We're Home!

Yes, I'm sure most all of you know that we have returned home to Southern California. We are in the process of settling back into California life and trying to find work. Since I am a teacher, it has been very hard to find a job. Lauren is unable to take any summer classes for her masters program since they are all filled up. Maybe God is telling us to slow down? Not sure what the next step is going to be for us, but we'll keep it in prayer and follow God's leading.

For now, its back to the grind of daily life. Thank you all for your love and support!



LeLu

Just a Couple of Days More

I think that for this final blog, you can simply look at the pictures that I have uploaded and put it all together for yourself. What we would really like is for you to use one (or two) pictures and leave a comment telling us know what you think was going on. There are quite a few pictures that are questionable at best...there is always something interesting going on here at Emmanuel!



The past week has gone by pretty quickly and we look forward to arriving home shortly! We'll be arriving at LAX at 9:30pm on Saturday and we will spend Sunday with my parents, Rachel, and Steve. Monday we'll be driving all over the place meeting with different people and inquiring about jobs. When we first get back we'll have a busy schedule, but things will slow down until we actually find work...which hopefully comes quickly because as a newlywed couple, it's nice to have your own place and people won't let you live in an apartment unless you have a job....or unless you're on welfare--there's an idea!





Thanks to everyone for all of your support and love throughout the course of our trip! We appreciated all of your e-mails and comments on our blog. We'll be sure to post a blog to let you all know that we have arrived home safely and we'll probably post pictures from our journey home (which will take us about 10 hours). I'm sure there will be plenty of funny pictures to come.





God has definitely kept us safe throughout the course of our trip! I can think of a few times that we could have found ourselves in a shady set of circumstances, but He kept His covering over us. I'm glad I didn't have Malaria and that the diarrhea eventually passed after a few days. Things could have gone so wrong on this trip, but instead they went so right and He gets all the glory for it!

Packages, Babies and Dirty Horses

As mentioned in our previous ,short blog, Emmanuel received their much anticipated March container a couple of days ago. It was nice to finally receive the packages that our family sent us back in February. The container always has some sort of stuffed animal that greets those that open the back door--this time it was a Christmas teddy bear. When all the dust settled after a day or so, Lauren and I had a total of six packages! We couldn't believe all of the cool stuff we had waiting for us in those boxes--Dried fruit, tuna, protein powder, olive oil, canned veggies, towels, popcorn, chocolate, etc. Although we're only here for two more weeks, it'll be nice to have things to help remind us of home. We've already had some chocolate, Special-K, oatmeal (with craisins and walnuts), protein powder, tuna, and green beans--of course, they weren't all mixed together.



On Wednesday we decided to give the horses a bath since its been extremely hot here the past couple of weeks. We thought they would like the opportunity to cool off and feel really clean for once. As it turned out, they didn't really care about being clean because once we turned them out most of them immediately rolled around in the dirt and hay becoming even more dirty than they were before we washed them. Horses like having a coat of dirt on them because it helps to detour flies and ticks...I would roll around in the dirt too if that was my only defense against those annoying bugs. I had two ticks (at different times) crawling on my arm during horse lessons today...maybe I should have rolled around in the dirt too.


Next week is "Semana Santa" here in Central America...otherwise known as Easter week in the U.S. This upcoming week is bigger than any other week throughout the entire year. Everyone goes home during this time, so many of the major cities are virtually empty. Lauren and I decided to do our weekly grocery shopping yesterday (Friday) since we did not want to deal with the major crowds in Guaimaca this weekend. We were told that more people die during Semana Santa than any other time of the year--because of drunk drivers, murders, etc. With the economy in a pretty bad state as it is, we didn't want to chance it with only two weeks until we come home. There is no school during Semana Santa, so Lauren and I will be doing whatever needs to be done around Emmanuel during that time--including working on the blog and website, in the school on projects, helping in the dental clinic, etc.


