it was a crazy one.

Wow. I have no idea what to put in this post.  I do not know what is too personal and what is necessary to share to maybe make a difference.  I will do my best at explaining the end part of our trip to Honduras, but please ask dan or i to share in person so you can better pray for the situation.  As I mentioned in the past two posts, Fanny and Danillo were two of our good family friends in Porvenir.  We found out in February that they had separated and given one of their daughters away to a family member and three of their kids away to a woman who was beating them severely.  The abuse was severe and eventually Milades, Danillo's sister, got three of the kids back to care for and raise.  Here are pictures of the sweet children.

This is Nayeli, she is the one who was given away to family member

This is Dynady the 8 year old with our friend, Christina who goes with us each time. 

Sweet Josue, he is 2.

This is Nayeli and Dynady last year when they still lived with their mother

This is all four of the children together.  The one on the right is Michelle who is 6.

All of these kids are so precious to us and for reasons that I would rather talk about privately, they should not be with their mother Fanny.  There were two nights in a row when we left late at night sobbing because of their situation.  Fanny came back after not seeing her children in months and demanded the three of them back.  In summary, the night ended with physical fighting, the police, passing the children out of windows, and finally hiding them.  The children stayed with us for that night and the whole next day.  The next day consisted of Katlyn and I going with Milades into town to try to win custody.  We were sent from place to place and were finally granted temporary custody until a formal investigation could happen.  We were overjoyed.  Yet all of that changed within hours because when we went at night to drop the children off, we had found out that Milades was severely threatened by Fanny and her only option was to give Fanny back her children.  Milades agreed that to save her own life, she would let Fanny live back in her old house which is right across from Milades where she could still watch out for the children and make sure Fanny does not give the kids away again.
Yet, Fanny is their mother.  She can take them when she wants. The child protection system and the situation is so awful that the only hope is that The Lord changes Fanny's heart.  That the Lord will help Fanny to stop the destructive life she is living that that the four precious lives of these children are protected.
Pray for Nayeli who is still living with another family.  Pray for Josue that he will trust and become a carefree two year old again.  Pray for Michelle who cannot understand the situation.  And please, pray for sweet Dynady.  She is 8 and knows more than she should ever know.  She has seen her mother do things that are hideous.  She has had to care for her siblings and meet their every need in ways that an 8 year old cannot.
The rest of our time in Porvenir was so good at times, but the gravity of this situation was stressful and awful in so may ways.  We were so blessed by so many families feeding us and taking care of us.  The last day we had goodbye parties and goodbye meals.  Each time leaving gets a harder because I love the people in such a deeper way, especially Milades family, yet it also gets easier because I know I have no choice but to start planning my next trip.
As I get ready to go back to school I feel overwhelmed.  My heart is heavy and I know it is the same for everyone else who went on this trip.  My heart is aching for these four children and for Milades.  I know that the Lord is good and I trust he will protect like he says he will, but it still is scary.  The first night that things calmed down with Fanny and the children, Milades asked if we could have a worship night.  We sang and we prayed and it was so genuine and good.  I knew in my heart in that moment that the Lord would protect the children while we were gone, but now that we are gone, it takes a little more convincing and a little more prayer on my part to have a peaceful heart about it.
I hope to soon put up more pictures one pictures get loaded on the computer and I hope to talk more about bible study and the kids camp and building the tables and all of the amazing things, but I feel right now what is most important is to ask once again for prayer.  I pray that you will remember these four children's names and Fanny and Milades and write them on your heart and commit them to prayer.  They sure do need it.

a hurricane?

Another few days have passed which means its a few more days until the day we leave.  That makes me sad. Tonight we are expecting a hurricane... not really sure how intense or anything but so far it is only rain and wind and to be honest it is nice because it cools things off quickly.  It has been incredibly hot here.  It is okay during the day but during the night is when it is just simply awful.  We only really have one fan and there are 7 of us in two seperate rooms.  But, i hate to complain because it could obviously be worse.  We are blessed.  This morning we had our first day of camp for the children and it was so much fun.  We dressed up and acted crazy, it felt alot like young life.  In a few hours we will start bible study and I have to admit that I am nervous.  I am nervous that it will keep raining and not work, i am worried what we have planned will not be enough, and overall I am just insecure about it.  But it will be okay and good because it will be the Lord and not us.  Anyways, I think the internet is about to go out.  Just a quick update!  Also be praying for Fanny´s family because right now the kids I blogged about last time are at a risk of being taken away again and who knows to where.  Please pray.

never want to leave.

