My visit to Emmanuel.

I am going to share about my two weeks in Honduras. My first week I was able to go and visit the orphanage, Emmanuel. That is what this post will be about. My second week will take a little bit longer to write but it will be worth the wait to read about.

Visiting Emmanuel

I now understand a little bit more how it feels to be a grandparent. I was basically a parent for these girls for a year. I know there are others there who have been there longer and have invested more of their time in these kids. However I was there for a year and did put everything I had into these girls. I gave them my time and tried to treat them as much as I could like a mother would, especially my special needs girls. Going back for just a week was a little different.

First off there was no one mad, upset, or disappointed in me. I didn't have to correct anyone or discipline anyone and that was a nice. I was able to spend time with the kids I wanted to and if they started acting up I could just take them back to the yard. Also I didn't have a radio, keys, or even a cell phone. I did end up feeling really guilty because I felt like I was doing nothing, in the end I thought about it and knew I was investing time with specific kids that I wouldn't have normally gotten to do.

For the most part my days went as so, I would wake up and go to the older girls circle. Then I would go to the clinic and "help", meaning I would sit and talk with Carelia and Zue while they worked. Then I would go to the baby house or toddler play area to play with the little ones. I would go eat lunch at the store. Then I would go and get Nickolle and Eduardo from the yard and talk them for a walk to the farm and then head back and take them to the store. Then I just got to sit and hang out with them. We had fun and laughed and they both were just funny. When school got out I took Nickolle back to the yard and went with Eduardo to the medium boys house. After that I just hung out with the medium boys and watched them play. Joche really stayed around me and he just made me smile. When it was time for them to eat I went to the clinic and "helped" there again.

I also had a movie night with the special needs house. I went and bought coke and chips and we watched Shrek. I sat with the girls and loved every minute of it. 

I spent time with all of the friends I had made there. They had a staff/volunteer get together and so I got to catch up with everyone and meet some new friends. We sat around the fire and had bread on a stick and talked about cultural differences, which is always fun. It was a great time with great conversation from great people.

So after all is said and done I had a great time going there and spoiling certain kids and leaving them to the ones in charge to deal with harder things. I was a grandparent.

In every season....

I know, I know, I haven't written a blog for a really long time. For those of you who know me, is it really that big of a surprise? I didn't think so. However I am doing it now just to update everyone before I come home.

I was put in clinic when I came back in May from my trip home. The nurse, Carelia, went on Emmanuel maternal leave (a week before she had the baby) so I took over for her. It has been an adventure since then. I have had many hospital/doctor runs, high fevers, torsalos also know as bot flies, broken arms, infections, busted heads, and the many other anomalies that the children here at Emmanuel are known to acquire. So needless to say I have been busy. Through the over two months that I have been working in the clinic, I have had the privilege of working with many nurses and doctors. I have learned a lot from each of them all full of knowledge that the Lord gave them to pass on. The Lord really used them to help me understand which pathway he wants me to take this next season of my life. So my thanks is to them for letting Him use them to help my in many aspects.

Now because of my new clinic duties the horse program had to be put on the back burner. The Lord provided help right when it was needed. I had volunteers come in that were able to take the girls and work with the horses. The horses are looking healthier which is all that I can ask for. Thanks to the kids from VBS at WSBC for supplying money to help take care of the horses. 

So from the way the before writing reads it might seem like I will be back in the states soon. You have read the signs correctly, I am coming home the thirty first of August. This is so surreal to me that it is that soon and my year I committed will be complete. I feel the Lord leading me in a new and different  but exciting direction. However I am going to miss my kids terribly. I don't know what I am going to do with not seeing some of these kids everyday. Now that Carelia is back in clinic I am going to do a few more things with the kids. This past Saturday I was able to cook breakfast and dinner for the older girls house in which I work. We had pancakes and hot chocolate for breakfast and some fried rice with lots of chicken for dinner. I will be cooking again this Saturday for them a breakfast of eggs, beans, sausage, and tortillas and a dinner with spaghetti. This is something that I enjoy doing and something the girls enjoy receiving. 

One of my favorite songs from Hillsong United is "Desert Song". The bridge say "All of my life, in every season, you are still God, I have a reason to sing. I have a reason to worship." In Ecclesiastes 3:1-22 it says for everything there is a season. In every season we have in our lives God is still with us. God has been with me through this season and taught me a lot. He will also be with me as this season changes to the next. 

I just want to say thank you for all of your support through prayers and needs that have been met. Please continue to pray that I will follow God in where He wants me.

Las Grandes/The Older Girls

The yard that I have been working in is the older girls yard. The yard (there are five different houses that share a common yard) range from girls with the ages fourteen to girls in their twenties (most girls in their twenties are special needs girls). I work with the special needs house. All of the five different houses have what would be considered special needs girls in them but my house has those that need a little extra time and attention.


In my house I have thirteen girls, there are six special needs girls and the other seven are older girls who help with the special needs. I shower, comb hair, brush teeth, and clothe four of the girls (Nohemy, Nickolle, Ofelia, and Lizeth) one of my older girls takes care of Ninoska and then the other girls are capable of taking care of themselves with a little supervision. 


