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Travel Day: 7
On Ground Day: 5
Father’s Day 2008

I’ll just skip right over breakfast and lunch. The highlight today was the sports.

Normally the kids go play basketball and soccer after the afternoon program until dinner. Today it rained. And I mean it RAINED. The town was soaked and the mud that we’ve become so accustomed to walking through (and having all over us) was amplified by an immeasurable magnitude. While we were cleaning up lunch, Gustavo and Carlos (two of the younger guys on Rey’s crew, both about 18) asked Bryan if four of us gringo guys would play soccer with them in the mud. This was eventually extended to all of us, as many as wanted and girls included as well. I wasn’t keen on the idea, because I like to be dry. And clean. And dry. And not uselessly exhausted by dinner. And dry.

Knowing there was no way I was going to remain dry if anyone was playing anything in the mud, I went back to the church and changed into my swimsuit. Good thing. We got owned in gringo vs. Ecuadorian tug-of-war (twice, no less) and then th kids did all of the games from the other night… just in the mud. It started raining even harder for a while there and mud was everywhere. By the time it stopped, the games had dissolved into a giant mud fight with everyone involved. Not wearing a shirt, I looked clean even when I was covered in mud, and I got taken down about six times. Jonathan and a couple of the guys even carried me to a huge puddle and just dropped me in.

We took down Chet, and even Reynaldo and by the end, whether you were gringito, Ecuadorian national, or Huaorani, everyone looked the same: COVERED in mud. We looked around at the end and realized Fabian was nowhere to be found. I think he heard the first hint of mud and vanished back to the church to sleep or play with the parrot. Pastors!

We decided the best way to get clean would be to trek back to the Curaray River and Palm Beach (though the beach itself was actually fully underwater at that point). A long and muddy hike later we were back at the river, and all able to just jump in (nobody brought boots or other “stuff,” thank God). The current is intense, and I now understand why Ed McCully’s body was never recovered. Even swimming against the current, which doesn’t look like much from shore, it was very hard to even stay in the same place.

We got all the mud off, but entirely missed the “shore” downstream where we needed to get out. It was really stressful there for a minute, especially trying to make sure the girls (who could not touch the bottom and who also had a really hard time getting to the side to grab something) were all alright. We found a place to climb out, with Chet basically dragging most of us out of the water, but Teddy and Bryan had to get Danielle and Nicole out even farther downstream when they couldn’t get back up to us.

It is something I’ll never forget, and every one of us had a different experience there. But as we trekked back through the mud (requiring another shower when we reached “home” again) the question again arose “Where the heck is Fabian?” He always seems to miss these mishaps. He’s probably better off.

We made it just in time for serving dinner and everyone pitched in with dishes again to “git ‘er done” and get to the program. We were first up tonight, and did the songs we’d planned on yesterday. It was very cool to see how into it the whole camp was, and how appreciative they were, especially since we were hard to hear with a plugged-in guitar but basically no amplification of the voices. Everyone joined in when we sang “Lord I Lift Your Name On High” because the kids know it in Spanish.

We stayed for a bit of the award ceremony and end-of-camp activities, but we had debrief to do ourselves and knew it would take a long time on the last night, so we took off early. Debrief was “Pass the Staff” (except it was actually “Pass Chet’s Machete”). The idea is that you take the “staff” and give it to someone else in the circle and say something positive about them. I got a chance to pass the machete to Sarah, Nicole, and Fabian and jump in while Chet, and Jerry had it. (My comment to Fabian was- in short- that we tend to wonder where the heck he is, but he picked a project and stuck it out. If he wasn’t at the church, he was in the kitchen doing those benches and it was a testament to his perseverance that I really admired). It was passed to everyone at least once and everyone had some really great things said. I don’t think anyone was really flattered out of their minds. Quite the opposite, most of us seemed to feel (I know I did) that what everyone says was just “who we are.” But that was the point. Just being who we are, we’re unique and special and each have our own God-given abilities and personalities that compliment the team as a whole and it was really great to know how much we can be appreciated.

It was a muddy day, but it was fun for everyone in that town, and a bonding experience for thirteen gringos and a pastor.

