Honduras Day #2

*Disclaimer: all of the pictures from Honduras posted on my blog were taken by Melissa Brown, one of the girls on the trip with us :)

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Today was the first day of work for us. We got up and went over to San Pedro, Olancho. This is focus village of the group that goes down every year. The group always makes multiple trips to this village. This is also the village where the infamous Francisco lives. Francisco is one of the kids that stole the hearts of the group that went down last year. This is him with Mcauley. 

Francisco is an example of the effects of malnutricion. He looks like he is 8 or 9 years old, and yet he is 13. He has told the group every year that he was 9, so we had to ask his mother to find out his real age. He was one of the sweetest kids that we met there and he loved, loved, LOVED to play with us. His mom told us that every time he saw an airplane fly over, he would cry because he wanted so badly for his American friends to be on it. 

While we were at San Pedro, we started off by playing some games with the kids like Duck, Duck, Goose, and Red Rover. They weren't really feeling Duck, Duck, Goose, so that didn't last very long, but they enjoyed Red Rover, or Rojo Rover haha! This is Torre and me playing with some of the kids, Fransico is in the white shirt beside me.

Once Pablo, the head of the compound that we were staying at, got back with the concrete mix, the guys got started on mixing up the concrete while most of the girls entertained the kids. We attempted at playing soccer with them, but they are still way better than I will ever be. Alexa spent most of the time with her little buddy, Oscar, teaching him how to ride a bike. Andrew brought some jump ropes for the kids and attempted to teach them that. While we were there, we also got to see a baby learn how to walk. So many neat memories at this place, and it is only the first stop.

 

After a little while, I decided I wanted to join in on the concrete fun and took over one of the mixers. We had two mixing machines that mixed on their own, but had to be loaded and rotated to dump the concrete manually. To make each batch, it needed 2 buckets of water, 20 scoops of dirt, 1/2 a bag of concrete mix, and 10 more scoops of dirt. That one batch would fill two small wheelbarrows. We repeated this over and over until the whole house had a floor. This floor meant that the 10+ people living in this house would not have to sleep on the dirt anymore. Before we left, we got a picture with the family and some of the kids that lived in the house, and we were able to pray over them, asking blessings upon blessings over them. Our prayer for this project was that they would see Jesus through us as we poured their floor and that they would be able to share Jesus with others because of our example.

 Andrew, John G, Torre, me, Mcauley & Fransico, Alexa, John O, Collin, Melissa, Bo, Sam, Pablo, Danielle, and Morgan

After we left San Pedro, we returned to the compound and chilled out there for a while. Some of the group went back down the road to the school that our mission supports to talk with the teacher there, while some of us stayed back at the compound. While at the school, some of the group decided to pick us some ginormous lemons. I mean these are NOT your ordinary lemons...

Then we proceeded to devour them. John, Bo, and Collin wanted to go first...they didn't hold up too well.

 Then Melissa and I gave it try. I would say we handled it a little better than the first boys.

And then there's Torre...poor kid, just couldn't handle it.

After the lemons, we had real dinner and then celebrated John G's birthday with a big ole cookie! 

Feliz cumple Juan G!

 After dinner, we went down to the hammock spot and enjoyed some fun bonding time on the most comfortable hammocks on the planet.