In the yard we try to find activities to do with the girls which can be very difficult. Why is this you ask? Have you ever tried to plan activities for you teenage daughters? Try planning them for seventy girls with very different personality types. It can get very interesting. However trying to find things for these girls is very important so that we do not have them sitting around thinking about their situations. If you are a girl you know how our minds can wonder and create things, without us even realizing it. Well this is where Satan tends to come after our girls. So we try to keep them busy because busy hands can equal an occupied mind.


Since activities seem to be hard to come by we have started doing work groups. The different groups of girls will go with the different staff women that work in the yard and do things like cleaning the church, weeding the garden beds, and raking up leaves. Anything that will occupy them is what we try to do. In that there is a prayer request - Please pray that we will be able to have things to do during free times in the week so that we can occupy these girls hands and minds. With that hopefully we can teach them responsibility which seems to be lacking in our young ladies.

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 says "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody." I think this can sum up what we are hoping to teach the girls through these work groups. Do you know how hard it is to live in a yard with over seventy other girls and lead a quiet life? So I guess it is a good training time for these girls who do follow Christ. If they can learn how to do this verse with seventy other young ladies it won't be so difficult later on.

This is a very hard group for me to work with because they have been hurt already so much in their lives and they have so many barriers up. God has taught me a lot through working with these girls and I know has a lot more to show me in my next four months at Emmanuel. 

Please pray that these girls will open their hearts to the only on who will never leave them nor forsake them. Also please pray for me and the other staff women who work with these young ladies that we will come to the Lord each morning for strength the be His vessels and show them His LOVE and not our frustrations and fleshly attributes can sometimes bring with us.

¡Pura Vida!

I have recently gotten back from vacation and had a great, relaxing time. It was nice to get away and just have some time to do nothing. I went with Leigh (my roommate) and another volunteer Lindsey. I didn't just go on vacation for the sake of going on vacation though, I had to go and renew my visa. So I took advantage of that excuse and we went to Costa Rica to the beaches of Manuel Antonio.

We left on January 5th and had to be out of the country the 8th. Unfortunately when we went to buy our bus tickets they were booked full until the 8th. So we ended having to pay a few in order to leave Nicaragua. It all worked out fine though. We stayed in Teguc for a few nights in the hotel and went to the mall everyday.

So we left out on the 8th got the Nicaragua that night and stayed at the bus hotel. We left out the next morning to head to Costa Rica, the Nicaraguan/Costa Rican border took forever but we finally made it through and reached San Jose about 9 that night. Lindsey had been in Costa Rica to language school before and so we stayed with her host family that she had lived with. They were an amazing and very hospitable crew. The next day we looked around San Jose and went to the markets, we also bought our bus ticket to go theManuel Antonio the next day.

Walking around in San Jose

So on the 11th we got on a bus to head to Manuel Antonio and it took about

3 1/2 hours to get there. Well worth the trip, it was one of the most beautiful beaches I have been too. For the next 6 days we ate, went to the beach, ate some more and then usually went to our room to watch TV and go to sleep. One of those days we went to Manuel Antonio's National Park. They had a wonderful beach there also. In the National Park we saw sloths and had quite a few monkeys hanging out where we were sitting. I brought out a bag of chips and immediately had to put it away because the monkeys started running towards me. Also Leigh had to chase one of the monkeys away from some people stuff that they had left sitting on the beach.

Sloth Monkeys Iguana

We headed back to San Jose to stay another night and then Leigh and I got on the bus on the 17th to be back in Honduras on the 18th. We stayed at a hotel that night and then caught the Emmanuel bus at the airport that was picking up a group to come in. It was a very successful trip of renewing visas and mind. Also just having a few weeks away. Pura Vida.

Holiday Update

I know it's been a while since I have posted, but it has been very busy around here. Well Christmas has come and gone and everyone here has survived. It was a great day for the kids. They got to leave the houses a little bit later which meant sleeping in a little for everyone. That is already a great present around here. All of the kitchens had fried chicken, rice, and vegetables for lunch with coke. It was very good fried chicken. At 12 everyone but the toddlers went to the church to open presents. This year we had over 3000 presents for our almost 600 kids. Every child had at least 2 presents. The presents were handed out by volunteers. The volunteers would pick up the presents (that had already been previously sorted) and take them to David. David would call out the name and the child would raise there hands. It only took about 2 hours this year. That is a few hours shorter than last year and we had a 100 more kids this year. After all the presents were handed out David counted to three and all of the kids opened their presents. It was a fun site and I did get a video and lots of photos that I would love to post for everyone. However my memory card for my camera is M.I.A. I have looked for it but can't seem to locate it. As soon as I post that I will be able post everything.

For those that help to contribute to the presents for my house it was and is greatly appreciated. Everything that was sent was a blessing. From the shampoo to the towels (those are very nice to have) to the new pajamas. All of my girls love their rain jackets. My big girls in the house plan on writing thank you notes and when I find my memory card I will hopefully make a small video of my special needs girls saying thank you. You have no idea what a blessing your gifts have been and will continue to be.

