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.