It’s been a long but amazing day.  It started off at 3:15 when my alarm went off after falling asleep only a few hours before.  The excitement kept my mind racing.  The house was already stirring as Sheila (my mother in law) and Lindsey and Janee (two girls from Virginia) were up and getting ready to go.  We were already packed; it was just a matter of stumbling out the door.  We arrived at the church at 4am to find a few travelers already there and ready go.  Kristen had to run to the all night Walgreens to pick up some last minute personal items for the missionaries.  She met us at the church.  We loaded 11 - 50lb bags into Reggie Potts’ truck along with all of our personal stuff.  The bags were carrying vitamins, diapers, medicines, eye glass, and lots of needs list stuff along with presents for Christmas for all 39 kids at the orphanage.  All of this was purchased through the donations received from church members, family, and friends who have given towards the trip over the past year.  We also sent a check for $15000 to New Life Children’s Home for some of the construction projects that we plan on undertaking in the next couple of days.  After praying we loaded into the van and headed to airport.  It was a mad house during the holiday season but we made it through with plenty of time to sit at the terminal and wait for our flight.  Houston was a different story.  We landed at 8:25am (Houston time), the exact time our flight was to begin boarding.  All thirteen of us hightailed it from gate A to gate E (about a 15 minute walk) and made as they were calling for the last call.  Little did we know that they would make us sit on the plane for another half hour while they waited for our bags (which was a good thing!).  The plane ride consisted of sleep and reading over some devotional materials.  Landing in Tegucigalpa is an experience for even the veteran flyer.  It is one of the hardest landing strips in the world because it is nestled in the mountains and surround by city on all sides.  Just last year a local plane overran the runway and caused the airport to shut down.  The best part of the landing is the scenery out the airplane window.  After waiting in immigration lines for over an hour we finally gathered up all of our bags and met Mike and Georgia on the other side.  It was great to see their smiling faces as we came out of customs!  We loaded the bags, exchanged money, and made our way to our next leg of the journey, but before we went on our hour and half van ride to back woods Jalaca we stopped at the food court at the mall.  Yes, that’s right, I ate Wendy’s.  It’s kind of a tradition for me.  The first time I came here back in 2001 I remember Jim Lamont (the missionary) took Jon and I to Wendy’s after we landed.  It was weird but a little comforting as it felt a little like home.  The team was awesome.  They were right with me every step of the way.  They didn’t even complain when I made them run through the airport in Houston when we were late for our flight.  Comments about the crazy driving and the decked out buses abounded from their amazed faces as we traveled through the city and onto our destination.  As we winded our way up and then down the mountain in to the small town of Jalaca the excitement and anticipation (and exhaustion) on everyone’s faces was apparent.  Those that had never been to the Children’s home must have been wondering what to expect.  Would the kid’s like me?  Will they accept me?  Will I like it here?  Those who were returning must have been thinking, I wonder if the kids will remember me?  How will this trip be any different?  Will the showers be cold or not?  As we pulled up to the gate the kids all came running with smiles calling out to those they recognized and jumping into the arms of those they were meeting for the first time.  As BJ from MyGym said, I couldn’t believe how warm the welcome was from the kids!  They didn’t even know us but it was like they loved us.  And so it is with us.  Many of the team members didn’t even know the kids but they went straight to loving on them.  It didn’t matter if they were dirty or stinky.  All that matter was they showed them the love that Christ showed us!  And the team did a wonderful job at it!  Later on that night the older kids grilled out some hotdogs for us and then the younger ones joined in by putting on a drama and dance.  Do you believe that!  We came to minister to them, yet they showed their appreciation for our coming by ministering to us.  What a wonderful treat!  Their love of the lord and kind hearts are really beginning to shine through.  Now it’s dark and the moon light is the only light on the horizon in this small town.  A break in the clouds reveals a thousand stars.  But none of them are shining as bright as the children faces imprinted in my mind as I think back on the day.  One thing is for sure, it’s going to be hard to say goodbye 10 days from now.