It has been a little over a week here in Porvenir.  The first 6 days it was just Dan, me, and Christina but the rest of the group just arrived a few days ago.  The house is full... and healthy (knocking on wood as i type that).  The past week has been so good. I wish I could explain just how good.  First, our time with Milades and baby Allison and the rest of the kids has been so amazing.  Allison is so cute and getting bigger.  At first she was shy towards us but now as soon as she sees us she smiles and reaches out to us.  It was a little sad and hard when we first got here because Milades brothers family who we are close to are in a really tough situation.  Fanny, their mom left and so did the father.  For a short time their three children lived with a woman who physically abused them severely.  They then were brought to Milades house for Milades to raise them.  She now has 11 people to feed.  11 people to care for under one very small roof living in extreme poverty.  I am now more glad than ever that we were able to make her a bunkbed last year.  Still, it is only 3 beds for 11 people.  And her husband is out of work.  It is clearly hard there.  We did hire her husband to work with us on the tables we made for the kinder and we have her to wash our clothes for them to make some money while we are here as well as took Milades to the grocery store to buy groceries.  The effects of the physical abuse on the children though is clearly lasting.  Josue, one of the children is two and one of our favorites here, and definitely one of the cutest, has clearly emotionally taken a beating and is very quiet and reserved now.  He loves and trusts Dan and goes to him constantly and just lays his head on his shoulder.  It is so sweet, but so sad.  He needs his dad.
On a lighter note, the twins and their family are doing great.  They are so beautiful and so fun to play with and love Dan in such an obvious way.  It truly is a blessing to watch.  Also, missionaries came to Porvenir to build a new Kinder since before it was held at multiple peoples houses.  It is amazing.  I will post pictures when we get back to the states.  We finished the tables for the kinder and they are also amazing.  Victor, the man who helped us with the bunkbeds last year helped us with the tables and I am so thankful.  They look so good.  Also, we went to Cayos Cuchinos today.  They are the same islands that Dan and I went to last year.  Today was so much fun.  The islands are the most beautiful ones I have ever seen and the experience is so amazing each time.  We snorkled, swam in amazingly clear water, and took a thousand pictures.
I feel like I am rambling. I just want to write about everything.  But I cannot and I am sorry if this blog is overwhelming.  Most importantly we are having so much fun and the Lord is revealing so much to me in my quiet times with him and also in every moment during the day with the families we spend time with.  Dan and Is bible study starts Monday as well as the kids camp we all are putting on for the kids.  We are about to go eat dinner at the restaurant on the river.  It is a personal favorite.  Keep praying! We still have so much ahead of us.  Love and miss you all.

in four hours we will be gone.

We are leaving tonight to again see our friends in El Porvenir. our sweet little town that has become so familiar and so good to us.  We are excited but also anxious and also feeling unprepared and underpacked.  This summer has slipped by us with Dan in Radford all summer and me here in Chesapeake working a little and relaxing and anticipating this very night.  Yet somehow it snuck up on us.  Again, we have been so blessed by donations and fund raising.  Friends, churches, a good garage sale, and a lot of work from my mom have provided us with the tools and money we need to complete some projects this summer.  We will only be there for three weeks but our plan is to make some tables for the kindergarten we worked in last summer and hold a summer camp for the kids (were calling it 'gringo camp').  Dan and I have planned a bible study for the adults and are praying that it is good and that the Lord uses that to open doors.  We also have some new friends from home joining us.  Our little group includes Dan, me, Katlyn (my older sister), Riane (my younger sister), Christina (the volunteer who went with us over Christmas), Ellen (a great sweet friend/family member of all of us), and Laura (one of Riane's friends, but you could consider her one of the family as well).  This trip will be a little different because we are not staying in a volunteer house.  In fact just an hour ago we were unsure of where we were staying because of some minor changes but it is all figured out now and our friend Danny who lives there will be hosting us!  We are so excited. It is hard to express.  But if you follow this blog you know how sweet Honduras is to us.  Please be praying- specifically for health (no more hospital visits), bible study, and for the table building. Also we are traveling in two different groups so pray for safe travel.  We again will try to update the blog often- but no promises.  As I am typing this I am remembering a whole list of things I have to do before 3:30 am. Ah, so excited.

these little faces are waiting and we cannot wait to see them.

joy.

