On Thursday, we visited an orphanage about an hour away up in the mountains :] I have to give major props to the women who run the place cuz it's almost in the middle of nowhere and not only do they take care of the children, they GROW all of their own food. They made us a lunch with homegrown and homemade tortillas, a cucumber and tomato salad from their garden, beans from the garden, and this oatmeal flour pasty they made. It was amazing. I know it's sad that the kids are in an orphanage (some have parents but are there because of malnourishment) but I'm glad they're being really well taken care of :] And dear lord, the kids are so cute and full of life! They'd just finished eating lunch when we got there so each one of us pretty much paired up with a kid and went off to play. My lil nino (kid) was a two year old girl named Berta (she's the one kinda on my lap on fb) who would whisper where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. Her vocab wasn't very big, which was fine by me cuz mine isn't either, so it was a lot of "There!" and "Here!" and "Yes!" and of course "No!" It started raining elephants and giraffes sometime so then I just taught her face parts so know she knows what her nose and eyes are! We also made balloon animals and toys for the kids, which was a hit, and played capture the flag. Berta went to get changed sometime in the afternoon so I went over and saw Lainey's baby, Ramon. He was a three year old but was tiny cuz he was abused when he was a baby and so malnourished. It broke my heart because he wasn't very comfortable with people and wouldn't let anyone near him (it took an hour for him to warm up to Lainey). BUT THEN, I put my arms out and he reached over! I ended up carrying him for a couple hours and he fell asleep :] That made my day. There's a pic of him too on fb, the kinda closeup one. It was such a beautiful day. Thank God for the kids and their caretakers. I think they really reminded me of how to be happy despite any bad circumstances. And did I mention they have pet monkeys?! Three of them! Two of them are kinda shy but the third one, Sasha, was a showoff and ate all our monkey treats.
We went back to the village yesterday to check and recalibrate filters. It was a more relaxing, less physically demanding day cuz we just spent a lot of time playing with the kids there and praying for families. One family was just a mom, Maria, and her son. Her son was sick (something wrong with his tummy) but she couldn't afford to take him to the clinic, where it costs 20 lempira, or 1 dollar, for a consultation and medicine. It broke my heart that something so negligible was holding this child back from being well. We ended up giving her some money and a few oranges for vitamins. We also spent some time playing with these 5 girls in one home who seemed really happy to have us there :] They were telling us riddles in Spanish, which I thought was really cool, and sang a few songs they had learned. We sang "Hallelujah, Salvation, and Glory" for them in return. It was just a really awesome cross-cultural experience for us and we finished by praying for them.
Last night, we had a lil party for Lainey and Eric (one of the folks from Leah's church) with American bbq and salad! Ok, side story. We went to Pizza Hut one of the nights for dinner and I was super excited because they had a salad bar. Turns out salad bar here means six different types of something with mayo. Broccoli with mayo, carrots with mayo, etc. I was really sad. I ended up eating a calzone which was decent. Pizza Hut is Honduras is pretty nice. They have a well set-up dining area and a waiting area with video games. And the bathrooms are the best I've seen so far! I think I'll go take my poops there from now on ;] Pizza Hut is considered one of the classier places to take your date, which I thought was kind of funny. Anyway, it was a good dinner and all the pastors we work with came with their families. A little bit about the pastors. There are two main ones we work with, Pastor Julio and Pastor Juan. They are almost polar opposites. Pastor Julio used to be a colonel in the army (I've had some good talks with him) and he's really loud and energetic but very prompt and straightlaced. Pastor Juan on the other hand is notorious for being late. Like LATE. Like 4 hours late because he knows pretty much EVERYONE in the city and will stop to talk to them all on the way to a meeting. But he's really fun and loud and jolly and we haven't had to deal with his lateness yet (except for when he almost didn't come to pick us up from the airport) so it's all good.
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