bought a World Renew (formerly CRWR) vehicle from missionary friends of ours that will hopefully serve us more reliably than our comfortable-but-impractical Honda Odyssey!

 3) Micah. Our nephew Micah is living with us for the rest of the school year (as of a week ago)! We are thrilled to have him as part of our family and part of the NCA family, where he is in the third grade. He has already made so many friends and loves school. He plays outside ALL of the time and thinks Henry is crazy for ever wanting to use "screen time"; I think he feels like he is coming out of hibernation after surviving the last Michigan winter. Henry and Micah are sharing a room, and I love hearing them "chat themselves to sleep" while laying in the bunk bed.

4) Grandpa. My Grandpa Ippel ("Henry the First") isn't doing very well health-wise, and he is now in hospice care. My parents are driving up today from New Mexico to Michigan to be with him right now. We are so thankful for God's faithfulness in my grandpa's life--if he does pass away, we will have to make a decision about whether or not I will travel to Michigan to attend his memorial service--a tricky thing about living in another country.

Okay, there you have it. . .hopefully you feel more connected to us again:) Thanks for your love, support, and prayers amidst car breakdowns, puking, house guests, and hard decisions.

Visitors!

March was a busy month preparing for and hosting sets of visitors! We love this part of living here, but it IS work, believe it or not!

We had the privilege of hosting Jim and Josh from World Missions for one week. They were primarily here to create a few short videos for Tesoros de Dios, but they also spent time interviewing, photographing, and learning about NCA and our anticipated SOAAR program, the cohort program in Leon, and the Nehemiah Center. We're looking forward to seeing the fruit of their labor through videos and photographs featuring God at work through these organizations.

Andrew and Josh at the Masaya Volcano

Josh was a Calvin College friend (see above), and Jim was Andrew's small group leader when he did a service project in the Yucatan peninsula for 3 weeks in 1999 with START (see below)!

My group with our "host parents." Jim is on the right. Can you find me?

 It was fun to catch up with both gentlemen, and see how God allowed our lives to intersect again here in Nicaragua.

The day before Josh and Jim left, Ruth was at the airport greeting 14 folks from Rehoboth High School (NM)--2 leaders and 12 students. The group served at NCA Matagalpa, an orphanage, our church, and the dump where Ruth is beginning her childbirth classes.
                             
    

Their primary mission, however, was to serve as the childcare workers for our annual Central American CRWM retreat for four days this past week!

Dinner at our house before the retreat

Henry with his awesome group leaders, Glen and Amber

Sharing meals at Vista Mar

As the leader of "Fun Night," I got to pick on a few Rehoboth kids

We ended our time together with a dinner at Papa Johns!

Henry likes high school humor:)

What a blessing it was to have Charlotte, Mae, and Henry in the care of this group of students. The group came down with tons of ideas and materials to make this event special for the 30-some kids in their care (while the adults had our own sessions to attend). Our kids made painting with squirt guns, baked cookies in homemade pizza box ovens, created bouncy balls, ate homemade ice cream, and MORE! You have know idea how much our kids looked forward to this week at the beach again this year, and it again exceeded our expectations. It might seem like a "cushy" service project (babysitting on the beach!), but honestly, this was a HUGE service of love to the 60+ adults in attendance at this retreat and it would not have been possible without this group.

The Rehoboth group left early this morning (after a "fun day" of ziplining, volcano climbing, shopping, and exploring the town of Granada), though Ruth couldn't quite relax until they pulled into Rehoboth's parking lot last night (or early this morning, depending on how you look at it!)

Hindsight

Many of you recently read in our most recent prayer letter about the new inclusive special education program called SOAAR (Students of All Abilities Recognized) that Andrew is coordinating at Nicaragua Christian Academy next year (if you didn't read it and would like to, you can find it here).  We are so excited about this opportunity and the changes that it will bring for Andrew vocationally, for the community of NCA, and for the new students that will be brought in as a result of this new program. 

What we didn’t have space to do in our prayer letter is to acknowledge what an answer to prayer the development of this program is for us personally.  I would like to quickly do that here. 

Since the time that we got married almost 11 years ago, we have talked about serving in a different country.  We felt that God was using our gifts (basically a willingness to do illogical things), serving professions (teaching and nursing), and experiences (growing up in culturally diverse settings) to prepare us for the mission field abroad.   

So, you may be wondering why we didn’t move to Nicaragua (or somewhere else) 11 years ago. The dilemma was Andrew had a different calling as well, and that was to teach, advocate for, and highlight the abilities of people with disabilities. We often investigated opportunities in different countries, but couldn’t find a place where Andrew could use his passion for and training in special education.  At the time, this was a deal breaker.  

