I'm Taking It Home and Getting a Patent

Wow! I can not believe we are already 4 days into the trip! It truly feels as though we just landed and yet we are about a fifth of the way through the Honduras part of the trip.

Today was the final day for our smaller team. In the afternoon Terry and a few others picked up the 30 new team members from the airport! With the new team brings amazing new attitudes, new friends, and the disappearance of our 9:30 bed time that we have had the last few days, haha!

At devo this morning Ken Habb talked about why he believes we come back year after year. He spoke about how amazing it is when we are here all in the same mindset. We are in a place where it is easy to be the people God created us to be because we are surrounded by similar hearts. We are all here striving to be the people God created us to be.

Connor the youngest team member this year! 

He is ready for his rookie year in Honduras!

The girls from the Kittanning group at the airport!

Jenny, Dan, and Holly 

As the large group made their way to Honduras our small advance team worked hard to get some things done. We had a group of about 20 goto the hospital and the remaining 12 or so people went up to the La Tigre rainforest to build a house. 

Some how we have managed to catch a ride to the build site the last two days!

Hopefully the rookies don't get use to this, I feel sure there will be a hike soon.

The lady and daughter that we build for today.

 Caleb and I have become partners at digging post holes the past two days.

Poor guy doesn't realize I almost always pick the most difficult hole to dig.

A nice panorama of the build site yesterday. 

La Tigre is a beautiful place for building! We were blessed with shade all day as we built.

Putting up the final wall.

Sometimes I have trouble reaching things but I always make it work.

The finished product.

When a house is completed we always use a broom to sweep out all the sawdust that is in the house. However sometimes things are forgotten; today we forgot the broom. The good news is we had Tricky and his mind on our side. When we realized we forgot a broom he was quick to get to work on making a new broom for us to use. 

Robin there is no excuse for him not to do his house work. 

He swept out the entire house. 

Our broom was made out of a piece of wood, electrical tape, and two work gloves. 

As we were leaving the work site Tricky said to be sure we take the broom so that he can get himself a patent on it when we get home. 

The family we build for and Patty.

The first devo as a large group, bring on the singing!

Today's plan is another house build in La Tigre, a classroom build in Diamante, and another hospital visit. Check back tomorrow to hear how the day goes! Thank you all for everything you do back home! 

No Hike In Mololoa???

Yesterday was our first official work day. The advance team broke off into three main sections today, all in Mololoa. The first group went to the feeding center, another went to the daycare, and the remaining 14 or so of us went to build a house. We were very lucky at the build site today...Mololoa is known for the long hike you have to take up the mountain. However today Mark had all of us pile into the back of the lumber truck and his truck. I felt very lucky as we rode up the mountain that I have climbed numerous times!

When we first arrived at the house build site we had to take down the old house. 

The house we tore down.

Lumber that we saved from the old house. 

It always is an eye opening experience when you go to a site where you take the house down before building a new one. This woman and her children were sleeping in a house that was held together by twigs, had rusted tin with holes all through it for a roof, and had no flooring. They slept in the same spot that we found 2 tarantulas and a scorpion. I am beyond thankful to know that her and her children were able to sleep on a floor up off the ground last night and for all the nights to come.  

Normas possessions. 

Another thing that was truly amazing today was the respect that everyone on the site showed for the belongings of Norma (the woman we build for). Every piece of wood, piece of tin, rock, etc that was found the team handed with care and took to a pile for it to be reused in the future on anything that they might choose to make with it. 

With the house tore down we were able to get to work!

This young guy never ceases to amaze me. And Robin don't worry he really did supervise for most of this house build. I caught him taking multiple breaks. :)

Jose is one of the local boys who came and helped us with the house build today.

....I mean he can't sit the entire time though.

 This little boy is one of Normas children. He was having so much fun using the scrap pieces of wood as a little race track for his cars!

The completed house. We began taking the old one down around 9:30am and by 2:00 this was standing where the old house stood. We were blessed with a very hardworking team today. 

Thank you all who help each of the members here get the funds to come or the funds to build. We would not be able to do the things we do each year without your support! You are just as much a part of this story as the members of TORCH working in Honduras. 

Joy, Family, Blessed

Our first full day in Honduras! What a blessing it is to be back, it really feels as though I never left.


Today we went to church at the Los Pinos congregation. Around 8:30 we left Villa Gracia. At church Terry spoke about the importance of our eternal life and how we need to be focusing on it instead of the short earthly life. He used a long rope, maybe 40ft and had part of it going out the window and down the road and the other end lead up to the pulpit. Holding about 6 inches of the rope he went over how short this physical life is and how all of our being should be striving to get to the eternal life with God when this life is over. Sadly in our world too many people are focusing on this short physical life; they are focused on making this life as fun, exciting, etc as they can and therefore they are going to lose out when it comes to the big picture. As Christians we must do all we can to not only get ourselves to the other side of the line after this life but also to take as many people as we can with us. Terry used a great story that really got me thinking; imagine you are on a boat and you are singing praises to Jesus because you are one of the people who are going to the other side of that line, however many people are out in the water drowning because they do not have Christ, they do not know who he is. All of those people are calling for help but we simply sit and continue singing. If we do not work to get more and more people to God then they do not have the hope of a life after this one.

