Apologies...

Sorry for not posting for so long. I swear I haven't forgotten about you guys! It's just been super busy here and I've had absolutely no time to post. Last weekend was not a break for us, otherwise I would have totally updated you. I also apologize for this post -- it's not anything crazy, no real update here -- I just wanted to post SOMETHING for the people who obsessively check here every few hours (I don't know if such people exist, I just know I was that person last summer :-)

Suffice it to say, it's been c-r-r-r-r-r-r-razy! (roll that R!) I've been getting to know the people here better and God's been teaching me a lot! Lately I've managed to play piano a good bit, shoot a scorpion, go to a resort in the mountains, have our apartment burn to the ground (not really), share the gospel, try Honduran barbecue, connect with a few of the women at Casa, avoid catching the plague, and ride in the back of the truck as it drives the wrong way on a one way street. To name the more exciting bits. More details to come! Thanks for all your prayers!

SUMMARY: Week 2!

This is both a normal update and a SUMMARY series, since it's been forever and a day since I've last posted – don't blame me (toooo badly), blame the band practice and terrible internet)

Well, we've managed to get a schedule going in week 3 – but week 2 was more ironing it out and really nailing down more specifics. In other words, we did a few things and talked about what we needed to fill our time with. Casa Hogar Vida is very laid back – we have to develop all the things we want to do – they just provide the environment and we provide the services, essentially.

Sunday: Pancakes in the morning and then feeling bleh for the rest of the day – thank God it was just a short sickness though – lasted one day and that's it!

Monday: Started the exercise program for the people in the community (mostly for the women to bond more), played with the kids, talked to that woman who was really on fire for God – found out her name is Hilda. She is a great person to go to if you need encouragement – she's just overflowing with the Holy Spirit! In the evening, Peggy (our roommate) led a bible study on Joshua.

Tuesday: Sarah and I went to Manualidades (the crafts house) – Sarah made a scarf and I translated and talked to Maura (who is like, the matriarch of the community here). We finished just in time to join the second half of the exercises and catch Xan's lecture and Bible verse of the day afterwards. After lunch was a English class with the kids – it was crazy because we just were trying to figure out what level the kids were at, but it was chaos. They basically know some random vocabulary and that's it. We played with them for 3 hours, which was exhausting! After dinner (which was at the cook's house again), Taylor, Xan and I went to band practice – I got to try out their keyboard, which has some cool sounds on it :-)

Wednesday: Instead of going to our separate sites, the entire HLT team went to the hospital in the morning to visit some extremely malnourished kids and their mothers. It was really hard – honestly, I don't think I've had much time to process it. There was a news team there (randomly), so of course they had to interview the hoard of gringos visiting the hospital – it was annoying. But apparently we were on the local tv here – crazy!! After that, we went to our separate sites – we played with the orphans for a bit, then ate some of the best beleadas I have ever eaten! (Granted, I had had beleadas like once before haha) but they were delicious. For real. One of the women, Edith, who comes to the exercises offered to make them for us. She's super cool. After lunch, she braided our h r, whhch was fun. Dinner w`/Qmac'n'cheese and potatoes with cheese, but I wasn't hungry after all those beleadas! Haha

Thursday: Sarah and I went back to Manualidades – by this time, Sarah had created a pattern for a purse, so she tried making one that morning while I translated, organized their shelf of fabric (fun for me!) and looked up vocab words pertaining to sewing and such. We missed the exercise class (oh darn... :-P). But after lunch, we finished the bag and showed it to Maura, who really liked it. Then we played with the orphans and the community kids, read them bible stories from the gospels, and got a little wet (Xan got a lot wet because she played out in the rain with the orphans and the tia – it was fun to watch :-P) (and for those wondering why I didn't get in the fun, I didn't want to drive to dinner in wet clothes, haha) After dinner, Ed spoke at our first ever HLT meeting on Habakkuk. It was a group of about 100 youth, so there was a translator of course... some of the dry humor got lost in translation. Ed's hilarious! But he also said some really good things about disappointment – how we need to complain directly to God, and that God sometimes still lets things happen, but in the end, it's all in his will. Good stuff :-)

