I LOVE MY JOB!

Well we are one more day into the trip. One more day has come and gone that we will not get back, it is truly amazing how fast and slow this trip seems to go at times. Our plans this morning changed slightly, (Welcome to Honduras) so the VBS team, which Brandy and myself are leading, had to stay back at Villa Gracia to get some work done.

The other groups went to Mololoa for house builds/the feeding center/the day care or to finish the classroom in Diamonte. My niece Hannah went off on her own for the first time today at Mololoa to work in the daycare. She was kind enough to give me a few pictures from her day. I would ask her to write about the kids but she will not be getting out of bed until about 15 minutes after breakfast has started (Sorry Chris and Colleen some things just don’t change).  I hope her pictures give you a little bit of her story.

For those of us who stayed back at Villa Gracia we had plenty of work to be done. The first thing we had to do was get all the food broken down for the food distribution that we will be doing tomorrow. Most of the crew worked on that while Brandy and I ironed out a few of the VBS details.

Just some of the food that was sorted.

After working out a few of the VBS ideas we realized we had to go and get a few more items for the VBS we will be doing at Didasko. Terry, Brandy, and I went to Office Depot to get glue, paper, foam, and crayons.

When we arrived back with the supplies the team stopped for a quick lunch break. (Its possible that Terry, Brandy, and I had already ate, but we will keep that a secret.)

Lunch Break

Once we finished eating Angel and I went to work folding papers for VBS while the others worked on bagging the food that they had sorted earlier in the day. The papers we are folding are going to be little Days of Creation maps for the kids to make.

I felt like I was back home working on an example for a classroom craft.

Shortly after we finished folding papers for the craft Terry offered to drive me to Los Pinares, a bilingual school that is about 3 minutes from Villa Gracia. I am looking into moving to Honduras next summer to teach at the school. Please pray that God leads me into making the correct choice over the next year. We were not able to go into the grounds but it was nice simply being able to see the campus, I am hoping to set up another time to visit the inside of the campus before leaving for Costa Rica on the fourth.

When we arrived back at Villa Gracia I recruited a few people to help write James 4:7 for a VBS craft, write on each of the Days of Creation book, and make a few other random VBS items.

Angel cut about 300 of these little things. 

Writing James 4:7 in Spanish

Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Parker got into some trouble.

Dinner tonight at 5:30 was AMAZING, probably one of my favorite meals we have…the homemade tortilla chips. After our early dinner we loaded up the buses and drove out to the Jesus statue for devo. Mark spoke about how much he loves his job. He talked about no matter what kind of day he is having, rain, lack of wood, missing materials, etc. he loves his job building houses in Honduras. He also touched on the fact that part of why we are all so content here in Honduras is the fact that we are doing exactly what we were created to do, which is to serve God in all we are doing. This is something that is so easy for us to do in Honduras because 24/7 we are serving.  He then lead into the discussion on how we are God’s work and as we are doing what we were made to do He sits up there watching us thinking to Himself “I love my job!”. We are God’s handy work, everything we do is for God and He is proud of us when we are living for Him.

My building buddy, Caleb. This guy has built house 4 days in a row! 

He is truly doing an awesome work for the Lord. His mom should be very proud!

 The view from the Jesus statue never ceases to amaze me.

BFF's till the end.

It is such a joy to be here and see these two grow on the trip. 

I am one proud and blessed Auntie.

This is Patty, I have been traveling down here with her for the past 6-8 years.

I can't remember exactly what year she began coming but she truly is an inspiration to me. 

You can read her blog here www.http://earringproject.blogspot.com

Remember that weather you are in Honduras, Costa Rica, China, Russia, USA, anywhere you are still part of Gods plan. He knew you before you were born and He put you exactly where you are right now. He decided that you are with the family you are with, that you have the job you have, that you make the money that you are making, etc. He did all of it and as long as you are living in a way that fully serves Him, He is sitting up there loving YOU and all that you are doing in His name.

A Mud Pit on a Bolder

Wowza! Talk about a LONG day! Today we had three groups: a hospital and special needs group, a classroom build site, and a house build group. The classroom build was basically is a doublewide TORCH house from my understandings.

I once again was on the house build site, no surprise right!  We were again up in the La Tigre rainforest, however the site to build today was not quite as easy of an area for the house build. It also did not help that it rained for most of the day and the area we were build was both a mud hole and a bolder.

 Maybe a fourth of the wood we had to move

When we arrived at the site we had to first organize all of the wood because it was in a large pile in the middle of where the house was going to be put.  Arranging the wood took about 30-45 minutes and then we were able to get the postholes set. 

The hole of death.

 Both of my nieces working on that difficult hole.

If any of you read my blog last year you probably know that I am known for choosing the worst hole to dig out; today was no exception. We had to set the post in the middle of a bolder. This bolder went the entire way down into the ground. But that is not all…..after getting about half way through Tricky re-measured and discovered that we were a few inches too far back, so we started over.

Beginning to put up walls

And still digging the hole.

After another short while we put the post into our new hole. Again the hole was off and we had to dig…..break through a third time. However after much work and a lot of patience we were able to set the pole.

 Finally setting the post!

Once the post was in the wall went up quickly.

After that the house went up relatively easily. The most difficult part was simply all the mud that got caked onto our shoes.

As you can see the walls got a little muddy.

Hannah decided to clean off the walls. 

The house was build for a young couple named Sandy and Jose. Jose helped us with the build most of the day. Sandy watched and helped with a few things. It is always nice to have more help! There was one point I am not sure how I would have gotten a board nailed in without Sandy’s help!

A trust exercise. 

Don't worry mom Noah is keeping me safe.

The house was finished around 4:00 thanks to the hard work of the team. We were then able to get back to Villa Gracia and shower. Thank goodness for the shower almost all of us were covered from head to toe with mud.

David finishing the roof. I have known him since he was a kid and now he is here working with us!

First house build with the three of us! :)

Finished product

So like I said it was a long day….but my friends it was far from over. About 10 minutes after my shower we sat down for a nice game of spades while we waited for the teams to arrive and for dinner to be ready, but then along game a new activity for the evening because two containers were released.

We all got loaded back onto the bus and began the trip down the mountain to the warehouse. Shortly after 6:00 the two containers arrived. From there it took till 7:30 to get their first container unloaded. We then moved onto the second container and finished around 8:50, loaded the buses and drove back up the mountain to have dinner. 

For those of you parents of the K-town and Latrobe girls let me tell you that for their first day in Honduras each one of them did an AMAZING job! I did not hear a single complaint out of any of them and it was a very long and tiring day.  

The plan for today is to build two houses in Mololoa, visit the dump, have a food distribution, and a small group to go back and finish the classroom. Any guesses on where I will go?