For those of you that might be wondering, "I know Leo and Lauren are volunteering at an orphanage, but where are all the kids?"--don't you worry, we found some! Last night the staff got together with the junior staff and had pizza around 5:15. Jenny, one of the junior staff members that takes care of the toddler house, was in need of someone to watch the toddlers while she went to the shindig. Lauren was more than happy to take care of the little guys since we are commonly working with the horses throughout the week. Although I thought I wasn't allowed to be there after a certain time, I walked Lauren over anyway. On our way over, we could see one of the wild fires buring on the hill right behind the dental clinic and new male volunteer house. The sky was filled with smoke, but it didn't seem to pose a threat because no one was concerned with trying to put it out.



When we arrived at the toddler house, they were all playing outside, but needed to go in to take a shower. They all stripped off their clothes and were running around. It's funny to see one little kid running around naked, but when you see 21 running around naked, it becomes hillarious. What makes it even funnier is when some of them are running up to you yelling, "Profesor Leo! Profesor Leo!" since a few of them are in my class. Lauren helped dry them and clothe them after they all showered together in the two showers available for them. All the girls were in one shower while all the boys were in the other. If you know Lauren and me at all, you know that Lauren really likes little boys and I really like little girls. Erika, a 4-year old, came up to me and wanted me to pick her up and who was I to say no? So the rest of our time there, if you wanted to find Erika, all you had to do was look for the tall white guy in a bright yellow Pipeline shirt. She was sooo cute! Lauren found a little chubby boy named Mimo who is three years old (but looks like he's 1 1/2). She was attached to him most of the time we were there. After showers, they were allowed to play in the park by the "toddler house" for about half an hour. After that they all went into the living room and were watching "High School Musical" dubbed in Spanish with English subtitles. When that movie was too scratched to work, they started watching "The Hulk"--all family friendly movies of course. Lauren was burried on the couch with about six kids sitting on her lap. I was sitting in a chair and only had about three kids on me at any one time. With no fan running, it got hot really fast in there. We were probably in there for about an hour before Jenny came back to resume her duty. Lauren and I helped put them all in their beds and said goodnight. Lauren gave them all a kiss on the head...I was jealous. They were adorable.



Today Lauren and I have horse lessons, and we're branching out into lesson two...tacking, leading, and grooming. I can't believe that we are moving on to the next lesson already. We taught both lesson one and lesson two to the same group (third grade) and it went pretty well. The kids were able to put a halter on the horse, lead it in the hall and into the pasture, and groom it. It was nice not having to groom the horses ourselves...I guess this is what it feels like to be rich and have servants. I suppose that for the rest of the time we're here, we won't have to groom the horses by ourselves! since we have little kids to do it for us. It'll teach them how to care for the animals instead of how to throw rocks at them...its a good life lesson. The kids did a good job getting all of the poo out of the hooves and making the horse's coats look clean. For the record, we didn't see any horses rolling in the dirt after the kids groomed them.




This afternoon, Lauren and I went to the toddler house to hang out with them some more. Take a look at the video below to see how things really are when you put them all in the living room:

As you can see, things tend to get a little crazy in that place when you put a bunch of little kids on a couch together. The girl on the right in the blue shirt in our above video is little Jessica whom we spoke of towards the beginning of our blog. She was the girl that was helping me paint one of the signs that was used in the school. We recently learned that one of our volunteers from Denmark (an physical therapist) has been working with Jessica on a regular basis using sensory integration therapy. She is doing much better now than she was even a couple of months ago. She is always playing with other children, smiling, laughing, making eye contact, and just enjoying her time being a kid. It's awesome to see what a little one-on-one time can do to help someone with a not-so-good upbringing.



Tonight we plan on going over to Robert and Karelia's house for dinner. They are making soup (which should go great with this super hot weather we've been having) and rolls and have asked us to bring some sort of "snack food" (i.e. chips, popcorn, etc.) I'm sure Terrez and Candice will be there to hang out as well. We only have two more Saturdays to hang out before we leave! We have tonight and next Saturday and then we're out of here! We'll have to start making time when we get back to hang out with our American (and Mexican--Greg) friends to replace our new-found friends here. Who were our friends again? I don't remember their names...