Friday: Miguel (one of the electric guitar players – he's like 15) came with us to Casa and hung out at Manualidades while Sarah taught Joana how to make the purse. Then we played with the orphans (I got to chase the twins around – Eli will run all the way around the house, so I'll just go the other way and catch him; Elias will run for a side of the house, then stand there laughing until I catch up to him and scoop him up! SO FUN!!!). After lunch, Michelle, Mandy and April joined us from the support group, and evangelized – it was so cool to see some of the people on our team really step up and ask good questions to these women. (Could you pray for the women we met? They were all Christians, but a lot of them have seen some tough stuff and are going through some hard circumstances.) Then we had exercise in the afternoon because apparently it'd be cooler – it wasn't. We're sticking with the mornings next week :-) When we got back to the apartments, we had to go on a scavenger hunt to find our laundry, because the lady doing our laundry had hung it out to dry and it was all mixed up with everyone else's laundry. It was fun though! :-) Tonight, our cook was busy, so we got pizza from pizza hut, so while we were waiting for that to come, I got to skype with my mama :-D so nice to chat for a bit :-) After dinner, we watched Emperor's New Groove (Shout out to my roomie, Michelle!!! :-)

Saturday: Sarah, Elsa and I got to skype with said roomie of mine (Yeah yeah!!!) and eat ice cream while talking :-D Sarah and Elsa went swimming, and I took pictures since I wasn't in the mood to swim. It was HOT though! I forget what we did that afternoon, but dinner (burgers) was at the church because we had the church service that night. I didn't get to hear the translator, but I tried copying off Sarah and Elsa's notes. The pastor was talking about the need to serve in the community, and about halfway through both S and E zoned out and started doodling with their respective majors (fashion figures and eyes for Sarah; dots and leaves for the Interior Designer, Elsa). I cracked up! Apparently I got the gist though, and since we're already serving in the community, it's okay that I didn't catch everything :-P

That was Week 2! Sorry I didn't get this out last weekend, but our electricity and internet has been a little sketch and we didn't have internet basically at all this past week. I'm going to the office to see if I can get a signal there, but if not, hopefully they'll fix the router soon!!! Plus, band practice is taking up basically all of my free evenings, so I'm not sure I'll be able to do as many updates as I'd like. Ah well! 

One Whole Week In!

Sunday: 

Pancakes with the whole group at 9 in one of the gal's apartments – we played bananagrams and hung out :-) SUPER FUN!!!! After that though, I was feeling a little sick, so I rested until dinner – took a nap and took some drugs – both helped!! It was a bummer though, because I couldn't help with shopping, and I didn't get to practice slacklining. Ah well... After dinner I felt a LOT better, though not 100%. (PS dinner was chicken, potato salad, “real” salad, bread, and watermelon. A typical American meal, but I think I prefer the Honduran meals actually! More flavor, in my opinion)

Monday:

Thank God, Sunday was basically isolated and I didn't really feel sick today! Only a teensy bit in the morning, but it wasn't too bad :-)

We started Xan's fitness program today – we had a man, about 4 women and about 15 kids join us for some cardio – it was a lot of fun, and some of the participants seemed really grateful that we were doing it. I loved seeing how it was meeting a need in the community. Thank God it wasn't too hot – there was a strong wind which helped! After lunch, we played with at the orphanage – and I learned that the older girl there is named Vilma and is around 15 yo. The tía taking care of them right now is only 19! She´s just the substitute tía though – the current tías sister is on maternity leave right now. Still! That's a lot of responsibility! 