This is a thought from today. I separated it from the rest of today’s entry for emphasis and to differentiate the seriousness here.

Dayuma is a Huaorani woman. You can read her history right here, but the long and short of it is that she’s the reason we’re all here.

She taught Rachel Saint Wao and learned Spanish from her. She also speaks Quechua and some English phrases. After Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Pete Flemming, Ed McCully, and Roger Youderian were killed, it was Dayuma who brought Elisabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint to the Hauorani. She was the first Christian Huaorani and Rachel Saint credited her as being “the preacher” to the tribe and beginning the transformation of the Huaorani from possibly the most violent tribe in the world to one of the most peaceful.

She could be living in Quito, or in the States. She is known all over the world as a Christian leader and the Rosetta Stone of the Huaorani. And here she is in Toñamparé, her home, with her people, hobbling along on a stick making necklaces for gringos. Four feet of concrete, trilingual, and content.

So before lunch started being served today, I found myself sitting next to her on the bench outside the kitchen. She began to speak to me, and I don’t even know if it was in Spanish, Wao, or Quechua. All I know is I didn’t understand. She smiled at me and asked a couple questions, but decided pretty fast I was either a very strange gringo or I didn’t have a clue what she was saying. She did look at my water bottle, and I held it up and unscrewed it and asked (in English) if she wanted some. She caught the gist and took a long drink.

And that was that. Soon I found myself putting spoons in bowls and bowls on tables and I’m not really sure where she wandered off to.

This woman handed us her entire culture. I gave her a drink. Can that even begin to repay her?

Travel Day: 6
On Ground Day: 4

I’ll give you a break today and not write six billion paragraphs. This is mostly because my revelations for the day were a lot more personal, and because even though we got to watch some sports and talk and play with kids a lot more than we have been, there were a lot less events crammed in today.

Morning was the usual: Fabian singing, devo, breakfast.

After breakfast the morning was a get-to-know people sesssion. We split into three groups of two parejas each. Dana/Bryan/Matt/Angela, Teddy/Nicole/Jerry/Necia, and Lane/Danielle/Sarah/me. The idea was to tell the group, particularly our pareja just our life story, our family, our walk with God; a testimony of sorts. Sarah and Danielle were away from the group when this was decided and Sarah was being a nurse, fixing up a really nasty cut a Huaorani girl had gotten. You could just see the joy in her eyes as she got to do what she does and what she loves. When the first ten minutes of our alotted half an hour had gone by, we thought we’d get to get started, but we were commandeered to go pick lemons.

It wasn’t quite the trek that the banana hunters would take later on (I’m really glad for the sake of dryness that I wasn’t on that excursion) but it was a little wet and muddy. When we got to the lemon tree it was raining, but fortunately the appropriate way to pick them is from inside the hanging branches, so we were totally covered. Unfortunatly, we were not warned that the large chunks of dead leaves and dirt in the branches were ant nests. And these are mean ants. They bite immediately and it hurts. I had three get on my arm and suffered several bites from each before I could get them off. I think they just have really strong pincers because I only squeezed one of the bites, and though it looked like some venom came out, all of them stopped burning fairly quickly. Crushing the doggone ants is the hardest part. You can break the things in half and the head half will still be biting your hand.

We took them back to the kitchen and then finally (about the time we were originally supposed to be finished) started on the testimonies. Its funny how a consistent topic in these kind of conversations throughout all twelve of us has been trust issues, and yet out of the four of us who had been strangers at the beginning of training, we talked and heard about fears, issues, and stumbles amidst faith, family, friends and relationships. Lots about relationships. A certain superlative I got in our senior yearbook was even mentioned. Oh well.

Overall it was a really great experience. I think it let us even have some revelations about ourselves as we verbally, externally processed our own faith journeys for our pareja and friends. And ended in prayer.

We made it back to lunch really late. The kids were already lining up, and it was really good that Dana, Necia and Jerry had gotten back on time to set up. I did help serve for a while, and when all the plates were passed out, I felt like Milton in Office Space (“The ratio of cake to people…”). Dana, fortunately, is awesome (and not a big eater) and shared her gigantic bowl with me, so I got lunch even though we actually ran out of food (EDIT: This was the only meal all 8 days that Roberto did not personally serve. I think he was working on dinner already. That man can stretch some food).

