An update LONG overdue

Graduation day!

          

          On Thursday morning, Antony (Casa amarilla) graduated from kindergarten!! He is one of the 6 boys at Jovenes en Camino that attend the Allison Bixby Bilingual School on the campus of the University in El Zamorano. We loaded up the car with Annie, all four interns, Antony, and Nelson and Christian (Nelson, another JEC bilingual student. Christian, best friend of Nelson and son of JEC worker). We arrived early and took some pictures. We got to our seats 10 minutes before the “start” and we were one of two families their. How typical of Hondurans! There were 17 in the class. We started about 20 minutes late. All of the kids processed with their parents and sat in chairs on the stage. Each kid was called to come down and receive their diploma. After the formal stuff, all of the kids quickly changed shirts. They did a dance and a song. Then we watched a video with baby pictures. Each kid recorded them saying something in English that played over their pictures. They are in their first or second year of learning it, so it was pretty funny. Afterwards, we took Antony to Espresso Americano (the Honduran Starbucks) on campus and bought him a granita (kind of like a slushy, coffee or fruit flavors).

At that point, we went back to JEC because a group was coming. The group was 12 people from Tulsa, OK. They brought fried chicken for everyone!! Best lunch ever. Definitely made me miss eating Popeye’s chicken with my family.  We talked to the group and played with the boys. They decided they would leave when we had to leave again, not to mess up our schedule.

We went back to the school for a luncheon for Nelson finishing the 6^th grade. Most of the boys had some form of family there. Nelson had all of the interns and Annie. Definitely a full family. The class was presented awards for the year and then gave a performance that they worked on in their music class. Then we had a catered lunch. (It was only 100 limpira/$5 per person!) The tortillas were so great. We had an option between Coke and some orange soda, which definitely ended up being banana flavored. I do not plan on ever having any form of carbonated banana every again…

Nelson will be at a bilingual high school in Tegucigalpa next year.

Limoncillo

This past Saturday morning, I was woken up by Tio Marvin (my house dad) at 7. I was planning on getting up that early, but that was definitely not how I was planning on waking up! After scrambling to the door, he informed me that Ronald (the director of JEC) called and asked for the interns to join his family to go to the “town” of Limoncillo. Limoncillo is almost all of the way to Danli (an hour drive from JEC). It is a long way down a crazy road in mountains. It is far enough away from other communities that it is difficult to get to another city if you don’t have a car. Therefore, they are often neglected. Ronald and Chad have taken on helping and developing this community. Ronald’s wife, Daisy, and her sister Lydia, a cook at JEC, are from Limoncillo. Chad Hedgepath’s group was working with the church in Limoncillo that day. We floated around and helped where we could. A combination of painting, carrying buckets of concrete, eating a homemade meal, handing out food bags, and (of course) playing with children from the community. We met Daisy and Lydia’s mom, a tiny, old Honduran lady with short white hair. She gave me a huge grandma kiss on my cheek when we met. Definitely a full, fun day. Lots of quality time spent with Ronald and some of the JEC family. I am very thankful that during our time at JEC we are still able to go out into the country and provide service and love to the people of Honduran.

Danli

Last Sunday, all of JEC loaded up on a bus and went to Danli (a fairly large city about an hour away from El Zamorano). The road to Danli is up and down a mountain. It is such an awesome drive, and luckily the drive is pretty smooth. The congregation in Danli has been there for over 25 years and is established so much that they have 2 elders and 5 deacons, a very rare thing in Honduras or similar countries. The service was great. Latinos do not necessarily have a grasp on basic four-part harmony like is expected in the US, so “Shine, Jesus, Shine” in Spanish was quite a bit different.

Tio Marvin, Chad Hedgepath, and Tio Elvin all spoke. The general idea from all of them was that everyone has different talents and purposes in the body. Often times, it seems like there is a very cookie cutter, expected lifestyle for Hondurans. The interns really wrestled with that the past week since most of the boys see it as weird if you do not know how to play soccer or love manual labor. On our drive to Danli with Annie, we talked about that, then it was addressed in church. One of those moments where you know God is saying “I’m listening”. A neat moment.