After chilling there for the majority of the afternoon, Taylor, Rachel, and Sarah played with some of the neighborhood kids while Xan, April and I wanted to talk to some of the women of the community some more. We ended up back at the house of Hilda (? we think... names are so hard to catch here!!!) – she's the woman who was super on fire for God that we met on Thursday. We spent about 45 minutes there, listening to her talk. We start with her family – her hijos (kids) in Orlando, bu it doesn't take long before she's telling us story after story about God's goodness and faithfulness and how he's provided for her so often in the past. It's a little hard to interact fully since she's speaking Spanish the whole time (plus her front teeth are missing!), but her passion is hard to miss! Plus, God helped out a lot today and gave me ears to understand Spanish better today :-) Yay!!! After talking with her, I felt like I would love to get to know all of the women at Casa Hogar a ton more! If you could, pray that Hilda helps us to be a light in the community – she's already doing a great job on her own, but pray that she would continue to be used for God's glory! Everything she told us, she always gave God the glory. I think all three of us left that house more encouraged and charged than when we came in. Oh yes.

Dinner was at Tollita's (sp?) house again (she's the cook). We had HOMEMADE PIZZA!!! It was delish! Oh, and I haven't talked about the sodas yet. Usually there's Coke or Pepsi, which is always gone by the end of the meal. There's also another kind of pop with it – either grape, banana, or lemon flavored. I hate the grape one, can stand the banana one, and really like the lemon one – it's basically my favorite drink mix in America – Lemonade and Sprite! Today we had Coke and Banana soda.

After dinner, Peggy led us in a Bible study about Joshua – it was awesome, and I was glad we got to have a deeper, more spiritual time with the whole group. Splitting for jobs means we get to know some people really well, which is great, but I like getting to know everybody better :-)

Tomorrow, we're going to try to develop some semblance of a schedule. However, this is Honduras, so we'll see how that goes :-)  Honduran culture is way more laid back than American culture. Ed (the director of Honduras LT) was saying that usually we'll have a speaker come in for a session on Thursday -- however, if the director shows up early, it may happen on Wednesday, or we may find out a few hours before it should happen that the session won't be happening till Friday. You just roll with whatever people want to do. It works fine for me! In a lot of ways, that's how it works at college :-)

Well it's official! I've been in Honduras for a whole week now! Craziness!

Prayer requests: 

Continued health of the group 

Clear direction from God for what we should do more specifically at Casa Hogar

The people of Casa Hogar, that they would draw closer to God this summer.

SUMMARY: week 1

The SUMMARY series (haha) is for all the peeps in my life who don't have the time and patience to read my long detailed posts *coughnotmyfamilycough*


They'll come every weekend either Saturday or Sunday. I may do one in the middle of the week if a lot is happening :-) If you have questions feel free to comment and ask away! Enjoy! 

Monday was a long day of traveling. Honduran driving is crazy. Met the rest of the team. Learned a good bit about the state of Honduras on the way down. Monday was a very very very long day.

Tuesday was meeting the church staff and hearing all the different jobs we could help with, and then touring the actual sites. Basically Limon community center is a nutrition clinic/day care with bible classes/english classes/computer classes. There's about 70-80 kids there. Casa Hogar Vida is a community with an orphanage, a neighborhood, handicrafts place, hotel, coffee roaster, brick factory. We also went shopping for breakfast and lunch food.

Wednesday I worked at Limon with the bebes and helped the computer class. I didn't feel that connected and couldn't see myself working there for 2 months. However, Sarah told me Casa Hogar Vida was different and it sounded like I'd really like it.

Thursday I went to Casa Hogar and fell in love :-) The 6 orphans are super sweet and cute and fun and obsessed with cameras and electronic dictionaries. I met some different awesome people in the community, including a woman with HIV who calls all her Christian friends her family because her own family disowned her, a man who got a loan to start a chicken farm, and an older woman who is completely on fire for God and has seen God do some amazing things in her life. That night we got milkshakes and got to bond more with the other team members. (It also didn't rain today – shocker!)

