A Day of Firsts

So today I drove in Honduras for the first time! Shannon says to me, "Today is a great day for you to drive because I think all the lights are working" (as in all the stop lights in town, yes folks that's a rare thing. A stop light we go through daily was out for several weeks when it went out.)
Another first tonight: I was at Puerta de Esperanza and little J comes running through the house yelling, "Jenny, Jenny, Jenny". Today is first time I've ever heard her call me by name. She is developing such a little personality and is less of a baby and more of a little girl every time I see her.
 Little W was being super cute tonight too. He wanted a sip of my water, so I was trying to get him to do sign language for "please" (you rub your hand on your chest). He watched me with a "you must be crazy" look for a few seconds then rubbed his hand on MY chest, not his. He then looked at C and I confused when we were laughing at him.
Continue to be in prayer for my relationships with these girls, for C and for Y. That language wouldn't be a barrier and that I would be able to show them grace and love and most of all more of Jesus.

The family comes to visit Honduras

These past 5 days have been a whirlwind of catching up with family, showing them the sights of La Ceiba, and giving them a glimpse of my life and ministry here.

My grandfather and Josef playing Frisbee in La Fe at Kid's Club

My dad passing out candy to the children who could tell him what each color of the salvation beads represented. 

My mom and Stephanie

JR and Arnold playing soccer

My mom hanging out with Elias at Puerta de Esperanza

Up, up, up

The babies at Puerta de Esperanza are learning simple sign language and English. E, who will be 2 in December, knows the most sign language. He knows the signs for "more", "please", and "thank you". When he wants something but you tell him no he signs, 'more please' really fast. It doesn't matter what it is, it could be a toy, water, or my cell phone. He thinks "more please" equals give me what I want.
J on the other hand who knows the most English (as a result of Shannon and I really only speaking to her and the other 2 babies in English),  knows if she wants someone to pick her up she has to say "up". In J language that means the same as signing "more please" to E. J says "up" for anything she wants. She wanted a magnet off the fridge the other day so what did she say? "up, up, up" over and over again until I handed her the magnet. Did I also mention J says "wuv you". Melts my heart every time:)

Bible Study with Y

Friday I did Y's weekly book study with her. She is reading the book "Lies that Young Women Believe". She was engaged in the book and since the book in Spanish several times we just died laughing because there were words that neither of us knew the definition of. She is still in the first few chapters and the book is talking about Eve and how all the lies that women believe go back to the first lie that the first women believed from Satan in the garden. The book quoted Psalm 119:11 "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." When the Psalm was quoted she immediately said, we have to look that up and she found it in her Bible. She made me read the entire Psalm outloud (which was a little painful to hear me reading in Spanish :) When I had finished she said "that's beautiful, I love it". And later when Shannon came over she read the verse to her. It's encouraging to see her excited about God's word and applying the book to her life. Even in the 2 months that I've been here I can see a change in her. She's joyful and pleasant to be around and I am excited to get to spend more time with her!
On a completely unrelated note when I got ready to leave later in the day it was like 1:45 and I hadn't eaten lunch yet so I said I have to go I'm so hungry. Well the house mom heard me and was giving me a hard time for not telling her when I got there at 12:30 that I hadn't eaten lunch yet. Y interjects and says "yeah, here at Puerta de Esperanza (which means door of hope) we have hope for food and for water". Several times a day a think, 'This is my job? I love it!' My time yesterday with Y was one of those times:)

Fernando

Yesterday I started tutoring Fernando! He's 14 and has never gone to school. He lives with his older brother and washes windows at the stop light to earn money. He is very excited about the prospect of learning to read and potentially going to school sometime in the near future. He's a little self-conscious of the fact he can't read and doesn't want the other boys at the center (which now has a name...Peter Project) to know so I was a little unsure of how he would do. But we met at the center an hour before the other boys came yesterday and he did awesome. We worked on writing his name and identifying all the letters and sounds in his name and ended with making his name out of play-dough. I'm glad all those Early Childhood Education classes can come in use all the way in Honduras! It's our Monday plan now and I'm excited to see how much he's going to grow and would love to see him in school sometime soon!