After we were relieved for lunch dishes afterward, I discovered that I literally had an ant in my pants. One of those monster ones from the lemon tree. Tons of fun, let me tell you, especially when he gets to bite you several times before you realize what it is. But it turned out okay, because I went back to the church to get Chet’s bug bite/anti-itch stuff and it began raining just as I was walking in the door, greeted by Teddy and Lane. It downpoured for maybe forty-five minutes, and so while we were stuck there, the three of us just got to nap in our own beds while everyone else was stuck in the kitchen or under the covering in town. And since the ant bites are more of an immediate than an ongoing problem, it turned out that the little guy gave me a little extra sleep. Too bad I crushed him under my thumb. Oh well, little ant. Maybe you taught me not to be so vindictive as well. You’ll never know.

Back just in time to set up/eat/clean up dinner and get in some practice. We were asked to sing for the program, so we had three songs prepared (Lord I Lift Your Name on High, Every Move I Make, and Open The Eyes of My Heart) and I was relieved from dishes to practice while all 12 other gringos and Fabian washed them all in record time. When we finally headed to the program, I’m not sure if we were just a few minutes too late or if we had misunderstood the request. But whatever the case, the entire program was a play in several acts with all of the South American crew involved. It was a Share-the-Gospel message as well as an anti-alcohol message that seemed pretty intense for some of the younger ones. Rey came out at the end and gave a straight up sermon about alcoholism and just slammed the secular part of Huaorani culture. Even Sarah just started giving me the highlights in her translation after a while (EDIT: It was Monday before I really began to realize how important a message that was and why Rey felt so strongly, and why those two topics were woven together the way they were. I only discuss it briefly in the post, but see my writing from Monday, June 16).

Debrief was Jerry and Necia and they had us write down 10 essential characteristics of life. It is a hard exercise to explain, and took us a little while to catch on ourselves, but it really made us think about what we need, and what we hope we’ve gained from our time with the Huaorani. We each said our number one from our list and could talk about it if we wanted. Mine was Faith. Necia’s was Brokenness, but the one from her list that stuck out to me was Surrender. When we split into parejas, Sarah and I each stole a couple of each other’s, and I’m sure that this is something I could do all the time and maybe have two the same (definitely one) and new ones depending on the stage of my life and my walk with God at the time. I may even do that periodically to see what they would be.

What would your top ten essentials be?

Travel Day: 5
On Ground Day: 3

Devo this morning was really cool. I sat next to Sarah, which meant I actually got it translated today, including when some of the Ecuadorian crew got up and spoke about different experiences with the kids, some of them learning and growing, and a couple of them even accepting Christ. Going hand-in-hand with last night, it really made me feel connected to the camp aspect that I’m not necessarily right there for all the time. Rey also had a pretty powerful message just for those of us on the two teams (which I’m really starting to consider one team now that we’ve been working together with them so much).

After scripture we had a traditional Ecuadorian breakfast. For the uninitiated, that means sweet (sort of) bread and café con leche (coffee with milk, though it’s much more milk and delicious). There was also two kinds of cake, but I just can’t handle that that early. During the devotional and breakfast there was a short rain shower, just enough to get us a little wet and seem to cleanse the whole place a little. There’s the recurring theme for the day. Things being washed away.

Breakfast for the kids was super smooth. We had it prepared, set up and out for them, then did it again for the second batch and had the whole thing cleaned up before the program even started.

We got over to the program ourselves and were able to sing a lot of the Spanish songs. The Hudson Taylor story continued and then the game for the session was a sort of scavenger hunt. The whole camp has been divided into two teams. Both are lions (one is named león, lion in Spanish, and the other is named lion in Wao, the Huaorani language). We tell them apart because one has a red flag and the other a blue flag, so in true old-school camp style, they’re the red and blue teams. EVERYTHING is a competition. Even who can be louder singing songs and chants before the blessings each mealtime. The scavenger hunt was pretty intense. The WHOLE team would have to run outside and grab something, say an object a counselor outside was holding for them, or go tag one of the dogs (the Huaorani dogs are of even more interest than other dogs or even Ecuadogs here. Ask me about it some time) or something like that. Whoever brought it back first won a point. Finally, to Chet’s total surprise, Reynaldo called out from the stage that he needed a “pelo de barba de Ricardo” (probably bad Spanish there. But basically he called for one of Chet’s beard hairs- incidentally, his real name is Richard. Never put that together before).

