Ellen in Paraguay

Today when she prayed before we ate lunch, Emi thanked God for the “agradable” weather. I couldn’t think of a better adjective than “agreeable,” and the great weather, plus a week of travel and vacation and spending lots of time with friends also puts me in a very agreeable mood as I write this. Actually, it rained almost the whole weekend we were at camp, but it turned out great that we could play hours of Bible trivia! I attempted to share my testimony one night, and once again I was greatly humbled. I thought of how I would speak at campfire at western camp and be flooded with compliments later, whereas here I am not even sure people understood me. At home I could teach the junior high Bible class or be the leader of the cabin counselors, but even the smallest responsibilities are a great challenge for me. The positive aspect of this is that I have learned to love helping others. I felt sorry for Karen and another woman Elena who basically lived in the kitchen, so whenever I had some free time I could go to the kitchen and help them. It was such a joy for me to be made useful there, and I learned how to make chipa! I also had a blast helping Ben make questions for “BIBLIGO” a Bible Jeopardy game with such categories as “fathers and sons,” finish the proverb” or “clothing.” I realized I could never have done a good job of these things by myself, but with Karen’s awesome cooking abilities and Ben’s superb ideas, I was proud of everything we did together. Last year in the hallway of the school there was a sign with this quotation by Tagore:
I slept and I dreamed that life was happiness I woke and I saw that life was service I served and I found that service was happiness
I went to camp and found it difficult to just hang out and talk, so I served instead and it made me very happy. Of course, this has all made me very nostalgic for Western Camp and I am intensely jealous of Ben and Vivi and Karen and Oscar who are going in July, but I am glad some of you will get to meet them. Tomorrow I go back to teaching. It feels like so long since I’ve been in the classroom (it’s only been one week) so it’s almost like starting over again, except this time I am four hundred times more confident. As always, I’ll let you know how it goes in a couple of days.