finally an update... sorry it took so long.

it is safe to say that i haven't updated in a while. i'm sorry for that. we have been busy here and we moved homes for a few days and our internet isn't the best and so on.. but here is a little update on life in honduras. 

we went to watch honduras play mexico in the semi finals of the gold cup. unfortunately honduras and the us lost to mexico. it was a bit of a bummer. 

we also got to go to the national honduras fútbol stadium... then yesterday sarah, luis and i met the coach of the national team. so so SO COOL.

last week we had a team come in from texas. it was a youth group and they worked at different schools in comayagüela in the mornings so we weren't with them. but in the afternoon we worked alongside them at casitas kennedy. they were really good with the kids. caitlin, karla and i helped the group working with the older girls. it was great to just sit with them. talk to them, let them help me with my pronunciation, and teach them how to make bracelets. this is the first week we really got to spend time with the older girls. this reminded me of my time last summer at casitas. i am already having so many emotions. i cannot express in words how excited i am to see those girls i built a relationship with last summer but thinking of those girls makes me sad to leave the people i have built relationships with here. i am hoping that we get to spend more time with the older girls over the next two weeks. 

over the course of the past three weeks, the volunteers we teach english to are not just our "students" anymore but they have become our friends!!! i have grown to love everyone at the ctc so much. especially the head rachel (she's the most precious person you will ever meet) they have continued to teach me so much. in getting to know them, i have learned their favorite colors, what they like to do, how talented they are and so much more. there are so many of them with amazing AMAZING talents. a lot of them play musical instruments and sing. maurico, daniel, christian, ernesto, jason, shari, nelson, david and i am sure i forgot some all play instruments (more than one in most cases). betzabe drew me a picture and gave it to me today and it was so pretty. daniel also draws. he is amazingly talented!! if you know me at all you know i love love love literature and poetry. nelson writes. he writes short stories and poems. he denies his talent but believe me when i tell you that he is a phenomenal writer. his poems are some of the most well written poems i've ever read. and... he can write in english. i kid him all the time and tell him that he is basically american. he's picked up so much english and he often translates for me with the others. ernesto makes bracelets and they are beautiful. he is teaching me how to make them but i am not picking it up very fast. i taught him how to make two different types of bracelets and on his first try his bracelets were perfect. it hurts my pride immensely that he is so much better than me. :) we get to spend sunday mornings at the church with them. we worship with them and then go to the back yard for sunday school. it is such a sweet time. i get a lot of practice listening and understanding spanish. after sunday school we just get to hang out. we get to talk about all kinds of things. this time maybe some of my favorite time we spend during the week. 

we have so much fun with them.

my picture from betzabe.

my picture from daniel. 

just one of our many talented musicians. ernesto. :)

i have to share with you all a huge accomplishment for me. for those of you who know me. i'm not a fan of feet. i'm not afraid of them i would just rather not touch bare feet or have them touch me. well... on saturday one of my sweet niñas maria (sarah blogged about her and her brother carlos) came up to me and asked me to paint her fingernails. we crawled up to the landing at the top of the slide and i took out all the colors. she picked out a color and put her foot in my lap. i was confused so i asked her to give me her hand. well, maria wanted her toenails painted first. i couldn't tell her no so i just sucked it up and held her foot steady as i painted them a pretty pink. today i painted sarah's toes before we left for church. this is a big deal for me. :)

yesterday at casitas kennedy i taught two of my niños "i love you." after i taught them, they said it all day!!! melt my heart. isaac and carlos. they are precious. isaac is six and carlos is ten. (carlos is maria's twin). i cannot wait to see them tomorrow to hear their little voices say "i love you."

so i have some more news that i am super excited to share with you. we have a new intern!!!! sarah decker was my roommate during orientation in dallas. she was supposed to be in guatemala for the whole summer, but due to political reasons and certain dangers, it is just not safe for interns to be there. the other four interns return home tomorrow and sarah arrived in honduras today! sarah will stay with me in tegucigalpa the week after sarah, caitlin and kimberly leave and we will fly together to san pedro sula on the ninth. i am so excited to have her with me. 

anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new friend and intern. :)

introducing sarah decker!!! she's the cute american with all the precious guatemalan kids. :) 
follow her!!! sarah's blog.

