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!!

A, Azul, Cuadrado

It has almost been a month since I left the states. It has been a very busy time for me, but I always like to have lots to do.

I gave a little bit of my schedule in the last blog, but now I can give a little bit more details in what I am doing, starting with the special needs classes. I am very fortunate to have two volunteers working with me. There was another volunteer helping out that was from London but he left this past Saturday. I have Chloe helping me and she is from Virginia she is leaving at the beginning of November. I also have Caroline who is from Denmark helping me. She has had experience working with special needs and will be at Emmanuel until February 15.

We are still moving the groups around and trying to figure out what kids needs to be in what groups. We have been working this past week starting with the basics. We started with the first letter in the Alphabet (A) and a color and shape. It went well enough especially for the kids that were on that level. However we do have a few girls who are at a higher level. For some reason these girls just couldn't seem to pass the second grade. I hope to find out that reason as I work with them more. However we are having to put them into different groups again so that we can work with these girls at a higher level. That's a little bit on my class. I hope to have a more developed program in a few months but it will take a while to get where I am organized and a little better prepared.

Although Christmas is a few months off we are preparing for Christmas here. We have to send out Christmas cards to all of the people who sponsor children here. So there are a few volunteers working on making the cards. Also I was talking to my mother about getting with the Sunday School classes in church to do Christmas presents for the special needs girls in my house and also for the older girls in my house that help with the Special Needs. I am very excited about our church getting involved with this because I know how much the girls will love it.