Beach Days are the Best Days
Some days I forget that I live right on the beach. I can hear the waves gently rolling in the background and every day I get to look out at that beautiful blue sea. It brings peace and tranquility to my life along with buckets of fun. Today was one of those days when I got caught up in the moment of how beautiful it is to live here.
Every Wednesday morning I go into the neighboring village of Mojaguay to teach a very informal class to any kid who wants to show up. I bring along a 17 year old phase 2 teenager from the Finca who is my teacher assistant. A typical class consists of coloring, drawing, reading and looking at books, and doing puzzles. Normally classes take place in the church, but they are currently putting in windows and welding in the church so I had to go for plan B-- the beach!
I gingerly stepped over black and red wires to grab a stack of chairs from the church to carry to the beach. I already had a faithful group of six kids with me but had to walk a few more streets to ask a few other regulars if they wanted to come. Kids came in waves (some newly showered and in their nice church clothes) and by the end we had used all the chairs and my class count was up to 20 students ranging for age three to 12.
All sitting in a circle I bounced around from one students to the next as they called out "profa, profa!" A constant stream of praise comes from my mouth as I look at someone's artwork and exchange broken crayons with another kid. After class finished I watched the herd of children walk home ready for lunch and couldn't help smiling knowing that the small seed the Holy Spirit planted in my prayer months ago to go into Mojaguay to teach had blossomed into something so beautiful.
Later that day the Finca was going to fumigate every house for mosquitoes so we had a forced beach day. It also turned out to be a perfect sunny day in the midst of rainy season. I spent the afternoon swimming with our littlest kids house (ages 3 to 7) and the tweenage girls. We swam and waded, did flips and handstands, looked out for rayas (sting rays) and picked up drift wood from the ocean floor. We drank coconut water from green coconuts the girls pulled down from the tree and cracked on a rock. Then we walked along the beach past Mojaguay to the river that flows into the ocean. We could feel the cold mountain water mixing in with the warm salty ocean water. We saw two boys fishing with their wooden canoe and a long fishing net put out perpendicular to the beach. They must of had lots of fish because they attracted a group of pelicans who were diving into the water to catch fish stuck in the net. We also saw a small group of sand birds looking for food coming in with the rolling waves. Again I was caught up in the moment and said to myself out loud, "hoy es un día fantastico//today is a fantastic day".
There's so much to be thankful for. Beach days being one of them. I'm just so grateful for all the little ways Jesus makes my days fantastic.
Class on the beach! There was definitely more sand in my backpack than before class started, but I'd take sand any day to get to teach and hang out with these kids.
Talking a walk on the beach one day.
A kid holding a sting ray that was caught in the fishing net. The security guards are teaching our two teenage boys to fish and the rest of the Finca is reaping the benefit of getting to eat fish.
