a barefoot week update: el segundo dia

amigos! gracias for all the encouragement and love during Barefoot Week thus far. It is so exciting that it is here and it is happening and SO much money is being raised and that is AWESOME. I can visualize myself sitting on a picnic table one of our last nights in Nica, listening to everyone brainstorm ideas for making something like this happen when we got home...and that all seems like yesterday. So wild.

So to keep you updated on things: being without foot ware is a funny experience. For one thing, it is kind of freeing, giving your toes a sense of liberation and "stepping" out of the constraints of shoes (get it?). On the other hand (or should I say foot....I'm full of it tonight), it hurts. My feet are sore and when you step on rocks, it's painful, and I got a splinter today. But you know what's great about that? It makes me remember why I'm doing this - makes me remember who I'm doing it for. It makes me miss, like deep-down-can't-wait-to-see-their-smiles-again miss some of the kids I briefly got to know during my week in Nica a month or so ago.

Again, I can't stop thinking about Manessa in Chureca and how much I hope to see her when I go back. I can't stop thinking about precious Kesling at Casa, with his dream to be a pilot one day and his adorable makes-your-stomach-hurt-it-is-so-genuine smile, and all the times we pounded fists and said "BOMBA" so loudly. I feel this sense of unshakable, growing joy when I think of these kids, and of all the ones I don't even know who will be blessed by new textbooks and journals and other things that this money is being raised to provide. But it isn't even just that. It is a joy knowing that they will feel loved because of this, and a joy knowing that I am being blessed with this opportunity, too, in ways that are slowly materializing and being revealed to me. Oh and one more joy - it is a incredible to me how possible it is to do things like this, like walk barefoot for something or someone you love because you know it matters. It is a joy to be in this with friends, to see them walking around and for us to smile at each other and share stories of sore feet and to know that we're making it happen because we can. It isn't hard to follow after something you believe in and to utilize your life to love others. You just have to do it. And that's what this is teaching me.

Another blessing from this is community, a sense of sharing all the joyful things I talked about above. There is community in us sharing funny stories, like when a rando dude asked my friend Meg if she needed a ride somewhere when he saw her walking around without shoes. Or how Kirsty got kicked out of the pav in Newcomb for being barefoot. We're here, in it together, and laughing about it and being happy about it and knowing that things are moving and changing and hope is being dispersed. And there is community on a broader scale, in the realm of all the people who are praying for us and supporting us financially and encouraging us. Even as I was typing this, some anonymous person just made a huge donation on my Razoo page. (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU whoever you are! I love you) That encourages me to no end. People are in this with us and excited about what's happening this week and what will happen as a result of it.

So that's what I'm learning slash have learned as of day two of Barefoot Week. More updates (and possibly pictures) will be up soon. and then I promise I'll attempt to stop blogging about Nicaragua because you are probably getting bored and hate me.

OH and if you will be around in C-ville this saturday, please come join us for our Barefoot 5K...it's going to be an incredible time. sign-up here: http://www.razoo.com/story/Barefoot-5-K-Nicaraguan-Orphan-Fund