Happy Father’s Day to Me (and Jesus)

Today is Bolivian Father’s Day, which means this week has pretty much been Fathers' Week at school. It started when Angelica had to take a picture with her papá to school. Then in music class they drew a picture of their dads. In language class they talked about their fathers. And for homework she had to write a card to her daddy. Oh my!

In our 2.5 months together I’ve often thought of myself as a better dad than mom. Having a high pain tolerance does not make for a super compassionate mommy, nor does being really cheap help me empathize when she wants multiple band-aids a day. Having never gone to the nurse’s office in all of my years of education, nor taken a single sick day that I can remember, makes it difficult to understand why she’s already been to the nurse’s office twice in her first month of school. Fortunately, I don’t really know how to call her a “wimp” or tell her to “man up” in Spanish, so I just tell her she’s “very sensitive” which is probably more PC anyway.

However, as tough and scrappy as I may be, I know I can’t really be her dad. But there’s someone in Ange’s life who can. And when it came time to write that card to her papí, she knew just who to write it to; the Father to the fatherless. I’ve corrected spelling and added punctuation for you but here's what she said about Him:

“Mi papá es increible, es bueno, cariñoso. Es bonito hablar con Dios. Muy amable es el Todopoderoso.” (Translation: "My dad is incredible, he's good, he's caring. It's beautiful to talk with God. The Almighty is very nice.")

“Father to the fatherless, defender of widows—this is God, whose dwelling is holy.” -Psalm 68:5

(Pictured are the crafts she made in school this week for her Daddy--me!)