A question came recently on my "contact me" page that perhaps some of you have wondered as well, so I'm posting my response...
August 21, 2007 11:25 AM, Janet O'Berry wrote:
"Rachel, I've just discovered your blog (love it) and was wondering if the Spiritual Makeover Retreat in April is open to the public. If it is, how can I get more information? What I've read from you, combined with the title of the retreat, sounds like something wonderful to attend."
Most of the events I speak at are open to the public, so if ever you see one happening near you just ask me for details on how to attend. Some events, however, are closed to the public for various reasons, and that decision is made by the event coordinators rather than me. Most events are free to attend. Some require advanced registration and some have a ticket price - typically because food is served, or it's being held at an overnight retreat space. I've known women to travel from hours away to attend an event they heard I or one of my teammates will be at (which is really sweet of them) and I've noticed the event coordinators are usually thrilled to have them! So just contact me and I'll put you in touch with the right people to attend.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Ecuador - meet my sponsor child Mauricio
(continued account of my trip)
SATURDAY EVENING - That afternoon, all the kids that P31 gals sponsor through Compassion were bussed in to the project where we were so we could meet them. I was SO excited about this aspect of the trip. I couldn't wait to meet the 6 year old boy our family had chosen! One by one they brought children off the bus and introduced them to their sponsors. It touched me to watch each of my teammates meeting their sponsor child for the first time. My anticipation built and built ... until I could tell there was only one child left, and she was not a boy. Turns out, due to a family emergency, Mauricio's parents weren't able to get him to the bus in time. I tried to be "a big girl" in response to this news, but my heart sank. The dedicated Compassion team quickly assured me they were trying to arrange a visit for later at the hotel.
Emotionally exhausted, we got back to the hotel around 4:00 pm and I was told to rest in my room until they called me. Mauricio was suppose to arrive at 5:00. Five o'clock came and went, as did 5:10, 5:15, 5:20 ... I finally just put the whole thing in God's hands through prayer. At 5:30 the phone rang and down I went to meet him. OM MY GOODNESS this little boy is something else! He's got a great personality, very outgoing, and quite smart too. His parents are young but understand the importance of his education. They have a vision for his life and are doing all they can to help him get farther along than they have. His dad told me, "My father tried to tell me to work hard in school and I didn't listen... now I understand why he always told me that. I'm teaching Mauricio to focus on school."
I think I fell in love with his mother, father and grandfather as much as I did Mauricio!
I'd brought Mauricio some gifts - some clothes, an I SPY book, a soccer ball and some bubbles among other things. He loved the bubbles. I'd blow them and he'd try to pop them or eat them. Bubbles are fun in any language - a universal toy. But we were sloshing bubble juice all over this 5-star hotel lobby so we headed to the indoor pool area. Mauricio was able to change into some shorts I'd brought him and swim in the pool. This was huge for him, he'd only swam in a pool one other time in his life and it was not indoors. But he knew just what to do and set about imitating the motions of free-style swimming. I kept waiting for him to give up on the trying to swim thing and just splash and play in the shallow end. Not Mauricio, he was determined to swim! Later, with a little encouragement from me, he jumped off the side into the pool at the shallow end - his father gasped and grabbed his heart. Smiles. The father was also amazed by the indoor plants and waterfall, I don't think he'd ever seen a fancy hotel like this. Mauricio was too busy trying to swim like a pro to notice.
His grandfather is from the rain forest interior of the country. He'd had a farm there but had to sell all the animals to come to the city to have an abdominal operation. He told me he wants to find work in the city because he knows "the value of work." Mauricio's father (26 yrs old) meanwhile, has found some work cleaning office buildings in the city so he can afford the $100-a-month two-room apartment the family lives in. His mother (a beautiful 22 yr old) sometimes finds work as a maid while Mauricio is in school.
After his swim, Mauricio's mother got him back into dry clothes and we all rode the glass elevator, which overlooks the city, to the top floor. He had not been in a glass elevator before (I don't think any of them had) and he held onto the handrail with white knuckles while grinning from ear to ear. This was like an amusement park to him. When we arrived back at the lobby it was time for tearful goodbyes. His parents wanted to know when would I be back in Ecuador. I figured odds were low that I'd be able to return, but I didn't have the heart to say that. They were wanting to see me again. So I simply said, "I don't know when, but I hope it's soon."
