A Heart of Flesh

Surely I am not the only one in the world with so many ups and downs!  I have had such a good few days, really excited about the future of our ministry, blessed by how God is providing, the girls doing well in school;  just doing well!  And then today came.

This morning at 11:30, Gabi’s teacher called from school and put a crying Gabi girl on the phone.  She had a headache and wanted to come home.  I told her she could stay because school would be finished in just a little bit.  I talked to her teacher but honestly have no idea what she said.  I told her Gabi could just wait until school was finished and she will be fine.  Well, she was not fine and they called back at noon, so I told her I would come and get her this time.  When I went to pick her up, her teacher walked her out and explained to me that they had done a LOT of reading all in Spanish and she thinks it was just too much for Gabi.  I think so, too.  This was one of those situations as a parent that I was torn:  on the one hand, she needs to learn to work through frustrations like this and just stay at school.  On the other hand, there is just so much more to consider:  she is just a few weeks into going to school in a new country, culture and language, so missing one hour of classes because she was overwhelmed is probably okay and not going to give her the wrong message (that it’s okay to cry so she can come home).  After I thought about it like that, I realized that this was the right decision to let her come home.  Of course, she was fine when she got home….she was just overwhelmed and I am glad I let her come home to just chill out for the afternoon.

Added to this was the fact that Ilah had darted out the front gate and I had to drive around for 15 minutes to find her and bring her home.  I had to get out of the car 3 different times to chase her, but to no avail.  When I finally got to her, she just jumped in the car with me as if nothing was wrong.  Naughty little goober.   I was so hot and tired after this little escapade.  Then, after our nap time this afternoon, I learned that Snowball, the hamster, had escaped from her cage and was nowhere to be found.  UG.  REALLY?  So, now we have a red-eyed albino hamster creeping around the house somewhere….  Well, we found him a while later, curled up and snuggled behind the fridge.  We captured him and got him back into his cage.

Then it was homework time.  My frustration right now is that I am the only parent who can help the kids with homework because of the Spanish.  And, in my opinion, some of their homework is stupid.  Like Gabi’s:  she has to write her numbers from 1-1000.  It is just so time-consuming for a 2nd grader!  And it is hard to keep them all on task while translating all their instructions as well as their answers…it is multi-tasking on speed!

In the middle of the homework/hamster chaos, I opened my e-mails and had gotten one from my mom.  She let me know about all the medical bills that have arrived since we left and total more than $2000, from treatments that we received while we were in the States.  Just after reading that, I received a not-so-sensitive note from language school (in Costa Rica, where we studied last year) reminding us of our outstanding debt to them in the amount of almost $4400.

Sigh.

My heart is so heavy tonight.  But I am going to choose right now to trust God with all of this.  He made a way for us to be here, He will also make a way for this burden of debt to be removed.  I will trust Him for that.  And I will go to bed now and sleep this stress-headache away.