Noisy City

The first night we were in Juarez while everyone was unpacking in our tiny room, I stepped outside to be still amongst all the chaos. Standing alone in the dark, with the moon shining brightly above me, my heart had a chance to be quiet. As I grew still, I noticed the noise around me from the city. Dogs barking, children yelling, voices from the police radio, cars driving by. Such a noisy city.

Now, being here two weeks, with one week left, I am still struck by the noise. In the morning the rooster crows, the water park down the road blasts music, the lion in the zoo grumbles. There isn’t really a moment in our days when the noises stop outside the walls of our base.

Inside the walls there is always plenty of noise as well. Children playing, chickens clucking, music playing, teenagers running after each other with water guns, laughing, singing, talking, noise, noise, noise.

This last week my team was on projects, so we certainly added to the noise, and did a lot of exhausting work while at it. Throughout our five days of work we painted trim on the new kindergarten building, laid concrete, planted lots of trees, watered the trees throughout the rest of the days, and made chicken wire contraptions around the trees to protect them from the bunnies. We also worked on fixing up some apartments for new staff, tore down lots of moldy drywall from the flooding, worked on making the dirt in the garden better for growing, and moved a mound of dirt and rocks to level out a part of the ground.

Such an exhausting week. Every morning I had to wake up and pray for strength to get through each day. My mind and body are not used to hard labor, but if nothing else I got to learn how to rely on God for my strength every day. Despite the poor sleep, hot sun, and hard work, our team accomplished a lot this week which will make a difference for the base in the long run.

On Friday evening we were invited to attend a graduation ceremony of one of the girls at the children’s home that just finished high school. Through seeing the opportunities that she had because of living at Rancho and being able to attend the school here it made our work seem more worth it. Even though we haven’t had as many opportunities to invest in the kids’ lives as I would have liked, we are providing greater opportunities for the staff there to continue pouring into these kids to make a lasting difference in their lives. For even though I might not be making deep friendships with the kids, there are people who are consistently in their lives that we have been able to partner with so that the kids really gain the greatest chances in their lives.

This week I finally have the chance to spend more time at Rancho though, which makes me happy. I will be part of their afternoon and evening routines, helping the kids with their homework, playing with them, eating dinner with them, doing devotionals before bed, and helping the little ones get to bed. It should be a fun week and challenging, I am sure, in different ways.

Here is to another noisy week in Juarez, hanging out and loving on kids.