I want to see them again too. I could save up enough money to make a return trip, but I could also take that saved money and donate it to him through Compassion and he'd be better off than if I just flew down there and blew bubbles with him.
After waving them goodbye, I walked back into the lobby full of roses with a heart full of thanksgiving and joy. What a day - thank you, Compassion Int. and thank you, God.
SATURDAY EVENING - That afternoon, all the kids that P31 gals sponsor through Compassion were bussed in to the project where we were so we could meet them. I was SO excited about this aspect of the trip. I couldn't wait to meet the 6 year old boy our family had chosen! One by one they brought children off the bus and introduced them to their sponsors. It touched me to watch each of my teammates meeting their sponsor child for the first time. My anticipation built and built ... until I could tell there was only one child left, and she was not a boy. Turns out, due to a family emergency, Mauricio's parents weren't able to get him to the bus in time. I tried to be "a big girl" in response to this news, but my heart sank. The dedicated Compassion team quickly assured me they were trying to arrange a visit for later at the hotel.
Emotionally exhausted, we got back to the hotel around 4:00 pm and I was told to rest in my room until they called me. Mauricio was suppose to arrive at 5:00. Five o'clock came and went, as did 5:10, 5:15, 5:20 ... I finally just put the whole thing in God's hands through prayer. At 5:30 the phone rang and down I went to meet him. OM MY GOODNESS this little boy is something else! He's got a great personality, very outgoing, and quite smart too. His parents are young but understand the importance of his education. They have a vision for his life and are doing all they can to help him get farther along than they have. His dad told me, "My father tried to tell me to work hard in school and I didn't listen... now I understand why he always told me that. I'm teaching Mauricio to focus on school."
I think I fell in love with his mother, father and grandfather as much as I did Mauricio!
I'd brought Mauricio some gifts - some clothes, an I SPY book, a soccer ball and some bubbles among other things. He loved the bubbles. I'd blow them and he'd try to pop them or eat them. Bubbles are fun in any language - a universal toy. But we were sloshing bubble juice all over this 5-star hotel lobby so we headed to the indoor pool area. Mauricio was able to change into some shorts I'd brought him and swim in the pool. This was huge for him, he'd only swam in a pool one other time in his life and it was not indoors. But he knew just what to do and set about imitating the motions of free-style swimming. I kept waiting for him to give up on the trying to swim thing and just splash and play in the shallow end. Not Mauricio, he was determined to swim! Later, with a little encouragement from me, he jumped off the side into the pool at the shallow end - his father gasped and grabbed his heart. Smiles. The father was also amazed by the indoor plants and waterfall, I don't think he'd ever seen a fancy hotel like this. Mauricio was too busy trying to swim like a pro to notice.
His grandfather is from the rain forest interior of the country. He'd had a farm there but had to sell all the animals to come to the city to have an abdominal operation. He told me he wants to find work in the city because he knows "the value of work." Mauricio's father (26 yrs old) meanwhile, has found some work cleaning office buildings in the city so he can afford the $100-a-month two-room apartment the family lives in. His mother (a beautiful 22 yr old) sometimes finds work as a maid while Mauricio is in school.
After his swim, Mauricio's mother got him back into dry clothes and we all rode the glass elevator, which overlooks the city, to the top floor. He had not been in a glass elevator before (I don't think any of them had) and he held onto the handrail with white knuckles while grinning from ear to ear. This was like an amusement park to him. When we arrived back at the lobby it was time for tearful goodbyes. His parents wanted to know when would I be back in Ecuador. I figured odds were low that I'd be able to return, but I didn't have the heart to say that. They were wanting to see me again. So I simply said, "I don't know when, but I hope it's soon."
I want to see them again too. I could save up enough money to make a return trip, but I could also take that saved money and donate it to him through Compassion and he'd be better off than if I just flew down there and blew bubbles with him.
Then again, I've come to realize in Ecuador,
relationships mean a lot more to people than money.
Please pray for "my" Mauricio and his family.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Ecuador - 1st home visit, true hospitality
SATURDAY AFTERNOON: A cool thing about Compassion International is that they partner with local churches in the countries they work in. Every Compassion project is connected to a church and the program is staffed through that church, and supervised by Compassion. All kids in the program are required to attend Sunday church. This project I was visiting the first day was a Salvation Army church. I was so impressed by the young pastor, and his wife who ran the Compassion program. I was equally impressed by the young man who oversaw this project, along with a few other Compassion projects in the area - he had been a Compassion sponsored kid himself!
