The very first brush strokes on the canvas of a freshly approaching day are the desperate tones of the rooster crow. Like an inpatient brood, our neighborhood clan of roosters start things off at about 4 AM. Whoever told me that they only crow ( is it called a crow ?) at sunrise must have only been watching movies and not the real thing. The roosters are soon joined by the flirty flitter of little chirps each of them adding a colored texture to the painting of another dawn. By the time the jungle forest is shaking off it’s drape of fog, my coffee grinder adds to the collective morning noise as I prepare to shake off a fog of my own.
As I reflect on the events and happenings of the last few days, it’s filled with people. New friends and partners in the Nest mission. Fresh faces of visiting YWAM teen students. The little boys and girls delighting at picking candy out of my hands. The older, wiser, creased faces lighting up with bright white smiles. The kinship of sharing a vision, or the simple friendship of working side by side to paint a house, or whack some coconuts out of a tree. Karina and I have been so overwhelmed and blessed to be surrounded by such an amazing community of people.
To name a few, there’s Katia our newest partner who is an agriculturalist and will be taking on the task of seeing the Nest site’s future self sustainability with farming and livestock ( pigs, goats, chickens, cacao, fruit trees, rice and beans ) She walked out to the site yesterday with us and our builder/engineer Chicho to survey the land, as we designated where the first house was to be built and the best spot to clear trees for planting and its water/sun needs. Chicho is yet another person we feel incredibly fortunate to lead us as we take on this huge venture.
And then there’s the young couple Edgar and Rebecca, whom we have grown close to. A native Christian couple who have labored right along with us in sweat and hard work with such dedication and generous friendship. They will be caretakers of the Bambu base while we are away.
Of course there’s the Nest team of women, that Karina has been teaching and leading. Eliza, Rebecca, Katherine, Keisha, Monica, Stacy, and Edith.
There’s our neighbor Fransisco across the dirt road from the base, who’s a master wood builder, and whom we’ve commissioned some projects as a means of integrating ourselves into the fabric of the community.
We know all of this will take time and a commitment to walking in humility, extending the generosity of love and carefully developing relationships.
There are many more people and characters that are rippling out of the Nest community and each one brings a fresh new perspective to the work happening down here. Just as the morning I’m sitting in has now filled with a full array of differing sounds, all these Human Beans have ground themselves together to blend into a delicious cup of coffee, so good in fact that I think I’ll leave you now and go brew me another cup.
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