Finding Love In Work

These last two days we have been blessed with the opportunity to not only build stoves for two families, but to also interact with, and get to know the families on a more personal basis. The people here were found to have bad respiratory problems and they discovered that it was being caused by the smoke inhalation that the people experienced because they were cooking over an open fire inside their homes. They also suffer from some severe burns when trying to cook with the flames of the fire touching their hands. 

The mission here hosts a stove project that is working to build stoves in all of the houses in this area. The families apply for the stoves and the workers come in every day to build these stove for them. Besides us their were three natives who did the basis of the work, and it was disovered that they make approximately $3 a day for a full days heavy labor. They have such a joy about them even though they do the same thing every day for years upon years. They were patient in teaching us how to do things and always told us what a good job we did even though they would have to go back and fix our mistakes after we finished.

At first the families were hesitant around us, especially the kids. By the end of the first day the kids were coming to find us to play games with them, and the women were bringing us tools that could help make our work easier. We left the first day thinking that we wouldn't be able to see our finsihed project or be able to speak with the families again, but we were blessed with the opportunity to return a second day to finsih our stoves and also to reconnect with the families. Today they were even more open to us. The mother was bringing us bananas that she had chopped down so that we could eat, even though she was cooking and doing plenty of other house work, all the while carrying a sleeping baby on her back. 

I personally connected with a little girl named Sonya. At the end of the first day she came up to hug me goodbye and looked at me and said "adios amiga." At first I just thought that she was saying goodbye to me but then I realized that she was saying that I was her friend. This brought tears to my eyes and I was overjoyed that I got to see her a second day. Today she came and found me and we talked a little in my broken spanish and she was always looking for opportunities to pull me aside and just sit together. At one point she asked if we could take a picture together and I was so excited that she wanted a picture with me. She was so curious about pictures and within minutes she could work the camera on my iphone like a pro. She took it around and took pictures of all of us for fun and would get so excited to pull them back up and look at them, and she was actually really fantastic with the camera. At the end of this day I bent down to hug her and at the same time we both said "adios amiga," I can honestly say that she is my friend.

This was such an amazing and humbling experience for all of us in such different ways. Some of us walked away appreciating the things that we have back at home and some of us walked away feeling blessed to have had our lives touched by the wonderful people. I wish I could stay here for so much longer and continue to develop relationships with the people that are around me. I'm not sure what it's going to be like returning to the states, but I do hope that I can hold onto the joy that these peoplehave  shared with me and hopefully share with the people that are in my life as well.

Peace and love to everyone back home,

-Rachael

this is one of the stoves that we finished today