POST by FRAN: My 2 cents worth

The other day I received a text message from a friend of mine, it said:

I cry for not having the brand of shoes that I want, but I saw a man giving thanks to God for having feet. I ask God 'why didn't you give me blue eyes?' but I saw a blind man say 'THANK-YOU FOR A BEAUTRIFUL NEW DAY!' I get mad when I have to walk because I get tired, meanwhile a boy makes his pace happier in his wheel chair. I get lazy when I have to get out of bed, meanwhile others are fighting in a hospital bed attached to a machine, the ones that your life depends on. Always give thanks to God for what we have, it's not a  burden, it isn't hard to say 'thank-you'!

I really thought about this, and it came to me; the poor don't really have much but each other, and the rich have more than just each other and they sometimes take their richness for granted.

I've seen that richer families usually fight and want more and more, and poorer families love and care for each other. Here in Nicaragua I've seen that the father often has a drinking problem, but the rest of the family stays together.

 

I go to a poorer area in Nicaragua on Saturday mornings to pray for the families that live in little houses that the government built.

On one occasion a team of 78 "gringos" (as the Nica people call white people here) from the US came to our little Saturday morning activity. They ALL had the newest pair of shoes and the best phones and cameras and the best clothing brands and hair accessories. They were really nice people but they all had the BEST everything!

The place we went to was smelly and unpleasant, more than what they were expecting: cooking outside over a fire with a wooden homemade spoon, starving skinny dogs sniffing all over the place, washing clothes outside by hand and cleaning the dishes in the same water. It was very different to what they knew and to what they thought they were coming to.

I was placed as a translator for one group of about 10 people, they were young and excited, but all of them looked fresa (posh).

The first house that we went to one of the visiting girls started to cry. At the second house another of the visiting girls started to cry. By the sixth house 5 of the girls were in tears. I was surprised at this because I've been seeing people in extreme poverty for about 4 years, whereas they have only been here in Nicaragua for a week or so. Some of them have been on a few missions trips, but other than that this really was an impact on most of them.

I got a huge shock when I walked into one house and saw a pretty woman on a little old laptop. That just showed me that the family would try so hard to help out with their daughters' studies and as a family there CAN be change, BIG CHANGES, but it takes work. That day I felt proud, not for myself but for the family helping their young daughter. When I asked to pray for them the mother said "actually I would like to pray for YOU."

POST by FRAN: Holy Fracturations!!!

Tuesday, 8th of May 2012 is a milestone for Billy. Something painstaking and exciting happened Tuesday in the late afternoon.

TAPA TAPA TAP is the sound of the keyboard on the laptop. I was sitting in the living room with my Dad, Lorenzy my sister, and Jocasta (a woman who came from Australia to help with the School). We were just hanging around and enjoying having the house quiet while the little boys were still outside. Mum was in her room almost asleep.

The boys were climbing trees and running around, getting all their energy out of their energetic bodies. These special moments, when the boys are all outside, only last about five minutes! The boys eventually came rushing through the back door into… yep… the KITCHEN!

But today only Sezni, Rafi and Brian came inside, nobody knew where Billy or Oliver were, not even the boys. We soon found out

¨OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!¨ The noise came from the little avocado tree outside. 

I got up and ran to the back door were I saw Oliver running over and he said ¨Billy fell down.¨ I told him to bring him to me (because I´m too lazy to do it myself), when the boys got back Billy floppily held up his arm for me to see, it looked like a brown road with a ditch at the end by his wrist, like a rock had been implanted into his arm. I picked up Billy and tried to keep his arm level and still but that is very difficult when one is running!

¨DAD!!!! I think Billy broke his arm!¨ I exclaimed with Billy still in my arms. ¨What?¨ was the lazy reply I received from my Dad. I held Billy´s arm in front of Dad´s face ¨look¨ Only Dad´s eyes looked up at me and then back to the laptop screen (he goes to a different planet when he is on the computer). He then realized that Billy´s arm looked different.