Amendment

The soup we ate tonight at Robert and Karelia's was cow stomach soup! They wouldn't tell us what it was until after we finished though...how considerate. The soup was served over rice and contained coconut milk, mini green bananas, plantains, carrots, potatoes, and cilantro. It was actually pretty good. To go along with the soup were some of Roberts famous honey rolls. It was a very filling dinner...although I don't see why it wouldn't have been since we ate a cows stomach!

Emmanuel Blog

Hello All! For those of you who would like to see the "blog" that Lauren and I have slowly been working on for the past month or so. You can just click on the image bellow and it'll take you directly there!




We promise to upload a new blog as soon as possible. We'll probably do it sometime this weekend as we always have interesting things to say about our time here. We've now been spending a lot of time updating Emmanuel's original website as well so that has been keeping us pretty busy. We've added a link to the new blog as well as completely changed the link in the left column for "The Farm." The photo bar at the top was completely redone by Lauren and myself a couple of days ago.

Just a quick note--we received the packages sent by our families tonight and were very excited to see all of the goodies contained within! We had some canned vegetables, towels, Special-K cereal, tuna, protein powder (here comes my muscle back!), popcorn, candy, movies, etc. We are so happy to have received them before we leave in a couple of weeks. Thank you everyone who sent a package, and thank you for those of you who were going to send a package before we said not to due to the time issue.

Alright, that is all for now. A new blog to come this weekend! Here is a picture I took a couple of days ago for those of you who like horses. This is Pharaoh. He is pretty well mannered, but can be a butthead too. I like to think he was making a funny face when I was taking pictures of him...





LeLu

Don't Yell "Fire" In A Crowded Theater

Updates...I know you all live for them. I live for writing them and uploading pictures so that you all may feel connected with us while we're here. I've been making more time to write them since I believe it is important (especially for the family that wonders what the heck we're up to down here). I really don't have a whole lot to say today, but at least a couple of interesting things have happened in the course of the past day and a half.

Yesterday (Saturday--and by "Saturday" I mean March 28th, 2009 since we aren't more than 1 hour difference from California), we woke up to feed and groom the horses before our morning horse lessons. Of course the horses looked spectacular after a nice comb through and brushing. On a side note, Wade said that they look the best they ever have through a dry season. I guess we must be doing something right then. John decided to get a little bonding time in with the colt since he'll be working with them more often as soon as we leave. We had 3rd grade girls on Saturday and they were certainly a handful to say the least. Some of the girls have been very good with the horses, but this was not one of those groups of girls. One girl decided to bring her soccer ball with her to keep herself entertained. The water trough in the pasture has come to look pretty nasty and it would seem that it was in need of a cleaning. I asked Wade if we could borrow his pressure washer in the morning to which he said that it would be available to use in the afternoon. I picked it up, got it ready to use, and after it ran for about 30 seconds, it decided to quit on me. Unfortunately after many attempts to restart it and checking all the fluid levels as well as the air filter, I gave up. I even had one of the junior staff members come out to look at it, but they couldn't figure it out either. I ended up using the shovel to try and scrape out the algae along the bottom. It looks a lot better now, but I'll have to give the pressure washer another try next weekend.


When Lauren and I were walking home from church this morning, we saw a lot of darker smoke in the sky in a spot that seemed closer to the orphanage than the usual trash burns. As we got a little closer to home, we could see tall flames burning the very dry field next to the horse pasture and corn crop on the edge of the property. We had a staff member radio it in to Wade while we continued on over to check it out. After a bit of research, we found out that there have been a lot of wild fires here lately. We just left California where wildfires were threatening Lauren's mom's house this past fall and now they are threatening the orphanage here! Honduras is in the middle of their dry season, so fires are very common since everyone burns their trash here. When we arrived at the property's edge, we could see that cows were grazing even with the fires burning about 200-yards behind them. We almost had free hamburgers for lunch!



