Hello everyone, I just wanted to let you know that I’m moving The Library Mission blog to a blogspot domain. The new url will be www.TheLibraryMission.blogspot.com
I love wordpress, but there are a few features that better suit the blog’s needs there. Please update your bookmarks accordingly–I already have a new post there. =]
I’m enjoying a leisurely evening at home with my siblings, recovering from the day of travel. The past two weeks were incredible. There’s so much to cover, and I’ll get to some of it later once I have photos to add. (With 1400+ transferring as I type, it will be a while.)
Wednesday, August 4th, I went to the dump for the third time during this trip and brought the books. We presented them to Maria; it was surreal. I’ve been seeing many of these books on a regular basis for months. They were piled in my room, stacked in my closet, and lugged back and forth from the church. To finally hand them over was an incredible encouragement. I got a chance to talk about what The Library Mission will be working on this next year and I’ll write a post about that soon.
Today was Salt’s final Nicaragua meeting in its entirety. Several other Salt students are leaving for Nicaragua in the wee hours of Sunday morning with Light Company. The rest of them will join us August 1. All of the books will be going with Salt’s trip. Please pray that the luggage they are traveling in doesn’t get lost or damaged.
You can see what’s going on by following this blog: http://gcmissions.wordpress.com/
There is this incredible place called SCARCE, and this is their mission:
“SCARCE is dedicated to educating students, teachers, residents, businesses, and the general public to conserve natural resources and energy, prevent pollution, reduce waste, recycle, and compost organic materials, so that together we can make a difference; we can protect the environment and work toward a sustainable future for our community.”
What does this mean for us? It means that because The Library Mission is supporting a school, I was able to get good secondhand Spanish school books–many of which are for native Spanish speakers. My sister went the first time (because she’s going to be teaching Middle Schoolers in the fall) and brought back these.
Here’s how they stack up next to my cat:
Yesterday I went for the first time. In addition to books I got two gallon bags of unbroken crayons and some flash cards. (The packaging is in English, but numbers are universal!)
I also got several “super crayons.” SCARCE makes these by melting down all the broken crayons they receive.
I think the kids will like them…
The kittens sure do!
And here’s a look at the 20-something books.
I’ll be leaving for Nicaragua in 18 days–the 25th. Here a some things that have changed: I’m nixing the book laminate and instead going for the significantly cheaper rolls of clear packing tape. This can be used to repair and reinforce pages as well as bindings, and it can be used for a myriad of other things.
Though Marcia’s been looking for cabinets, we really haven’t been able to find what we were looking for in Nicaragua. At this point we are strongly considering giving Maria money to build/purchase something she considers suitable. Another option is large Rubbermaid bins like so: 
Regarding the encyclopedia set we’ve run into a problem not knowing the age group. We have conflicting ranges of 3-6 and 4-10. There are some good sets, but they might not be of use to certain age groups. I’ll keep working on this, and we probably won’t get a set until after this trip. I’ll know a lot more of what the school’s like now and what it may be like later once I return. Also, the book evaluations haven’t gone as planned. I lost touch with the volunteers, and have decided to sort the books into “uncertain” and “okay” piles. Pretty much all the kids books should be fine, but the longer ones or those theological in nature I’ll mark in some way so Maria can get someone to go through them.
There were a bunch of books donated and now we have more than 200 books. This milestone is a particularly special one to me because LibraryThing, the site I use to keep track of all the books, only lets free members store up to that many. So, my sister donated the $25 dollars that was needed for us to have a lifetime membership adding as many books as we ever get. =]
Speaking of my sister, she was so kind as to write down the titles of the Spanish children encyclopedias that are owned by one of the local libraries. I figured that whatever they bought must be pretty good. Amazon only has two of the three she listed. Click the images to go to the corresponding Amazon/sellers page.
$399.00 - Published in 2001
$437.99 - Published in 2006
Apparently the first one has a relatively selective amount of entries and the second has a lot more, but they are briefer. The other one my sister wrote down, “Enciclopedia de los Pueblos del Mundo,” is about different countries and their peoples.
About $42 depending on the site - Published in 2005
As I type, my sister is looking through some of the newest donated books. A couple weeks ago a guy from my youth group–Miguel–donated a bunch and I found out today that another student–Curtis–collected a bunch as well. I just got back from youth group and brought the box with me to catalog. =]
Check it out here: http://www.librarything.com/profile/LibraryMission
I’m very excited. 143 and counting…
This is fairly straightforward. You no longer have to search for the Library Mission page or click the badge on the sidebar. You can now go directly to www.Facebook.com/LibraryMission to visit us there. =]
On a side note, I took part in a conference call yesterday. Marcia–who has a ton on her plate–is going to look into some of the things outlined in an earlier post. (Like the cabinets–which, by the way, is now a minimum of four because Maria has added another class to the school!)
I mentioned earlier how my youth group broke into groups to plan various aspects of our forthcoming trip. We had our second breakout session yesterday, and I have a bit more detailed outline of our Library Mission project. Bob and I threw around some numbers and came up with a current projection of $1,500 to cover costs. What will this money go towards?
This is a little of $1,200. We rounded up because you never know what extra expenses may occur, and then if we fall a bit short we’ll presumably be okay. If we have extra it can be given to Maria to purchase more books later, or we could get them ourselves. How will this money be raised? Through fundraisers like car washes and cookouts, and anyone who wants to contribute. (Hint, hint.)
If you don’t have money, there are things other than books that would be great to have. Some ideas for donations are puzzles, Memory games, checkers, chess, art supplies, and items similar to those found here and here.
Mission: A Library in La Chureca 