Ripples…

 

These past few weeks I’ve been observing some of the hardest working people I’ve ever seen. 

Sure, the community members who live in an area that has never had water are willing to work hard.  After all, it means the generations to come will have an improved way of life.  But there is another group of people I want to talk about this morning.  It is the ladies who work in the kitchen here at Amigos for Christ.

A typical day for them begins around 4am, and ends sometime around 5pm.  Their chores include cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner for over 100 people – using a wood fire stove and a grill for most of it.  Breakfast always includes gallo pinto (beans and rice), trays full of cut fresh fruit, and usually eggs, pancakes, or taquitos.  The lunches they make are for the staff (usually somewhere around 60 people) who are going out into the field to work.  Dinners are always delicious.  Last night it was skirt steak, chimichurri, rice, salad, and fried plantain chips.

But in addition to all of the cooking, these ladies also are the ones responsible for keeping the place clean, which means sweeping, mopping and cleaning the rancho (the common area where we gather), the commedor (the area in which we eat), the men’s and women’s dormitories, along with the bathrooms that serve them, and all of the private rooms and bathrooms (of which there are 15). 

Finally, these ladies are the ones whose work increases manyfold on days like yesterday, when one group leaves and another comes in.  On those days they also must change the sheets on all of the beds and get them ready for the next group of people.  Then they collect all of the dirty, sweaty, laundry that has been left for donation.  They scrub and clean it and prepare it to be sold at a resale store which the Organization owns. 

Patricia is the leader of the group.  She has been with Amigos for at least 18 years, and she is a no-nonsense woman whose stamina and dedication are incredible.

I heard yesterday that over 20,000 people have volunteered their time here at Amigos for Christ in Nicaragua.  Patricia and her team have cared for each of them.  And because of that, those teams have been able to go out to work alongside members of different communities to deliver clean water to homes that previously had none…over 6,000 people just last year!

As I type that, I am thinking about all of the ripples! 

Each of us has the opportunity to serve one another as Patricia and her team has served us, and as Jesus did when he washed the feet of His disciples.  That service ripples out, and has the potential to do great things.  That is what God wants from each of us.

“Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands --- O prosper the work of our hands!” – Psalm 90:17