All Joy Reminds

The best part about stories is that they change. Our stories used to include funny cross-cultural exchanges or adventures in travel. Now, our very best stories consist solely of sassy five year olds, cleaning poopy hands, and the adventure of making popcorn for nine little girls who are still fascinated by the notion. And we couldn’t be happier about the change.

This first month as “house parents” has been more joyful, more difficult, and more laughter-filled than we could have imagined. Over the past four weeks, we’ve created a new story every day (mostly thanks to the shenanigans of our girls). Just like the first month of our marriage, the last month with the girls has taught us a lot about how to love, showed us where many of our faults lie, and taken a huge dose of patience.

A typical day (if there even is such a thing) starts at 5am, when we wake the girls up to shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, and get ready for school. This in and of itself is a challenge; by the time you get one up and changing, another may be back asleep in their bed. To help everyone wake up a little faster, Brooklin sings the “Good Morning” song from Bullfrongs & Butterflies (which the girls have now taken to singing all hours of the day). Breakfast is at 6am, the older girls go to school at 7, and the littles leave just before 8.

After 4 hours to ourselves (which really translates into cleaning, admin work, etc) all of the girls are home by 1pm. They change out of their uniform, eat lunch, brush their teeth, and have a couple hours of free time. We’ve been introducing nap time (a new concept to them), and it’s gone really well, even if they don’t know it yet. Sometimes only one or two end up falling asleep after reading to them; a couple of times we’ve had eight of them sleeping all at once (a huge success in our book). After a (hopefully) successful naptime, we have a snack altogether before they head to tutoring for their Spanish classes. Dinner is at 6pm, and involves wrangling all nine of the girls into one table and ensuring they eat all of their food (a difficult task when they are so eager to share). 

After dinner, it’s shower and bedtime. Some nights this looks like everyone getting showered and changed into their pajamas in twenty minutes – which also translates into enjoying time to read, play, organize clothes, or just cuddle. Other nights are not so easy, and it can take two hours before they are all ready for bed. Needless to say, our favorite nights are the twenty-minutes-to-change-an-hour-to-read ones.

Hopefully that overview gives you an idea of what our “day-to-day” looks like. However, the best moments aren’t found in the schedule. The best moments are the ones when we get to be silly during bedtime; when we see a five-year old girl go from hitting as a first response to using her words; when we hug and pray with the girls at night; when we greet them coming home from school, excited about what they learned that day.

While we have definitely seen progress in the last few weeks, we definitely have many things we are continuing to pray into, and we would love you all to partner with us in that. As CS Lewis wrote, “All joy reminds” – it reminds us of what is about to be, and can be accomplished by strength and love in the Lord. Some of our specific prayer requests include:

-       Breakthrough with two of the girls, who are still resistant to both our love and our role as authority figures

-       Increased patience with the girls in long days

-       The ability to rest in the time that’s given two us (in the mornings and Saturdays)

-       The continued strengthening of our marriage, as we go abruptly from being completely on our own to having the responsibility of parenthood

-       Wisdom in how to balance respect toward Guatemalan staff and implement what we see as loving discipline and a nurturing environment

-       Continued financial provision, as our available time to work towards paying off our student loans is even less than before

Thank you all for taking the time to read through our update, and particularly for partnering with us in prayer as we continue on from here! Feel free to message or email us with any questions (or encouragement)!

If you're interested in supporting us in our work here, check out: http://youcaring.com/brookandbeccainguatemala