pray for us as we enter our last week all together. we are all loving it here and one of us want it to end. pray for our hearts as we serve our last week. i love you very much and i am so thankful for all of you. :) 


i almost forgot... when sarah arrived today we took her to baleada's for lunch (because it's the best). on our car ride there we were talking about how our trips weren't what we expected. our conversation was so good and i wanted to share a bit of it with you. when i applied and got accepted to intern in honduras again i expected to a. work with children in an orphanage, loving on them and taking tons of pictures and b. to work at the ctc with families and children. well... we work in an orphanage but due to most of them being social orphans and the older girls being in dangerous life situations, we aren't allowed to take pictures. there is a certain amount of structure but not at the same time. and i am teaching english at the ctc. this is definitely something that i did not expect. though the plans have been much different than i imagined in my head, i could not be more thankful. i believe whole heartedly that God gets rid of any plans i try to make and control in order to show me His will clearly and allow me to serve Him where and in the way that He is calling me to do so. i am so thankful for His provision. i am humbled by the grace He chooses to show us. i know that we are all thankful that it is by that grace we are what we are. and because of the grace and mercy He shows us we are able to be obedient. 


"I must realize that my obedience even in the smallest detail of life has all of the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If I will do my duty, not for duty's sake but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience all of the magnificent grace of God is mine through the glorious atonement by the Cross of Christ." -O.Chambers

joyfully.

here's our students singing joyfully. they learned it in three days. :) 

questions and answers.

on saturday night we got to skype with our precious parents. one thing i am thankful for is having my computer with me this summer. i didn't have it last summer and that was wonderful. it was so good. it was good for me to be on a journey by myself. i needed that time alone. this year is different. i am going to be gone for ten and a half weeks rather than four and it's so nice to be able to share things with those who love me as they happen rather than bottle it up for ten weeks and then let it out all at once. i am sure there are things i will miss and have to share with them when i return but for the most part they are getting to hear my challenges, my struggles, my triumphs and all the Lord is teaching me. i tell you all that to tell you this, when we were skyping on saturday my parents asked me some questions... "what are some challenges you've faced? is there anything that has broken your heart? and what is something the Lord is teaching you?" i told you when i started this journey back in march that i wanted to be vulnerable. i wanted to be honest with you. so... i want to share my answers with you. 

so... challenges. teaching english has been wonderful but it has definitely been a challenge and will continue to be as we get further into the class. i feel very adequate to teach random useful vocabulary. i know vocabulary. it is conversation that intimidates me so much. i have no clue how to teach english as a language. i do a pretty good job of hiding my insecurities, but every time i get up in front of our 25+ students, my heart races and i get so nervous. pray for me as we begin week two. pray for my nerves. pray that sarah and i would work well together trying our best to teach these people english. pray they would learn at least a little bit. another challenge we are beginning to face is with the children at casitas kennedy. last week there were two groups that came in, one on thursday and one on friday. the group on thursday brought cotton candy and popcorn and toys for the children. the other group brought toys and gifts to leave at the orphanage. these teams came in for one day (which it is wonderful that they came to love on the kids) but won't be coming back due to doing other work in the city. the kids, all ages, are now asking us "where are our gifts?" because they got gifts from these teams, they expect gifts from us. i told my sweet kenya when she asked me where her gift was that we were her gift. i told her we weren't here to give them physical gifts (we will leave all of our chalk and coloring books etc when we leave) but we were here to love them for a month and to share with them the love of Christ and play with them and teach them. pray for their hearts and mine. pray that i wouldn't get frustrated when they bombard me asking for gifts but give them the best gift they could ever receive, the love of our Father. 

“This is what the LORD says— your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.” - Isaiah 48:1 

next... my broken heart. i told mom and dad, i think that anytime you go into an orphanage your heart breaks. each child has a different story. each child has been in the center a different amount of time. though their stories may be different, one thing is the same... they are without parents. some for only a short time, some for the rest of their lives. i learned something new on saturday about some of the kids in the center. caitlin and i were working with the toddlers (they're precious) and i asked the worker where yanie was. yanie is a precious three year old little girl with a short little haircut, lighter skin and the deepest brown eyes you've ever seen. the nanny then told us that the toddlers in casitas kennedy are most likely there because their parents are fighting for custody. this usually means that the parents were negligent, abusive or found unfit. if the parents win, the children go back home with them. if they lose, the children are sent to a different center permanently. yanie's parents lost and she was transferred. this breaks my heart. another thing that breaks my heart are the special needs children in the orphanage. on saturday i held a little girl named erika for an hour. erika has sever cp and as a baby had the oxygen supply to her brain cut off. erika had braces on her legs to keep them straight but she will never be able to walk or stand up. she is completely non-verbal but oh how she smiles. another little girl named jessi (pronounced yessi) came and sat beside us and began to sing a song. erika flung her hands in the air the best she could and began to smile. i want her so badly to know love. to be loved. i got to play with erika again today and she was so precious. she was wide awake and laughing today and it melted my heart. i found out today that erika is nine and she has been at the orphanage since she was born. her mother died. i want for her so badly to be adopted. (she is adoptable!!!) i prayed that for her as i sang the itsy bitsy spider and Jesus me ama to her. the nannies do the best they can but the special needs children don't get very much physical contact or stimulation. i am so glad that we are going to be able to help the nannies. they love these children so much. pray for these girls along with the other children. pray that they will know the love of our heavenly Father. 

“learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring  justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause" Isaiah 1:17

finally... what i am learning most. i am learning so much from the volunteers we teach at the CTC. we have not had very much time to talk in depth about their lives because we teach english the whole time we are there, but that has not stopped them from teaching me so much. they are teaching me about service. they are teaching me about humility. they are teaching me about love and selflessness and how the two have to coexist. you cannot have love where selfishness exist. in this they are teaching me what real, true love is. the volunteers we are teaching english to live in the very place that the community transformation center ministers to and yet they are pouring their lives out for the sake of others. they give up two and a half hours each day to come and learn english. they are respectful. they are interested. they are polite. they are funny. they serve so well and with such humble hearts. i could never fit everything they have taught me into one blog post so i'll give you the meat of it. God is using them to teach me mostly about love. self-giving love, love that demands something of us, that is completely selfless in nature and concerned for others much more than ourselves. i am learning that love is not a feeling but a determined act of will and that determined act of will, will always result in determined acts of selflessness.  one of the ultimate examples of this love is in john 13 when Jesus is washing the disciples feet. here He is knowing that he is about to bear the sin of the whole world on the cross and he is totally consumed with his love for his disciples. His love is so selfless and so full of humility. love is this... it is willing, the joyful desire to put the welfare of others above our own. it leaves no place for pride, vanity, arrogance, self-seeking or self-glory. this is just a little bit of what i am learning. i am amazed at what the Lord has to teach me and the means in which he is doing it. praise Him who is faithful.

“for i have given you an example, that you also should do as i have done to you." -john 13:15

i'll leave you with a few pictures. :)

this is a picture of comayagüela. where buckner's ctc is located.

this is ernesto... i am  usually working on a bracelet when i walk into class and during our break. ernesto makes beautiful bracelets that are different than mine. so i made him one and he made me one. 

some of our favorite students: jayson, guillermo, ernesto, nelson, daniel, william, angel, harvey and celestino. :) 

the director of the CTC. she is precious.

this is our neighbor. 

walking back to our apartment from the bowling alley. we're pretty much locals. 

i'm sad this is kind of blurry... but this is us with native honduran dancers from the beaches of honduras. please notice the hand placement of the man holding sarah and caitlin. best thing ever! 

luis and i working off lunch doing mambo number 5 on just dance. thanks karla for bringing your wii. :) mom and dad we HAVE TO get this song on just dance. it's the best duet EVER.

surprise. you're teaching english.

SURPRISE!!! we are teaching english!  

so... on monday we started work at buckner's community transformation center and a small school they partner with. we are teaching english. for those of you who know me well, you know that my spanish is not very good at all. caitlin, kimberly  and luis have a class full of about 47 niños at the school. they are so precious and so eager to learn but don't quite have the attention span for a two and a half hour class. pray for the kids to be able to sit and learn for that amount of time and pray for caitlin and kimberly that they would not grow weary over the next seventeen days of teaching. sarah, karla and i are teaching english classes at the CTC to volunteers anywhere from 14 to early 20's and we have one older student, the pastor who gives up his weekdays to help the kids and families being helped by the CTC and a few older women. i am so excited about this! learning another language at this age is so hard! (i know from experience). they pay such close attention and give us so much respect. on tuesday i had everyone wear a name tag. i am determined to know all 25 or so of their names by the months end. i am hoping to learn spanish while they learn english. tuesday was good. sarah and i underestimated what we could teach in two and a half hours and had to improv a little bit but it all went well. we taught them some description words and they were so funny. there is one boy and as soon as he learned the word for guapo was handsome, he kept saying it. then when he learned that soy meant i am, he added that to handsome. so we would say at random times "i am handsome" and smile. so great! haha. (funny story about tuesday a few paragraphs down.)

