Thankfulness

Greetings to everyone on this Thanksgiving Day.

We have been in our new adopted homeland of Nicaragua for 2 Thanksgiving holidays.  The weather this day is just as beautiful as we remember it from last year.  The sky is so deep blue with no clouds and the temperature is 82 degrees with 40% humidity.  This time of year in Nica is so wonderful.

We have had a very busy month.  School goes on as usual, our weekly outreach at El Zapote with the class and members of our church, a brief 5 day trip to Orlando to satisfy the temporary residency requirements of the Nicaraguan government (I have no sympathy of the illegal immigrants plight at this time in the U.S.) and our household has grown by 4 persons.

At the end of October, a young woman who was in the Remar program came to live with us.  She is an answer to many months of prayer in our desire to have someone help with the housework.  How Darcy came to be with us and her first days in our home is a story worth telling and I will do a special post on her very soon.  During Darcy's second week with us, she brought Aroldo home.  We had been looking for him for weeks and she was able to locate him.  I have done a post about Aroldo last week, please review our blog.

Yesterday morning, during breakfast (we love to linger and talk), Darcy and Aroldo were talking about Nelson.  He, too, once lived at Remar and has been on his own for about 3 months.  We would talk to Nelson on a regular basis because he worked at the Hamburguesa stand in the park where Aroldo use to work; Aroldo trained him.  Darcy told us that Nelson was living in the Hamburguesa stand which is about 5 x 7; sleeping on the floor under the counters and washing in the market place.  Well, I cannot stand to hear something like that and as usual I start to shed tears.  After some discussion amongst us and talking about our already stretched to the max budget, we all agreed that we would ask Nelson to come live with us.      (Nelson is wearing #72 shirt in the video)

After our evening meal, I was at my desk and Aroldo came to me announcing that Noel (see October 2010 blog) was outside our gate.  I could not believe my ears; Noel was here!   For the past 4 months, every time that I would sit down to write a story about Noel, Pablo and our 2 spiritual sons Andres and Kervin, the sorrow was too great.  These four boys exited from our lives.  In September, Andres and Kervin went to finally be with the mother they have not known since Andres birth; they now live in Costa Rica.  Pablo ran away in early July by himself during the night in a thunderstorm.  Later in July, Noel ran away with another of our students, Douglas.  Douglas was at Remar only a couple of months and did not like it.  He talked Noel into going with him and promising him to help once they reunited with Douglas' family.


Noel had lived at Remar since he was 9 and at 16 years of age,  he wanted a different life.  His time in Granada, a city near the southern border, was spent working and living without the security of a stable home.  He came to Leon and to our door with a friend who lives in Leon.  His friend, Angel, was a "graduate" of Remar.   Like all teenagers, they were hungry and luckily we had left-overs.  Angel certainly enjoyed his food, he kept commenting 'rico', 'rico'.
Noel wants to come back to Leon and it was unanimous that he should live with us.

What are we going to do with a house full of young people, all trying to build and rebuild their lives?  With God's guidance, we will figure it out.  NOTE: PT came to tell me that a dove just now flew into one of our courtyards, landed on the walkway, looked at him and looked around the area and then flew into the ficus tree to perch.  Hmmmmm, do you think it is a sign?

What we do know is that these 4 young adults are safe and happy in our home.  They all slept well in their beds and had a good breakfast this morning.  Darcy is learning that she is loveable and valued for who she is. Aroldo is learning that even when you mess up, real families don't toss you out, you work things out (there was an incident while we were in Orlando). Nelson is learning that there are people in this world willing to give you opportunities to help you towards a better life.  And, Noel, he is learning that when people love you, they always welcome you back with open arms.




On this Thanksgiving day, we miss our own children and grandchildren very much; it has been a very long time since we have seen them.  I pray that in our absence they will know how much we love them and we would not be away from them if God had not chosen us for this work.  In the mean time, God has blessed us with 4 individuals to spend the day with us.  We are thankful.