Sonrisas y Sol

Sometimes it's hard To find a new metaphor To say the same old cliché 'Cause whatever I'm saying Has been said before And it's hard I could call it a battle I could call it a march I could call it a road long and cold There's a light in the distance And He's waiting there for me But it's still hard Jesus, He told us That it wouldn't be easy And boy, don't I know that it's true 'Cause easy was raising a man from the dead But being humble seems harder to do And it's hard To get out of this mess And it's hard To drop my pride and confess Though I know all the lingo and all the cliches It means nothing if He's not in control Jesus came down to save me But what does that mean Does my life really show that I know? If it don't change my behavior Then it don't change a thing And it's hard 'Cause when I open my eyes And see my own helplessness It makes all the difference, you see ' Cause the lingo is lost in the light o...

“Bingo!”  The SM group chat floods with the word bingo  everyday.  And I love it! Elizabeth, as afore mentioned, had the bingo brainchild. And the game continues. The daily rules of our blackout bingo are 1) see every SM; 2) exchange at least three words each; 3) text “bingo” to the group-chat. There are two ways to win in the end: 1) having the most times bingo-ing first; 2) having the most bingos in total.  While life here may not have a lot of seeing the other SMs long enough to converse, I love peeping at their lives in our group-chat which is beautifully full of daily snapshots. And in consideration of the bingo strategy, I’ve also been thinking about some of the firsts and mosts we’ve experienced lately.  Bingo First Día del Padre on March 19 was the first time I’ve had to speak in celebration of fathers to a group of kids who A) don’t have fathers; B) had abusive fathers; C) have fathers who aren’t capable of caring for them. What do you do with that?? ...

When I was Nicol’s age (6), my grandparents were building a new dining room table. I informed them that they would need to make sure it was a big, big table  because I wanted to have twelve kids. As if that were the most normal six-year-old request of all time, they assured me the table would be huge. The custom-made table now stretches the entire length of their dining room (though that may have always been the plan, now that I think about it). When I was ten, I was a much more reasonable dreamer and decided twelve kids was just too many ; the perfect number would be  six !  Regardless of the fact that when I was twelve I decided on having three or four kids someday, I am now living my six-year-old dream: I have twelve kids sitting around my big, big table. A La Mesa   All of Familia Feliz I’m sure can hear when it’s meal time at Las Lilas: I yell at the top of my lungs, “ Chicas a la mesaaaa !! A comerrrrrr !!” (“Girlies to the table!! To eat!!”) The table in Las...