Thanksgiving Day

Guatemalans obviously don't celebrate America's Thanksgiving Day but all the American missionaries got together to indulge in a feast. It was a super fun day of no work and a lot of eating.

The dessert table.

At home, I typically carve the turkey and it worked out for me to do it today as well. Rosa helped and she is getting the stuffing out of the turkey in the picture. It was delicious.

Stirring the gravy

Excercise Class

 I love this part of my job. We meet and workout 2 hours 3X a week. If that sounds like a lot of exercise, it does to me too. Somehow it has been really easy to do each week. We have really enjoyed working out together.

This teenager is very special to me. I met her 2 years ago working in the baby house. She has been very helpful during class to help translate for me when I get tongue tied. We also hang out on non-dance days to work on new dances.

This girl is my hip-hop princess. She loves to dance and she does a great job learning dances quickly. She always comes to class dressed for the part.

We play a game called Cross the Ocean. 2 people, known as SHARKS, stand in the middle of the room and yell, "cross the ocean". All the other people try to run across the room without getting tagged by the sharks. If you get tagged, you sit where you get tagged and use your arms to tag other people. I love this game and the girls do too.  Suckers are optional for this game.

This is me reminding the girls of the moves in the dance. It seems they don't care about my review session but notice the kid hugging the fan. That makes me feel good about the intensity of the class.

I like to use things in the room to help us workout if possible. This keeps the class interesting. Today, kid size chairs were in the room so we did leg lifts over the chairs.

We stretch at the beginning and end of the class. These girls don't seem to mind stretching which is a miracle.

This stage has many purposes here at CB. It is used by the pastor, graduation, and by me so everyone can see me shimmy in-time with the music. On another topic, the younger girls are invited to join our workout for the first hour but teenagers only for the 2nd hour of exercise.

Guilt Released

Read the last post before you start reading this one.... Since my last post, I have chatted with the houseparents about my understanding of my responsibilities here at CB. As briefly discussed in the previous post, I thought a source of my guilt could have been because their isn't any accountability here. To put this in perspective of my life, working in the public school system for 6 years I always had someone (principal, parents, coworkers)  asking me to prove that my methods of teaching fit each child's personal needs. There is no accountability here and I was struggling with that reality. Therefore I have kind of created my own accountability system in regards to my schedule. This week I haven't allowed there to be any room for confusion of where I am or what I will be doing at anytime of the day by telling the house parents my schedule daily. The house father seems to receive the news well each day and the house mom seems to be trusting in her husbands judgement and leadership of the house.
Side note...I love watching their marriage. They show me how a christian marriage should be lived out everyday. I am really thankful to get to see this everyday and the wife isn't afraid to talk about the struggles of marriage. I have been blessed with this aspect of my experience here.
Secondly, I talked to the director in-charge of the missionaries schedules. She has asked me if I would be willing to teach an additional dance/fitness class on Tuesday and Thursday nights. That gave me a wonderful opportunity to sit down with her and hash out a revised schedule that she will present to the family. My hope is this new schedule will clear the air and clean-up any confusion I had or the house parent had about my responsibilities here at CB. The director and I had a wonderful chat and I was able to openly share ALL of my thoughts and concerns. Praise the Lord!!! I felt the guilt released after this conversation.
The revised plan is for me to work at the baby house in the mornings and teach the dance/fitness classes in the afternoons and evenings. I will still work the night shift at the baby house every 5 days because I feel that is very helpful for the family.
This is another side note but you may be wondering what the night shift entails. I sleep at the baby house on the couch and when a child cries or needs medicine, I am the one to handle the situation. As most of you know that have kids, some nights there isn't a lot of disturbance in your sleep and other nights your awake with the kids all night long. It is the same way here even though we have 13 kids living in the house. The next morning the person that took the night shift gets a break from 9:00-1:00 to sleep in their own beds. Not to shabby.
Thanks for your prayers and I would appreciate you continuing to pray that this family receives the new schedule well. I pray the Lord will use me during this time I have here at CB to change kids lives.

Guilt

The one thing that is taking up a lot of my time and a lot of space in my mind is guilt. I don't know when it started but I am now aware that I don't feel like I'm doing enough. My responsibilities here at CB are split between helping at the baby house and teaching a fitness class. I am still taking Spanish classes on my weekends off so I try to study as much as possible as well.
At this point, it is really tempting to write a list of all the things I am doing here at Casa Bernabe to prove to you that I am not just sitting around taking naps all day. I am not going to make that list because I would be falling into the same trap that occurs several times a day. Trying to prove to myself that I am making a difference and wanting to make sure the people here know I am doing what I am supposed to be doing.
The reality is there is no accountability here. The house parents to my knowledge won't be reporting my help or lack of help to the director. The director won't be reporting to Eternal (my church at home). We aren't collecting data on the children's progress to  determine if my help is affecting their growth and development. It is obvious I teach a dance class because I teach it in the main commons area. There is no data to prove that I work or to prove my work here is beneficial. Therefore I can't prove to myself or others that I am doing anything.
 Ok. I can't prove that I am doing anything so on to my next thought. What is the source of this feeling? Guilt is typically something felt when you sin. In this case, I am not aware of my sin if that is the root of this issue. During this time of feeling guilty, I have been wondering if I am being used in the best ways for how God has prepared me for this adventured. I know from experience that sometimes periods of discomfort, even guilt, helps you move in a different direction. Another idea of the source of my guilt, is that there is an unspoken problem between myself and the house parents of the baby house. They don't like that I am teaching the fitness class because I'm not working/playing with the kids for about 3 hours each day.
When I first arrived, the house parents agreed to have me in their home with the understanding that I would be gone several hours a day to teach the fitness class. I believe living it out this plan is difficult for them because they are used to a missionary working with them all day long (7:30am-7:10pm). That isn't the reality they have with me working with them.
Regardless of the root of my guilt or the problems the houseparents may have with my work schedule, I would appreciate your prayers for God to intervene.