After a peaceful night sleep the children of the orphanage began to scurry about at 5am.  The nights are cool this time of year but the weather has been beautiful.  It was a bit cloudy today but it felt like a beautiful spring day.  As we woke to the sound of kids playing the electricity went out.  This is a common occurrence here in Jalaca.  Madeline, Terry, and Sheila had already begun preparing breakfast when it went off.  They had the bacon, beans, and fried plantains already to go but the eggs were just starting to get warm in the pan when the electric went off.  Buttered bread and pop tarts were a sufficient substitute.  The electric wouldn’t come back on until around 4:30 which meant a hot meal for dinner!  After breakfast we came down the stairs of the Hogar (the orphanage) and the kids came running screaming Tio Joe (tio means uncle) and Tia Kristen, and Tio Will (oh wait, Will was still and bed sleeping) and Tio Meredith… You certainly feel loved around here!  I headed to Talanga with Mike (missionary) to pick up some supplies and talk to one of the construction workers to determine how to lay the piso (concrete floor).  We picked up a walker on the way up hill to talanga.  She was on an middle aged women probably in here 70’s walking 4 miles up some pretty steep terrain to catch a bus to town at the end of the road.  She was happy we were going in the same direction.  We ran around town for about an hour.  Talanga is a bustling town.  There were vendors selling fireworks for the new years  celebrations on every corner.  Men and women riding bikes and motorcycles in every direction.  Vendors carrying their goods from car to car selling fruit, shirts, DVD’s and everything else you can imagine.  Workers still working on the same section of the road they were working on 6 months earlier.   We stopped in the in the market area of town to buy some avocados and pick up some cold medicine.  We went to a supermarket and picked up some soda pop for the week.  For those of you who know it, they were blaring the pop song “I got a feeling, that tonight’s gonna be a good night” by the Blackeyed Peas.  It was amusing to watch some of the Hondurans bob their heads and try to sing in a language that they didn’t really know.  After the bumpy ride home I got back to the Hogar to find that the team had wrapped all of the Christmas presents for the kids already!  Today was the day that we were going to have a Christmas celebration with the kids!  Since the power was still out we all scavenged for lunch.  Mostly good ol’ PBJ’s.  After lunch it was time to play with the kids.  We had a game of basketball going pretty quick with some of the bigger kids.  Naum and Eleazer were quick to join in as we showed them some of the basics.  They really didn’t know much about playing but they could dribble pretty well.  Our friend Austin that came with our last team decided to come and stay here and work with the kinds for a couple years.  He is joined in on the basketball game and before you knew we had a full court game going with the kids.  Suri and Kristen were the only girls that joined.  Suri is about half the size of the biggest kids but she was very competitive.  We all worked up a good sweat and had a blast (minus the occasional bump and bruise).  Others were sitting with kids and communicating with their hands and through their actions.  The language of love is universal and the kids understand.  The oldest kids and even some of the younger ones speak English pretty well and understand it even better.  They are helpful in translating for those that have trouble communicating.  It was a great afternoon.  At 3pm we brought down the presents and gave them to the kids.  They loved their toy cars, and dolls, and cloths, and binoculars, and sunglasses, and watches, and GIJoe’s and balls, and bracelets and… They played with their stuff the rest of the day.  One thing that really struck me today was when Jennifer got her present that was sent down with us from here sponsor.  As she opened up here new princess bag and her new shirt, and jewelry, and pajamas, she smiled but she was most interested in the family picture that was sent with the gift.  She wanted to know who was who.  She kept asking about who signed their names and we would tell her that’s Bryson, and that’s Holden…  After she finished looking through her stuff she ran over to her friends to show them the picture of her sponsor family.  More than anything, she was happy to have the love of this family.  The gifts were nothing more than a symbol of the connection she had with these new people in her life.  The rest of the day she ran around with that backpack full of presents and with her picture inside.  The team, and sponsors like this one provide a little bit of love that goes a long way for these children.  Thanks for your continued prayers.  We plan on doing a feeding program and a medical brigade while we are here.  Please pray that God would use this to provide physically and spiritually for those we encounter.  Thanks for your continued support.

