ninja night

 

Jodi and Anne, our newest volunteers, started teaching karate lessons last week. 

To maintain momentum and capture the kids' interest, they organized "Ninja Night" on Saturday.

                                                     After dressing like ninjas...

(and Little Red Riding Hood?)

we played the game Ninja...

before watching the amazing classic 

 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze...

and the night wouldn't have been complete without Leonardo, 

Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael's favorite food...

 PIZZA!

And the boys loved TMNT II so much that they watched it again on Sunday afternoon.

COWABUNGA!

typical

Rachel, Anne, Jodi & I are out to dinner.

I try to order dessert: "The Grasshopper Sandwich, por favor." (Two chocolate cookies sandwiching mint ice cream.)

"Con gusto (with pleasure)," the waiter smiles and leaves our table.

Less than a minute later a different waiter appears. "I'm sorry," he laments in Spanish, "but we don't have mint ice cream. Would you like a Grasshopper Sandwich with vanilla ice cream?"

I look at Rachel, "Is it worth it without the mint ice cream?" She shakes her head "no".

"No, gracias," I tell the waiter. He asks if I would like a different dessert. "We also don't have the Chocolate Lava Cake at this time," but he suggests several other desserts, including the S'mores Sundae or Brownie Bottom Pie.

After an internal debate (do I really need a dessert? which one sounds better?) I give in, "Okay, I'll have the Brownie Bottom Pie." The waiter smiles and departs.

A minute later he's back. "I'm sorry, but we don't have the Brownie Bottom Pie. In fact, we don't have anything made with chocolate (note: five of the eight desserts on the menu use chocolate) or the Pineapple Rum Upside Down Cake. But you could have the Cheesecake or Apple Sizzler."

Really? Are you kidding me? No, thank you.

I end up dessert-less and they also charge me $1.00 extra because I asked for tomato and cucumber on my salad.

fill in the blank friday 5.0

1.  My favorite place I've ever traveled to is  it a cliché to say El Salvador? or everywhere? Okay, top three, besides El Salvador, in no particular order: Spain, Morocco, Paris.

2.    New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Brazil, Ireland, Scotland, Austria  is somewhere I'd love to go someday. 

3.  I pass the time on a plane (or bus or car rise or train) by  plane - sleeping, reading or watching the in-flight movie; riding in a car - reading, listening to music or sleeping; driving a car - listening to music (aren't you glad I didn't say "reading or sleeping"?).

4.  My three must-haves when I travel are    my iPod     ,     a book (or two or three)     and      snacks   .

5.  My favorite travel companion is  the 2005-2006 Marietta College Choir :) and MRT (miss you).

6.  The craziest thing that ever happened to me while traveling is  El Salvador, March 2011, our trip to the beach was cancelled because an 8.9 earthquake rocked Japan triggering tsunami warnings for Central America. Also, Spain, Spring 2005, I met someone whose sister attended college with me (but I didn't know her).

7.  The most exotic food I've ever tried while traveling is  not sure. I'm not really the adventurous type when it comes to food (but I am better than I used to be). Maybe pot stickers (dumplings) in China?

8.  If I could live anywhere else, I'd live in  North Carolina or Colorado.

9.  I have been to    thirty-two    states in the U.S. 

Have a great weekend!

perfection

Everyone has imperfections. 

That's the way God made them, and as long as people are striving to love God and care for one another, they are pleasing God. 

Perfection is more a process of striving than a state to be attained, so one's perfection is measured not by success in attaining a measurable goal, but in attitudes constantly changing to ever more perfectly reflect the mind of God. 

 ~ excerpt from Joshua

back to school

Visit the L&H blog to read about the craziness that ensues when we prepare 25 kids to start a new school year in 9 different schools!

for I know the plans I have for you

Every day I am more certain that this is what God called me to do. As I review my life, I can see God's hand print and how he gently guided me to this place and experience.

In college I majored in Spanish, although I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with that degree. I thought perhaps I would teach, but that hasn't happened yet.

After college, I switched it up, deciding to pursue a graduate degree in higher education administration. To become more marketable, the majority of HIED students obtain an internship during the summer months, the most popular of which were in orientation or residence life. I applied for both types of internships, but really wanted one in orientation. I ended up in a residence life internship at Cornell University, which in turn landed me a position in residence life at Ohio Wesleyan University after I graduated.

Within my first three days of employment, and it may even have been my first day, someone found out I spoke Spanish and told me the Chaplain's Office still needed a Spring Break Mission Team Advisor for the El Salvador trip, and would I be interested? I jumped at the chance.