One hundred fifty Huaorani kids swarmed Chet and pulled his (sweet) goatee. He tried batting them off at first but just gave in eventually. There’s no escaping Huaorani kids (EDIT: After this, Rey had it coming to him. See tomorrow’s post about mud wrestling… the Christian kind).

Before lunch while the kids were doing devotionals, we headed out to pass out some tracts to houses in the community. Granted, they were in Spanish, but ever since Cameron’s story about the group throwing them from their car (sorry- I don’t have the retelling ability to explain that one to anyone other than last year’s Christ Episcopal Ecuador team), I just have this bad connotation for tracts.

We split into groups and I ended up with Chet, Toca (the Vice President), Danielle and another Huaorani man. We were told we’d make a stop at Toca’s house to drink some chicha and then be on our way. The whole point of this thing was to just talk to some of the Huaorani because part of their obligation to the camp was that each household was supposed to supply a day’s worth of Yuca. We never made it to any other houses. We watched Toca’s wife and daughter(?) make chicha and drank some ourselves. Chet said he’s had some that will just knock you out, but most of it is not allowed to ferment very long. This stuff was pretty fresh and was more like Sprite than anything. You could feel it going down a little bit, but its less intense than wine. Funny that the only alcohol other than Communion that I’ve consumed in the last year has been champagne and chicha, both in Ecuador.

So after that, we went to pull more Yuca. I wasn’t exactly excited, but I was at least prepared. I pulled one stalk and Danielle and I cleaned most of that. Between us and Chet and the Huaorani we had it packed up in no time. The President grabbed the bag and hauled it out this time. I was very grateful. We made a brief stop at Toca’s on the way back in to the town to collect leg of jungle pig (seriously. A leg of jungle pig) and a bag of grapefruit, which I carried Yuca-sack style back into town. The President beat me by a mile, but I didn’t stop or take it off or slow down too much. But I really couldn’t breathe when I finally got back to the kitchen. It’s a long walk down the runway with a bag of jungle grapefruit on your back.

We were the last group back and lunch was mostly set up when I got there we ate, and were relieved again for lunch. We decided as a group that because of the sheer amount of work the kitchen crew does, the sports people will relieve us of dishes, however, we’re taking our break/quiet time/devotional time in the mornings now so that we can help the relief crew get back to the sports on time and have a bit of down time just before they stand and ref back-to-back soccer and basketball games in the sun. That way, neither group has to work for four hours straight.

The girls went up to take a shower at the “shower”. Jerry and I headed back “home” to the church and took more of a bath in the stream down from us. That was really great. We didn’t have to go far, and you don’t have to be totally covered in freezing water all at once, though it does feel really good when you’ve been pulling Yuca all morning.

Dinner went smoothly, but we were told we might run out of water for washing up afterwards. I’m not exactly sure how the small hose that brings a little stream of water to the kitchen actually works, or from which water source it is diverted. I’m not even sure how they knew it was a possibility it might not be getting any water to us. All I know is that they were right. Fortunatly there is a big oil-barrel-sized-and-shaped plastic container where the hose is placed all day when not in use. It stays pretty full most of the time with clean water and you can dip a pitcher in for water when someone else is using the hose. It does get empty pretty fast when it’s used frequently though, and takes forever to fill back up because there is very little pressure in the hose even when it works properly. I was afraid we’d run out of water before we were finished with the cups, but sort of like 1 Kings 17, the container did not run dry until the hose began to work again.

