A Coke and A Smile

For six years in a row, my son, Beau and I spent our Spring Break week in Tijuana, Mexico.  We started this tradition when Beau was five years old and it continued until he was eleven.  You might be imagining that it was a relaxing, fun-filled vacation.  However, what we experienced was nothing even close. 

On Sunday at the beginning of Spring Break, after church, we traveled from Orange County, California down Interstate 5 to the U.S. border with our church’s high school youth group to meet up with a mission relief organization called Amor Ministries.  Amor is based in San Diego.  Amor staff members take youth groups across the border to build homes for homeless families who live in or near the city dump in Tijuana. 

A youth group with 20-25 junior high and high school students can finish a two-room home with a slanted roof and two windows in one week.  This was our church youth group’s goal.  I was one of two adult leaders that first year.

I must be honest with you.  In preparation for my first trip down, I was nervous.  I had to drive a truck, while towing a very large trailer.  I had never done that before, but I was responsible for all the tools, gear, luggage, sleeping bags, pillows, food and supplies.  The other adult was driving the church’s school bus with 24 junior and senior high school kids and my five year old son, Beau.

But, no matter how anxious I was, when it came time to leave, we headed out.  It was nearly a three hour drive until we reached the camp grounds where we were to set up our tents.  We would sleep in tents, shower in bath houses, and use outhouses as necessary.  Dinner would be around a campfire and of course, since I was the female leader, I was in charge of cooking for our entire group.

Another fear that I dealt with was that Beau would be bored or become difficult since there really was nothing fun for him to do.  It was important to me to start my child doing short term missions trips as soon as it was feasible.  However, Beau spoke no Spanish, was not going to be much help on the worksite, and I did not really have any sense of what our working and living conditions would be like.

In anticipation of our trip, I thought ahead and purchased a red hand ball, you know the kind that you play foursquare with in elementary school.  I bought this ball with the hopes that while we were on the worksite, Beau might be able to play with the children of the family for whom we were building a home.

It worked.  For some reason, children are all drawn to a ball.  Those kids played for hours with each other even though Beau could not understand one word and I am confident those national children knew no English.

It was nearing lunch time on Monday and I had kept an eye on Beau, but had not really talked to him since we arrived. I had been working on helping to frame the house when Beau came running up to me with the ball, talking a mile a minute.  I laughed at his enthusiasm and asked him to repeat what he had said, since I did not understand a single word.

As excited as I had ever seen him, he kept saying “pelota,” “pelota.”  I asked what that meant.  He said that it meant “ball” in Spanish.  He had learned his first word in another language and he was so very proud of himself.

After lunch, Beau and his pelota went back off to play with the other children for the rest of the day. 

This was the routine for the rest of the week until Friday.  On Friday, we were finishing up the final touches on the house and would be leaving to go back to our camp by lunchtime.  I had tried to explain to Beau that this would be our last day with the Mexican family, but I was not sure he fully understood.

We had packed up all the tools and left over supplies and were saying our goodbyes when Beau once again came running full speed at me with a huge smile on his face.  He was closely followed by two of the sons in the family with whom we were working.  All three boys had a coke bottle in their hands.  Beau was about to explode with some kind of amazing news, I could tell.

I asked Beau what was going on and he enthusiastically said, “Mom, you got to watch this!”  He asked me if I knew what they were holding in their hands.  I smiled and said that I did.  I said, “You boys are all holding Cokes.”  He grinned again and said, “Watch this.”  And I did.  The three boys, one American and two Mexican who only had one Spanish word (pelota) in common, began singing.  They were singing altogether and in English.

They had started singing the theme song to a recent Coke commercial.  I was amazed and dumbfounded.  How did these little boys who lived in the Tijuana dump even know what a Coke was let alone know the entire jingle the Coke commercial?  It was awesome.  Beau was so thrilled that they had one other thing in common.  I loved that he could not wait to share this with me.

Finally, the boys said their goodbyes and we got on the bus and back on the road.  I asked Beau all about his week.  He said it was a great week and when I asked if he wanted to come back the next year, he cheered and said yeah!

I’ll never forget the impact we made on that Mexican national family by building them their first house.  The mom and dad had five small sons and daughters and now they would be safe from the elements and have their own place to call home. 

I will also never forget the impact that being in Tijuana had on Beau and me.  We truly helped others and it was such a blessing.  Beau was able to meet and play with children with whom he could not communicate.  But the joy he was filled with whenever they found something in common was beautiful to see . . . even if it was only a Coke jingle.

(c) 2013 Tribal Tales and (c) 2013 Feeling Good Entertainment, LLC and Diane LeJeune

Near Death Experience

When my daughter, Sarah, was two years old, she attended a pre-school that was owned and operated by a Christian college in Southern California.  My husband was a student at this college and we lived in the dormitory, three floors above the pre-school.

The care that Sarah received was wonderful.  Many of the teachers at the pre-school were fellow college students who we knew and trusted.  We dropped Sarah off every morning as we went to work or class.  Then, in the early afternoon, my husband, Billy, or I would stop by and pick her up on the way upstairs to our apartment.

One morning, the pre-school director called me at work and said that Sarah was not feeling well.  She was normally an energetic, happy toddler, but as I listened to the director’s description, it appeared that Sarah was quiet and sad.  The director thought that Sarah might be running a low grade fever as well.