Today I would like to start at sunset.  I know it’s a little backwards but the most beautiful thing happened while we were all hard at work around 5:30.  The sun was setting behind mountains that are only about a mile away.  It began to rain a misty sort of rain.  It was the kind of rain that you could stand in but not get wet.  As the light poured in off the mountains the fullest rainbow I’ve ever seen came beaming colors from one horizon to another.  Then a second one appeared right above it.  One we spotted it one of the 12 year old boys ran out and began jumping in the air while yelling in his broken English, “It’s beautiful, It’s beautiful, It’s so beautiful!!”  And it was!  I was reminded that the most beautiful things in life are those that can’t be bought or sold.  The moment was one that I will not soon forget.  Now back to the beginning of the day.  Cold showers wake you up quickly and so does the Honduran coffee!  We started off the day rearranging a few of the rooms upstairs in the Hogar that they are turning into classrooms for the older students.  We moved all the furniture and began painting.  There are a couple of storage rooms upstairs that needed organizing and so this seemed like a good job to do while we were rearranging things.  Mallory, Mary Kate, and Meredith were working to sort shoes and clothes.  The rest of the crew continued to paint and take apart beds and reassemble them in different rooms.  Some of the guys began working in the new girls dorm.  It is across form the Hogar in a corn field.  We began to prepare the floor for the slab that we will begin to pour once the all the rooms are leveled, cleaned up, and packed down.  It’s a lot of digging.  I reminded myself how to use a front end loader on a tractor and did a little digging in the dirt to fill in the low areas in the house.  It was great to work along side the two oldest boys.  Gerson (pronounced hairson) and Naum are about 16 years old and they worked with BJ and I on the floors.  They are pretty good workers.  The highlight of that had to have been when I taught Gerson how to use the tractor.  He was pretty excited when he picked up his first load of sand by himself (boys will be boys).  Mitchell even got his hands dirty!  He was shoveling and throwing sand and gravel everywhere!  The best part of the day besides the rainbow had to be the youth meeting we did in the evening for the older kids.  About 7 or 8 of the kids (only those 11 and up) joined us upstairs for some singing, a skit, some games, and a lesson about the noise of the world.  We are going to go through a study that I did with the youth last year throughout the week.  I think it was a great connection with the older kids for the team.  After the meeting we played Uno and horsed around for a little while until it was time for the adults to have our devotional.  It’s only the third day and I already feel that I’ve really made some lasting connection with the children.  I don’t know the impact that our work will have on these kids.  I don’t know what these meetings will do for them.  But I trust that God knows and will use us in ways that we can’t even ask or imagine.  The rainbow in the bible was to be a reminder of God’s covenant of grace on mankind.  That he would never again bring a flood of such devastation on upon the earth as he did in the days of Noah.  The rainbow is a reminder to me that God is at work in ways that we do not know.  Even right now.  Everywhere.  All around us and all around you.

As I sit here in the gazebo outside the mission house the children are watching a movie with the team and the music from the town of Jalaca is blaring in celebration of the New Year.  What will the New Year bring?  Today started a little slow for me and the team, but the Lord reminded us who was in control at the Communion service in the afternoon.  It seems that everyone was a little tired today.  Perhaps it was the all night (literally all night!) firecrackers going off in town last night.  Perhaps it was the full moon tugging on our bodies.  Or maybe it was my racing mind, taking in all that is going on around us.  Whatever it is it made for a difficult morning.  The day’s activities were varied and unexpected.  As it is in life, things don’t always go your way.  As part of the team took a group of the boys to a swimming hole today I stayed back to continue working on the new girl’s dorm.  My work came to a halt as the tractor got a flat tire.  I spent the next hour or so searching for the correct tools (the missionaries were out running errands) to change the tire.  My afternoon seemed to be shot and I felt as if I was dragging myself around because I was so tired for the weary night sleep.  The kids came back wet and wild from the swimming hole and Mike showed up with supplies and food.  The ladies backed some cakes for our New Years Eve Celebration.  They also cooked for the team since the cook was off for the holiday.  But things really turned around in the afternoon.  It was a special occasion.  It marked the very first communion service for almost all of the children.  We used rolls and Welches grape juice for the elements of the service.  Before we began we explained to them the meaning of la Cena del Senor (the Lord’s Supper).  We sang, had a silent time of confession, and prayed together.  Then children came up single file to receive the elements of communion.  The service took place in the unfinished church building that is on the compound.  It was beautiful to see each child come we expectant hearts and minds.  A few of them seemed to want a bigger piece of bread, but most of them understood what was going on.  It was the first communion for the church and the first communion for the children.  I thank God that he aloud me to be involved in it.  Each child came up to take the bread and the “wine” and we reiterated to each that the bread signifies the body of Christ and the “wine” signifies the blood of Christ.  Some of the older kids later thanked us for the service.  It’s amazing what God can do if you make yourself available!  I had no idea that he would use our team in the ways that He has used us so far.  Thank you for your continued prayer.  Pray that the Lord would continue to bring this team together as one unit and that God would touch the hearts of each member as we continue to reach out to others.