Friday we talked about evangelism, played with the orphans, slacklined with the kids (google it), and evangelized in three homes – two Christians and a new church-goer. It was so great for me to hear the Christians' stories and be able to encourage them. I'm desperate to get better at Spanish so I can give April a break (her Spanish is the best out of us six at Casa Hogar). That evening, we were going to have a teen meeting at Casa Hogar, but the rain finally came in time to interrupt the meeting :-) we all huddled in a few of the houses and the kids took pictures with my camera.

Saturday I enjoyed getting up late and not having anything on the agenda :-) We went to Wendy's for lunch and I wrote all of these novels here on my blog and got ready for church. Church was pretty sweeeeet. I love singing in Spanish, and I was able to get the gist of the sermon, which was good. Mostly by copying my neighbor's notes haha. The sermon was about Mary and Martha and the importance of daily times of sitting with Jesus :-) Had a good night – wish I could have those kind of nights like 4 times a week! Haha!

Falling in Love

So Thursday was Casa Hogar. It's a lot less structured than Limon; additionally, they just want us to meet the community this first week, before we start our real jobs on Monday, so it's even less structured than normal :-)

In the morning, we hung out at the orphanage. The twins are Eli and Elias, the younger boy is Brian, and the 11 yo boy is Jorge. The younger girl Heidi was in school, but the older girl was home (her name is a little harder, so I still don't have it down yet) Xan got her camera out and they went clicker happy... then I got mine out and they went clicker happy with mine too. I think Xan had over 200 pics and I had 160 pictures. Most of them were useless, but some of them were great! :-) The Aunt (Tía) served us oranges, which were good! She cut them in half horizontally and then used a knife to cut the rind off. You just kinda suck the fruit out as much as you can. It's so interesting to see how different cultures approach simple things like that. Like, we just peel it and eat the slices, but she served them whole but made it so you didn't really have to eat anything except the juice and pulp if you didn't want to :-) I'm glad we can eat any fruit that's unnecessary to wash, like bananas and oranges. It makes for a more bearable summer :-P

Once the kids started eating lunch, we went to the office to eat our lunch. We just hung out and talked a bit about some of the things they learned wednesday when Taylor and I wasn't there. Apparently there's a big need for the women to become friends. A lot of the men work, so the women are left at home without anything to do, so they gossip and stuff, so Maura and Eli are hoping we can create some events that they can just attend to get to know each other better. For example, Xan is doing a fitness program with them every morning – they'll be exercising and learning how to honor God with their body, which is sweet. That was up Xan's alley for sure. Sarah's gonna help with handicrafts, and Taylor and April are going to do more administrative things. I don't know what Rachel and I are going to do, but I bet we'll figure it out :-)

After lunch, April thought it would be a good idea to introduce Taylor and me to the community, since we hadn't been there Wednesday when Maura took the team around. As we started walking around, this one woman, Alma [soul], ran across this field to us and gave us HUGE hugs. Sarah said later that they had met Alma Wednesday and heard her story. Apparently she's one of the residents who has HIV, and since her family found out, they disowned her, so now she lives in Casa Hogar. She calls us her family and is so loving and beautiful. I can't wait to get to know her better :-)

Arturo invited us to look at his chicken farm – it's a large hut with a tin fence in the middle and coops along the edges. He has feeders and places where they're gonna put water for the chickens. He had gotten a micro-loan from the church and was using it to start raising chickens. The coop can hold up to 600 chickens – he's got this whole plan of what he's going to do. He was so excited and proud – you could just tell it on his face.

Another woman talked with us for about half an hour – about all the things she's seen God do in her life, and it was just so cool to listen to. It was pretty hard to understand her, and April couldn't keep up translating, but from the bits I did get, you could tell this woman was on FIRE for God! I want to sit and talk with her too!!

After meeting all the people out and about, we went back to the office (it was sooo HOT! and the office had air conditioning) and talked with Maura and Eli more – I can tell that there's a place here for me, I'm just trying to figure out what it is. I was telling Sarah that I'm falling in love with the people at Casa Hogar and she's like “I knew you would!!”