It has been three days since we have gotten back from honduras.  As expected, once in honduras I had no desire to track down the internet to blog.  However so much happened and I really wish I would have tried harder to blog because now the emotions are overwhelming and sometimes that is so difficult to write about.  Dan asked me what I had learned from being in Honduras this time and as I explained to him, sometimes it just feels like God sits you down and for hours just teaches you and so you learn so much and you are moved so much that it is hard to exactly explain the biggest parts of his lesson.  I guess though I should just start though by talking about the trip.  The good, the bad, the sick, the hard, the joy.  Here it goes.

Well this time we only had 10 days and really only one small project: chicken coups.  We ended up finding a man in Porvenir who offered to build the coups for cheap.  So he cut down some bamboo and sticks and we got a few scraps of wood and tin and the coups were built.  We didn't really know what we were doing.  Neither Katlyn, Dan, I, or Christina (a past volunteer who went down with us), knew anything about chickens and their needs.  We asked questions and tried to put it all together.  Apparently chickens are more high maintenance than we expected.  They need a certain amount of sunlight, a certain amount of shade, a place to roost, a place to sleep, a place to go when it rains, antibiotics to stay healthy, certain food that helps them lay eggs, etc.  We never even did end up getting chickens in time for us to see them, but they will be delivered soon.

We never got a better picture of the chicken coups but this was the start!

So besides the chicken coups we only really had one other task: to play with the kids.  And play we did.  We couldn't wait.  I can't really describe that feeling... the feeling of trying to sleep in an airport when you know in the next few hours you will be with the families and children you have dreamed about seeing again since the day you left.  All I know is that it is good, so good when you are there.  When I could meet baby Allison for the first time.  She is beautiful.  Literally stunning, and so happy.  

Faces like hers.  That is why we came back.  When we got there there was so much joy.  We couldn't wait to run around and see everyone.  There was so much excitment in those moments of seeing Milades and Fanny and their children.  In seeing the kids from our kinder and their parents.  Of seeing our crazy 'grandma's.  It was so good.  

 However, on new years eve we did run into a few problems. I had been up the entire night with what I thought was just your typical stomach bug.  However within a few hours in the morning I realized it was getting much worse when I could barely move or talk and was having hallucinations... quite scary.  I do think it was much scarier for katlyn and dan though.  I mostly slept and cried until dan and our good friend danny who lives in Porvenir took me the hospital.  Its hard for me to remember all of it because I was so out of it but once we went to the hospital my temperature was about 105 and I pretty quickly had to be given an IV.  I was so thankful for the care there.  Of course it wasn't the same.  We definitely ran into our issues.  Inability to find my veins for the IV, broken IV bags causing more blood loss, allergy shots because they couldn't figure out what my allergy to Sulfa meant in spanish, confusion, lots of drugs, lots of pain, lots of being scared.  It was hard.  Yet dan took such good care of me at the hospital.  I have never felt so cared for or in need of so much care and love.  It turns out that whatever it was became a really bad intestinal infection that ended up getting into my joints.  I have never been in such pain.  All that to say that new years night was not exactly the fun we had hoped for.  Dan and I stayed back from the festivities and I slept, a lot.  However it was needed and a lot of learning and love came from it. crazy what god uses.

Anyways, the rest of the time was incredible.  More playing with kids, more families loving us, more of us loving them.  I felt pretty weak and tired for a while and katlyn, dan, and cristina all ended up getting some degree of a stomach bug.  But really all of that didn't matter.  Not when we had little kids around screaming and running for us to come play.

 Of course, time with the twins and bessy was so good.  The twins mom who lives in the states sent us back some presents for them which was such a joy to watch them open.  I think when we are here, Dan misses them the most.  They are beautiful little girls and so smart.  Being around them is such a blessing that is hard to explain.  Life just makes a little more sense when we are with them.  Maybe its because they are so happy.  I do not know.  All i know is that spending time with the precious girls is something that definitely a gift.

 So what did I learn this trip.  I learned about joy.  Holding Allison and knowing that she was alive, healthy, and beautiful.  That was joyful.

I also learned a lot about being thankful. I could talk about that for a long time.  Having Milades feed the four of us four times - that was sacrifice, yet her way of thanking us.  Fanny offered to wash our clothes because that was her way of saying thank you.  When I was sick another family made us soup to care for us and say thank you.  Lets be real-  Milades named her baby Allison just to say thank you.  I want to be thankful like that.  I think its okay to be blessed the way we are here in the states but I believe even more that we should be thankful.  Truly thankful. 

