Muchas Cosas!

I know its been a while since I wrote in here last, but things have been busy and with our friends Abe, Rowe, and Cristin visiting us over the weekend, I didn't have a chance to post an update about our lives. Not a whole lot has changed. We're still working in our assigned tasks in the school and with the horses. One morning a couple of weeks ago, a boy in the school became very sick and needed someone to take him up to the clinic to see Karelia (the nurse) and I was selected. He was from one of the first grade classes and didn't look like he felt too good at all! From what my sources tell me, he threw up all over his pants and was then asked to sit outside his class until someone could come and get him. When I arrived at the clinic with him, there was no one there, and after a quick phone call I found out that he needed to sit outside the principal's office until someone could get to him. He just sat and waited. It was sad.

Speaking of sick children, Emmanuel had a boy that was staying in the clinic 24 hours a day which meant that at least two volunteers had to be with him at all times. What better reason to hold a meeting! In our meeting we discussed how it was the responsibility of every volunteer to take a shift in the clinic. They passed around a sign up sheet, so Lauren and I filled in our names for a couple of shifts. The boy's name is Byron and he is 12 years old, however he looks like a 7 year old, acts like a toddler, and cannot speak. His mother is severely mentally handicaped and extremely poor so he was neglected his whole life. At some point a couple of weeks ago, the older boy that was taking care of him every day decided to wack him over the head with some sort of bar. Most of the volunteers believe he suffered a concusion, but no diagnosis was ever made. He slept for a couple of days and refused to eat or drink (very unlike his normal character). After a couple of days, he began to return to his usual habbits and began eating and drinking a little at a time. One time when Lauren and I were in there with him, he was sitting across the room eating his beans and rice while Lauren did some editing work on the Emmanuel blog. All of the sudden, she had a chewed up clump of beans sitting in front of her on the laptop...Byron had thrown his chewed up food at her. Needless to say, she was shocked for a moment but then couldn't stop laughing about it since it was pretty funny. We changed his diaper and showered him on two different occasions because he is unable to do it himself. The second time it happened, he decided to walk in his diaper and track poo across the floor. Lauren gladly offered to clean it up while I showered his butt along with the rest of him. From then on, I have been smelling a random hint of poo everywhere I go--I believe I am suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I must not be ready to be a parent yet.

We had a visitor at the horse pasture for a few days about a week ago. We're not sure what his name was, but he certainly had a desire to be loved and have horse friends to chat with. For three days in a row he would stand at the fence that separates the horse pasture from the field outside the orphanage. When we brought the horses in to eat, he would walk over to the stables to eat the grass next to them. The other horses appeared to be curious about their new found friend. The colt even watched him while he ate, but appeared to be a bit annoyed with him there. I went over to check him out and say hello, but upon closer inspection, I found that he was covered in ticks! Maybe I got one of my ticks from him...gross. I decided to leave the horse where I found him and I returned to the stables to finish taking care of our horses.

One day when Lauren was in class she was looking through some of the flash cards of words the last team left for the class. The class is supposed to be not only learning about math, science, social studies, and Spanish, they are also supposed to be learning character development. In that, they will be teaching them how to deal with bullies, how to take care of themselves, etc. Lauren found a flash card that peaked my interest. I really don't recall at what age I learned this word, or what the context was, but I do know that this is a word that every person needs to know in order to be successful in life--diarrhea! what a great word. Without it, how would a person know what kind of medicine to get in order to fell better? After learning this word, a person can go to any pharmecy and ask for diarrhea medicine.


Our friends from Sandals (from the Honduras '08 team) came to visit us from Friday thru Tuesday. We were excited to see some familiar faces from church! The arrived around 5:15pm on Friday which also happened to be Mikkel and Watson's b-day. Most of the volunteers and staff were in the volunteer pavilion eating Danish pizza, cake and cookies. Norman (the Honduran taxi driver for Emmanuel) drove us all over to our house so they could drop off their bags and settle in. Lauren and I decided to make them spaghetti and cheese bread for dinner so we could relax and catch up. John came over after a little while and partook of our fancy dinner. We spent Saturday morning doing horse lessons for the special needs children, and grooming the horses later on. After we finished that we changed and went into town to find something "authentic" to eat. We ended up eating in the town square at a stand in the middle of it. We spent a little over a dollar each and each had a fantastic lunch. We swung by the supermercado to pick up some food for their stay and then hiked it back home. Sunday after church, we walked around Emmanuel so they could see the new male volunteer house, as well as the cows and pigs. As it turned out, one of the mama pigs had just given birth to 12 little pigglets and we were the first ones on scene. One of the little piggies was on the wrong side of the pig-pen and was unable to walk back over to the mama and since we couldn't get to them, we had to call someone who could. So far they have all survived and are doing well. On a side note, a mama pig just gave birth to 8 pigglets about a week ago, but she mauled and killed 6 of them. They plan on killing her in about a month.


