POST by JED

Okay one-and-all… For those of you in the know, this will come as no surprise… I am now home schooling ALL of our children. (Please fall to your knees and start interceding immediately! I’m not the most organised of folk and my wife discerns this best…) So I thought rather than just prattling on and boring everyone to tears (myself included), I thought I’d give you all the chance to hear from our children, in terms of their daily experiences, and what makes life on the mission field in Nicaragua, go tick, tick, boom…

I would like to ask one favour from you our reader. This blog entry is an activity that is a part of their schooling. We´d love to hear what you think about their writing, both in terms of the content they are writing about, their style as writers, and their technical ability. If you have a suggestion or constructive feedback, please ALWAYS mention something you liked about their writing as well. 

So here we go. I shall lead by example and complete the first posting…

Today is Saturday and what a day! I’ve spent most of it trying to recover from our slew of festivities. You see, yesterday was Rafael’s 8^th birthday and today is Francesca’s 14^th. It shouldn’t bother me of course, but for some reason it does. Francesca is our eldest child and it seems like just yesterday she was born. I understand this to be the penultimate in clichés, the ultimate being that my wedding day was the best day of my life, yet I just cannot believe that my beautiful little baby girl is now, well mostly, a young lady. Next year will be her quince años, whereby in Latin cultures, she is considered to be a woman. Rafael will always be a boy, because in Latin cultures, not unlike most other cultures, boys never really become men.

So I’m too tired. I’ve slept in too late.  I’ve drunk too much coffee and eaten too much left-over cake. But the youth of our local Church have promised quite the night. So I round up the children and encourage them into the car, my lungs are exhausted after that delicate little manoeuvre. “Thank Heavens the locals didn’t hear that blessed pint-sized moment” I think to myself.  I’m hoarse. I hear a “ding dong” coming from the house. That means there’s someone at the gate. It’s Liz! She’s back! I’m SAVED!!! Now it’s an interesting time for our family because over the years Liz has played Mum, then I’ve been Mr. Mum, then it’s gone back to dear Liz, and then I’ve had another shot, and then Liz has come back to restore order, we’ve handed it over to Francesca, then on to Aunty Bindi, then over to Gran, and back to me and pooh-wee, it can get confusing…

We jump in the car. It’s hot. It’s Nicaragua. There are seven of us and we’re all tired. The chit-chat consists of drawing invisible lines down seats between children, their fingers straying “by accident”, and sweet, gentle, parental admonishment , much like the initial cajoling  into the car. It´s a bumpy ride, like any street in Nicaragua, and we nearly butt-heads as we round the bend. And then, through the haze, we make out their figures, dark bodies against dark skies. “Hola” we call out. “Hola” is the response we receive. Our friends are Nicaraguans who don´t speak English and reside in the countryside, just outside of Managua. They´re polite, punctual, and wear high heels to Church, even if it means walking through a flood to get there.

We pull ourselves from the car and begin to talk seating/car arrangements, like all adults do, wherever they may reside in this World. But of course by the time we’re out, they’re all in. Some 25 Nicaraguans or so. And by “in” you must believe that I mean in, and around, and above, and behind. I dare not retrieve chewing gum from the glove compartment for fear of a toddler popping forth from his “seating assignment”. Liz and I look at the car, hustling and bustling like an ant heap in harvest mode.

The car creaks and sways. It creaks some more and sways some more. It moans and creeks and then rolls. Did my eyes just deceive me? Did I really just see what I saw? It couldn´t be… Of course, at a time like this you merely stand there hypothesizing, rather than taking the ten steps it would take to just make sure. But of course the car IS rolling. The locals shriek with delight! What a fun ride this will be. Of course we´re in the mountains of Nicaragua and the bottom of this monstrosity, they call a hill, is nowhere in sight. Liz does what any superhero would do. She races to the back of the car and turns her body, so that her back is adjacent to the bumper. She grips and heaves, pulling all the faces I see at the gym, especially when too much weight has been added. “What a fighter” I think to myself, as the car rolls to within one meter of where I stand. The Lord himself only knows why I was paralysed. You won´t admit it, but you would have been too.

She then spanks the bumper, like she´d spank one of her children, “naughty car” I imagine her saying. You´ve been bad, very, VERY bad… The car ignores her admonishment and continues to roll. Liz twirls around in a circle twice, seemingly unable to find the end of the car, and being pushed like a dancer being made to spin by her partner. She dashes around the corner and with another superhero-like effort flies through the window of the runaway car, still dancing, with legs kicking out through the window - the car comes to a sudden halt. “One of the locals released the handbrake not knowing it´s function.” “Oh I see…” is my response.

And that is the beauty of marriage! The ability to know that your spouse will return, to accept failure and success as a part of your union, to enjoy the small moments that together produce a lifetime of memories, and to watch your partner turn from a road raging radicle, into a tenacious tour guide, and then a saving superhero, come bashful ballerina, come psycho superhero, and all in a blink of the eye…

Did we make it to Church? Why yes we did, and thanks for asking. We LOVE Church here, though they could use some help in two areas:

1.     Get their services down to under three and a half hours (Rafael ALWAYS falls asleep, without fail) and;

2.  Music training (please see attached clip - the guy has a beautiful, BEAUTIFUL heart...).

T