Even though it is hard to be back and starting classes already, it is good.  Good because i know we will go back.  It is good because my heart longs to be with the people of Porvenir and that only means I have been blessed enough to love and know them.  Although I am overwhelmed at what God has taught me and right now it seems like too much, it is in his timing and so I know it is good.  I have a little bit of a new feisty side in my heart though because I have to be honest, I am mad about a few things.  I am mad that our friends there do not have enough to eat.  I am mad that some of our friends have to literally move everything they own when it rains or it will be flooded.  I am mad that there is so much excess here and so much depravity there.  I am praying the lord will give me a peace about all of that because right now i am still angry and do not know quite what to do with that.  But I am more thankful that God used those ten days to teach me so much.  Dan and I are blessed because we have been given the gift of Porvenir.  It has brought us so much joy.

we're off again

Its still surreal to say, but yes we are heading back to Honduras.  In fact we are leaving later today.  So i thought we should let you know that.  A few months ago we decided we had to come back.  Some of the families we are close to were struggling and our hearts went out to them.  Katlyn, Dan, and I looked up prices and the tickets were cheap enough that we could go.  Of course tonight we will have to spend the night in the Atlanta airport, but there is always a cost to cheap plane tickets.  We are so excited.  This semester of school was really difficult.  Classes were hard, I was working a lot in the hospital, and was busy just about all of the time with young life.  But it was also a sweet semester.  Christ was good in all of it and continually drew me closer to him. And now he is giving me/us a break. I am excited to go back to Honduras. I am excited for the warm weather and for the peace the simple life there brings. But I am the most excited to see friends.  I am excited to finally meet baby allison.  Amazingly, Milades gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby allison a few weeks after we left.  I am excited to see our kinder kids, to see the twins, and all of our little friends.  I am not sure what updating the blog will look like since we are only there for 10 days.  I probably won't want to spend much time on the internet.  But I will do my best.  This time we are mainly going just to visit and help out some of our friends.  Our plan is to build a chicken coup or two and buy some chickens for some friends.  Its funny because none of us know what that looks like.  How do you build a coup? But thats what we said about the bunk beds and that turned out perfectly fine.  So here we go.  another adventure.  We are blessed, we know that.  We ask that you continually pray for us as we figure out what God wants out of these few days there.  This is the best christmas present any of could have asked for.

we're back. (post from airport)

(This blog was written 2 days ago... we are home now.)  I am sitting in the Atlanta airport right now.  It is 4:44 am in the morning and I am tired and freezing, but mostly freezing.  But I have done this before.  The whole sleeping in the airport is not new to me since a 16 hour layover always calls for a cheaper plane ticket.  Believe it or not- I am enjoying it this time.  Dan is sleeping on the floor, Katlyn is sleeping on the chairs, and the little boy Jason who we are taking home is sleeping next to me.

This time is giving me time to reflect.  A friend texted me when we landed in Atlanta and asked how my trip was and I responded ‘good, but I have to process.’  I think this layover has been a good time to process.  Especially since I haven’t blogged since Nicaragua, I have a lot to say.  So first, Nicaragua.

Nicaragua.

The 10 days spent traveling in Nicaragua were crazy.  They were crazy for multiple reasons.  First, we were able to see so many old friends.  Douglas, Karla, Lenin, Serigo, Aracelly, Oscar, Jessy, Ernesto, Eduardo, David, Ludem, Aaron, Karla, Carla, and so many more.  We were able to do so many things.  Dan surfed in the Pacific, I got incredibly tacky fake nails compliments of Karla, and Katlyn was able to practice her dance moves.  The three of us learned what a tight budget meant and we learned that sometimes food can be sacrificed and you can still live.  We traveled by bus almost every day which became quickly exhausting.  We crossed the boarder (which is super stressful by foot FYI).  We took extremely scary taxi rides, kind of sort of went to an important soccer game, ate a lot of Tip Top chicken, laughed a whole freaking lot, got mad at eachother, fell more in love with eachother, and more in love with our friends.  These Nicaraguans really mean so much to us and I cannot really start blogging about each stop and homestay individually.  I don’t want to type that long and you do not want to read that much.  Just ask in person. Here are some pictures of our sweet friends and good times.

Back to Porvenir.

One thing we did realize while traveling so much, was how bad we wanted to be back in Porvenir.  Not that we didn’t love Nicaragua, its only that while we were traveling, we realized how much we had fallen in love with the people of Porvenir and the town itself.  Also, the beach house felt safe.  We had a bed and a door that locked and for once we could all fall asleep without taking shifts.  It felt so good.  Plus, the last four days in Porvenir were the best (minus the infestation of lice).

dan and i with our lice caps on...