We went to the program when we were finished. It was fantastic. Renaldo and company did a skit about giving your heart to God for the kids. I know it was aimed at the campers, but it hit me really hard. It was a wordless skit, and the gist of it was that a missionary (Bryan) told an unbeliever (Rey) the Good News. He scoffed at it at first, but then He began to feel it in his heart. They pounded a mic offstage, heartbeat style to make this super evident. He went to go have a beer with his friends, and they could hear the heartbeat. He finally took his heart out of his chest and showed them (symbolizing showing them the Love of God) and they all laughed and wouldn’t give him a can of beer unless he gave one of them his heart. So he made the trade, but they simply tossed his heart around and stomped it into the ground and spat on it. It stopped beating, and they left with Rey on the ground. He tried to revive his heart, and finally lifted it up to God and it began to beat again. Then the process started again with Rey trying to impress a girl (Carolina, 18 one of the members of his ministry who is straight out of high school and did a fantastic job with the girls for whom she was a counselor). He gave her his heart and she held onto it for a while and held his hand, but then another guy came along (Teddy) and she went off with him. He begged for his heart back, but as she held it out, Teddy slammed his hand down and smooshed it with a loud CLAP and walked off with the girl in tow.

At this point I just stopped watching (not out of disrespect, I just had the thing figured out at that point) and listened to the music and prayed. It really drove home for me how much we give ourselves (and by that I mean how much I give myself) to things other than God, and that only He can revive my heart.

I don’t really remember anything else until I found myself sitting in our room again for debrief. Lane and Danielle had us throw out an event, but they didn’t make everyone say anything. I was (unsurprisingly) one of the silent ones along with two other people. I did get a lot out of what everyone else said, but I was mostly just waiting to talk to Sarah about the skit. It’s become basically the high point of our debrief and a great way to end it in splitting into parejas to go in depth. I don’t know if we were just on the same wavelength throughout the program or if she just had me pegged when I didn’t speak up with the whole group, but she talked about the skit before I could even get the words out of my mouth. I love it when things just fall into place.

A fantastic conversation, prayer and half a Snickers each later, it was time for bed. I think the last four days have really been a cross-section of a short-term mission for me, both on the surface and deeper. I’ve had a day of devotion, a day of work, a day of service and a day of learning. Not that each of those things aren’t happening all the time, but one just stood out for me each day, and I’m finding myself really grateful for Sarah, Rey, Roberto and Dana particularly over the course of this week for helping that along.

Thoughts:The quote that is the title of this entry came from Roberto. He said that to Bryan, talking about us in the kitchen, and Bryan told me after debrief when it had been mentioned that we feel like we’ve accomplished something at the end of the day. We didn’t set out to impress anyone, nor am I bragging about it now. It’s just that I find it interesting how much he appreciates us when I feel like he’s the hardest working guy in this camp, and its because of his attitude and the way he pours himself into his work that I think we get so motivated when we are around him.Secondly I mentioned yesterday what an amazing job Rey’s group has done and is doing here. Dana put it very bluntly over our dishwashing conversation: she said that a lot of times we think “Oh, we’ll just be here and do what we can and they’ll never know the difference if it’s not perfect because they’re just the jungle kids.” But these guys have just poured themselves into every aspect of this camp. The actual VBS part of it, the decorations, the food, the games, the devotionals, the relationships with the kids, the music. They aren’t cheating them out of the experience, and in fact I’ve never seen a camp or VBS put on so well anywhere in my entire life. That’s a bunch with true servants’ hearts.

Travel Day: 3
On Ground Day: 1

We woke up early again. Early for me anyway. 6:45. Breakfast was roughly at 7:30 and we were supposed to be there to help set up 15 minutes before the meal. Note to self: we need to wake up earlier tomorrow.

We were able to basically set the last of the tables. The “two” tables I saw last night are actually three on each side pushed together in a long line, Hogwarts style. The original kitchen crew (you’ll see why I say “original” in a little while) felt a little bit useless as our drinkable oatmeal and more of the lemon drop juice stuff was already cooked and ready to go. We put it out for the kids, and not long after we got there they all showed up. We filled probably four tables between Rey’s crew, the kids and the Gringos. We did get to clean up a little bit, collecting all the dishes.

After that the kids went to the program. I’m not sure what the building is usually used for, maybe storage, barn-style. It has a stage (although that may not be its purpose all the time), but I assume that the church (which is at the other end of the runway… see this semi-accurate map) is the usual meeting place. At any rate, Reynaldo and company went all-out decorating this building to be the main gathering place for the camp/VBS. While everyone was headed that way, Chet talked to Rey and came to the conclusion that we needed to redistribute the jobs.