I left work and immediately picked Sarah up.  Sure enough, she was warm and was not her normal active, bubbly self.  I took her home, got her a drink of water, and had her lay down in her bed for a nap.

When Sarah woke, she was still much the same.  She was lethargic and warm.  We cuddled up on the couch and watched Big Bird and Snuffleupagus in “Follow That Bird” until Sarah’s brother and dad returned home after school. 

The next morning, Sarah was running a very high temperature.  I decided to take her to the emergency walk-in clinic near the college.  We waited about a half an hour before the doctor saw us.  He examined her and said that he couldn’t find anything wrong with her.  The flu swab came back negative.  He guessed that she had some kind of virus.  He told us to keep her hydrated and to give her Tylenol or Advil for the fever and to bring her back in a couple of days if things did not improve.

Things did not improve.  She was becoming more and more sluggish and unresponsive.  As soon as she woke up that fourth day, I took her back to the walk-in clinic.   Since her temperature was so high, they saw her immediately.

Still the doctor had no clue as to why she was sick.  He found no cause for the fever or her weariness.  He was perplexed.  He told me that I should make an appointment right away with our primary care physician.  As soon as I returned home, I did.

Our doctor was able to fit us in the next day.  I drove Sarah to the doctor’s office the following morning.  Her fever was still raging and she could hardly walk by herself to the car.  Our doctor ran a battery of tests.  Every result we received back was negative.  He, too, communicated that he had no idea what was making her sick. 

He sent her home to rest, plenty of fluids and Tylenol to keep her temperature down.  He said that after he received some cultures back the next day, he would call to give us an update.

By this time, my husband and I were quite concerned about her.  She was growing more lifeless every day.

When the doctor called the next morning, he communicated that all test results had come back negative.  He was totally perplexed and told us that he had no idea how to best treat her, since they were unsure about what was making her so ill.

He said to wait a few days and see how she was doing.  If she had not shown signs of improvement, we were to bring her in again.  So we waited.

It seemed like we waited for 100 years as those three days dragged on.  Sarah was unable to stand and walk, or even sit up.  She had all but stopped eating and we could barely get her drink some water and take her medicine.

On our final trip to the doctor, he told me that he had no idea what was wrong with her or how to treat her.  They had done all that they knew to do.  His suggestion was that we make her as comfortable as possible while her temperature blazed.

On Thursday afternoon, the 15^th day that she had been sick, she barely woke at all.  I sat on the couch, cradling her in my arms, filled with fear that she would die that day.  She could no longer hold her head up and her little body was completely lifeless.  I sat and sobbed while I rocked her back and forth.

It was early afternoon and my husband had come home on a lunch break to check on her.  He held her for a few minutes and could feel how very hot her little body was.  As he placed her back into my arms, her head fell back over my arm for a few seconds. 

I noticed something.  I had moved her back into a more comfortable position, but when I tilted her head back, I could clearly see up into her nose.  I urgently called to my husband to come and take a look.  There was something lodged in her nasal cavity.  He looked and concurred with me.  I asked him to grab the tweezers as quickly as he could. 

He hurried.  When he got back to us, I tilted her head back once again and he very gently used the tweezers and removed a mass from Sarah’s left nostril.  He placed it on a napkin and brought it back over so that I could see it.  Much to our surprise, it was a raisin. 

A tiny raisin; it had decomposed.   I could tell that it had been in there for a while, perhaps a few weeks.  I did not really think that the raisin was the problem with her health.  So we continued to hold her and spend what little time we had left with her.

However I was wrong. After about twenty minutes, she started to move around a bit.  After thirty minutes, she was holding her head up.  Fifteen minutes later, she asked for a drink.  Within an hour, she was sitting up eating apple slices.  My husband and I could not believe our eyes.  She was coming back to life in front of us as we watched.  It felt like a miracle.

After nearly two hours, she was up and running around, playing with her toys.  It was pretty tough for us to fully believe the amazing recovery she was making.  Her fever was gone and she was acting as if nothing had ever been wrong.

The next morning I took her back to our family doctor.  He was shocked at her astounding recovery.  He had seen her when she was quite sick.  The doctor asked what had changed.  I told him that we removed a raisin from her nose and she was up and playing within two hours.  He couldn’t believe it.  He explained that as the raisin was decomposing, it was poisoning her system.  She was getting increasingly sick the longer the raisin was stuck up her nose.

He said Sarah seemed to be fully recovered and suggested that we explain to our two year old not to put anything up her nose, ever.  Which, of course, we did.

I took Sarah back to pre-school the next day.  She had been gone for over two weeks and everyone said how much they had missed her and how glad they were that she had recovered.  I asked if they had served raisins as a snack and the teacher answered, yes.  I told her what had happened.  I told Sarah’s teacher that if it was all possible, we did not want Sarah to be given raisins in the future.  She smiled and said that would not be a problem.

Over the years, when I would take Sarah grocery shopping with me, she would, from time to time, ask if we could buy raisins.  I always said no.  In fact, I did not buy any raisins again until Sarah turned 18 years old.  For her birthday, I bought her the biggest box of California raisins that I could find.  She loved the gift.

      (c) 2013 Feeling Good Entertainment, LLC and Diane LeJeune  (c) 2013 Tribal Tales