Vanna White to Superman

Painting walls, making tables, moving chairs, decorating classrooms, tearing down walls, lacquering wood.  Oh, don't forget avoiding those poisonous caterpillars.  Put it all together and what do you get? Snazzy school ready for the new school year in the jungle.  

This past week we (all the teachers that is) have been getting ready for the new year that starts next week.  I will have to say I am pretty excited.  I mean this year our school actually looks like a school.  Last year, not so much.  Giggles.  The transformation is pretty crazy. 

We had parents' night last night and I was a bit nervous.  I will be the English Coordinator for the school this year, teaching primero, segundo, y tercer grado and planning each curriculum.  In this lovely position, I had to tell the parents about our new curriculum and all the magnificent plans for English next year.  In each class, I felt a bit like Vanna White showing off the new books and and activities we will be doing.  However, I changed character when I got to segundo grado. 


I taught English to primer grado last year, so I am fairly close to the parents of these kids who will now be in segundo. Before stepping into the classroom, a teacher accidentally misinformed the parents that I would not be teaching their children this year.  There were sighs.  I come rushing in the door.  No happy faces. "First of all, I want to tell you that I WILL BE teaching your lovely children."  Complete change in those sad facial expressions.  There was even applause.  So much hand clapping, that I thought bowing was the only appropriate response.  I felt like I was superman and I just saved Lois Lane from some fire.  No, not just a fire, an earthquake.  No, not just an earthquake, an earthquake in the middle of erupting volcanoes and fire explosions.  So long Miss Vanna.  

That Superman moment made me realize something.  There is such sweetness to encouragement.  My Superman moment made my heart leap.  And not a kind of immature heart hop because of a need for attention or validation, because I know Who gives me validation.  It was a mature and giant heart LEAP powered by the encouragement from others.  A LEAP that gets me excited for this year, my students, their parents, and this little town.

Compassion.  It seems so simple a word, but I think it is more often so simply forgotten.  It challenges me.  A me that can be so unkind, busy, impatient, and just plain selfish with people (and objects for that matter).  How often do we forget to encourage?  I hope my superman moment will remind me of the greatness of a little consideration and love. 

Loads of encouragement, jungle joy, and 2 Corinthians 4:16-18,
Keri

July endings

Well, I cannot believe it is August.  The beginning of this month signifies quite a few things.  First of all,  August commencing means July terminating.   El fin de school, various short-term missions teams, VBS groups, and other July activities.  We were very blessed this summer to have teams from various parts of the states come to serve with construction, VBS, community outreach, school projects, and just loving like Jesus.  There was so much beauty in all that July love.  Here are a few pictures.

Look at all that hard work and those lovely faces.  Buckets and buckets of thankfulness going to Tennessee, California, Atlanta, and oh so many other places.  

Second of all, the beginning of awesome August means rest time.  While the lovely Coyle family is in the states I am watching over their house in Quito for the week.  Mountain breezes, beautiful sunshine, diving into the Word, catching up on random work, exploring forests, and wearing shorts and not worrying about the attack of mosquito armies. 

Life is good :)  

Thirdly, I have failed to put this on my blog, but as of recently I started working as a missionary under the Orphanos Foundation.  They have provided me amazing support and resources as a new chica on the field.  I am still located in Misahualli and working alongside Jungle Kids, I just now have much needed support especially in times when I have felt absolutely overwhelmed.  Please go here to learn more http://www.orphanos.sitewrench.com/products/kericarpenter

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Oh.  And best thing about Quito?  Look above.  CHUNKY PB PARTAYYY.

Love and beauty and Mark 6:31,

Keri

Greater than Simba meows

I figure if you know know me or know be by reading my blog, you have probably seen the Lion King.  Do you remember the part where the hyennas have Simba trapped and they are giggling back and forth? What happens next? MUFASA and his boo-yah roar happens next. 

I think that particular ROAAAR can really describe something that is going on in Ecuador right now.  For those I have not informed, Charmai and I felt led to form a youth group for some of the awesome teens we know in Misahualli.  Charmai and her beautiful passions for dance + me and my crazy love of all things artistic = BOOM.  Obsesionados por Cristo- Obsessed for Christ youth group.  I will admit at first I was nervous.  The majority of the group does not know Jesus and we have had resistance from some townspeople, but I know this is what God wants us to be doing.  Little by little I can see the mysterious ways God is working in each teen’s life (even though they may not see it).  We meet up to practice dramas and dance like David,  we love and have fun in our little youth community, or we throw cake at each other after eating competitions.  I am constantly amazed by their RIDICULOUS skills in art, song, dance, etc.   Oh! How amazingly God has gifted them.  And all of that is just a Simba meow.

