I was taken hostage....by some kids

Sorry it's been a while! Here is a quick recap of what I've been up to for the past week.

Wednesday morning, I worked in the office making this twisted streamer things that they use for house/church dedications.  In the afternoon, I went up to the orphanage to help paint a mural with a group from Lynchburg.  We painted hills and a big tree with handprints of the children.  It's not completely done yet but once it is, I'll get a picture.  While working, I had a wonderful talk with Scott, the father of one of the young girls in the group.  He made me realize that heaven and eternal live is a gift from God and Jesus paid for it.  There is nothing we can do other than be faithful to Him.

The wall before we painted it

At 5, there was a dedication for Causelife, the worship center in Las Casitas.  It was finally finished painting and had chairs and everything.  Vernon Brewer, the CEO of World Help, Charles Billingsley, a Christian singer, and Kevin Foster, a director of the board at World Help, were there because they funded the entire project.  The kids from the orphanage did their song and dance and Jill sang the Hope of Life Song that she wrote.  A lot of it was for show, like cutting the streamer, firecrackers, and handing over the key but it was still cool to be able to be a part of it and seeing the people in the village be inside the church for the first time.

The inside of Causelife

Thursday I worked with Nina and Erika all day.  In the morning, I helped feed and bathe the children at Kelly's house and in the afternoon, we went up to the hospital and worked with the children there.  This picture is of Nina and Mirza, the girl they rescued two weeks ago who is 15 years old and 20 pounds.  She is the sweetest girl and has such a big smile!  It doesn't look like it in the picture, but I promise she is smiling.

Friday was another TOMs distribution.  It was at Los Limones.  Rachel and I went with the group from Lynchburg who had been working there all week building a church.  The interesting thing about this village was how we got there.  After a 10 minute truck ride, we arrived at a river and unloaded the truck.  There was a long canoe-like boat that we loaded everything into and then were paddled across by two men.  We unloaded everything on the other side and almost lost a bag of shoes in the process because it fell into the water. After waiting for the group to arrive, we sat in the back of a truck with all the tables, chairs, and boxes and bags of shoes for another 40 minute drive through the mountains and through smaller streams on a dirt road.  It was rather bumpy to say the least.

When we got there, we had a service in the new church with worship led by the locals and a short sermon by Scott.  We washed feet, gave out shoes and made some PBJ sandwiches for lunch.  Then it was back into the trucks for a bumpy ride back to the river.

We got back sort of early so a few of the volunteers decided that we wanted churrascos.  There's a little stand that sells them in Llano Verde so we went there.  They are my new favorite food.  We had milkshakes too.  All of it cost Q25, which is about $3.50.  You could never get a meal that cheap and that good in the U.S.  They ended up having churrascos for dinner at the Rancho too so I had another there. 

This weekend was incredibly warm so none of us had much energy or motivation do anything other than veg out so sorry, nothing to report there.  I did get a choco banana for 1Q. On Sunday morning, the volunteers went to the mall in Chiquimula.  It was a beautiful mall.  It was basically like an American mall.  There were smaller, boutiquey stores, stands in the middle, and a food court.  They also had this massive store called Megapaca, which is sort of like TJ Maxx or Marshall's and Plato's Closet combined.  Tanner found a pair of Vans for $7.  There was so much everywhere that I didn't even know where to start.  They have a grocery store too so we made a stop there before getting back on the bus to head home.  Sunday night we wanted to watch a movie so we started the Hunger Games but about 15 minutes into it, it started pouring sheets of water.  It was so loud that we couldn't continue.  You couldn't even hear someone else speaking right next to you.  It lightened up a tad so we fell asleep to the sound of pounding rain on the ceiling.  It was great.

The mall

Megapaca

 Today I got to do construction!  Remember all the cinderblocks we moved my first week? They were made into a new dorm for the older girls of the orphanage.  Now it was time to put the roof on so we spent all morning lifting cinderblocks up and setting them into place.  Rachel and I worked with a new group that is here from Nashville, TN.  They have a little five year old named Iona Ruth who wants to play cello!  She is the cutest.  I think I'm going to be helping them with construction for the rest of the week so I'm excited to get to know her more.

In the afternoon, we all went to the dump to serve food.  This is when I was taken hostage.  Amanda, the new volunteer, Rachel and I started playing tag with the kids.  After 15 minutes of running around, their moms wanted to take them home.  Three of the kids tagged me and then starting pulling me down the roads to where their moms were.  I said goodbye to them and then turned around to walk back to the group and then five of them ran up to me and grabbed my arms.  They wanted to take me home with them.  I tried to say No puerdo ir contigo (I can't go with you) but my Spanish is so bad that they just laughed.  They were just playing though so they did let me go.  It was probably the funnest afternoon I've had here with kids.