san pedro sula.

bienvenidos a san pedro sula honduras. 

we have been in san pedro sula for a week now and it has been wonderful. i am still very much homesick for tegucigalpa but God is teaching me so much. 

we have had some rocky times this week but it has been wonderful. we are in an apartment and it is very nice. it's in a really safe part of town. we had a big storm come in so the internet has been out since monday. sarah and i are here with two other interns, lisa callie and rachel. they are wonderful. they are both from texas, right outside of houston and both go to a&m. they love a&m just as much as i love auburn. (hard to believe right?) they both love to cook so that's really convenient. they are so nice and they are loving the kids!!

so... this week we were all sick. i started feeling rough around monday. i could tell my throat was getting soar and my nose was beginning to run on a more constant basis. by wednesday i felt like death. my sweet friend betzabe in tegucigalpa had let me know that she had the flu. i am positive i got it from her and it just waited a few days to show up. sarah's nose has also been running and she wasn't feeling well. then rachel got the stomach bug first. and it then traveled to lisa callie. we are pretty sure that they got it from one of the kids. luis and jansy (our translators) have also been sick with us this week. we are almost positive and extremely hopeful that all of our sickness is done with. even though we have been sick, that has not hindered us too much from our service which has been such a blessing. we only had one day that we were all functioning slow but we went to the pharmacy and got fixed up real fast. 

this week in the mornings we have been working at the government orphanage, nueva esperanza. this is the same orphanage i was in last summer. it is a government run orphanage in san pedro sula that houses anywhere from 170-190 children ages 0-12 or 13. we have been in the baby room all week just helping the tias with whatever they need. mainly giving the babies and special needs children attention. there are about 9 severely special needs children and about 25 toddlers and babies. it is heart breaking. they are so happy to see your face but then as soon as you don't pick them up or put them down, they scream and cry. they are so desperate for attention. when we are in the baby room i wish i had a few extra arms so i could hold more than two or three at a time. they just want to be loved. they just want to be cuddled and played with. their longing for an intimate relationship reminds me of the overwhelming desire God gives his children to call on him. i catch myself feeling guilty for being there and then leaving. i want to give them a constant but i am not capable of doing so. all i can do is love on them in the time God has granted me to do so and love them when i leave by praying daily for them to find a forever family or be reunited with their own and for them to come to know the God of the universe who hold everything in his hands. 

suyapa.

 nathan... he's a twin.

obensio y bilma

 guata.. nathan's twin.

a new baby... he came in on thursday. he was 7 days old.

we spend our afternoons at Buckner's transitional home. this is where six girls from 15 to 17 live. all the girls but one came to the house from casitas (the government home for teenage girls). i have enjoyed this time so much. it is so sweet to be with them again after a year. they are a lot more outgoing now and we joke around all the time. in our time with them we have been going over examples of Godly women in the bible. when we started out we let them know that all of these women were completely ordinary, but God chose to use them in extraordinary ways and his work in them is what makes them extraordinary. on monday sarah went over the story of esther and went over some of her characteristics like courage and trust. on tuesday i talked about the faith of rahab. we talked about her the faith that God gave her and how he redeemed her. what a beautiful picture rahab is of grace. we also talked about how everyone who accepts Jesus goes experiences an extraordinary transformation. we go from being a sinner completely separated from him to being called a child of God. our separation becomes an intimate relationship with the Most High. on wednesday rachel taught the girls about miriam. and on thursday we contrasted martha and mary. friday the girls had something at school during the afternoon so we went over to their house that night and made baleadas. (i'm really bad at making the tortilla but i'm going to get better). this was so much fun. we took turns just sitting and laughing with the girls who weren't cooking and helping the girls who were cooking cook. on saturday we woke up early (after going to see harry potter at 10:30) to go hiking with the girls. we hiked to the coca-cola sign. this was so fun. it was so hot but so great to be outside doing outdoorsy things!! i spent most of the hike up with onixt and katherine. they were so funny. onixt would stop and sit down and katherine and i would bribe her with water. when we got to the top we took pictures and had a picnic with pb&j and some cookies. i spent the walk down with maria elenya. it was just the two of us. God was so faithful and i was able to successful carry on conversation with her the whole way down. if i couldn't remember which verb tense to use, i would just tell her the verb and ask how to say it in the past of future. she told me about her friends, what she liked to do, her family, what she liked to cook and more. she asked me a ton of questions. she asked me about my time in tegucigalpa and asked what i was doing there. i told her and then she asked me to tell her about my friends there and about the kids i worked with. she loved hearing about my friends and wants to see pictures. when i was telling her about casitas kennedy she told me her heart broke for the older girls there because she knows what they are living in. it made my heart both hurt and smile at the same time. hurt to think of maria eleyna's past but smile because she had so much sympathy for the girls and wanted to know about them. 

 with the girls... katherine and onixt.

learning to make baleadas.

me and nicole after our long hike to the coca-cola sign.

today is sunday and we will go to church with the people of the las brisas community, eat lunch and then visit casitas. this will be sarah, rachel and lisa callie's first time at the center. my heart is so nervous. as i sit and write this it is beating so fast. questions are running through my mind like crazy. how many of the girls from last summer will be there? will they remember me? will the new girls accept us so kindly like the girls last summer? pray for us as we meet these girls for the first time. and pray for our hearts as we are with them all week next week. 

thank you so much for your prayers. :) 

PS... we have no internet at our apartment so i am so sorry for the lack of communication.