Failure with the dentist, Laughing at people, Building the Mexico wall, No Basketball

In todays adventures:

Failure on the dentist chair.
This young lady is being mad fun of and everyone is laughing but me.
We continue to build the wall in Mexico.
There will not be Basketball today, but we are working on it.

Yesterday, my repair to the dentist chair failed, so I fixed it again. Today it failed yet again. They've called in the professional to repair it. Oh well, my repair was a failure. I was not a failure, it was just what happened. That's an important distinction. 

In a separate incident, I was working on the new cement wall again today and one of the men was making fun of a beautiful 25ish year old young lady. He was teasing her about her nose being big. He called her over and they laughed together about it. I was horrified! First of all you don't make fun of people behind their back. Secondly and most importantly, you don't call them over so that you can make fun of them to their face! The person doing the teasing is a man of importance in this organization so it was even more confusing! They laughed and laughed and it wasn't just the haha funny laugh, it was the kind of laugh that made the girl just about fall down, it was so funny. 

Again, I was horrified and so confused! After she left, my friend told me that it is important to laugh. It is really important to laugh at yourself. The girl didn't take any of it personally in the slightest bit (I've known her for 10 years). Lesson: when someone laughs at you, you can laugh with them or you can chose to be offended and then allow it to offend and hurt you every time in the future. You get to decide. 

My friend Brenda

What happens in your mind is a fascinating thing to me. One of the books that I'm reading here is "As A Man Thinketh" by James Allen.  Check out this from the chapter "Effect of Thought on Circumstances":

A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intellectually cultivated, or allowed to run wild; whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth a crop. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless seeds (that will produce weeds) will fall there, and will continue to produce their kind. 

Just as a gardener cultivates his plot (keeping it free from weeds) and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all of the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating towards perfection, the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts.

This is a reminder to me that our minds are fertile ground. We can either plant seeds that produce a good crop or we can allow the seeds of weeds to blow in and create havoc in our gardens (minds). 

From the two incidents that happened here, I can remind myself that I'm not a failure with the dental chair and I can take away that Brenda did not let the shape of her body change her thoughts about herself.

One of the most important things that I learned a couple of years ago is: Be very careful what you think about, because what you think about will shape your future. This could be good or bad, be very careful.

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The kids here have had all kinds of seeds planted in their minds. It's a daily, sometimes hourly, struggle for the leadership to pull out the weeds and re-plant seeds of positive things. Then those seeds need to be cared for and protected constantly. I see this during their morning and evening devotional and singing time as well as throughout the day as the leaders care for and shape the kiddos.

Kids singing Christian songs during evening devotional

On a lighter note, we made more progress on the wall that is being built.

Yes, there are blisters

There was also a problem with the basketball post that broke. So we fit in digging up the post with concrete. Yes, I'm the one standing there watching the others work!

Maybe tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day or someday next week a new basketball pole will be set. Sometimes things go fast here, sometimes they can sit for a while and it's fine.

We're not in a hurry for anything, welcome to Mexico.