It sure has been a crazy, awesome, exhausting first couple of weeks here in Choluteca, Honduras.
I'll give you all a little overview of what's been going on here, starting with where we're staying. I didn't expect to have as much as we do. We are staying in a little apartment complex just out of the downtown area of Choluteca, 3 or 4 people to an apartment. They have a little kitchenette, living room, bathroom and two bedrooms. Air conditioning, which we are so blessed to have (I recently nicknamed Honduras "Hot-duras" so yeah I think all of us northerners would not do so well without it), a "clean" pool (debatable, smells like sweat but still super awesome to cool off in), and wifi (spotty at best, but somewhat available). Really I shouldn't have any complaints. We are living so much better than most of the people in this town...it's still hard to believe a lot of their living conditions.
Now about where we've been working! So there were two main locations we could be at, and toured both the first full day we were here (Tuesday, June 3rd). The first is a place called Limón that houses a malnutrition clinic, classrooms for teaching English and computer classes, a tortilla factory, and they are also renting out 3 rooms to another organization that works with special needs kids in the community. The malnutrition clinic serves, I believe, over 50 kids. The process of getting kids rejuvinated and back to a healthy weight is a lengthy one and one that requires them to come to the clinic very often. It's difficult, because often times the parents don't understand the importance of this. Also, these kids probably don't get much if any food outside what they are fed at the clinic- or get much clean water. The work at the tortilla factory is shared among different mothers and women in the community, to give them more of an income. A couple people in our team are working with the classes, which they said can get pretty crazy, but overall are really good for the students. I just want to share one story from one of the guys that helps with the computer classes. A couple days ago he asked the kids to type a letter to their moms, just with something they'd want to tell her. We wouldn't think much of this normally, but the responses were heartbreaking. Things like "I wish you didn't cry so much" or "I wish you and dad didn't fight so much" or "I wish I could see you more." It's such a different world down here...a lot of us get frustrated with the kids for acting out or badly but then you realize the home life they are coming from and how much they have to handle every day...it's incredibly heartbreaking. Okay- the special needs program. A couple of the girls are helping with this one and they've had a lot of interesting things to say. First of all, kids down here with special needs don't get to go to school at all. There just isn't a program for them, so they never get to learn or be socialized like the rest of the kids, and having them at home all day can be really strenuous for the parents, not really allowing at least one of them to work- and pretty much everyone needs to work here to support themselves. So this program was started by some of their moms, and they've also been educated as special education teachers and it's nice that Iglesia Gran Comisión is allowing them to use some of the rooms at Limón. However, the free bus that was bringing them to the school isn't going to be able to do it anymore- apparently the city needs it for something else. And, to get another bus it would cost the families $600 a month- something they could never afford. So for now, the school has been canceled...I'm asking prayers for this! These kids and their families really need the school to keep going, so we've been praying for God to make a way for the bus situation to work out. Thanks guys!
The other place, the one I'm actually working at, is a neighborhood and orphanage together called Casa Hogar. The church started the orphanage in 2008 (I believe) and now houses 11 kids. The neighborhood was also started around then on the land around the orphanage and now houses over 40 houses and 150 people. They're always looking to expand, hoping to give people the dignity of a nicer place to live and put them in a community that loves Jesus and can reach out to them. The land also houses a coffee roasting and grinding facility as well as a place for short term mission teams when they come, called Casa Misionera.