We went straight to dinner, which was finally Honduran – a tortilla with refried beans, avocado, scrambled eggs, and cheese. However, I found out I'm not that fond of avocado, so I didn't eat much of that. After dinner, we went to a milkshake place and got to know each other better – I really feel like our team has meshed really well, considering the short amount of time we've been together. I love it! The milkshakes were fantastic! I had chocolate, but the coffee one tasted good too!

Thursday was the first day that didn't have rain. Every day so far it had rained in the evening and scattered throughout the night, I feel. It was actually clear enough to see the STARS!!! I was so stoked! I found the big dipper much lower than in OH and a bunch of stars in the South that I had never seen before. I suddenly wished I had dad's droid with the skies app on it :-)

Aaand that was Thursday.

Friday: Went to Casa Hogar – Peggy joined us this time! We started by meeting in the office where Peggy led a discussion/training session on evangelism. April and I were designated as the translators, and we practiced and prayed. I felt like I was gonna have a really difficult time of it, but I was willing to try!

After that, we went to the orphanage and hung with the kids again. They weren't as rowdy as the day before (maybe because it was so hot because it had still not rained. I'm thinking high 90s and super humid here people). They were watching plaza sesame. Brian found the games on my electronic dictionary and played hangman basically the whole time we were there. Eli and Elias played with Rachel's camera, and Sarah and I sat on the couch with Jorge and tickled him, teased him about the girl he likes at school, taught him a few English words, and introduced him to Herbert, Sarah's “only friend” and orange, bedazzled gnome. It was so fun! Don't tell the kids, but I think Jorge's my favorite. He reminds me of another kid I know, but I'm not sure who... I'll think of it eventually :-)

After lunch, Taylor set up his slackline so the kids could play with it. There will be Facebook pictures at some point. Basically you tie the slackline between two trees (or in this case, a tree and a truck) and tight-rope walk across. Taylor and Xan showed how to do it, and even some of the men working there tried it – it was SO funny to watch! They hung onto Xan's hand and wobbled there for a second with this huge grin on their face before they lost their balance and stepped off. The kids had an easier time because they're lighter and little monkeys anyways :-)

At 2, all of us (except Taylor, who stayed behind with the slacklining kids) went evangelizing. April translated at the first house, and I realized I wouldn't be able to do it – it wasn't so hard to translate the English into Spanish, but it was so difficult to understand what the mom was saying in Spanish – the exact opposite problem I thought I was going to have before I got here. So April just translated.

We went to three houses in like an hour and a half, and got to hear three women's stories. The first two were strong Christians, and the third was a new church-goer, but it didn't seem like she really understand the gospel. It was so great though to sit around and encourage the women and talk to them and get to connect with them on a deeper level. I cannot wait to do it again! I just wish I could understand the people here better so I could give April a break :-( Apparently they use a lot of slang and shorten words and stuff. Meh!

Dinner was at the cook's house (I really need to find out her name!) and she had made small soft taco shells, refried beans (black beans this time), eggs, cheese, plantains, and spam or ham. It was delicious!! We ate outside on her patio. She has a dog that looks like a cocker spaniel – way nicer looking than the scarier dogs here – most dogs you shouldn't pet because they're not really tame... I did pet her dog though. I could feel every rib. All the dogs here are a lot scrawnier than US dogs, for sure. Sometime I'll do a random post on the animal life here...

Casa Hogar was having a teen meeting, so we decided to go to that – I rode in the back of the truck again. It was so fun, especially since the sun was setting and it was finally threatening rain. Aka there was a lot of lightning. With the mountains, lightning, lightning bugs, and honduran people, it made for a great ride. I really wanted to film some of it, but I needed both hands to hold on for dear life! Haha.

Before the meeting could start, it started pouring (finally!!!) so we ran into two of the houses to wait it out/hang out. A bunch of the littler kids were there, and they stole my camera and took a ton of pictures again. Brian really wanted my dictionary, but I didn't want to get it out because I have limited batteries and it was wet out :-)

Have I said yet how much I love the Honduran people? I hardly know any of them, but I love them all!

