Basketball.

One team trying to get the ball into one hoop, the other team trying to get in the other hoop.

It sounds really simple, doesn’t it?

I’m terrible at it! I mean, have you seen me try to dribble a ball?

Maybe it’s my feet. Maybe it’s my hand-eye coordination. Maybe it’s my timing. I don’t know. Whatever it is, even when I’m standing still, the ball plunges down, hits my toes, and bounces away. You know what? Maybe it’s the ball.

And yesterday, after standing there for thirty minutes, just trying to bounce the ball up and down, I got it right. Well, mostly right.

What do you mean “So what?” Obviously, you don’t appreciate the work we athlete’s put into our sports.

Our friend Peter, a missionary working with Jungle Kids for Christ, is having a basketball camp for the kids in Misahualli this week. We went, and learned how bad I actually am at it.

I know practice is supposed to help, you know “practice makes perfect” but there’s this other thing.

Called talent.

And with basketball, I just don’t have any. I mean, I’m good at missing the hoop and bouncing the ball of some random by-standers head. But I don’t really think that counts.

“Who’s team am I one?”

“Which basket is this supposed to go into?”

“Oh, so you mean there’s a better way to get the ball in the hoop than climbing the pole?”

And shooting hoops?

It feels like I always miss. I could try ten times and only make one hoop.

It’s like my life. When I do try, I mess it up somehow and miss.

I do this, only to find out I was supposed to do that.

I do this, and there isn’t anything worse I could have done.

I do that, and I get “what on earth are you doing?”

I don’t do that, and I get “why are you just sitting there?”

So do I feel like shooting the hoops of life?

I don’t know. I might miss.

So, the Youth Program. There was a pretty good turn out, and it was the first Friday night we had done this since we were on this hemisphere. Natali, Nico, Matias, Stephanie, and Natali 2, plus Abigail and I.

We started out by asking the kids if they got embarrassed easily, and then proceeded to explain the rules of Shoot. (If you’re drawing a blank, it’s one Daddy made up.)

Now, we warned them not to bite the thing, and we warned them not to swallow. Just hold the alka seltzer in your mouth and pour the soda in. When the chemical reaction happens, just keep your mouth shut for as long as you can.

Okay. I did not know people could spew that far. It was disgusting- I mean you would probably expect that, but EEWW! I, sadly, did not win this one (I exploded laughing maybe 2^nd or 3^rd.) But our friend Natali 2 did win.

If your wondering if we actually studied the Bible at this Bible Study, don’t worry, we did.

I’m actually looking forward to this coming Friday!

To hear wisdom in a fool’s words,

To find clarity in a drunkard’s mind,

To see purpose in a gypsy’s steps,

To hear joy on a mourner’s lips,

To find truth in a liar’s mouth,

To see life in a murderer’s eyes,

Is to feel love in the hurt, and healing in the pain.

(c) 2013 Madeline Studebaker

“You e-speak ing-less?”

Elijah nods his head, after checking with me to make sure it’s English we speak, not French. (Poor kid, he also thinks we still live in “the other America.”)

“Wu-at ez your name?”

“Elias,” he says, because it’s a whole lot easier for everyone else here to say. A whole lot easier.

“How, uh, oh-eld? Are you?”

“I’m four, and I have two sisters,” he replies.

“You e-speak ing-less?”

“I already told him that I do, didn’t I?” Elijah asks me, annoyed.

“Yes, five different times,” I whisper.

Now I know how I sound when I’m trying to speak Spanish.

Funny, I even ask the same three questions.

Over and over.

“Y que vestido?”

(And what should I wear?)

“Tu vestido mejor.”

(Your best dress.)

We had been invited to our friend Andrea’s birthday party.

Now we were asking all of the local women what we should wear.

The answers had been:

“It should be short”

“It should be long”

“It should be pink”

“It can be any color”

But in addition, always “your best dress.”

So. It was going to be easy- all I needed was a dress that was long, short, pink, and every other color. Simple.

We took a bus to Tena to buy dresses for me and Abigail the next day.

After going into about a million different clothes stores (okay, maybe closer to 9 or 10), we found the dresses we needed.

It was red- I told myself it’s sort of a shade of pink- short with long tulle, and with sequins around the waist. It was close enough to perfect to satisfy me, so I bought it.

I’m not a hoarder, but let’s just say I hope this dress will fit for a couple of years to come.

I bought some little red shoes, too. Flip-flops weren’t going to cut it, and although my converse knock-offs cost a whole $10, they had blue shoe strings and would not match. My new “church shoes” are uncomfortable, which is a sure sign they look great.

The next night, ready for the party, we missed our bus. Missed it by fifteen minutes. And it was the last bus that went to Tena that day.

With no other options, we squeezed our family of five into the back seat of a taxi. All five of us. Mr. Daniel, who was coming with us to show us where the party was, called shot gun.

Forty minutes is a long time.

We finally, finally got there, jumping out and gasping for fresh air.

It took a good seven minutes for it to sink in that everyone was wearing pants, except for Andrea and her mother.

“You look nice,” everyone said. But I not not feel nice at all.

It did not matter when I tried to elegant. I could not walk without tripping over the tulle.

It did not matter when I tried to walk with everyone else. Apparently I shouldn’t have hoisted the tulle up, either.

The birthday party was at a church, and Dad had been asked to bring the message, and Tyler translated for him. He talked about the for things you will do in your life:

1)Eat and Drink

2)Sleep

3) Open You Heart

and

4) Serve

After that, all of the girls were given a slip of paper and asked to read it aloud. From the stage.