we work at the CTC in the mornings, break for lunch and then head over to Casitas Kennedy. on monday kimberly and i were with the older girls making bracelets and coloring pictures in the craft workshop. sarah and caitlin played with very rambunctious little monkeys. they were so so funny and the girls were so tired when we left. while kimberly and i were with the older girls i was sitting by a girl named any (annie). about an hour into the workshop she walked over to the window and began to cry. any (not a typo that is how you spell it in spanish) was sad because she has gone a great deal of time without any of her family coming to visit. i didn't want to ask too many questions so i didn't ask where her family was or why she was in the orphanage. i just made her a bracelet, took her hand and told her, "te quiero mucho y Dios te ama" (i love you and God loves you). pray for her please. i cannot take pictures so i will describe her to you. any is fourteen years old with beautiful olive skin and a lighter brown hair. she is tall and thin with beautiful almond shaped brown eyes... i got beautiful pictures from two of the girls, maria and angelica. they are all wonderful. yesterday caitlin, karla and i played with the toddlers. we colored for a while, sang "Cristo me ama" and then went outside. they are crazy people! haha. caitlin calls them her little "monos" monkeys. i love it. today and the rest of our stay here we will be teaching english to a different age group each day. please pray for their attention spans and desire to learn. and pray for us as we teach. this is all new to us. 

the Lord is growing me so much. my reading choice for the plane rides here was johnny mac's keys to spiritual growth. i didn't know just how much God would use it to grow me. i am usually a fast reader but i am just now at the halfway mark. i am reading, processing, reading, processing and reading again. in the second chapter titled, "the master purpose, the glory of God" johnny mac mentions the catechism question "what is the chief end of man?" -"to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." have you ever just sat there an contemplated the glory of God and all it means to glorify Him? God WILL be glorified. think about it. He has been displaying His glory for forever. before we were, He was showing his glory. His creation echos His glory.- psalm 19:1, isaiah 6:3, colossians 1:16. God manifested His glory to adam and eve in the garden- genesis 3:8. He revealed His glory to moses when moses the shekinah (a visible manifestation of God's glory) in exodus 34. verse 29 tells us that moses' face shone because he was talking with God. God also in the old testament displayed His glory... visibly to Israel again in the Tabernacle- exodus 40:34 and 35. there are so many examples of our God displaying His glory to His people. God's plan for the ages is to bring glory to Himself.  perhaps the most beautiful, thoughtful, merciful displays of God's glory is His incarnate Son. God in the flesh dwelling with His beloved in human form. fully God and fully man. -"who, though in the form of God, did nit count equality with God a thing ti be grasped but made himself nothing taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men." philippians 2:6 and 7. though wicked men wanted to get rid of the greatest expression of God's glory, they could not extinguish that glory. Jesus Christ our Lord rose from the dead, His earthly work was finished, and He ascended to Heaven. 

here's the part of the chapter that i think i forget too often when i should let it be a driving force in my life. we know from scripture (matthew 24 as well as others) that God's glory will return fully. until then what? what about His glory in the present? in this age, God's glory is manifest in His people, the church, His bride- ephesians 2:21 and 22, 2 corinthians 4:6 and 7. God has chosen to use the humble things of this world to bring glory to Himself. this is what i have to remind myself. i am an heir to the kingdom, a daughter of the Most High- people must see Christ in me, the hope of glory. i am learning so much from my book and the scriptures. one conclusion that is evident is this, the more mature we are, the more we can be used to radiate God's glory. "whether, then, you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God"- 1 corinthians 10:31

for those of you who may be wondering how sarah, caitlin and i are doing serving together, the answer is well. i cannot tell you how thankful i am that we are all together. we split up into pairs during the day and i get to be with each of them at a different time. it has been so good to love on the people of honduras with them. they along with kimberly have been absolutely wonderful and encouraging. i keep telling them how nervous i am to be the leader with all the big responsibilities like BUDGETING! ahhhh! caitlin has been sweet to tell me multiple times i'm doing a good job with the money. :) we take turns leading a devotional at night and last night was sarah's turn and it was wonderful. she shared with us a reading from O.Chambers (we love him). it has also been so sweet to see sarah falling in love with the country and people that captured mine and caitlin's heart. thank you for your continued prayers for us as we grow together and closer to the Lord over the course of the month. 

funny story... dr. reyes(the president of Buckner) came to visit the CTC yesterday and asked if we would teach our class some praise songs in english. all we had was joyfully (gozándome) by kari jobe in our heads, so we taught them the chorus. so... sarah is the singer of the family everyone knows that! but she is also the shy one. i volunteered her to sing and she took off to the bathroom. i decided to wait on her and just read through the english words with our class until she came back. well.. even with the chanting of her name by the class, sarah still refused to sing and got the giggles. when sarah gets the giggles, i get the giggles. i started the spanish version so they could know the tune, got the first word out and sarah let out a huge burst of laughter. i kicked her in the hiney and then gained my composure and had to sing. i wasn't very good and i made sure to warn the class before i started that i was very very very bad. pride...CRUSHED. i was so embarrassed. it was definitely an adventure. maybe she will help me sing today.

