Weak

Wednesday evening

I feel really tired and weak. My hands are dirty, I am really hot and I really need to take a shower and to change my clothes. I have worked hard today. It has been the kind of day that I have really got my hands dirty-literally. I have had children clamber all over me, got jelly down me, whilst helping a child in school eat her snack and my trousers are visibly dusty. I have been sat on the floor, working at a table with 12 children, in a small, concrete room, with no air or electricity. There wasn’t a tiled floor, painted walls or clean windows- there wasn’t even any windows. Today I worked in the school in the morning, quickly stopped for lunch and then set off to work in Laura Flores with some preschool children. Their mothers have a bible study class in the afternoon and I work with some of their children. Some have got really poor attention and listening skills, others struggle to say some sounds in their words and others have poor language and do not say very much. They struggle to keep up with what there are learning in their classes in the mornings. So I arrived, not knowing how many children I would be working with, but realising this was Ecuador and nothing ever turns out how you think it will turn out. I had packed a bag full of toys and set off for the afternoon! Laura Flores is a very interesting place. I say interesting because it is hard to put it into words. Each time I go it has an effect on me. It drains me physically and emotionally. I realise how fortunate I am. I am reminded how much I have and how blessed I was throughout my childhood and how many opportunities I had. It reminds me not to take so much for granted. It brings me back down to earth. I used to complain about an old clinic I used to work in within the UK. This clinic was a very old NHS building and actually now the Speech therapists don’t work their anymore. It was quite a depressing building. However, it was far nicer than the building I was in today. But that didn’t seem to matter to me. I was so focused on the children and the time just passed by so fast. I realised I switched off from all of my worries, thinking of my plans for the future and all the things I need to do when I get back to the house. I was totally focused on the children; Learning their names, getting to know them, informally assessing their skills, working out what kind of things we could be working on next time. I am not saying I was overly confident in myself. Not at all. It was a real example of God working through my weaknesses. I was working on my own with 12 children, some of whom have additional needs, I was talking in Spanish, in a hot airless concrete dark room. At one point I even had a baby in my arms and I wondered if I had just started up a crèche service rather than providing some therapy! It was a real challenge and I am pleased that God helped me and that I can be a witness that God totally works through our weaknesses.