Thank you to the peacemakers for the quilt that was made for me. I LOVE IT!!!! Also to the others that sent my gifts thank you so much!!!

I will be leaving this Thursday for Costa Rica to renew my visa. I am very excited about this and it will be a very nice and much needed break just to get away for a bit. We will be gone a total of two weeks. I am leaving with Leigh and another volunteer Lindsey who really knows Costa Rica very well. It should be a fun trip and doing a lot of nothing on the beach will be nice.

I think that is about all of the updating but I would like to ask for prayer for safe travels. Also please pray for me whenever I get back I will be working on what I will be doing for the special needs class and trying to figure out with all of the new kids who I will be working with. This will be a challenge so please start praying now.

Update

Discipleship Program

There is now a discipleship program at Emmanuel. The teenagers and young adults that are seen to be mature and wanting to grow in the Lord are involved in this program. There is a drama group that work on dramas to present during church. There is an evangelism group that goes out into town giving out clothes and feed and sharing the gospel. There is also a worship group, this is a group that I have been working with recently. While this group has the right spirit, they have trouble with rhythm, staying on key and a few other small things. We were recently able to go to a youth night at a church in town with the discipleship group. The drama group did two dramas and the praise group sang. It was a fun night and good for the youth to see other groups.

New Kids

Well we have received over 91 new kids in the past two weeks. The majority of these kids are special needs. In the first large group there were 53. There was on girl who was 2 and 1/2 and weighed 16 lbs. Leigh and I decided to take her to our house and give a little extra attention to her for a few days. After the first few days in became clear that she was becoming very attached and so for her sake she started staying at the toddler house. She is doing very well now.

In the second large group we received 28 kids. Of this kids there was a boy who has paralysis. We are not really sure what his exact diagnosis is or his background. We are looking for different options for him but he is currently staying in clinic. Please be in prayer for him.


Thank You

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has helped with the presents that were sent to the girls. I know that they will enjoy them very much. Please know how much I appreciate everyone's help in everything that you have done.

John and Yenny

John and Yenny had a healthy baby boy. I want to say thanks to the women of the church for raising money to help this young family. Also I would like to say thanks for the blanket that was made for them. I know they will be very happy to receive it. John and Yenny had a baby dedication this past Sunday and those are a few of the pictures I have posted.

Catching Up

Special Needs Classes on Hold

As you know from the previous blog that we had begun classes for the special needs, but pretty soon after classes had to be put on hold. As we were cleaning out the craft house, where we hold the special needs classes, we discovered that in the back of the room the roof had been leaking. Who knows how long it had been leaking but the water was coming in where a few of the shelves were. A lot of the books and coloring books had been wet and had started smelling bad. We were able to get the roof fixed right away and we had to throw out one shelf because of the water damage. We also had to throw away a lot of spanish books, puzzles, and games. So the craft house was and still is a little crazy and disorganized.

Classes are about to be out for the school kids and so we will not have special needs classes until January when school starts back. This will give me plenty of time to clean and organize everything. It will also give me time to prepare more long term goals for the students and to plan out better lesson plans.

Christmas time already!!!!

Well Christmas begins in Emmanuel pretty early considering all of the pre-preparing that goes into it. We are working on getting Christmas Cards finished. We send Christmas Cards to all of the people that sponsor the kids through Emmanuel. We have to have the kids write or draw on one side of the card. Then we cut and paste different things on the other side. The other side also includes a picture of the child. I have been able to take a few pictures of the kids which has been pretty fun. This is a very hard job mainly because of the amount of kids, which is now almost 500 kids, and some have more than one sponsor. It is starting to wind down though and we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Another reason that the craft house is a mess is because of Christmas Decorations. Thy were stored in the loft of the craft house. I have taken down all Christmas things and now am trying to organize it all before sending it to the houses to be decorated. I have done this job before and it can be a little exhausting but the kids love when the decorations start to come out. It's an exciting time of year for them. School is out, more activities are being done, and decorations are going up.

New House for Me

Some more exciting new, which some of you may know because of pictures I posted on Facebook or talking to my mom, but I am in a new apartment. I am now living in a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment that has a living room, kitchen, and laundry room. My roommate is the girl who I flew in with, Leigh, and we are loving every minute of it. It's started to feel like home.

We went to Tegucigalpa, the capital city, a few weeks ago to buy some necessities and a few wants. We came out pretty good in everything. We still have a few more things that we want to do in the decoration department but we are already feeling very at home. It's also just nice to be roommates with just one person and we are so much alike in a lot of ways it is working out very well.

We are planning to go to Tegucigalpa again sometime soon and are going to buy a few Christmas decorations so that should be fun also.

Thanks for the Help

Thanks for everyone at Wooley Springs who are helping with getting Christmas presents for my girls in my house. I am so thankful that I have a church that will do that for me and the kids. It means so much to me, Thank you!!