i'm trying to keep this a blog post and avoid a novel so i will wait to share with you some other things i'm learning later. thank you so much for all your prayers.  

bo jackson.

okay okay... i know i just posted a blog this morning; however, i had to let everyone know something that made my day!! if you know me at all, you know that i love auburn and i LOVE auburn football even more. well... today as we were leaving the orphanage, i looked out the window of the van and saw a man crossing the street in a bo jackson jersey! of course i got so excited. if only that man knew who's jersey he was wearing. :) WAR EAGLE from honduras!

and the journey begins...

Hey guys. Just wanted to give you an update of the last few days. Orientation was wonderful!  We leaders had a little time to get to know each other before we joined with the rest of our teams and that was so great. It makes our prayers for each other so much more personal over the summer. On Wednesday we joined up with the rest of our team. I met our fourth, Kimberly. She’s so great. She has such a sweet heart. We are going to make her our honorary quad for the month. The first day of orientation was spent learning about Buckner, our country, our role and our responsibility. Buckner did an amazing job preparing us as much as they could. I wish I could name everyone by name who meant so much to us during orientation, but there are just so many. I do need to thank Analiz for all that she has done. She is our mission coordinator in the states (aka mom for two days). She was absolutely wonderful.  The first half of the second day of orientation was spent working in the Buckner humanitarian aide and shoes for orphan souls warehouse. After that we spent time with our regional director to learn a little more about our country. Then the staff at Buckner really poured into us to prepare our hearts spiritually. We had a sweet time of worship and prayer before we headed off. I cannot speak highly enough of the people at Buckner. (If you want to serve orphans and vulnerable children, they are an amazing ministry to serve with.)

Well.. yesterday we started our journey at two in the morning. We hopped on our first flight at 5:30, caught a second flight in Miami, and we were in Tegucigalpa by 1:00 Alabama time (12 Honduras time). We met our in country mission coordinator Nettie and our wonderful translators Karla and Luiz. We dropped of our bags and headed to lunch at Baleadas (also known as Mary Elizabeth’s favorite restaurant). After lunch we visited the orphanage we will be working at. It is called Casitas Kennedy orphanage and it houses children from 0-18. The children are divided up into houses by gender and age group. Here at this orphanage you are not allowed to take any pictures. We were a little bummed at first but know that there is a reason and we respect the leadership there in trying to keep there children safe. Casitas Kennedy has a large number of staff members and the leadership from what I can tell is very nice and very willing to help.

We were at Casitas Kennedy making our way to the baby room when I just stopped walking. Caitlin was tapping my back over and over asking me the name of the girl we were looking at. The girl and I just stared at one another until finally I smiled and got out her name. I said “Kenya” and she just looked at me with a face that was saying, “you know my name? you know me?” I told her who I was, that I was Maria who visited her last year in San Pedro. Her eyes lit up and a smile stretched across her face as we then greeted each other with a huge hug and kiss on the cheek. I was in shock at God’s faithfulness. Kenya had her daughter and she is now ten months old and living at Casitas Kennedy as well. Here is a picture of Kenya from last June, she is on the right.

We also saw something very hard to see. We walked into a room with three children. They looked as if they were starving, so skinny and so frail. They are all extremely special needs. There is one little boy, Christian, who has been there for ten months. His parents used to use him to get money. All three of the children have severe handicaps and problems with oxygen getting to their brains. The only way they are able to eat is by food and juices blended to liquid, and even that is hard for them. As I sat in the floor holding Erika’s hand and rubbing my fingers across her face with no response, I prayed for her. What a joy it is to know that one day she will be in a glorified body walking beside our God.

We left the orphanage stopped to get some breakfast for tomorrow and then came home to settle in. I will leave you with some pictures of our new home. Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support. You have no idea how much it means.

funny story about the milk... it's at room temperature and doesn't expire for a year. :)

"Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations." -Deuteronomy 7:9 

and we're off...

Today I left for Dallas. I arrived at DFW around 4:30. Traffic was really bad in Dallas so Analiz (the boss),  Victoria (Peru leader) and I were in the car for a few hours so we were worn out. We joined two other leaders, Olivia and Sarah for dinner at a very good BBQ place. I am still so tired but the other leaders and I have been laughing and sharing stories. My mom, Sarah, Caitlin, Anna Lee and little Ada came to see me off.

I cannot wait for Sarah, Caitlin and Kimberly to get her tomorrow. Thank you all so much for your prayers. :)