Last week, I found out that Cesia (one of the new housemates) was pregnant, but on Wednesday morning, she lost the baby. Tito rushed home from school to be with her, and I had my kids make cards for her, but all they knew is that she was sick.
When I got home from school, I arrived along with Tito's father, and Cesia's mother, who we picked up along the way. A pastor friend had arrived at the same time as we did. We went upstairs, and I was surprised to find Cesia's sisters there along with their children. Being the socially awkward and uncertain about social expectations person that I am, I opted to spend most of the day in my room, working on my article writing job. Of course, my luck held on, and the one time I did venture into the living room/kitchen where everyone was gathered, the pastor had just started praying, and pretty much everyone was crying.
On the up side, I did get in a lot of work. Cesia had family members come and stay with her for a few days, so I spent more time just in my room to stay out of the way and let them catch up, but with just a family hanging out, I felt more than comfortable coming in to eat and to hang out for a few minutes. I did breathe a sigh of relief when everyone was gone, though. Clearly, I do not adjust well to sudden changes.
What I really loved through this was seeing the love that the church showed, with all the people that showed up on the first day, just to love on them and be near to them. It was so good to see what a big deal it really was that she had lost the baby. I feel like most of the time in the States it's not really that big of a deal to people outside of the immediate family. I mean, people are sad for them and will give them a "sorry to hear" hug when they see them next, but it's overall not such a big deal. Yet here, one member was weeping, and they all came to weep with her. She was hurting, and they came to hurt with her. What a display of how God's church is supposed to be!
She is doing well now, and is back to work at the school.
In other news, I have been hard at work on my online jobs, which have been a lot of fun to write. I now have a great relationship with one of the employers on the site I use, and he contacts me with lists of jobs to choose from now. I pick subjects that interest me, despite what I may or may not know about them, so I get to learn as I go, which is a lot of fun. If you need to know anything about alpaca farming or taekwondo, let me know. I finished 24 articles on alpaca farming, and am about halfway through the articles on taekwondo, so I'm practically an expert now... sort of.
I've been able to attend ICF two weeks in a row now. That's the English-speaking church. This past Sunday, I got to reconnect with a gal my age who's also doing mission work here. She's really sweet and outgoing, which is perfect for me. She lives here with her cousins that live her permanently, doing mission work with various orphanages. They were talking about taking me out to dinner some night this week, so that should be fun. Now that I have a phone, I can actually be in contact with people, which is really nice.
Well, I guess that about sums up my week. I did get a chance to really relax on Saturday, and was able to talk with a good friend Michigan for a while. It's always good to be able to Skype with people. It makes me feel like they're right there, so I don't have to miss them.
One last thing, just so I have a picture to share with you, and so you can hear a cute story about my kids. So, the kids in my class discovered two things about me very quickly: I can draw well, and I will draw something for them if they ask. So, almost every day after school, now, I have a few kids come up and ask me to do various drawings for them. Typically, one girl will ask for a princess, and then they all want one exactly like hers, but I don't like drawing the same thing over and over, so I draw different princesses doing different things. Sometimes, it upsets them, and sometimes, they get even more excited about it. It depends on the girl and the drawing. Because I like the drawings that I do before they trace all the lines in bold markers and then color them pink, I take pictures of almost all of the drawings I do first. They think it's strange, but have come to accept that me taking a picture of the finished drawing is a part of the process. Here are a few of the drawings I've done over the last few weeks:
So yeah, that's what I do most days right after school. I've gotten pretty good at these simple outline drawings.
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