The interns rode separately to Danli with Annie because we had to buy things for the birthday celebration on Monday. After church, we went to a restaurant that was really nice. Not many people were there and those that were seemed like they had a little bit of money. I didn’t see anything on the menu over $6.

We shopped around the street markets for small gifts for all of the birthday boys and for piñatas for all of the houses. Then we stopped at La Colonia (the Kroger of Honduras). I bought some peanut M&Ms. Heaven. On the drive back, we all laughed until we cried. Luckily, Annie didn’t drive off the road.

Food/VBS

Chad’s group spent three days in El Zamorano, staying at the university hotel. They used JEC as their base. They worked on a few projects here and many in the community. They brought the supplies to make 50 food bags for JEC employees and others in the community. I helped pack some of them Tuesday morning. At about 11 on Tuesday morning, the group went to the public school that most of the boys go to and did a skit and other things. They had different stations that rotated the different classrooms. My station gave out toothbrushes and played a game. Others made bracelets, gave a snack, etc. We left a little before the group to set up all of the stuff to sell.

Feliz Cumpleaños!!!

Every month, to celebrate all of the boys’ and employees’ birthdays, there is a huge birthday party at Ronald’s house. They fell behind, so this one was for May and June birthdays. We bought all of the supplies and gifts for this in Danli. We had to make three cakes, one for each house. We had strawberry, chocolate, and funfetti cake mix. We only had one cake pan and two hours to make them! (Side note: Monday was absolutely crazy. So many things to do and so many curveballs, but we managed and finished victorious!) We started preheating the oven and forgot that everyone uses the oven to store food from the flies. We opened the oven to put the cake in and found a melting plastic plate with pizza on it! The same thing happened with the microwave when Jenn tried to use it as a timer. Annie and I left to go to the pulperia to buy some food for the party. Jenn and Kendal let the boys ice and decorate the cakes. They were definitely creative. Covered in icing and cookies and sprinkles.

Everyone walked to Ronald’s. All of the kids played soccer and games. There was music and dancing. Three piñatas (Clifford, batman, and a clown) met their end. My candy collecting skills pales in comparison to the trained Hondurans.

In all, the party was really fun! It was almost constant work on Annie and the interns part making sure that things were happening when they were supposed to and that everyone was served. Daily I wonder how Annie does all of this by herself. My respect for her is always increasing.

USA!! USA!! USA!!

On Tuesday night, Honduras played the US. Just like the other two games, we watched it outside on the side of Casa Amarilla. Trash talking from both sides began two days before the game. On Monday night, I walked through the pink and green houses waving my American flags and talking about how we were going to win. I’m sure most of America didn’t even know our team played. However, everyone in Honduras was watching the game. I’ve tried to explain many times to people how insignificant soccer is in America. I used to wonder why we didn’t have an obsession with it, then I realized it is because we are given the opportunity to pick our passions from so many different areas. All day Tuesday, I had on my shirt with an American flag on it. I was nervous the entire game. I spent the second half of the game on the hood of the JEC bus with Marlon Caraso (my JEC BFF). No one scored in the first half. It was really boring for everyone. The US scored half way through the second half and then held off Honduras to end the game 1-0. I didn’t trash talk after that because that is not fun, but I am definitely glad I did not have to go through a day or two of it from the Hondurans.

Harpeth Hills

On Thursday, the first group from the youth group at Harpeth Hills CoC came through. They take two groups to Honduras. You can pick which week you want to go and the seniors can stay both weeks. They brought a lot of life to Jovenes. Many were student at Lipscomb Academy. Two of the guys were in choir there and recognized me from all of the things the LA and LU choirs do together. I met a girl names Megan who works with my older sister Rachel. Harpeth Hills is Annie’s home church and the church that supports her in Honduras. Her youth minister and her youth mentor were with the group. Her mentor asked her to explain her story to the group. By the end she and many in the group were in tears. They took time before they ate lunch to pray over Annie and her work. It was very encouraging to see such a thing. Even though the prayer was not for the interns or me, we all definitely felt significant encouragement from it. They really left a great impact at JEC. I am looking forward to their second group to come next week.

I will post again tomorrow!!

Eno fun

El Valle de Zamorano

Soccer game outside

Panorama of the houses

Antony

Graduation Day!

Antony and Nelson

Graduation

Receiving his diploma

Dancing

Walking from school

On the way to Limoncillo

Rainbow!

Nighttime with Casa Amarilla

Chiquelina had 7 puppies!!

Pinatas for the birthday party

Lining up to walk from school

Chad dancing at the party at Ronald's

Boys playing soccer at Ronald's

Games

Johnny Mendez got a roof!

Walking to school this morning

Sometimes we lose power for a long time

Casa Rosada

Casa Amarilla

Casa Verde

Kitchen

Ready for school!

The elementary school

My past week in 1593 words!

          Time to catch you all up on the past week!! While it does not exactly feel like I am extremely busy and there are many parts of the day that I do not have much to do at all, every day is quite exhausting. Over the past week, I have come to realize that the challenges of this internship are almost solely going to be mental/spiritual. There will be times that physical exhaustion will be present, such as on days that I spend mornings at the farm with the older boys or days where we are playing games outside all afternoon, but I think that mental/spiritual challenges will be what tests me in this internship. For example: constantly learning, thinking about, and speaking in Spanish, constantly trying to be very intentional about learning names and building solid relationships, and taking things that growing boys say with a grain of salt. No temporary challenges could ever take away from how incredible it is to be here.

I think the best way to summarize the week is with bullet points (which is hard to format on here... so here are some nice paragraphs!) Here we go!!

 FúTBOL!!!

       Last Friday night and last night there were huge games for the Honduran soccer team! Luckily, the rain held out both nights, so they projected the game on the side of Casa amarilla. All of the boys brought chairs outside to watch. Even the youngest boys did not move one bit for the roughly 2 ¼ hours. Last Friday (Honduras vs. Costa Rica), I built a huge fire to have during the game. Annie did not think they would go for smores, but said they did love marshmallows (they call them besitos, “little kisses”). We went through 8 bags of marshmallows. At least half of the boys pretended to kiss or be kissed by their marshmallows. A couple of the boys stayed right by my side throughout the whole night, from the point I started building the fire until the game was over. Honduras lost 0-1.

Last night was Honduras vs. Jamaica. Chad Hedgepath, the state-side director for JEC, bought coke and popcorn for the boys for the game. Just a couple minutes into the game, Honduras scored. I have never seen such unrelenting celebration while watching a sporting event on tv. Every single kid and adult was on their feet jumping and screaming and hugging. It’s incredible to me how much of a hold soccer has on every part of the world except for the United States. Marlon, one of the older boys who I have become very close to, and Jose sang me the Honduran national anthem 4 times. It has been stuck in my head all day.

The next game is Honduras vs. United States of America.

Don’t worry. I packed American flags.

·      Grupos

      This past week we had two groups visit JEC. The first was through the Torch program. They had volunteers from Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia, and some other southern states. They built houses for three days before coming to visit. They came around 10:30 so there were not many boys here, but that is why there are interns!!! We talked to them about Jovenes and ourselves. They brought Little Caesars for the boys for lunch. In the afternoon, the boys and the group played and took pictures! The boys definitely ate up the attention. The second group was from around Moore/Oklahoma City, OK. They worked on the farm that JEC owns for a couple of hours laying a concrete floor the house of the full-time farmer, spreading tons of gravel in places where the cows are milked and fed because they were sinking in the mud, and helping plow one of the fields. I worked with them for about two hours and heard many first hand accounts of the recent tornado. While I know their trip had been planned for a long time, it was incredible to me that they were helping in Honduras. I’m thankful for those with servant hearts.

·      Vamos a la pulperia!!

      Definitely a love a first sight. Pulperias are little shacks on the side of the road that sell almost anything you can imagine. And there are SO many of them. (I know what you are thinking, Mom... no... they are not dangerous.) I bought a 16.9-ounce coke and bag of chips the other day for just less than one American dollar. You can buy a 3-liter of Coke for $1.50. How crazy is that?? The boys in the older houses are allowed to go anytime they want as long as they get permission from their house parent.

A couple of night ago Tio Santos (Casa verde) asked me and the other interns to go with him and some others to the pulperia before dinner. Jenn and I ended up going with Tio and seven other boys. We left just before dusk. We got there and sat at some tables. Tio Santos bought us all a three liter of Coke to split. They passed around these tall plastic bags and straws. One of the boys came by and filled up everyone’s plastic bag. It was so funny to drink out of a bag. It reminded me of elementary school when we had bags of milk that we had to puncture with a straw (horrible idea Murfreesboro City Schools...). There was such a peaceful feeling that came from sitting there with them. Tio Santos and I had a really deep conversation about why I am in Honduras this summer and what the spiritual state of the boys in the green house was. He is very encouraging and tells us very often how much he appreciates us being here. On our walk back, the stars were incredible. I have not seen a sky that clear in a long time. I was again given such peace in that moment. That is a night I will remember forever. Just like so many of the memories I am making.

·      Allison Bixby

      If you have been keeping up with my blog, you will know that Allison Bixby is the name of the Bilingual school at the University in El Zamorano that 6 of the boys from JEC attend. Annie was busy with a group, so I drove her car to go pick up the boys. She has something that looks like a For Explorer. It’s a Mitsubishi, though. 5 seats. I went and picked up Tia Carmen (another helper in the younger house) on the side of the road. Then we went and picked up the 7 kids. Roland Millon, the director of JEC, sends his daughter there and we pick her up, too. There were 9 people in a car that held 5. We were busting at the seams. Luckily, all of the kids are tiny. We rode the three miles back to JEC. That was such a fun moment.

Another day, when liver was on the menu for lunch, Annie and all of the interns went to lunch in El Zamorano. We went to this little place called “El Rinconcito” (The little corner). We had skewers of beef and chicken, plantains, beans, rice, vegetables, and a refresco (fruit drink) that was made out of something like blueberries. We went and picked up all of the boys from school. So we had 6 boys, 3 interns, and Annie. Annie makes them cds to listen to and they know them by heart. As soon as we started driving, Norman said “Annie, play number 13!”. We had a very fun ride back.

·      Piñatas!!

     One of the groups last week brought three piñatas. The younger boys got to break them while they were here, but the older boys were at high school. They did theirs after dinner. I am in Casa Verde most nights after my house goes to bed. There is a square shaped balcony in every house. Tio Santos strung a rope across the square of railing. He put the rope of the piñata over that so that he could not only pull it up and down, but side to side as well. It was absolutely insane. I do not know how someone did not get hurt. As soon as candy hit the ground, so did everyone in the room, leaving me and the other two interns staring in disbelief. Not only were there teenage boys on the ground, but full grown adults. This happened in every house. Everyone took it seriously. And all that was in there were Brach’s mints and butterscotch! I felt like a spoiled American kid when I decided to give all my “old people candy” away. I seriously hope we have another one soon.

·      Chad and Bethany came to JEC!!

    Bethany, the fourth and final intern, arrived on Monday. She is also a student at LU and is studying to be a nurse. She will here until the end of July just like me. Chad Hedgepath, U.S. director for JEC, arrived a couple of days before his group to take care of some stuff here and visit. It’s been great having more people to speak English to!

There are sooo many more stories. I will try to keep a word document on my computer to keep better record of daily events to post to my blog.

There are plenty of more stories on Jenn’s blog (which there is a tab to at the top of my blog) where you can also hear about things that I am experiencing.

Thank you all for supporting me and wanting to keep up with my summer.

Que Dios les bendiga!

    

A Little About My Current Home

Jovenes en Camino is a boys home in El Zamorano, Honduras. Located about 25 miles from the capital, Tegucigalpa, El Zamorano is known as being one of the safest areas in Honduras. El Zamorano is surrounded by mountains on every side and is home to an international Agriculture school that has students from all over Central and South America. Unlike other universities in Honduras, it costs roughly as much as it costs to go to school in the U.S. Jovenes is on a long, skinny piece of land amidst plenty of large properties and farms. 

Jovenes currently provides for 55 boys, maximum capacity being 60. They are split into three houses: Casa amarilla (yellow house, the youngest boys), Casa rosada (pink house, middle school age boys), and Casa verde (green house, high school age boys). I live in Casa rosada! This can be fun as middle school age boys are prone to poke fun a lot, but I just poke fun right back (in a nice way). Each house is the home of a house parents. The boys refer to them as tio and tia (aunt and uncle). Casa amarilla has a family of three. Tio Elvin and Tia Mari. Their daughter, Shelly, is in pre-k at the bilingual school and has big blue eyes. The parents of Casa rosada just found out that they were expecting! Tio Marvin and Tia Sarai. My awesome dorm parents. Their baby should be here at the end of the year. Casa verde is home to a family of four. Tio Santos and Tia Maria. I have a lot of respect for them because of how patiently and lovingly they raise 20 high school boys and their own daughters. They have two daughter, Genesis and Sara. Both of them go to the public school that the boys go to. They also go to an English class in Tegucigalpa every Saturday. 

School in Honduras is set up differently than in the states. The elementary school (1/4 mile down the road) is where most of the boys go. They get up at 5 in the morning, eat breakfast at 6, and are on their way to school at 6:30. They return by 12 every day for lunch. The high school (1 mile down the road) begins around lunch time and ends at 4. There are 6 boys that go to a bilingual school attached to the university in El Zamorano. The school was made for the faculty of the school, but kids from the community can attend. It is about $2,500/year per kid. 

My days are never the same. There is always something different happening. Currently, our mornings are pretty uneventful since most of the boys are at school or working. Today is the last day for the bilingual boys to go to school, so we will spend mornings working with them and tutoring them in english. Most of them are already able to get around a conversation in English and rarely decide they want to talk to me in Spanish. In the afternoon, I help kids with  their homework. Lots of writing and math and reading!! Then we have free time between then and dinner. This time is usually consumed by soccer or other outdoor activities, sometimes movies. My house (casa rosada) eats dinner at 6:30. The younger house eats before that, and the older house eats about 7 or 7:30. I try to hop houses every night. Most of our after dinner time is spent in the oldest house (casa verde) watching movies or playing games or just talking. We have really connected with the older boys. It's sometimes harder to spend time with the other two houses, which is the opposite of what we expected. 

Minus thousands of flies, cold showers, and constant jokes about how I need to hook up with different girls, my first week has been incredible and eye opening. It is hard to wrap my mind around being here for 7 more weeks, but I know that it will be over before I know it and I will want nothing more than to be back. Thank you to my family and Leah for being great through this time and for being there to listen when things are difficult here. 

Que Dios les bendiga!!

Bienvenidos a Honduras!!

          We are here!! I left Nashville at 6:30 on Monday morning, connected in at Atlanta for a flight at 9:55 to Tegucigalpa, the capitol of Honduras. My first flight was delayed because of cloud cover in ATL, but that did not mess up the schedule. In ATL, I met up with Jenn Scanlon, one of the other interns from Connecticut who goes to LU, and we flew to Tegucigalpa together. It took us 30 minutes to get through customs. One of my bags was left in ATL, but I will have it on Wednesday. No problema! We were only in the airport for 45 minutes or so, but it started pouring outside, and did not stop until 6:30 that night. Jenn and I met up with Kendal (one of the other interns), Emily Davidson (Steve Davidson's daughter), and Annie Brown (the American that works at JEC full time).
          
          The first thing we did was go to the mall to eat lunch, buy phones for the summer, and go to Walmart, which was attached to the mall. We then began our drive to Jovenes en Camino. It was about a 45 minute drive. The roads were not horrible until about 3 miles from the home. Then the road was dirt and covered in pot holes! The area Jovenes is in is beautiful. We are surrounded by mountains.
         
          We were introduced to all of the boys and staff. En La Casa Amarilla (yellow house, the youngest boys), all gave us hugs. Everyone was very welcoming and excited that there were new gringos. Although we spent a lot of time with them on Monday, we went to bed super early. All of the interns got 12 hours of sleep, which was pretty awesome considering we all got up at 3:30 that morning. I called my parents right before bed. As I was sitting on my bed talking, something crawled out from under it. After seeing it and it disappearing, I got a little freaked out. I went to get the dorm dad (they refer to them as aunt and uncle at JEC). I found out that it was a murcielago (a bat). The dorm dad had a broom, smashed it, then stood on it for a good while. All of the boys in my house (casa rosada, pink house) were, of course, interested. I slept better knowing there was not a bat under my bed..

          In the morning (Tuesday), we had our intern orientation at 9 o'clock. There are not many people at the home in the mornings. Most of the boys are in school all morning, but come home around 12. The older boys work in the morning on projects at the home or on the farm that JEC owns right down the road. We went to go see the farm Tuesday morning. I'll do a post only on the farm soon. JEC is very self sufficient. 

          Six of the boys at JEC go to a bilingual school down the road that is a part of the major Agriculture university in Zamorano. It is called Allison Bixby. They get out of school at 2, so Annie takes them lunch every day. (That is a weird quirk about Honduran culture. They do not pack lunches for their kids. They take them a fresh meal at lunch time every day. For the boys who don't have someone to do that, they can pay a woman in Zamorano to bring them food every day.) Annie takes the JEC boys lunch and eats hers while she waits for them to finish so she can take the containers back. Jenn and I ate with Annie under a pavilion at the school. We are constantly learning in every conversation. There are always new things to be thinking about, whether language, culture, stories of people, etc. I loved having lunch there. It was beautiful outside and the breeze was great.

          We came back and the public school boys had returned from school and eaten lunch. It is part of our job to help the boys with their homework. Luckily, I just had to do simple addition (something with limited needed vocab). Then, we played soccer and talked for a while.

           I ate dinner with the green house, the older boys. The house parents there are very slow and intentional with speaking spanish to us. It is very encouraging. Dinner was an egg, red beans, queso fresco, and tortillas. Maybe I was just hungry, but it was great! That is very typical for dinner since it is the smallest meal of the day. 

         After dinner, Annie and I surprised Jenn for her birthday with cookies and Coke. We shared them with all of the boys. It is funny how much you do not think about how we sing "Happy Birthday" until you are in a place where no one does it. 

          We watched the first part of Nacho Libre with the boys in the green house before they went to bed at 9. They loved it! All of us were laughing so much. 

          This morning (Wednesday) was very chill before the first group came at 10:30. They brought Little Caesars and cokes. They got here an hour and a half before the boys got back from school, so they got a tour and we all talked to them a lot. **JEC is really pushing for people to get their name out there, so if you ever want to help, you should share their website on FB. It is www.jovenesencamino.org** 
          
          The group played soccer and other games with them and handed out small toys. The interns helped Annie sell JEC souvenirs. 

          I went to help some of the boys from the bilingual school do their reading for the day so I could sign off on it for them. The boys in the green house got a new 32" tv from a donor! They were sooo pumped. I finally got time and internet to update my blog. I will try to be more intentional about posting!! 

          My time here has already been a blessing and it has only been three days. More to come from JEC! God is absolutely at work in this place! 

Jenn and I

Obligatory Cranberry Apple Juice

Tegucigalpa!

Customs

El murcielago! The bat!

JEC

Futbol at dusk

Nachoooooo!!

Our first group!

From my window.