It was just about the same as before, except we only needed two floaters and plus two on generator duty (moving it across from the meeting building to storage and making sure both that one and the one at the kitchen were running and full of gas). Teddy and Lane got that job, with Chet now with Sarah as floaters, Dana and Fabian with the remaining kitchen crew and sports left the same. We were also informed that the gringos needed to be at the kitchen no later than 30 minutes before each meal.

We split up to go to our designated places, meaning Jerry, Necia, Dana, Danielle, Fabian and I headed back to the kitchen. Turns out that Roberto, one of Rey’s crew is a chef and will be doing all the food. We basically get to facilitate that, which is a lot harder than it initially seemed. We finished cleaning up from breakfast, which meant washing all the dishes outside with two sponges, a little bit of soap and cold river water. We really didn’t feel this was sanitary at first, but Dana pointed out that this is so different from how it is normally done (maybe a river-water rinse) that it should be fantastic. That didn’t really ease my worries about level of sanitation for gringos.

While we were inside setting up for the next meal, Roberto determined that the floor needed to be evened out. So with a shovel for the dirt floor and a machete and a hammer for the benches, work began. As Necia put it, “You can remodel a dirt floor.” It was tough going, and Necia used those Montana farm girl skills to totally show me up and shoveling the very hard floor, chopping it up where it was high and moving and packing dirt to where it was low, along with using more, slightly damper ground from outside to fill in the holes made by the bench legs in the ground.

Fabian and a Huaorani man who I never saw again (probably because we got progressively busier and less attentive to my surroundings as the day went on rather than because he disappeared) began hacking away at the legs of the benches, flipped over on the table. I thought they were just going to even them out be making all of the battered legs the same length again. I even attempted to help for a while, but the Huaorani carpenter figured out how useless I was pretty fast as I chopped away at the bench with the machete. He took it off in two hacks, Ken Jefferson masonry style, sending me back to Necia and the shovel.

About then Chet came in and asked if we wanted to go get some Yucca. Sure. Why not? So Toca took us back to his house. On the way there we discovered that he is the Vice President of Toñamparé and the quiet, unassuming young man walking with us was the President. They were really cool and took us in to Toca’s and told us all about the different plants and trees growing around his place and about his 7 kids. We tried a little bit of Chicha and sat in hammocks for a while and then finally went out. We trekked through a long, winding path through the jungle back to where the Yucca grows. We learned the difference between 1, 3, 5 and 8-month old Yucca just from the stalks and branches growing out the the ground. Each different age of Yucca is used for different things, cooking, making chicha, making stronger chicha, etc.

It’s a LOT of work to pull it out. They chop it with a machete, then clear out the ground around it. Rocking it back and forth loosens the roots from the ground and keeps you from pulling up the stalk with nothing on it. Finally, you yank it out. If you are a gringo, you are lucky to get about five average-sized Yucca with it. If you’re Huaorani, you can pull up a whole plant with maybe twenty of them hanging on and none in the ground.

Then you get to clean them. That means scraping the mud off with a semi-dry stick until it’s more slick than crumbly on the outside. All of it goes into a basket made of fibers that is placed on the back with a strap on your head, above the forehead and below the middle of your head. It is HEAVY. I really wondered at first who came up with this system of carrying Yucca and why they thought it was the best idea. I learned after they stuck it on me that at least this way you have two hands free for balance and you can see in front of you to walk over logs and through mud, mud and more mud. When we were about halfway back and had switched off Jerry to me to Necia, Chet said “Come on guys, one of them can take it all the way back without breaking a sweat. And the women do this.” He also semi-jokingly told Necia (who trekked the farthest with it) to be careful, that was a good way to find a husband. “She’s cute and she can carry Yucca!”

We were hot, sweaty and exhausted by the time we began sweeping sawdust from the tables back in the kitchen (with the same broom used for the dirt floor) and then pouring water onto them from a pitcher and using our hands to wash them as best we could. Then we set the tables with cups and spoons and took bowls full of food similar to last night’s to each place as the kids came in. It was a form of organized chaos, and with kids coming in all morning from various other parts of the jungle and other Huaorani communities, we filled all six tables this time.