I tried my best- I honestly did. I just don’t think anyone understood what I was saying. “Aaaaahhh… niiiii…. baaaa… hheeeee…. ooooowww….. ooooo!!!!” was all they heard. But they clapped at the end, and for all I know I told them all I wanted was to eat the cake.

At the end of the message, there was some music and then the meal.

It was rice with chicken and vegetables, and a small salad consisting solely of lettuce. It was not much, but we ate it, thankful that we were eating, even though it was already 9:00.

By 9:30 or 10:00, they brought out the cake. It was gorgeous… and two feet long in every direction! The icing was pink and yellow- with chocolate icing spelling “Quinceanera” and “Andrea”.

Alas, it was not to be. Our ride, which was Tyler driving the Davalos’ SUV, was pulling out.

“Feliz, uh, coop? Candle? Crumpet? Um… Andrea?”

“Cumpleanos,” she said.

“Si!” I said, vigorously shaking my head. “Esto!”

But I wanted to scream “Nnoooo caaakkeeee??? Not after all I’ve been though!!!”

The chicken problem I was telling you about?

It, uh, hasn’t really gotten any better.

I woke up this morning to a chicken being chasing out of the house. I groaned, rolled over, and pulled the blankets over my head. Like always.

But the chicken didn’t get chased out of the house. It got chased into my room.

And while everyone else was running around trying to find it, it was balancing on my face.

My habit of yanking the sheets over my head finally came in handy! (I’m just trying to forget that if I had gotten out of bed when I was supposed to, that wouldn’t have mattered.)

I tried to yell for help, but the chicken had its foot on my mouth. Chicken feet are popular here, in soup, grilled, and other stuff, but I wasn’t interested. No way.

Everyone came into the kid’s room, and I wondered why that was the last place they would look. While I was in there, suffering.

I wiggled my toes to announce my presence. Okay, I sort of kicked my feet, and hard. Had I not been using my hands to keep the blanket up and the chicken out, it would have been about a full blown tantrum.

“Madeline? Are you under there?”  Abigail shrieked.

Mom and Dad knocked the chicken off my face.

Elijah chased it out, screaming gibberish and flailing his arms.

“I can breathe!” I said, pulling the blanket away from my face. “Where were you?! I was dying! I had a chicken-” I paused, and smoothed my frizzy hair down. I proceeded slowly to help them understand how deadly the situation had really been. “I had a chicken on my head,”

And then everybody laughed.

Like it was funny or something.

-Madeline

We have some serious pest problems in this house.

We have cockroaches, sugar ants, snails, spiders, mosquitos, gnats, mice, rats, bats,

and chickens.

Yeah.

Chickens.

Our neighbors have very friendly and curious poultry. They just walk right into the house.

“The door’s open, so they must want company!” they must think in their little chicken brains.

We have to shoo them out every five minutes.

That, or close the doors, block the air flow, and suffocate to death.

I’m not ashamed to say it, just annoyed: we have a chicken problem.

“What we need,” says Mom, “Is a baby gate for the front door,”

I’m convinced either an electric fence or 12-15 extra-small shock collars would do the trick.

I’m not a very good babysitter.

I’m just not.

I’m impatient with them.

Baby-sitting’s just not in my blood or something.

I get annoyed when they knock over the towers I’m building.

“Hello!” I want to yell. “I’m immature sometimes, and, yeah, I’m building with your green and purple blocks, but, I mean, it was awesome and you destroyed it!” And then start crying.

And I want to scream at little kids who keep cutting the lights on and off.

“Woah, kid! Do you want to blow the lights or what? You know I’m not tall enough to reach the fuse box! I’ll have to hold you up and you’ll have to replace the light bulb and fix everything.” And make the bbbzzttt! noise when they touch the light switch.

Or when they start fighting with the one of the other kids I’m watching.

“All right, break it up, break it–”

Pop!

“Aaahhh! My nose! Why would you do that?”

I’m not going to tell you who the Demolition Crew is,

who the Strobe Light Master is,

or who The Kid Who Tried To Punch Me is.

Because, like I said, I’m the Best Babysitter in the World.

Only one week. Just one week until we go back to Ecuador.

I’m excited. I’m nervous.

I think I know people down there, I think I have friends, and I think there are people who I will become friends with.

But…

And doubt creeps in.

What if… what if I was wrong?

What if I was wrong about the jungle? What if I wasn’t really seeing how things were, and even if I was, what if they’ve changed?

Mom and Dad won’t be teaching at Antioch Academy, the school we were at last year. We won’t be on the school campus.

We’ll be in the village, really in it. In a different house. We don’t even know which one yet.

We’re going to be doing new ministries. We’re going to be reaching out to the community in some of the same ways, but many, many new ways as well.

We’re going to be meeting and working with new people, doing new things.

My head reels with so many different questions. And yet, it still feels like there are no answers.

With some things, I guess you never know until you’re in the middle of them. Like, right there.

I don’t really want to get off the bus and have no where to go.

Or greet someone I remember who then asks who I am.

Or find out that someone who we’ve been talking to about Jesus, someone who really seemed like they wanted to know more, is gone.

But, like a good friend once told me, He’s just testing my faith.

And I guess He is.

I won’t have all the answers to my questions as soon as I get there.

I won’t know what this next year on the Field holds.

But God does. And that’s good enough for me.