Dad yelled ¨we have to go to hospital!¨ As soon as Mum heard ¨hospital¨ she was up. She took Billy from me and was in the car like lightning. She was ready in the car with everything but her shoes and a sling for Billy! I ran into the house to get the sling and ran back to the car. I kicked off the shoes from my own feet and threw the two items into the car and ran to open the big, green gate.

Dad ran outside in his ´gym clothes´ which is a T-shirt with very large arm holes and short shorts. He jumped 

into the car, started the engine and reversed out from under a little car shelter. He reached the big, green gate, turned right and sped off.

Jocasta stayed inside, Oliver and Rafi were playing with a game on the porch. Sezni and Brian were both riding bikes and Yader, Lorenzy and I were sitting on the street outside of our house.  We stayed there for about three hours or until it started to get dark.

I walked back inside with Yader and Lorenzy and found all the boys crowded around together. Jocasta was making dinner, so Lorenzy went in the kitchen to help her. We ate in silence as we dwelled on the day´s events. MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH was all you could hear as we chewed our food. At 7PM Mum and Dad came home from the hospital.

Dad came in first and said “lorenzy if you haven’t made dinner I’m going to… Never mind.”  Then Mum and Billy came in, Mum came in with a sigh to show that she was tired and Billy came in with a cast on his delicate arm and with a soda can in his other hand.

All three of them sat down and Lorenzy bought them each a plate of food. Everyone was happy to see Billy all well and smiling again. Billy has to remain in the hot, sweaty cast for four weeks, but he loves all the attention!

POST by FRAN: Highs & Lows

We are now eleven in the Brien family; Mum, Dad, I, Lorenzy-Ella, Sezni, Rafael, Billy, Yader, Jocasta, and recently an eight year-old named Brian and a five year-old named Oliver. Billy, Oliver and Brian go to the Capital Edge Community School or as we like to say “CECS”.

Yader works here at Capital Edge Community Centre, and he is the director of the center. Jocasta works in the school with the two year-olds in the creche. Dad stays home all day with us children and works at CECS. He also homeschools lorenzy, Sezni, Rafael and me. Mum goes to work at NCA (Nicaragua Christian Academy) and will finish working there in June.

Mum earns barely enough to be able to maintain our rather large family, and Dad is always on the computer to see if anyone wants to sponsor a student from CECS. He is usually on the computer from 4:00P.M until 3:00A.M!

My parents also have to pay for electricity, internet, water and we have to go grocery shopping for food. Sometimes we would go without water or electricity because we weren’t able to pay the bills! Once we went a whole week without water!

Before my Dad worked at an American school that is here for the rich Nicaraguans and he got paid more than my Mum did, so Mum would sometimes take us out to special places like the movies or to McDonald’s and we would have so much fun together.

Then our family grew a little bit and Dad decided to stop working at the American school so we don’t go out so often, because there is not so much income anymore.

We kids get a little bit of money by selling avocadoes and mangoes. It is fun, but hard because it’s a lot of work! It’s annoying though, because Sezni wants to buy a Nintendo Wii and so we haven’t spent any of the money just because we are saving up for a Wii!

It was a blessing that we were able to buy this wonderful house, because we were able to start CECS and the endless Friday night swimming with youth from around the community! It’s a lot of fun having the pool because of the never ending heat; everyone wants to swim in the pool!

I love it when the community comes to swim on Friday nights and for taekwondo time and stuff like that, because I have so many friends. I never knew that I would make so many friends within my community.

We really WERE brought here to help with the community, and a part of helping them is by making friendships. After you have made friends, everything else, like sharing God’s love, gets so much easier.

We have been living like this for at least four months and sometimes it’s hard, like with police that only pull you over to get bribes, and sometimes it’s a real blessing, like when we were invited to a Quince party or when I was invited to go see two new born babies! I live life how I’m supposed to. I love it.