Kinder.

Kinder was hard to leave.  We had two more days when we got back to finish Kinder and it was sad.  We LOVE these kids.  On the last day we distributed backbacks with toys and school supplies in them that were donated by friends and family and people we don’t even know (thank you.) Each and every single one of them looked precious as they walked home smiling and jumping around but it was so sad to walk the kids home from kinder knowing it was our last time.  I do not know how Katlyn did it without breaking down.

Surprise Party.

The last four days in Porvenir also included a few parties.  The biggest one was a surprise party that all of the mothers in Porvenir threw for Katlyn.  Rosa (the kinder teacher) and Dan and I had talked briefly about a surprise party before we had left for Nicaragua but I had no idea how big and amazing of a surprise party she had in mind.  Although multiple times the party had been given away to Katlyn and I thought she had to have known about it for sure, she never found out.  The surprise party was a surprise to me as well.  It was huge.  The mothers made enough food for over 100 people which was such a sacrifice and so beautiful to see.  The kids dressed up and sang and danced.  The twins and Bessy also put on beautiful dresses and danced a traditional dance.  There were really emotional moments but always broken up by something funny or cheerful.  These moms were in the best mood.  Seriously.  They were all on their ‘A game’ dancing around and being hilarious.  You could see in their eyes how much they loved and appreciated Katlyn which was incredible to see for me.  I wanted her to know how much she was needed and wanted in Porvenir and this party was the way to do it. 

dance party

sweet abuela who we love so much.

Best Date ever.

Dan and I were able to go on a date before we left.  We went to Cayos Cuchinos which are a group of islands that seem unreal.  They look as though they are pictures taken from a magazine.  We were able to snorkel around some incredible reefs and see some pretty incredible things.  The trip in general was also needed.  We both were aware that we had so much on our hearts and minds and Cayos Cuchinos was an excuse to be together and relax and have minimal tasks to complete except for play with the local children and snorkel.  It was really an incredible date and I felt so loved by Dan that he didn’t see it just as a trip, but as a date that he really wanted to go on with me.  Just me.

struggling...

Final Day.

Our last day in Porvenir was bittersweet.  I will always remember this day.  It wasn’t out of the ordinary except instead of saying see you later to some of the families, it was goodbye, and goodbye always sucks.  Mothers and Grandmothers who have become so dear to us were in tears and holding onto us tight.  And I loved and hated that all at the same time.  Milades, who went to the doctor while we were in Nicaragua was told that her baby girl is due the 28^th.  We were so happy to hear that she said she will go to the hospital when her time comes which is such a gift from god, so thank you for praying that.  She is scared of course, but she understands that it is necessary especially since we will not be there.  Her sweet self threw us a goodbye lunch at her house and we were able to spend a few hours with her and the children.  Dan and I talk about these children non stop.  They are so precious and truly show me the love of Christ.  They are fragile and perfect and strong and joyful and incredible.  Spending time with them was the perfect way to leave Honduras.  Something happened during that time that I will never forget.  Milades had never really knew my name, and I knew that.  But since we spent so much time together, it was one of those things that it would have been weird for her to ask me this far into the relationship so we worked around the obvious.  Also, Milades did not have a name for her baby.  We had spent some time talking about the baby’s name, but she said her mom had named all of her other children and since her mom has passed and this is her first child since her mom passing, she didn’t have a name.  When we were at her house that final day, she looked at Katlyn and said, what is your sister’s name again?  Katlyn said Allison and then without hesitation she looked at me and said, that is what I am going to name my baby girl.  Allison.

Here are some pictures from our last day at Milades house

katlyn and i with milades!

Processing.

Like I said I have a lot to think about.  A lot to process.  Obviously.  I will try to blog about that soon as soon as I sort it out in my head.  Writing this blog brings a lot of emotions and suddenly this airport is the last place I want to be.  I want to be wrangling up kids in the kinder, building bunk beds with Victor, taking Milades and Fanny’s kids to the beach, holding Roiley, teaching the twins and Bessy English.  I even would rather be sitting in the beach house picking lice out of eachothers hair by candle light when the power goes out.  Anything there, not here.  Honduras was hard at times- actually it was the hardest.  But it was the sweetest.  I pray I can go back soon.  I pray that sweet baby girl Allison is born safe and healthy.  I pray that I will never forget what I have learned.  I pray that Dan and I never take for advantage the 5 weeks we spent there.