My hope is that they may know Jesus for who He really is.  Not some misrepresented Christ, nor some faith that exists just to get a free piece of bread at an evangelical event, but Christ who wants to wrap them with grace and mercy.  Christ who is all powerful, mysterious, and artistic.   

Last week, strangely and mysteriously God got me in contact with a Christian rapper in Ambato, a city about 4 hours away.  Ismael is a guy on fire for God, passionate for young people, and ridiculously gifted artistically. When I met him I actually thought “Dude.  He is Ecuador’s Lecrae.”   I sat at the event trying to capture each moment: graffiti for Christ, amazing raps about struggles and redemption, and a hip- hop dancing crew .  Crowds came.  Crowds witnessed such creativity, authenticity, and passion for the Father flow from each individual and artist.  Then, youth pastors started telling me about all sorts of youth events happening around Ecuador.  Youth are on fire for God and they are using their artistic passions to get His name out.  The Holy Spirit is moving.  Get pumped for Ecuador.  

Now, you can start to hear Mufasa right? My heart is still beating from excitement thinking about all the roaring He's got going down.  

“Let love explode and bring the dead to life

A love so bold

To see a revolution somehow………

My God's not dead

He's surely alive

And He's living on the inside

Roaring like a lion”

God’s Not Dead – Newsboys

 “They shall walk after the LORD: he shall roar like a lion: when he shall roar, then the children shall come trembling from the west.”
Hosea 11:10

Love and Mufasa roars (none of that wimpy Simba stuff),
keri

"Cristo" Work by Ismael and another awesome guy

Finding joy in the boring.

I am a horrible updater.  I apologize.  So I am not going to talk about that anymore.  Here is the 411:

I wake up.  I wash the dishes.  I read la Biblia.  I go to school.  I come home.  I kill a tarantula.  I brush my teeth.  Rinse and Repeat.  Rinse and Repeat.  Finding          joy in the boring can be so hard sometimes.

I did not climb any mountains today.  I did not dance a jig.  I did not start a revival or revolution.  I did not invent something new.  And I did not change someone's life for the better. I did not. I did not. I did not.

I sometimes feel this pressure here.  As I live in the deep, green, mysterious rain forest  how could amazing exciting things not happen to me?  Shouldn't I battle anacondas?  Constantly play with adorable happy and beautiful children?  Eat amazing organic fruits and veggies?  Save lives?  Battle horrible jungle diseases? Swing from vines and meet Tarzan? 


Number 1: Tarzan lives in Africa.  Come on people.

Number 2: Sometimes life is normal.  Slow.  Irksome.  Ho-hum.  Even in the rain forest of Ecuador.  Describing that to people can sometimes be hard.  


I have been extremely blessed this last week.  I skyped many amigos and had fantastically wonderful conversations with fantastically wonderful people (my community that is half-way across the world).  You know what we all had in common?  Life being just life.  Nobody became president, but we all recognized this need to live life full of love despite the normalcy of it.  It can be so hard, because of my great desires of adventure and sprightliness.  

Allison gave me this quote from Brother Lawrence that seemed to so perfectly describe my feelings

"Lord of all pots and pans and things....Make me a saint by getting meals and washing up the plates."

I am totally taping that next to my frying pan.  I hope it reminds me to find love and joy despite days that I find boring.  I hope I can have grace, mercy, and patience on days where the highlight is doing the dirty laundry.  Because the excitement or adventure in doing something crazy?  That moment is fleeting.  It won't bring me joy.  

Well, I am off to joyfully scrub dirty bean pans.  Or I might possibly try to search for Tarzan on this continent.  

Love and monkeys.   

This on the other hand was a super duper exciting moment.  Mixing all of Miss Keri's games together to create a mega-awesome banana-monkey-animal barrel of fun.

Who AM I?

What is your identity? Do you ever think "I am a mechanic", "I am a doctor", "I am a mother", "I am divorced", "I am a teenager", "I am an extrovert", "I am a lover of fried chicken"? These things are not our identity if we know Jesus.  

They define our life, not identify it. 

