Day Three: February 4th, 2012

Dear Internet,

Chalk Fun!

I woke up around 7am feeling better, but not 100%. I decided to take it easy with breakfast, and stuck with watermelon (which turned out to be my breakfast most mornings) and a granola bar. Many of my team members checked in with me, it was very sweet.

The plan for after breakfast was a leadership training class with the caretakers. While the caretakers and a few of my team members were watching a video by Tony Dungee, the rest of us headed up to the Casa building and hung out with the younger kids.

It wasn't anything major, and we didn't have any games planned a head of time. We walked over there and realized that the chalk we brought might be fun. We played with chalk for about an hour! They loved it. Some of the boys and more "active" girls got board with it and they started an Ultimate Frisbee game. Very fun to watch and the kids loved it.

Ultimate Frisbee!

At one point I was sitting on a bench type-thing with Marbely (one of the youngest girls), and we got on the topic of family. I pulled out the family photos I had brought with me, and she LOVED looking at them. Her favorite was the photo of Kaleb. :) Yolanda wandered over when she realized what we were looking at.

The kids not only have fun being photographed, but they also enjoy being the one to take the photos. :) We took a lot of pictures while we were playing with them. Yolanda motioned for me to give her my camera, so I did. She started to back up and told me to stay there. I thought she was going to take a picture of me, but instead she turned around and walked into the dining room! I had no idea where she was going and didn't respond in time to get her to stop. My first thought was "I'm pretty sure that was something I was supposed to avoid."A little while later she came back, very excited to show me the photos she had taken of the kitchen staff and the bulletin board.

Marbely with Kaleb's photo

I noticed that on the other side of the "yard" they had a play ground. I headed over there, and watched Walt play with Jaja and one of the younger boys.

I was starting to feel worse, so I thought I should head back to the Team Center. I told Ashley where I was going before I left, don't worry. :) The older kids were having a "mock market" there, so Carolyn and a few others were there too. It was actually pretty cool. They set up a few "stores" and the kids each got a certain amount of money. They talked about tithing and being good stewards. I think they had a good time.

I ate a few of Carolyn's crackers and got a 7-Up out of the fridge. They had a dorm-sized fridge that had pop, Gatorade, and candy that we could purchase. I haven't had 7-Up in forever, so that was kind of fun!

Yolanda taking a picture of
Marbely and Lindee

The team started to straggle into the Team Center, and I really didn't feel good. Christina had come over to me to talk about how the photo scavenger hunt was supposed to go (I was in charge of planning it). My project group got together and we discussed how it was supposed to go. I told them that I wasn't going to be able to participate. (They told me that the scavenger hunt was a hit with the kids. We gave them four Bible verses and they took a picture of what each verse reminded them of. ex "I am the Light of the world", they took a picture of a light bulb)

My team prayed for me after that. Carolyn gave me some Dramamine (I had been taking pepto and tums and it hadn't helped. Kristin even had a herbal version of Dramamine and that didn't help either), and I went to bed. :(

This was about noon and I slept until about 4ish. I woke up feeling better and went out to the "porch" area.

Little did I know that my small group (Emily, Kristin, Karen, Carolyn, and Lindee) had gone on a walk and prayed for my recovery. I walked out of our room at the same time as they were getting back. They were very excited. :)

Yolanda and I

Kristin and I talked about what the cause of my nausea was. We ruled out dehydration (I was very well hydrated on this trip) and food, and then figured out that I had taken my malaria meds the night before. Ashley had mentioned that they had made her sick before. Plus, Christina said that where we were we didn't really need them. So, I didn't take it again after that. :) I felt progressively better after this point, although it was gradual. Yay God!

I again took supper easy and opted for crackers. :) The evening was very low key. The plan was for us to watch a movie with the kids. I could handle that!

We watched a movie called The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry. It was an American film, so it was filmed in English. Except we watched it with the Spanish dubbing and English subtitles. That was really funny to me! It was a good movie, very faith based.

I had missed "Porch Time" the night before as I had gone to bed early, but I was there this night! I was one of the "where did you see Jesus" moments (my recovery after they prayed for me). That made me feel pretty special!

We went to bed a little bit early, as we had to leave early for church.

In Christ,
Laura