Seven months later I visited and fell in love with Love & Hope.

A year after my first visit and a week after my second visit, I knew I was meant to serve here.

It's because I chose to pursue a degree in higher education that I was hired at OWU. It's because I spoke Spanish that I was encouraged to advise the El Salvador Team. And it's because of OWU that I learned about L&H. Everything happens for a reason and it's amazing to see all the puzzle pieces fall into place.

Today I found more evidence that God was working on my heart and whispering in my ear long before I could remember. I was organizing our office files and found a letter I had given to Rachel before leaving Love & Hope in March 2010. Part of it reads:

I would like to keep in touch and return to serve sometime in the future. In my current position, I have a month off in the summers. I know the application indicates that you'd prefer a three month commitment, but perhaps you'd make an exception? Anyway, my hope would be for Summer 2011. But then again, maybe and probably God has other plans.

Although I didn't understand them in high school, in college, in graduate school and beyond, I now can see the plans God had for me. And as I struggle with not knowing what my future holds, I try to remember how He has cared for me, led me thus far and how His plans were (and are) better than anything I could have ever imagined for myself.

read carefully

fill in the blank friday 4.0

1.  The last thing I ate was  white rice and chicken quesadillas.

2.  The last song I listened to was  "Made to Worship" by Chris Tomlin while unpacking and organizing my room.

3.  Using the letters in my name I can spell  ...not a whole lot...man, damn, dam, am, a, mad, an. With my last name I can spell: stew & art (obviously), as, are, ear, wear, tear, stare, wart, tart, was, wet, set, sat, straw, raw, west, rest, test, taste, waste.

4.  If I had to dress in one color for the rest of my life I would pick  blue. It's versatile, there are many shades, jeans are blue, and it's one of my favorite colors.

5.  If you were to look in my bag right now you'd find  it depends on which bag we're talking about. My purse is small and right now only contains my passport, money and chapstick. On Wednesday my tote bag was chock-full with snacks, books, DVDs, cell phone, camera, iPod, wallet, cards and other odds & ends since I used it as my "personal item" while flying, but right now it's completely empty.

6.  When I finish filling in the blanks I'm going to  help wrap hundreds of text books and notebooks to prepare the kids for the start of a new school year!

7. My all time favorite song to dance to is  too many choices...too difficult to pick. I love to dance (and sing). I would love if I my life was a musical and everyone spontaneously broke into song and dance every 15-20 minutes.

I'm back :)

♥ with my Salvadoran familia ♥

a heart divided

I've been rather absent on the blog front lately. It's been a busy December and January, visiting and catching up with as many family and friends as possible. It was a much-needed break and joyful holiday season, but I am ready, and have been waiting, to return to Love & Hope.

Spending time in the States was wonderful, but a few days after Christmas I got the itch to return to sunny Central America and the love, smiles, hugs, and hustle & bustle of raising twenty-four kids. As time wore on, I became increasingly anxious (or angstful, as I call it) to leave.
I stayed because I had made a promise to friends I dearly love, but with each passing day and flight prices slowly rising, it seemed less likely that I would be able to keep it. God, as always, was trying to teach me trust, patience, and humility.

And despite allowing my anxiety to get the better of me, by buying a plane ticket before fulfilling my promise, God blessed me. I am going back to El Salvador just a few days later than expected, and a day after purchasing my flight, little Max was born.

Loving two places and the many people who make those places worth loving is difficult. When I am in El Salvador, I miss my U.S. family. When I am in the U.S., I miss my Salvadoran family. I can't imagine what it will feel like to leave Love & Hope in June. I know it won't be for good because I plan to visit as often as possible, but to leave without knowing when I will return...the thought makes my stomach sink like I'm on a roller coaster.

But for now, I am ready to get back to my life in a country hundreds of miles away, where they speak a different language, have unfamiliar customs, and call me gringa, where there are kids and an organization that need me and people (more than I ever anticipated) that care for me. It's where half my heart is and that makes it home.

welcome to our world

Maxwell Edward Fredrick Brooker

January 8, 2012

3:47 a.m.

6 lbs 0 oz

18 1/4 inches

He's the reason I stayed in the States for so long, and I am so happy 

I was able to meet him before leaving. What a beautiful gift from God.

remember this?

Happy 2012! Can you believe it's already been four years since our last presidential election? And the insanity began today with the Iowa caucus. I won't provide my thoughts on candidates or enter political debates, but would like to remind all Americans - Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent -  that no matter the result of this race, it won't be the end of the world. So here's a little humor and what I think was the most poignant moment of the 2008 campaign: