Another day in paradise

The subject of this post is the first thing I heard from one of my teammates this morning. It is true, this place is like paradise in many ways. The weather and scenery are beautiful and it is easy to marvel at God's creation in a place like this. It also makes the contradiction between the beauty and the poverty that much more apparent. But He is healing this place a little at a time.

Last night, we had a fun night with the kids. It was full of laughs, soccer, dancing, and games. It always amazes me how much love and laughter can go on despite the language barrier. But that being said, the kids are also improving in their English compared to the summer visit and communication is better every day. Lisbeth and Carlos are especially good, to the point that Lisbeth was quizzing some of us on our Spanish. The older kids will not start school until next week, so we have been using the extra time with them to help them work on their English. I can only imagine how good they will be next time we come.

Today is the midpoint of our full week here and it is going by quickly. I remember last time we came, this was our last work day and then we began our trek home on Thursday. This time, the extended stay is nice because we still have several projects we are working on and because of the hard work being put in after lunch, we will be able to have two 'vacation' days while we are here. The plan is for Copan on Friday and the beach on Sunday.

Phil and Dago will be traveling to the store to purchase plumbing supplies today while the rest of the team works here to finish framing the base of the third classroom. I will be working with Dilia today to purchase food items for the families that utilize the feeding program. There are around 25 families (50-60 kids) and we will be making up a bundle of items for each of them. We plan to include food items as well as soap, pictures from my fifth grade Ridge Kids, and candies and toys for the kids brought by the team. We will be putting all this together this afternoon, then Dilia and I will ride the bus home with the kids tomorrow to deliver these items to the families.

Another individual we plan to help is the man we met this summer. He was paralyzed from a fall and is bed ridden. We plan to make him a care package as well, plus try to find him some kind of entertainment like a radio. When planning this trip, we wanted to built him a ramp of some kind but the location of his hut makes it so this is not possible. If we can't bring him out into the world, perhaps we can bring a little of the world into him.

~Miranda