I'm going to take an aside here to talk about how God prepared me for working here and how he is continually changing my heart. So for a long time (since elementary school), I have not wanted to have kids, or have anything to do with them, well, for a lot of reasons. 1) I'm always scared that kids won't like me and that they'll judge me (what? kids pretty much like everyone that makes an effort to play with them). 2) Kids don't reason through things super well, so you can't just expect them to know why something is the way it is. You can't reason with them! 3) I didn't want to bring kids into this crazy, messed up world. 4) They will drive you crazy. However, in the last few weeks before we got here, I felt God putting in me a love for kids and a desire to have them sometime in the future. Guys, this was really weird for me! But I went with it (figured this would happen eventually anyways). Then when we got here, pretty much the only option was working with kids. I thought in coming here that there would be a lot of construction work and that would be my job, because I love building things and physical labor like that. So at first, I was freaking out like, oh my goodness, I don't want to work with kids!! I don't know what to do with my whole summer now; what am I even doing here?? But something in me was calling me to the orphanage and community at Casa Hogar...so I went with it on a very slight feeling. God has been changing my heart so much since being there. I love those kids so inexpressably much. Yes, they are crazy, and yes, they treat me like a playground (they apparently like to climb, sit, and ride on people's backs more than I realized), and yes, they are sweaty and dirty half the time, but oh my gosh I love them. I already can't imagine leaving them, and even after the first couple days I was working out in my mind before I fell asleep how I could adopt all of them and bring them back with me, or move down here after graduating and work/live there. Those kids and God have been changing me...
Also, we've been working with the community, especially the women. A couple of us and I have and will continue going to the women's bible study they have on Sunday afternoons, and are also holding exercise, guitar, and English classes for the women during the week. It has been so cool getting to know these women! A lot of them love Jesus and find so much joy in Him...it is so encouraging to see. They've all led such challenging lives and continue to not have enough money or food to care for their kids...which brings up another point. There are so many single mothers here because the men don't stick around. It is expected for men here to have more than one girlfriend at a time. It makes me so sad and gives me such a hopeless feeling to see this...
And out of this, and due to a lot of other doubts and struggles of mine, I realized something last weekend. I realized that my love for people and wanting to make sure they know they are valuable and providing for their basic needs past that had somehow become disconnected from my desire to share the gospel. I realized that I didn't think people really needed the gospel- I had forgotten the power of it, the immense change it can bring to a person's life. I didn't want to share it at all, in fact it made me kind of mad that we were expected to this summer. But a lot of change was about to come to that, thanks to God working in my heart. The next day I had a conversation with one of the guys on the trip about the father situation, and I told him that I felt hopeless- because nothing we could do could change it. It was then that it started to hit me- that there was something we could do. That Jesus, the gospel, has the power to change people's hearts and bring them to a better life. A better life where men are faithful to one woman and stick around, where prostitution isn't common, where people are exploited...
And then this past Thursday at our first official program (LT, Leadership Training) meeting, the pastor of Iglesia Gran Comisión, Geovany, talked about why the church is there and why they do what they do- and it hit me even harder that the gospel not only has the power to improve this single mother situation here, it has the power to change anything in this world. And, it's the ONLY thing that can truly change this world, because it changes the heart, leading to a change in actions. I don't know where I got lost, but I'm glad He's bringing me back to the truth.
I know this was an extremely long post, but I wanted to update everyone on everything that's been going on! I could probably talk for hours about it all past what I've already written here. If you guys have any questions, feel free to comment on here (or for my supporters, you can email me back).
Prayer requests: the bus for the special needs program; that God would use us to really love on and help the women, the orphans, and the malnourished kids; that God would continue to fill us with His love so that we can pour it out; and for the 33% of Hondurans that are underemployed (these people just do not have enough to live on).
A strange thing about Honduras: you don't flush your toilet paper, you throw it away. I think other countries do this too, but it was just so weird to me!
Weirdest thing I've eaten since being here: fried garobo (it's like an iguana). We saw them caught (some of the guys participated in this) and killed, then skinned. It was intense to say the least. The next day one of the tías cooked it up for us in some spices and butter; I was excited to try it, but thought it probably wouldn't be very good. I ended up LOVING it and picked every little piece of meat off the bones. Mmmmm :)
Things I'm learning to live with/ignore: bug bites (including fire ants) and sweating constantly. There's just no way to avoid either.
Peace & Blessings
