Nica update and penguin (near) disaster

Our time in Nicaragua was, in one word, awesome! What a special opportunity we had to minister with and to the Nicaraguan people and children, to bond with our own team and take steps of faith together, and to see just how big our God truly is. The trip was really great although challenging in many ways. It was no surprise that the language barrier was difficult for me. I expected that going into the trip, but what I did not expect was to feel so socially awkward and so unsure of how to initiate conversation. This was unusual for me and I felt lost, way out of my element, and disabled in a sense. God met me though. By his Spirit, he humbled me, revealed sin in my heart namely pride and lack of faith, reminded me of his power made perfect in weakness, gave me confidence in Christ to eventually engage with people, and even showed me other significant ways to connect and share God's love without necessarily having deep conversations (which is what I really love and long to do, get to know people and their hearts). For example, we held a craft time for the orphans during which we helped the kids make bracelets and perler bead shapes -- you know the teeny tiny beads that you place one by one on the pegboard to create a shape then cover it with ironing paper and iron and seal the beads together? Anyway, on one of our last nights with the orphans at Casa Bernabe I was helping a little boy put together a perler bead penguin. He was very focused and worked diligently to place each bead carefully, exactly where he wanted it. I mostly found the colors that he needed and passed them to him to place on the pegboard. After meticulously working for over an hour, the penguin was complete. The boy picked up his finished project and turned to bring it to the ironing man (aka Tim Cornwell, our youth director and fearless leader) when disaster struck ....BOOM! My wonderful yet large and goofy husband smacked right into him not even seeing the small child who stood maybe waist high to Steve. The pegboard penguin was sent into the air, beads flying then hitting the ground and scattering in every direction. The boy was shocked and obviously disappointed, but in an instant he and I were both on the ground retrieving as many beads as we possibly could (Steve helped too of course as he was feeling awful about the run-in). We got the empty penguin on the table with time winding down as we had just 10 minutes before clean up and bedtime. As an unspoken team, we furiously put bead after bead back on this little penguin using the same colors and general design as before, Steve was hunting for the colors we needed, while our fingers fumbled and we tried to reassemble the little animal as quickly as possible. The boy worked on one side, I worked on the other, and would you believe, we finished that little penguin just in the nick of time! I played lead blocker as we made our way back to the ironing station, and soon enough the penguin was sealed and whole. The joy on the boy's face was unmistakable. I am so glad that the Lord brought us together. I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve the boy, to connect with him, to have fun -- even in the midst of the (near) disaster. I don't think we said one word to each other through the entire craft time, but I hope and trust that the Lord still used that interaction to communicate the love of Christ to the boy. I pray he knows that Jesus loves him and is for him. I pray he realizes that the Lord can piece together brokenness, redeem, and make whole a life, make whole his life.