The congregation in Los Pinos. 

Terry and Frank giving the sermon. 

This cutie was making googoo eyes with all throughout the sermon. 

A slight side note to anyone reading this blog. We are currently collecting for a woman at the Los Pinos congregation. Her husband passed away unexpectedly at an accident last week. She has a 1 week old baby. If anyone is interested in donating to this cause and knows one of the TORCHers who is coming down Tuesday please give to them and we will be sure to get it to her. She really needs our help at this time. 

After church we packed up and went to Mi Esperanza. The Florida Keys group is only here for the week, therefore today was the only shopping day that they will really get. They have a new campaign this year called do good wear good. You will surly see the hashtag for it blowing up Facebook if you are a TORCHer. The campaign is focusing on the importance of knowing where the goods you buy come from and knowing that by buying that good you are promoting good work.

Around 1:30 the Florida group left for the Valley of Angles and the remaining 11 or so people worked on organizing the warehouse and painting some of the Mi Esperanza store front. It really did spruce up the area with the blue that we added.

Before

After

Myself and Diana painting at Mi Esperanze.

When the Florida Keys group came back we went out for dinner. (The ladies in the kitchen have the day off on Sunday.) Most of us ate at this little burger joint, they had really good burgers! After the burgers we went over and had some ice cream. Then came back to Villa Gracia for devo. At devo Terry had us write down 3 words to describe our day, the three words that are the title were the most used words that the group wrote. 

The plan today is to travel to Mololoa. We will be building a house, working at the daycare, and working in the feeding center. 

Everyone out there reading my blog feel free to make comments! I would love to hear from you! =D 

The Last Landing

Buenos Dias! We are finally here! After a long day of traveling yesterday the advance team of 20 people have landed in Honduras.

My morning began yesterday around 2:45am (Eastern Time) and I was finally able to crawl into bed at about 10:00pm (Central Time). My travel buddy yesterday was Pat, we had a great time drinking coffee and anticipating the final arrival to Honduras.

I may be slightly excited for this!

Tricky and I on the plane.

Terry and some of his travel buddies.

When we landed in Honduras (Possibly for the last time at that airport, the last time on one of the most dangerous landings in the world! They are working on building a new airport) we had one of the smoothest transactions getting our luggage and getting through customs. We then went to the mall and got ourselves some dinner.

We pulled into Villa Gracia and discovered that they were having a wedding, so we all sat in the cafeteria, watched the wedding, and went over rules/room assignments. For those of you at home I am rooming with the Hannah's from the PA group.

Today we are planning on going to church at the Los Pinos congregation, shopping at Mi Esperanza, and I believe we are going to be working some at the warehouse. I will continue posting, my post almost always will be early in the morning. I hope many of you choose to use this blog to get some updates on my trip!

Flying By

I can not believe that today is our last day. This trip has flew by so quickly, I am no where near ready to be leaving. Yesterday we had the all girls build, a food distrabution team, and my group went to Mololoah. We had a few people work in the feeding center, a few landscsping, and about four of us were in the daycare.

We had a great time at the daycare helping Wendy take care of the kiddos. I will simply let the pictures talk for my day today because we have to be moving quickly today.

After we finished at the daycare we convinced Nolran, our amazing bus driver to take us to McDonalds. That burger and fries was beyond good after not so long of not having it! Then we came back and went to the puter store. Some of the boys thougt puter was meant for computer, which was funny when they arrived at a store full of mirrors, trays, etc.

Practice for a show they are doing for Tylers church when they come down to work.

   Coloring

  After finding these little shark water guns we had a blast! We had times that the kids chaced us with them
and times where we were chasing the kids.

  A wonderful lunch of rice and beans!

  Kat and I washing the dishes

  I had so much fun with these kiddos!
We had a tickeling war, I am pretty sure 
I lost because at one point I had about 8 or 9 kids on top of me!

  Tyler moved to Honduras in October of last year. 
He does an amazing job working in Mololoah. 
If you would like more information about his work or would like to sponsor him let me know!

  My friend Ashely

  This little boy use to have things on his legs because he wad going to be severly bolegged.
Now you would never know! 
He is gets into all sorts of trouble now!

  Wendy painted many of our nails at the end of the day.
It is amazing that we go to serve but they always want to serve us!