El niñero

God moment, Week 11



For those of you who don’t habla español, “el niñero” stands for “the niñero”


Okay, that was just for all of you Chris Farley fans out there.


But seriously, I had one of the most amazing experiences ever last week. I was working construction at the orphanage, and the caretaker of the property, Jose, needed some help.

Jose typically walks his youngest daughter, Hillary (8), to school around noon and then picks up his two older daughters, Sylvia (12) and Lady (10) at the same time (school here is split into two different school days, since they don’t have enough teachers or resources to host everyone at once). However, this particular day, he had to enlist my nanny (niñero) services.

So there I was, filthy and dirty in my construction clothes, walking down the street to school with the most gorgeous and beautiful little Costa Rican girl I’ve ever seen. Her hair was tied into pigtails that stretched below her shoulders, her neatly pressed white shirt and navy skirt were blowing in the wind, her tiny pink backpack was bouncing up and down with every step . . . and her little hand was grasping mine with every ounce of strength that it had.

I wish I could tell you about the conversation that we had (I’ve forgotten most of it by now), or that I could describe in words how sweet her little Spanish voice is, but I just can’t do it justice. Just imagine the sweetest girl ever and you’ll get close to picturing her. Then, after dropping Hillary off, I got to pick up two more marvelous girls—Sylvia and Lady—and walk home with my arms around them.

All I know is that I was the luckiest gringo in the world for those twenty minutes that I was basking in the joy of walking Hillary, Sylvia and Lady to and from school. And what a blessing from God that I was able to do so.



The three girls last week after they lost in a water balloon / mud fight with the mission team's bus driver, Javier.