More dishes at the end were not what we wanted to see, and it felt like time for bed even though it was around 12:30. We had basically hiked for Yucca, set up lunch, had lunch and taken down and cleaned up lunch with nothing but a 15 minute break, and any one of those events was tiring in and of itself. Even Dana was not happy to know we’d be back there in just a couple hours and that Chet wanted to take the whole group on a hike (another hike for the kitchen crew) to “Palm Beach.”

Palm Beach is the place along the river where the five missionaries landed their plane and set up camp. It is also the place where they were killed by Huaorani from Toñamparé on January 8, 1956. It’s a long, muddy way through the jungle from Toñamparé to get there, but it was nice to kick off the boots and relax by the water. Most of the group even got in and swam in the river for a while. I decided to stay dry, which actually turned out to be a really good decision, not having anything to do with swimming, but because it gave me a chance to sit on a log and talk with Sarah for a while.

Ever since we found out we were parejas, we really haven’t had a chance to hang out, and this was a particularly good time for it since we would be leading debrief tonight. We talked about that, and about working together in general. Turns out that I love debrief and she’s really excited that it can be my thing. Translating also definitely falls to her, and we talked about sharing/designating certain other of our responsibilities with teams as well. We also discussed how to do debrief that night, both of us really wanting to stay away from the “one word” approach, feeling like we should save that for someone else who might not be as familiar with debriefs or for a day after we’d had more contact with the kids. It was Sarah who suggested and I who jumped all over the idea of “highs and lows,” one of my favorite activities personally to do as a debrief. It was an especially good one for today, I felt, because so many people had so many different experiences and sharing a range of events with emotions attached from such a range of the group felt perfect.

We took some pictures and then tromped back through the mud. I was also really glad to have a head’s-up on the debrief because I like getting to think about my answer a long time before I have to say it in front of everyone. I’ll be such a cheater this summer with my teams. Oh well, privilege of rank.

We had just enough time to put back on jeans rather than shorts and get back over to the kitchen to set up for dinner, which was spaghetti and rice with (though we didn’t know it at the time) sardines. It was good, and as Jerry remarked, it seems strange at first, but we’re going to be wanting rice with all kinds of food when we get home. Not a combination I would have planned on my own, but delicious nonetheless (though exhaustion may be a factor).

We started doing dishes outside as it began to drizzle. Bryan jumped in to help, which was awesome of him, and suddenly it was downpouring. I know we were all a little slap-happy at that point but we just laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And did dishes. And laughed. Doing dishes in the rain in the “middle of the stinking jungle!” was the most fun I’ve had since I’ve gotten here. It sounds strange, but we really just had a blast with it and talked and danced around and shivered and attempted to get everything clean and back inside to dry.

Debrief was outside under the covering in the dark. We had enough of a break in the rain that we could get over there without being soaked, but then it began to downpour again and we could barely hear each other. We went through the highs and lows and I was actually surprised at first that no one said washing dishes in the rain was their high (though I don’t think anything other than the six of us could ever understand it even with our theological discussions retold). I felt really good about it and would have been a lot happier if it hadn’t been interrupted for us to bold back to the guys’ room through another break in the rain, but was content with how it went anyway, and learned a lot from everyone else’s experiences.

We had our meeting and then split up knowing that we’d be going to a devotion with Rey’s crew at 6:30 in the morning and having to move all our stuff to the church down the runway so that the kids could use what had been our sleeping quarters. Thinking over this day, it’s amazing that that’s all it’s been. It feels longer even than days at band camp, and I’ve been having that same sensation where I go “Remember yesterday when…” only to be told that, actually, that was this morning.” I think that only my prayer during our fifteen minute break for energy and endurance has been keeping me functioning, and I hope that I can keep it up the rest of the week.

My Low: The 837th dish I washed, just before the rain.
My High: Seeing Roberto. This guy actually cooked all the food that we just set out, and during dinner, exhausted, hot, and sweaty, he took off his hat, fanned himself, looked at all the eating children… and grinned. To see that look of accomplishment on his face made me really think about what we had done today.