In Nicaragua, the Canadian team and I ran soccer clinics in an open campo right off of Lake Managua. Well, really the team did all the soccer - I can't play to save my life - so I stood by the side-lines cheering, passing out water, and occasionally being the field's medic. While I stood by the side-lines I had a little friend who kept me company. After numerous attempts of asking her name with no response/mumbled response, I named her my Chiquita Banana.
Chiquita Banana is an inquisitive 2 or 3 year old Nicaraguan that I met my first day on the soccer field. As I stood there with my mochila and a big black cow-boy hat, she came up to me holding the shirt she was suppose to be wearing in hand. She tugged on my shirt grabbing my attention and lifted her shirt up to me as if to tell me that she needed help putting it on. After that, I couldn't get rid of her :) She found my wristwatch and for an afternoon she stood there pushing every button imaginable over and over again. She'd wear sunglasses upside-down on her face and would walk right up to me with this big smile on her face - it didn't help that I wear glasses and she wanted mine in addition to the ones on her face. She also found the orange stackable cones and would sit right next to me stacking and unstacking them. She was my buddy, she was my pal...and the more I saw her, the more I called her Chiquita Banana to which she'd given me the UBERST of UBER smiles.
While I wasn't distracted by my Chiquita Banana, other little chicos were brought to me with cuts and scraps from playing too hard. The field - while an open field - had rocks, boulders, horse poo, broken glass, mud puddles, and creepy furry circular yellow centipedes (which I found crawling up my leg...GROSS!). Even with all these obstacles, it didn't stop these kids from playing at full speed and in their sandals or bare-foot nonetheless. Needless to say, all my band-aides were used and I was grateful I took First-Aid. And while I sat there with kids sitting on my lap covering up their cuts and scraps, 2 thoughts came to mind: Jesus saying, "Let the children come to me," and Jesus washing His disciples' feet. If putting band-aides on cuts and scraps demonstrated the love of God to these kids, then I'd go back - sweaty and all - and do it again in a heart-beat.
Field medic wasn't my primary responsibility though...I was the Aguadora (water lady)!!! Being honest, my first day as the Aguadora wasn't my proudest moment as a missionary. One of my pet-peeves is whinny kids...and being the one who holds the keys to the water, I got a lot of kids whining thrown at me. It didn't help that I could understand every word these kids were saying in Spanish. I couldn't be ignorant in thinking that these kids were just coming up to me to say hi or comment on my cow-boy hat, NO I had to sit there and hear the little water-monsters whine at me!!! Moving past my own issue, once there was more order, no pushing, or cutting in line being the Aguadora wasn't so bad...I actually liked my responsibility.
The week of soccer ministry was nicely packaged wrapped in the end with hosting a soccer tournament on an actual soccer field for 40 of the kids we worked with, sharing with the community the story of Jesus, and passing out 90 Book of Hope to the kids and their parents. It was a successful week to say the least...with Banana, Band-Aides, and Beber (drinks - like water).
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