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| Maria Fernanda and me |
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| Ezekias. I know how he feels. |
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| Josue David |
The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. Zephaniah 3:17 (ESV)
While I know that I am serving where I am meant to be on this trip, I am finding it harder to be in the Canaries for reasons I did not think of. Yes, we are more isolated and I am away from the excitement and interactions with other children and team members. Yes, I am still nervous about being with the babies, holding their little wobbly heads, bathing slick tiny bodies, listening to them cry and not being able to communicate what is wrong. Those things I expected and can live through. But, it is the sitting still all day long that is making me crazy. I am a doer, always on the go, generally multitasking in the process. am rarely still. But, as I have stated earlier, I felt God calling me to be still on this trip though it is a difficult task for me. After we bathed and changed all the babies this morning, I spent some time helping Nanny Christy change sheets, clean mattresses and cribs and fold laundry. Later in the day, I helped clean floor mats, sweep and mop the floor and fold more laundry. But, in between, I sat in a rocker or on the floor holding a baby or sometimes, two. And though I knew that my task while doing so was to pray for that baby, sing and interact with him or her, my mind would wander and I wondered what other people were doing. At bottle time, I was given Maria Fernanda to feed. Maria is ten months old and weighs about ten pounds. It takes her an hour to drink a four ounce bottle of formula and she must sit up while eating or she spits up every bit she has taken. I held Maria for an hour while my arms went to sleep, my legs went numb and my butt throbbed from the hard rocking chair. At one point, Maria went to sleep, but I could not take the bottle out of her mouth without her starting to cry. When she cries right after she eats, she spits up so I was afraid to remove it. I jiggled the bottle to keep her awake and nursing, but it did not last. At one point, I felt my eyes get heavy as I started to fall asleep too! Then, I stood up and walked around with her, all the while holding her upright. Finally, she finished the bottle and then, Nanny Christy told me to put her in her crib, but not lying down. She had to go into a baby seat so she remained upright. When I left her there, slumped over, she woke up and started screaming. I wanted so badly to let her lie down, but knew that she might aspirate on her formula if I did so I had to leave her there screaming in her seat. Oh, how hard that was. It reminded me of what God must think about me when I flail and complain about His direction to be still this week. I don’t want to. I want to be out with Billy and my Chicks. I want to see what else is going on. My butt is sore from sitting here “doing nothing.” When in fact, God knows what I need and what is best for me and if I will just relax and learn to wait upon Him, in the end, I will be better off. Waiting is hard. Being still is even harder. But, I am trying not to scream like Maria does.
You might have felt out of place with the babies but you look as though you were exactly where you were meant to be. And always there's Billy! He's growing up.