Monday, February 22, 2010

Who Needs Bread and Butter

Like different parts of the States vary in culture, different areas of Guatemala do as well. We have lived in the second largest city, we visit the capital often, we live in a very small town now and we minister in even smaller villages. Each place is different. We feel pretty comfortable in all of them, and try to adjust accordingly. Still, we are constantly learning new things and entertaining others I'm sure in the mean time!

This was a "I should have known better" moment... I have a lot of those. Hind sight is 20/20!

Well for the Kid's Bible study today we learned about the Narrow Door and the Wide Door. I think the teaching objective was accomplished, but the craft was definitely a Craft Fail!

Every once in a while I do an edible craft. They are usually a little more expensive than the average craft, and Jimmy is all about budgets... which I love, so I spread them out. This makes them more memorable anyway.

So with 2 adults and 35+ kids I got craft time down to a science. The first week in a village is chaos, but each week gets better as they learn new skills and what is expected.
I really thought this was going to be one of the easiest crafts ever... naive of me I know, but it's a wonderful world to live in! All they had to do was take a whole graham cracker for the wide door, part of a graham cracker for the narrow door, ice them, and put a Skittle on them for a doorknob. Then they were to take them home and share the story with someone in their family before they were allowed to eat them.

Have you guessed the problem yet? It took me a while.

I went to the first table, showed them my example crackers and all the neon colored icings to choose from and they just stared at me blankly. Usually they barely let me get through the explanation before they start jumping in. So I explained it again. I thought their little mouths would be watering with excitement, but still, I got nothing! Finally I scooped out a chunk of icing with a plastic knife and placed it in one of their hands. They hesitantly started to move it in the direction of the cracker. Then Jimmy and I started going around one by one basically icing about every other cracker for them. I just didn't get it. Then Jimmy figured it out. He said, "They don't know how to butter bread." They don't eat bread, they eat corn tortillas. In fact in this community they don't eat anything that requires spreading something with a knife... the poor kids being subjected to the crazy gringa's ideas!

You know every single kid left with two iced doors!
Well... except this one!

Please pray for the Adult Bible study tomorrow. It is the first one since we moved it to Tuesdays and Jimmy will be all by himself. Thanks!

CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY: Honestly I could do an entire post on dumb things I've done in the last 24 hours, but I'll just pick one... more. Last night I kept commenting to Jimmy that it felt warmer than normal in our house. (We have to close the doors at 6PM because of the mosquitos.) He said, "No, this was just a hot day." About midnight while I was in the kitchen painting my visuals for todays lesson, I realized that I had left the oven on since supper. I was actually paying to heat my house.

3 comments:

  1. Oh my... A day to remember OR forget!!

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  2. ... crazy gringa ... ;·] I wonder whether the corn dogs project will work?

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  3. Shelley - no worries! When I was a mk in Brazil we still look back and laugh at the 'blunders' our parentes did. They are fun memories and love will cover over everything!!!

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