I may be single, I may be a 22 year old chica, I may be a new missionary, I may have suffered in my past, I may teach, I may struggle with sin, I may love serving children, and I may love peanut m&m's and coffee late at night.  These things describe me, but my IDENTITY- it is in Christ.  How often do I forget that fact? How often do we forget that fact?  How often do we forget that our identity is not in what WE are doing each day, but rather in what He so graciously, and beautifully did for US? When we recognize what He did and who we are, then we can go out and live this crazy life. 


Stop trying to find that one thing that makes you YOU- your job, your personality, your friends, your passions, your successes, or your failures. Jesus is that THING.  He wants to be that THING that makes you YOU. Isn't He awesome enough to be it? 

Isn't He AWESOME enough to be your identity?  

Wonderful and crazy life with children.

I love blogs.  I think they are awesome.  I read some.  I skim some.  I admire some.  I, however, have not figured out what it means to be a writer or a blogger.  My science degree, extremely lacking writing abilities, and every changing work/play schedule have made writing a blog a wee bit difficult :)

I love blogs and the themes that they have.  I love the way I can read almost anything written on The Good Women Project and know that lives are being changed.  That is right.  A blog is changing lives.  How cool is that?  So, if I could have one theme for this post it would be the GREATNESS of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and living as a child.

Here are some wonderful, crazy, and hilarious things that have happened to me the last few weeks when simply living with children 24/7:

*9 kids and I are upstairs.  We hear these words, "KIDS GET DOWN HERE! THERE IS A RAT IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM!"  After much yelling and jumping around, a plan was eventually made. Mimicking Canadian hockey players, a team was formed by placing one person at each open doorway with a broom ready in hand.  An object was thrown, and the rat began its fearful journey.  He scurried across the floor only to be side-swept into the wall.   Then, the next attack occurred when The Grasshopper, age 12, swept the creature like a puck across the floor.  The rat then proceeded to jump 3 FEET in the air (no lies) and out a hole in the screen covering the window.  I will for the rest of my life remember these tactics when trying to defeat evil rodents in the house.  I will also forever remember that jungle rats jump.  HIGH.

Always remember to work in teams.  Especially, when there are scary, furry, yellow-eyed creatures involved.

*On Friday, some Board members for Jungle Kids for Christ came to visit.  They graciously offered to take us out to get pizza.  A year ago, I would have not been too terribly excited about driving in a car for 40 minutes to get some pizza.  HOWEVER, living in the jungle for a few months changes that attitude.  I have never seen so many happy faces.  Kids were jumping and screaming "PIZZA!!!" for at least two hours before we even left the house.  It was a grand event.

Always remember to get excited about the little things in life.  Jumping up and down and screaming can be wonderful too.  

*Over the last week, Little Miss Ariel and I have had a lot of fun reading The Jesus Storybook Bible (I definitely suggest kids and adults get this book.  I had a wonderful friend give it to me).  I love watching her reading or listening to the stories.  She is absolutely fascinated.  We read the story of Moses and the Great Escape from Egypt a few evenings ago.  The thought of water turning into blood and flies absolutely disgusted Little Miss Ariel.   She wanted to know more and more about each character.  I have read that story many many times, but I have never imagined what it would have been like if I had been living in Egypt.  Have I ever stopped to think of the feelings and thoughts of the people?  Have I ever thought what it would be like if I had frogs jumping in my house, kitchen, bed, hair, and chocolate cake? No.  I am pretty sure I haven't.  I want to start wondering, thinking, questioning, and empathizing more when I read these stories from God's Word.  They are pretty amazing.

Always remember to read each story from The Bible with the same fascination as a child reading a bedtime story.  And eat a snack while doing so.  

*There was a huge storm on Saturday.  If there was ever a day when I would say it was raining cats and dogs, this would have been it.  We were cleaning up after dinner and I saw something.  Hundreds (yes, hundreds) of flying large ants had flown into the window screens.  I was so amazed at this unusual event that I failed to recognize the thirty or so flying ants inside the kitchen.  I bet Mister Funny Man, age 10, that he would not catch one and eat it for a snack.  Apparently, a dollar is worth much more than the discomfort of a   one-inch long crunchy flying ant sliding down your throat.

Always remember that you can eat almost anything if you put your mind to it.  Even crazily large      Formicidae.

 *After the storm on Saturday, we were a little afraid the power would go out again.  M the Leaping Lemur and I decided that fort building was a must.  The whole clan and I ran around on blanket scout out mode.  We found adequate materials and started construction.  The end result was magnificent.  A complete success.