Two of the family's older children who were Compassion-sponsored showed us their prized possessions: the notebooks they kept ALL the correspondence and pictures they'd ever received from their sponsor families. It still chokes me up thinking about how much they treasured this. I thought, if only the sponsoring families could know how much their letters and photos mean to these kids! They had both created scrap books to display them in.
The boy's sponsors were a family from California who would take pictures of the family for him whenever they went on vacation. So as they saw the world, so to speak, so did he. They also sent pictures of the their pets and wrote him frequent letters. I noticed they had sent him a page of stickers, which remained in tact in his notebook. I wondered if he didn't know they were stickers but he said yes he knew, he just wanted to save them rather than waste them by using them. This was probably a nickel's worth of stickers from Walmart. When asked what he wanted to do when he grows up, he told us he wanted to be an engineer ... while looking through the notebook we learned the father in his sponsor family is an engineer. What an impact.
The next thing we did was join the kids in their classrooms where they were drawing pictures to go with the Bible story they'd just heard. I sat down in the small chairs to talk and color with them. These kids ranged in age from 6-8 and I was immediately impressed with their perfect cursive handwriting. I've homeschooled my children for years and these kids wrote better than my own! The kids and I took turns exchanging names, discussing colors and names of colors in English and Spanish, and writing their names in cursive, print and my speciality: bubble letters. One little girl wrote that she was feeling hungry on her paper and I wondered how much food, if any, she'd had that day. We talked about what kinds of foods we each liked. They'd never heard of pizza, but they did know french fries. Little Maria shook her head no at the mention of french fries, saying that she likes to eat only healthy food. About an hour later I was thrilled to help serve the children a hot nutritious lunch of roasted chicken, rice, and peas and carrots.
While the children were eating in their classrooms, we embarked on home visits to some of the families in the project area. Leann, Carrie and I visited a family with four children. They had one of the larger homes in the area. They'd lived there 22 years and it started out as one room with no electricity, which they added on to. Now it had 4 rooms, cement walls and floors and some exposed electrical wiring. I was surprised by how willingly they gave us a tour when we inquired how many rooms it had. They shooed the chickens out of the kitchen and happily gave us a tour. It had a stove, a kitchen table and chairs, a few extra chairs, a desk and beds. It was humble by our standards, but clean. She did not seem embarrassed at all by her extremely modest home - something I would find echoed by everyone I met that weekend. Over and over again I'd be told, "Whenever you come to Ecuador, my home is your home and you are welcome here." For them hospitality is a state of mind and heart, not a state of home or menu.
Hum... I think of all the times I didn't invite someone over, or offer a tour of my home, because it was messy or I felt my home was lacking in size or presentation.
Two of the family's older children who were Compassion-sponsored showed us their prized possessions: the notebooks they kept ALL the correspondence and pictures they'd ever received from their sponsor families. It still chokes me up thinking about how much they treasured this. I thought, if only the sponsoring families could know how much their letters and photos mean to these kids! They had both created scrap books to display them in.
The boy's sponsors were a family from California who would take pictures of the family for him whenever they went on vacation. So as they saw the world, so to speak, so did he. They also sent pictures of the their pets and wrote him frequent letters. I noticed they had sent him a page of stickers, which remained in tact in his notebook. I wondered if he didn't know they were stickers but he said yes he knew, he just wanted to save them rather than waste them by using them. This was probably a nickel's worth of stickers from Walmart. When asked what he wanted to do when he grows up, he told us he wanted to be an engineer ... while looking through the notebook we learned the father in his sponsor family is an engineer. What an impact.
I prayed over the family before we left. Tears fell continually and uncontrollably from the corners of my closed eyes as I spoke. Visiting them was not at all depressing, though they were economically depressed. My time with them was moving and emotional but not depressing because they were so joyful and loving. I learned the mother had been working in the Compassion project at the church, and she and her family were mentored by the staff there. Perhaps that was the source of their joy - they were nurtured and growing in their relationship with Christ. Their smiles, the inside of their home, and those treasured scrapbooks of sponsor letters are seared in my memory forever.
- This is the family with us outside their home: the mother and father on the left with Leann, then Carrie and I in the middle, the two Compassion-sponsored children on the right, and the two youngest front and center looking cute as can be.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Me and Johnny
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