When the rain let up, we left. We ate ice cream in the apartment and relaxed a little. Got to skype Rachel F which made me super happy!!!!

Saturday: I slept in late and took my good ol' time getting ready. Journaled a bit, relaxed... the group went to Wendy's for lunch – I got a Frostie!! And apparently, pretty much everything is in combos, so you can't just buy chicken nuggets. Unfortunately. So other people ate my fries :-)

Blogged and listened to music all afternoon. Started POURING at 4. aaaand the bedroom has a leak. Yay!

Dinner at 5: I forget what they were called, but it's basically fried tortilla (really crispy!) with shredded chicken. We could put this sweet salsa/marinara sauce or guac sauce on it. After dinner, we got to talk to a lot of the kids who had been at the Hispanic version of Awana: Oasna. I met Carolina, (12 yo who is really sweet and super easy to understand (plus for me!). Her brother on the other hand uses more slang and has a heavier accent...

CHURCH was SO GOOD!!! We sang a few songs at the beginning WITH WORDS so I could actually sing along :-) Then there was a short skit about Mary and Martha and a short sermon on the importance of sitting at the feet of Jesus every day – definitely something I needed to hear here! Haha. The sermon was in Spanish, but a lot of our team got head sets that had English from a translator in the back, which was really nice :-) I didn't get one, but I was able to get the gist of the sermon from a combination of understanding a portion of his Spanish, Elsa's notes, and kinda hearing Elsa's headset. It was really good. Then we sang about 6 more songs. So much worship! It was fantastic!

Chatted with a bunch of the church members afterwards – they made us stand up during announcements, so we were kinda famous after the service (because you know, we don't already stand out as a herd of gringos :-P )

Got to skype with the fam and hang out a bit before bed. Sweetness no? 

Once again with the novels. 

First Workday in Limon

Okay, I'm gonna do the best I can to catch you up, so bear with me here...

I now have a better idea of what the two different sites do – it's definitely not like non-profits in the US where they focus on like one thing and that's it. Limon community center and Casa Hogar Vida have a ton of different things – I feel like I did a poor job last time explaining.

Casa Hogar is a community that's about 15-20 minutes away from our apartments. They have an orphanage which can house 8, but they only have 6 kids right now – a 3 year old twins, both boys, two boys, 6 and 11, and two girls, like 8 and 14? not sure. There's a hotel/complex for short term missionaries that they're hoping to finish by the end of June. There's a block factory that provides some jobs and makes it really cheap to build homes. They have a handicraft house where they make earrings and bags and whatever else Sarah thinks up for them to make :-) They have a coffee bean roaster that they're gonna roast coffee beans and sell – Criz (the one Honduran LT participant) was really excited about that – he's even more of a coffee fanatic than Sarah!! There's 38 homes in the Casa Hogar neighborhood – it consists of 4 parallel lanes with 10 houses each. The last row has the handicraft station and an empty house. The purpose of the houses are so that people can own their own homes – sometimes they are given and sometimes the people pay in a 10 year plan that afterwards they own the house. The church also tries to fill the community with a mix of people with HIV and people without so that they can hopefully break stereotypes and stigmas that surround people with HIV There's also the office and the store there. The office is the only place with air conditioning... hehe... Oh, and there's an AIDS/HIV support group that makes house visits (I think beyond Casa Hogar) – I want to do that sometimes!

Limon is a community center that helps with child malnutrition. They bring kids from the community into the clinic and feed them breakfast and lunch and keep track of how they're growing and stuff. They also teach the kids hygiene and the importance of healthy living. There are some really sad stories though... Once the kids get back to 100%, they graduate to the daycare right next to the clinic. There are bible classes in the morning along with playtime and English and computer classes in the afternoon for the older kids. Since unemployment is 40% here, the english and computer classes will hopefully help the kids get a job later. There's also a microloan program that helps Hondurans start their own businesses since there aren't huge businesses that can hired lots of people.