Always remember to build a fort on a rainy day.  It will bring smiles to many faces and make you feel like you can construct the next Empire State building.

He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

Mark 10:14-15

I love retelling these stories.  I can just imagine that God must have had quite a few laughs and will continue to have more as He sees our life here :)
I must head to bed now.  Sleep is very important. I hope you can LIVE life and LOVE life like children.
Oh.  And don't fight on the playground.

Love, excitement, and crazy fascinations,
Keri

Pictures of childlike fun:

One month later

Wow.

One month here.

Really, have I been here a month ALREADY?

or

It feels like I have been here for YEARS.

The past few days I had feelings of tiredness, unpreparedness, heat exhaustion, sickness, insect frustrations, desire for community, longings for wisdom, and oh so many questions.  I kept thinking "Is there any word that has greater meaning than being overwhelmed?? Beyondwhelmed? I need that word right now."

There is something that seems so romantic, beautiful, and awesomely adventurous about moving to the middle of the jungle.  The last few days have shown me just how messy and difficult this world I live in can be.  There is conflict, there is exhaustion, there is sickness, there is loneliness, there is lack of wisdom, and there is hardship.  And it has just been a month.  We are humans in the jungle.  Life here is just as imperfect as it is out of the jungle.  I am in constant need of the Lord and His peace.  Today, I listened to the melodious and beautiful voices of David Crowder Band literally singing about the deepest feelings of my being:


"Oh great God give us rest
We're all worn thin from all of this
At the end of our hope with nothing left
Oh great God give us rest"


God then gave me this:


"Sing for joy to God our strength; shout aloud to the God of Jacob!  Begin the music, strike the tambourine, play the melodious harp and lyre.  Sound the ram's horn at the New Moon, and when the moon is full, on the day of our Feast; this is a decree for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.  He established it as a statute for Joseph when he went out against Egypt, where we heard a language we did not understand.  He says, "I removed the burden from their shoulders; their hands were set free from the basket.  In your distress you called and I rescued you, I answered you out of a thundercloud; I tested you at the waters of Meribah..."
Psalm 81:1-7


Wow.

Talk about awesome and perfect words.

God is HERE.  He brings me peace.  How often do I forget that He does that? How often do I forget WHO He is?  How often do I forget that He created the Universe? How often do I forget that He died on the cross for me? How often do I forget that He is with me through all of these jungle troubles? How often do I forget that I NEED His help? He is HERE when the jungle is an adventurous or breathtakingly mystical place.  And He is HERE when the jungle is overwhelming, scary, hot, or just plain unpleasant.  And I thank God that He gives me those scary and hectic days, because those days are the ones that I depend on Him the most.   I realize on those days His greatness and my smallness.  I realize on those days that He is always present in my life.

Some days are just a great pandemonium trying to control 15 crazy kindergartners who REALLY do not like to sit down.  Chairs a flying.  Blocks a tumbling.  Kids a squealing.

Other days are frustrating jumbles as heat exhaustion and sickness make walking around seem like an impossible task.

One day might be a funny adventure crossing the beach trying to save a 5 year from what looks like an angry monkey on a mission to take a child's ice cream.  At that moment, I am pretty sure I looked exactly like Bruce Willis in one of the Die Hard films.  No lie.  If Hans Grubber had a tail and liked bananas, he still would have had no chance against my quick reflexes.  Child life saved.

Another day might be joyful to the max as you see little kids learning things.  No circles, squares, or triangles will defeat my little team.

Some days I struggle to think I have the ability to tell this community who God is and other days I struggle to love and serve this community like Jesus.  Am I doing all that He wants?

BUT- Everyday I get just a glimpse of God's wonderful creativity- plants with crazy leafish flowers, trees that look like skyscrapers, bugs that look like dinosaurs, beautiful girls that love to play princesses, wonderful boys that seek adventure in everything, monkeys that act like 3-year olds playing on the beach, and sunsets that look like they could sing with color.

Everyday I wake up and I AM HIS.  And that is awesome.

Love and crazy monkeys to you all,
Keri
Colossians 3:14-15

PS.  I promise to try to keep this blog updated weeklyish.  The hecticness has been hard to master, and I am trying to balance my need to be present here.  I thank you so much for your understanding!!

PPS. I also promise to start giving a little blurb about each kids here.  I will post pictures of their adorable and beautiful faces soon.