As Lauren and I were on our way to lunch this afternoon and we approached the dam, we saw one of the illusive iguanas that we've seen diving into the pond over the past week. I had my camera with me since I had just been taking pictures of the fires, so it was the perfect opportunity to snap a pictures to share with all of you! Before I could get too close to him, he jumped into the water in a hurry to escape the clutches of danger. On our way back we saw one of our turtle friends sun bathing on the dam. Its hard to see him because he is so small, but he is right above the dark water spot on the damn. You can also see the orphanage cows grazing in the little valley behind him...what a happy family they have become.




While we were getting lunch at the tienda (store) near the entrance to the orphanage, Lauren was looking in the gift shop and found the coolest little bracelet. She showed an interest in it and I practically demanded that she buy it for herself since she liked it. I usually like accessories on Lauren and I like them more when they have a cool story behind them. For example, Lauren also has braclet that she bought in Africa when she went to Botswana in 2007 with Sandals. Now she has a braclet from Honduras when she went there with her awesome husband in 2009. Sounds like a new tradition has been born.



BREAKING NEWS:

While cleaning the dishes after dinner tonight, I found this guy in our shower! I don't know why they have gotten so brave, but they are walking on the walls and in the shower. I would hate to have Stinky crawl up my leg while I'm trying to shower. I still can't believe how loud they can be in the middle of the night, although they're nothing compared to the new found fly-like bug that has been introduced into our daily lives.

I Love Chicks!

Well, the current team that is visiting Emmanuel from Union University has been doing various jobs around the orphanage, including painting, playing with the kids, and putting up new signs. The farm was previously unlabeled, but thanks to their hard work, we now have a sign that marks the entrance to the farm! Its kinda cool because we live on the "farm side" of the property, so now we have a sign to look at every time we walk home!




Today, as we walked past the sign, we heard a lot of little chirping. If you remember from our previous blog where we talked about "chickens running with their heads cut off", Emmanuel slaughtered every chicken on the property in order to have food for the kitchens. What could this noise be? As we walked in the door to the chicken coup, we could see that they had purchased around 300 baby chicks! They were put into a room that was about 10' x 30' with heat lamps to keep them warm. A large group of them were trying to run out of the room, so Wade (the staff member in charge of the farm) was trying to keep them inside. From the sound Lauren made when she saw those little guys, you could tell that her heart just melted. We took a lot of pictures of them since we had taken a lot of pictures when the older ones had their heads cut off a couple of weeks ago--it was only right to take pictures of them alive as well (plus they're adorable). Lauren even had the opportunity to hold one in her little hand! When it came time to put them in a make-shift corral, John was picking them up by the handfuls! Wade claims that until a baby chick has had a drink of water, they are virtually indestructible...unless you step on one of course.


Later on while Lauren and I were sitting on the couch in our living room, "stinky" pooped on Lauren's foot! We know that he has always pooed in the corners and even on the bathroom sink, but now we are not even safe sitting on our own couch! Lauren was thoroughly disgusted when the warm poo landed on her foot, but after vocalizing her disgust the next thing she said was, "Leo, get the camera...we need to document this!" Lauren is such a trooper.


The power also went out while I was typing this which can be a very scary thing when everything is completely dark and the only sound you hear are the crickets and giant bugs through the open slats on the window. It came back on after about 5 minutes, so we're back to normal again. Life goes on.


I took a picture of the little pond by our house that we walk by every day. Its a pretty cool little man-made pond that the water from the kitchens drains into every morning, afternoon, and evening. Last week I could have sworn that I saw an alligator jump into the pond when we were walking to the school after lunch. As it turns out, it was an iguana! I had no idea that iguanas were able to swim under water. It freaked me out, but after I found out what it really was, I was okay with it. A few days later we saw TWO jump in the pond at the same time while we were about to cross the dam. I hear they're tasty...if you can catch one.




THIS JUST IN!!! While I was sitting here reviewing the blog with Lauren, Stinky pooed on me! Can you believe the nerve of that guy? We give him shelter from the elements and he poos on us instead of thanking us! I'm insulted. I hope you sleep with one eye open tonight Stinky...

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"