I hope that gives you a better idea of the two places we work are all about :-)

So Wednesday I helped at Limon – Katie and I played with two bebes – Isis (2 yo girl) and Yesser (1yo boy). They were super cute!! We helped them have breakfast and lunch and played with them in between. On the playground, Isis loved the slide, and would always yell “adios!!!!” as she went down. Yesser wanted to go down the slide, but never got the courage, even when we tried to go with him. The playground was full of kids of all ages, and they are a bunch of monkeys!! If it can be climbed, they would climb it. There were a few times that I was like, it that allowed? But Katie and Elsa said that the women in charge saw it and didn't do anything, so apparently the kids are really good about not getting hurt :-)

After lunch, the moms came to get the kids until only the kids for the computer and english classes were left. I helped with the computer class because after being in Honduras for a day, I realized that the reason I loved being here was speaking Spanish, so I crossed TESL off my list.

Julio was the teacher in computer class – they were working on EXCEL stuff. I'm not too proficient in excel, so I felt a little useless, but it was still fun. Julio is a character! He is easily distracted, hard to understand (both in English and in Spanish I hear. Frank says he only understands about half of what Julio says!), and was excited to show people all the cool shortcuts and stuff you could do with excel. Near the end though, he basically let the kids fend for themselves and he talked to me and Sarah Liz (aka Slizzard). Apparently he's learning French with Rosetta Stone. His pronunciation is as terrible as ever though, and I don't think it's grasped the concept that you don't pronounce all the letters. Which could be a problem in French :-P

At 4, we headed back to the apartment. It was threatening rain, but Elsa and I opted to ride in the back of the truck. We got kinda wet on the way back, and since it was so beautifully hot and rainy when we got back, we just danced in the rain until we were fully satisfied :-) But then we had to wait for Sarah (who was a Casa Hogar) to come back with the key so we could get in. That wasn't so much fun.

We ate dinner at the church outside (spaghetti) and caught everyone else up with what we had done that day. I've decided Limon is too much like babysitting for me to enjoy working there the whole summer. I told Ed I wanted to work at Casa Hogar the next day (which was no big deal :-)

Ed said the church was having a monthly prayer meeting that night and we were welcome to join. I definitely wanted to!! Caleb, Jack, Michelle, Katie and I stayed behind. It was so fun!!! We sang 2 songs at the beginning (unfortunately, no words were on the screen, but I recognized a lot of the songs. Sing Sing Sing [chris tomlin] was one of them). Then someone got up to talk about the 3 things we'd be praying for. Frank sat next to us and translated like a boss! I don't know how he could keep it all straight, talking in English while still listening in Spanish. One day, my friends, one day...

We prayed for people to be reached with the gospel, for discipleship, and for safety. It's not too bad if you're cautious (and Ed is making sure we're super cautious, parents) but there are stories on the news... the gringo group was joined by Frank and his lifegroup leader David. We all prayed in English – David did a really good job, considering it had been a while since he had prayed in English :-)

Then we went back in and sang 3 more songs – Hosanna was one of them, which was super easy to sing the chorus of hehhehehe....

And that was basically Wednesday... Man that's long. Maybe I'll post this one now and do more later. Bah.

And here we are: Choluteca, Honduras

After getting sent off by my wonderful h2o family Sunday night and having Elsa spend the night (!!!), my journey to Honduras started. The flights were pretty awesome – I got window seats both times and they were right next to the wing too, which was perfect for me :-P We met Sarah and Peggy in the layover in Atlanta – the plane was running late, so we got time to hang out and catch up before kinda separating again on the plane. From the window, it was me, Elsa, and another guy who was actually from Tegucigalpa. Elsa doesn't know much Spanish, and this man didn't know any English, so I had a bit of practice translating. I wasn't very good because he kept mumbling (therefore I didn't catch his name), but it was fun to talk a bit about where we were from, where we were going, etc.