Abe, Rowe and Cristin spent a good deal of time shaddowing us during their stay here. It was great getting to see them, and it was also great to receive the packages they brought from some fellow Sandalites! We received movies, chocolate, liquid hand soap (which is hard to come by in Guaimaca), Pop-Tarts, granola bars, a dustpan, etc. (thank you Sandy & family, Theresa, and Karen). We also received a collection that was taken for Lauren and I at Sandals College United--my old small group. We were very excited to receive a letter from them as well as a little extra cash. Thank you so much guys, we love you! We should also be receiving 4 packages from my mom, Lauren's mom, and my aunt in Idaho sometime this week. We feel so blessed to have received so much from our friends and family while we're here in Honduras! Thank you all so much--especially Abe, Rowe, and Cristin for being our mules and awesome house guests!

We still have groundwork horse classes as often as the horses have food to eat. We had classes last week and the younger boys seemed to have a good time. We're hoping to get through as many of the grades as we can before we leave so that when Tammy comes back, she can work with the children on the next series of lessons. The children have been anxious to ride the horses, but without proper supervision, we're not letting them ride. We're also taking note of which children enjoy working with and feeding the horses, because they will be the ones that are allowed to ride the horses later. Some only believe that the horses are here for them to ride, but that they don't have a respoinsibility to take care of them as well. That mindset doesn't work for us. They need to show an interest in taking care of them before they can ride them.





Just today, Lauren and I were out there to feed the horses and when I went to open the gate, I saw what looked to be a giant, mutated fly. I don't know if any of our readers have any idea what this thing is, but if you do, please let us know. It had wings and a face like a fly, but it was a little smaller than a perscription medicine bottle...that is huge as far as insects go around here. Maybe it was a fly that was mutated somehow...only God knows.



Today was John's birthday! For those of you that don't know John, he hails from our church in California and was our on team that visited Emmanuel in August of 2008. Today he turned 23 years old and we celebrated it in the volunteer pavilion after our Wednesday night church service. We baked him oatmeal cookies (from a bag that we bought at the supermarket) and also brought our coffee pot to make coffee. Hele, prounounced "hell-uh", (the woman in blue) baked him Bedstefar's skaeg or "Grandpa's Beard" in English, which is a Danish birthday cake that is very delicious and has a merange topping. His girlfriend (Jenny) was also in attendance and is pictured to John's left (your right). They sang him "happy birthday" in Danish--which by the way is a very long song. In America, the happy birthday song is very short because we want to get down to eating some cake and ice cream! In Denmark, they are content just singing and singing some more. Someone then started singing happy birthday in Spanish, but it was short-lived since know one really knows all the words to it. Later, John and Mikkel had a staring contest, and Mikkel won--chalk up another point for Denmark. The contest lasted for about 5 minutes and I'm not sure why John just gave up like he did, but Mikkel was very excited about winning. The Danes taught us a new Danish word--its pronounced "who-guh-lee" and it is used when friends are just hanging out doing nothing. Another word they taught us sounds like "cell-tech" and it means "your welcome." If you wanted to say thank you in Danish, it would sound like "tech." Good times. Oh, and if you want to say "see you later" you say "see see-na" whereas see you tomorrow is, "see see-moan" or "seis" for short. Before we know it Lauren and I will be coming home speaking three languages! I think we'll continue to work on Spanish before we get into learning too much Danish though.

Thats all for now friends and family. We'll have another blog up soon I'm sure...as things develop anyways. Oh, we have internet sitting on our couch in our living room now! You have to sit in the same spot in a certain way, but it works! Yay! That makes writing blogs/e-mails so much easier for us.


Good Day and God speed.

Hasta luego!
See see-na!
See you Later!


"And scene"