Saturday Post - 02/07/16

Grandma, Sam, Centre Court. That'll do.

A belated Happy Canada Day to everyone. Nobody remembered here, except me, and I sat as the lone Canadian amongst a sea of others (there being two types of people in this world, Canadians and non-Canadians). I sent Craig off to Santa Cruz with Sam on Tuesday with his "It's Cool to be Canadian" t-shirt and it came back with permanent stains. I'm trying hard to not read into this in any way, but it is really hard. I mean, do they not value me for my Canadian awesomeness (mainly I'm frustrated because I can't figure out how to get banana out of clothes once it has set. Does anybody know?)? Actually, the truth is I'm probably a poor excuse of a Canadian these days. I watched a video on YouTube about being Canadian and I kept thinking, "Canadians aren't really like that, are they?" I was so unnerved by how much I didn't recognise that I wanted to run off to Glasgow and be comforted by familiar surroundings. I think I'm Scottish now. I'll have to remember to wish you all a Happy St. Andrew's Day later this year. 

I think a lot of people know that if Craig was writing this blog entry today, there might be at least a passing comment or a joking reference to the political state of the UK right now. I'm not going to do that; instead I am going to focus on the important things, like Wimbledon! We keep saying to Sam, "Sam, yay, it's your first Wimbledon with us!", "No Sam, we can't play with you...we're watching Wimbledon", and "Sam, you might have to find your own lunch, Murray's playing right now." Sadly, with ESPN based in Argentina and with Del Potro putting Wawrinka out, we're probably not going to see another tennis player who's not Del Potro until he goes out. We thought that with my mother-in-law being here to help, Sam might get fed once in a while despite Wimbledon being on (I mean, she said she was here to help), but she's even more Wimbledon mad than the rest of us. So, Sam is on his own. Poor kid. 

Sam's excitement at being on a plane knew no
bounds.

And yes, Ethel has arrived in Trinidad!!! And she is helping and giving me the free time to do things like write this blog post, go to work more often, and watch Wimbledon; just the important things that you need to get a babysitter for. Ethel arrived in Bolivia on Wednesday, but because of how the internal flights were scheduled, she would have to spend an overnight in Santa Cruz before flying to Trinidad. Craig thought it would be good for someone to go and meet her in Santa Cruz, so he booked a flight for the Tuesday before and decided that Sam was going to go meet his Grandma as well. He came home from the airline's office with the declaration that Sam was going to go to Santa Cruz with him, and I put on the appropriate concerned face and said, "Are you sure you're comfortable flying with Sam, and being with him alone in Santa Cruz until your Mom arrives?". 

Meanwhile, inside my head I thought, "Yassss!!!! Two days alone!!!! Bring it on!!!!" 

In Cochabamba, awaiting their next flight.

I started making plans right away. There was going to be a girl's night and there was going to be a night for pure 'me' time, preferably in bed with a book and a glass of wine. The excitement was building on both sides...apparently Craig found the thought of sharing the joys of air travel with his son just as thrilling as I found the thought of crushing my friends in a game of Ticket To Ride. However, not everyone was as excited as us. A lot of people here thought Craig would be unable to pull it off and Sam would somehow expire on this trip due to Craig's ineptitude. We heard so many comments like this that upon Craig's successful return and his first morning back at work, he walked into the Foundation and declared, "Sam lives!" Apparently, men don't know how to look after their children here and it was a cause for great concern. I wasn't worried. Craig is an awesome Dad, who from the first day of visitation with Sam in the hospital has been completely hands-on. That first day he said, "OK, show me how to change a diaper" (surely 'nappy'? Craig) and has never looked back from that. I don't know how he thought I knew how to change a diaper; I'm not entirely sure if I had changed a diaper before. I knew conceptually, but its not like it's a job you generally volunteer for with your friend's children. 

Girls' Night - sadly, I was unable to crush my friends in a decisive victory 
because there was one too many people, so I graciously sat out and watched. 
Mariana won on her first time playing, narrowly beating Taylor by three points. 
But it's not a real win until Mariana faces me - next time.

So, on Tuesday I drove Craig and Sam to the airport and said goodbye, excited for my free time. Craig immediately started sending photos back of Sam on the plane, Sam in the airport terminal, Sam at the guesthouse and my excitement duly withered. I wanted to be there. I wanted to see Sam on the plane for the first time. From about two hours after they left I just missed them and got really moody about it. It totally put a crimp in my plans. 

Craig: "Getting to board first means more
time for moments like this. I really must
travel more with children/the elderly."

When I went back to the airport on Thursday morning to pick them up, I don't think I have ever been so excited to see a plane land. And I have seen many planes land in my time and met many people getting off of those planes, but this was different. I saw Craig and Ethel walking across the tarmac, but I couldn't see Sam. So I thought that maybe the people who I thought were Craig and Ethel weren't really them, so I kept looking. But Craig and Ethel kept waving at me and finally I had to accept that it was them and they didn't have my child. Craig just shrugged his shoulders at me, and I thought, "Well, he wouldn't be so calm if he had really lost Sam." Someone, somewhere had to have Sam...and sure enough, four or five people behind Craig and Ethel was FT president Miguel Angel, who unbeknown to myself had been on the same flight on his way back from Cochabamba, and Sam was riding high up on his shoulders. And they (you mean, 'I'? Craig)  had done that on purpose to scare the daylights out of me. Classy. 

The two days without Craig and Sam did provide me with an opportunity to get a lot of work done, and I decided to work a full day on Wednesday. I am so caught up on paperwork that I had to ask my fellow FT board member Mariana if there were things I could do to help her yesterday afternoon. I don't know if I recognise this feeling. Is this what work feels like when one is not stressed? Wow. I still have about a third of the staff to get through in regards to the one-on-one interviews, but I figure that they are once a year, so if they are bit more spread out, it's not too much of a problem. 

Home.

I am also teaching at Youth Group tonight. Last week was our most recent social event where we had a selfie scavenger hunt. It seemed to go down really well, although we had tech trouble and couldn't see all the photos that were taken. We had given out food to the youth at this point, so I don't think they cared; they were too busy eating. The winning team got 25 mandarins to share amongst themselves. It's mandarin season, so the gran prize was cheap and cheerful and I figure that everyone can do with more vitamin C in their life. Tonight's theme is 'The Sin of Partiality' - James 2:1-9. Craig said last night that he was partial to me (Awww!!!), and therefore obviously failed in this regard and thought he should just stay in tonight so as not to seem like a hypocrite (Ummm...no!). This particular issue is something we see a lot amongst teens in general, but especially here where there can be so much bias between ethnic groups and genders. Please pray that the youth will be challenged to open their eyes to how their partiality and prejudice can hurt others.

New city, new book.

Please stay tuned for Craig's cheeky political comments next week! And we'll let you know how we're loving having an in-house nanny in next week's post. 

Prayer 

• Apparently the judge overseeing Sam's prospective adoption is on holiday the week we thought we would get a hearing date, so it has been pushed back again. Hopefully, we'll get a date for the week beginning July 18th.
• Craig and I have started meeting with another young couple in the hopes of providing them with some relationship counselling. So far it seems to have gone well, but please continue to pray for wisdom in this sensitive situation. 
• For our time with Ethel, and especially for the time that Sam and Ethel have together. 
• Taylor Burt, our most recent volunteer, leaves us this Thursday; please pray for safe travels for her.
• For Amanda's youth talk on partiality tonight.

Praise

• For Ethel's safe arrival, and Craig and Sam's time in Santa Cruz. 
• For Amanda's time with friends while Craig and Sam were gone. She was kept very busy, which helped the time go by quickly.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig, Amanda & Sam