Then we landed in HONDURAS! Made it through security and got our luggage with no problems :-) (yay!), met our group fairly quickly (another yay!) and loaded up the 15-passenger van and the truck. We ate at a “hip” Honduran restaurant (that I can't remember the name of, of course) where we got burritos. Went to a Honduran version of a BJ's to get a tarp, went some other place to get rope, then we piled ALLL the luggage in the truck so that nobody would have to ride in the back the three hours down to Choluteca (that wouldn't have worked very well :-P). It was cramped, but a lot of fun. There were two Hondurans riding down with us – Francisco and Chris. Francisco was telling Xan and I all about the poverty and problems in Honduras, which was fascinating from a conflict management major standpoint :-) He made sure to tell us the point of why he told us all of it was so that we could rejoice in the “little” things happening in Choluteca – aka we could see what an impact the church was making. Chris told us a lot about Honduran culture and stuff. His English was good – especially when I learned that he had only been learning for a year!! Ridiculous! He has an accent, but his grammar and vocab is crazy good! A few times he has asked for the word, but not often...

Made it to Choluteca late at night – Nope, actually it was only 6:30 here, but it seemed later because the sun had set – we're so close to the equator that we get 12 hours of sunlight all the time. That's something I have to get used too... oh, and it was lightning-ing in the distance, and it was very cloudy :-P Had dinner at the church (lasagna, salad and bread with melted cheese) and got to know each other a little more. Finally made it to the apartments – Us three Kent girls (me, Sarah, Elsa) and Peggy are sharing an apartment. We moved all the beds into the room with the air conditioner (Venice [there's only channels of space for walking]) and all the wardrobes and stuff into the other bedroom (Spare Oom).

But it was freezing at like 3 in the morning. Finally we shut it off, but it took a while to warm up a bit. We figured out today it was set on the lowest setting, so we're turning it up tonight!

Day 2: We ate breakfast at the church since we hadn't gotten to the store yet. We had cereal and milk and some kind of Honduran breakfast thing – I wish I had gotten a picture. It was basically a tortilla with ham and cheese wrapped inside, grilled, with ketchup on top. It was delicioso! There were kids having gym in the courtyard, and they were adorable. Yup. Probably 5-6 years old... After breakfast and a quick rundown with Ed about the general program, we got to hang out with the kids and explore the church grounds a little. I gave Elsa and Sarah a Spanish lesson :-)

Some people came to tell us more about the different sites available to work at. It was fun for me because they spoke in Spanish and then Francisco translated – I want to be able to translate eventually!! Afterwards, we got to talk to each speaker individually, if we're interested. I still didn't know what I wanted to do – there were too many choices! Here's the list:

Casa Hogar Vida: Orphanage (help play with kids, etc.)*; Handicrafts business*; HIV/AIDS support groups**; small groups, 180 degrees [highschool/college groups]**

Limon Development Center: Malnutrition clinic (helping the kids with cleanliness, food, spiritual needs, family support, and some thing else I can't remember), afterschool programs*, English class, Computer class*

The stars are the ones I'm interested in :-)

After lunch (fried chicken, fries, cole slaw, bread), we took a tour of the places. It was cool to see everything for realz instead of just hearing about it!

I got to meet an adorable Honduran girl, Cielos [heaven/skies]. She's eight going on nine, and is fascinated with cameras. She probably took over 100 pictures on my camera – she only stopped when the battery died :-) It was fun though because I could talk to her in Spanish, and I could understand her! It was encouraging after not really being able to understand the adults (apparently, they have more slang/stronger accents here – other places it's easier to understand).

We went shopping (we'll provide our own brekkers and lunches after today), had dinner (pizza), and we're now hanging out in our apartment. It's rained quite a bit, but I'm glad we weren't in the back of the truck when it poured right before dinner! Hah... a couple of the girls got SOAKED.

Well... Tomorrow, I'm going to the Limon place, helping with the older kids because apparently they're understaffed in that department. Hopefully it'll be awesome! :-) I'll be making home visits with the HIV/AID support group later this week!

Congrats getting through the first post! Any questions?? Thanks for all your prayers!!!!