The year before we moved to Nicaragua, I decided to try again.  I opened up Google and typed in “organizations for people with disabilities in Central America.” The first thing that popped up was Tesoros de Dios (http://tesorosdedios.org/) the organization where Andrew now volunteers on Thursdays.  I emailed Andrew the link right away, excitedly thinking this could be it.  After communicating with the director, though, Andrew realized that without being fluent in Spanish there was little he could do there.  Instead the director suggested he check out NCA. 

We then went to NCA’s website (http://nca.edu.ni/) and got super excited about the possibility of working there--it seemed like the perfect place to teach and for our children to learn.  Andrew applied, but at the time the school had not yet posted openings for the following year. I checked to see if the positions had been posted several times a day, and when they finally were, my heart sank:

Preschool Teacher

Middle School Math and Social Studies

High School Chemistry

Art Teacher

None of these were positions in which Andrew had any experience or initial enthusiasm about teaching.  And yet, we felt we should continue in the process.  A few weeks later, Andrew was offered a preschool position, and while teaching preschool had never been on his radar, he accepted the position, in a way forfeiting his passion to teach students with disabilities.

We fully trusted God that preschool would be a good fit for Andrew and that he would feel fulfilled in his role teaching 4-5 year olds, and it is has indeed been a wonderful two years!  We never expected that God would later create a position for Andrew where he is able to use special education experience and passion. We also never expected that Andrew would be able to play an active role at Tesoros de Dios by volunteering there weekly and serving on their board. But why not?

Uthman, a student enjoying painting and music during Andrew's Thursday class at Tesoros de Dios

We know that God is good, that he loves us, and cares about even the smallest details in our lives, but too often we look at a situation and think, "There's no way that this can work out"--or we even forget to ask God to work it out because we have decided in our human minds that there is no way that it can. I hope that we can go forward trusting in God's ability to make the impossible possible in every aspect of our lives.   

“But those who trust in the LORD… will soar high on wings like eagles.” Isaiah 40:31

Two stories (why I love what I do!)

Story 1: I work with a student--we'll call him John--three afternoons a week after my preschoolers are gone for the day. He's a fourth grader, and has some fairly significant emotional needs that affect his ability to "do" school well. John not only struggles with schoolwork, but with his social relationships as well. "I hate school," he has said on more than one occasion. "Everything is boring. I have no friends. I have nothing to look forward to. School is torture!" He exaggerates his dislike of school for adult attention, but the truth is, school really is not something he looks forward to. We decided to create a "Circle of Friends" for John--he gave me some names of students he felt close to; students he could trust. Affirmed by his 4th grade teacher, four students and I began meeting this past Friday. Our goal is to spend 20 minutes of each Friday lunch break eating a snack, playing games, and chatting about life, and about how we can support John in the classroom as friends. John could not WAIT for Friday to roll around this past week! He spoke to me about nothing else, and as I went up to find the students for our "Lunch Bunch" on Friday, they were all running down to meet me, ready for the activity. We made popcorn with an air popper (exciting!!! (for 4th graders!), played Uno, and chatted about our families, what we like and don't like about school. We were actually late for class we were having so much fun! John ran past me later that day, gave me a high five, and said with a huge smile (something not often seen!): "This is the BEST DAY EVER!" I hope he has many, many more "Best Day Evers;" it was fun to be a part of this one.

Story 2: When I arrived at Tesoros de Dios this last Thursday, a group of doctors from Cincinnati was there as volunteers, working with various students in small groups. A group of speech therapists was working with Oliver, a student with cerebral palsy. Oliver has very little intelligible speech, and can't control the movement of his arms, so communication is basically impossible for him--he can't talk, write, or use most traditional communication devices that require touching a screen with his hand. The group, however, had devised a device (think of an ipad-like device on a low stand) for Oliver to use with his toes--he has somewhat more control of his toes than his hand. When I arrived, he was typing his name on a touch keyboard with his toes. It was a long, painstaking process. . .each letter took about 20 seconds. But when he was finished typing, he pressed "Habla" (Speak)--and a voice from the device said "Oliver" (with a fairly realistic Spanish accent!). You should have seen the smile on Oliver's face--possibly the first time in his life that he has been able to clearly "say" his name! He proceeded to type his middle name, his last name, the name of his brother. . .each letter typed more quickly than the last. He was exhausted when finished, but so proud of his new "voice." He'll be able to use this device in the school he attends, and hopefully with practice he'll get faster and faster in order to make it more realistic to use in the classroom. I'm so thankful for Tesoros de Dios and this group of doctors who donate this week each year serving our students in so many incredible ways! And so proud of Oliver, too!