After tutoring Fernando in the morning I spent yesterday afternoon going to several government buildings with C from Puerta de Esperanza supposedly finishing ALL the necessary permissions needed from the government to open the used clothing store. But this is Honduras, nothing is that simple, and so maybe today it will all be finished?

BUSY Week!

This past week was a long week! I feel like I was able to get a good insight into the different ministries my teammates have here and understand better what they do everyday and help to discern what I will be doing everyday. This week the drop-in center for the streetkids opened! Right now the center is opened 3 days a week. The kids are able to come and have a hot lunch and hangout and play board games or soccer and receive positive attention from adults and experience the love of Christ. This week the center averaged between 6-10 kids each day. These kids come from all different backgrounds. 2 boys wash windows at the stoplight to pay for their school. Their family is just poor and can't afford to send them but they have a dad who is very involved and was waiting with them when we picked them up on Monday. Another boy literally sleeps on the streets. He has a grandmother who he sometimes stays with but he hasn't been there for a few weeks now. Pray for these boys and pray for Kate and for Hector (a Honduran who works with the streetchild ministry here) that they can reach them.

 Lunchtime at the drop-in center

An Uno game at the Streetchild drop-in center

The second half of my week was spent with Shannon at Puerta de Esperanza, a home she started for young single mothers and their babies. Currently 2 girls and 3 babies live at PDE. C is 19 and is in college. She has a 10 month old little boy, W. Y is 16 and is in beauty school. She has a 2 year old little girl named J. C is in college and is taking an English class I have been helping her some with her homework the past 2 weeks. This week Y decided she wanted to learn English, so twice this week I met with her and we learned some basic English. The first day we met it took her 30 minutes to say a single word in English. All she kept saying was "I can't", "I'm nervous", "I don't even know the letters, so I can never learn English". And while this speaks volumes about her self-esteem the even sadder thing is that she has a 2 year old little girl who is watching her and taking cues from her. 2 days later J was sitting in my lap playing with a toy. The toy was sticking and all of the characters wouldn't function correctly. After trying a few times J said, "I can't". She refused to even try any more she just kept whining and saying she couldn't. She broke my heart. It was something so simple, 2 words she had heard her mother say over and over again, "no puedo". Pray for these girls and these sweet babies. Pray that they would understand and experience the grace of Christ.

J playing with a toy at Puerta de Esperanza

Lessons from Honduras

Things I learned about Honduras today....
#1 The post office gets robbed. Yes, that's right robbed. I went with Shannon to pick up a package today and the lady couldn't find it. After looking for 10 minutes she said, look we were robbed and they maybe stole it. This isn't the first time the post office has been robbed either....(They did eventual find her package, which was really only a card. Probably why it wasn't stolen)
#2 You can go into a copy shop and buy 5 sheets of blank computer paper. Don't need a whole pack? Well come to Honduras where you can buy paper by the sheet. (5 sheets cost us $.10)
#3 Two bags of Kashi cereal will set you back about $15 (yes for cereal, no I definitely didn't buy any)
#4 When the lights go out (which inevitably happens everyday) people flock to the mall to enjoy the generator-powered AC
#5 There are used clothing stores literally on EVERY corner. Great for me when I need shorts cause let me tell you there is no way I can wear the jeans and capris here that I wore in Costa Rica. I would die. So today Kate, Shannon, and I did a little shopping, Honduran style. 2 stores and $30 later I am now  the owner of 6 more pairs of shorts and a tank top. And these are totally things I would have bought in the states. I got some Old Navy, Gap and Target stuff (my 3 favorite stores). Oh and by the way while on the topic of used clothing stores Puerta de Esperanza (the home for young mothers and their babies) is opening a store! Today we went and moved all of the clothing that had been donated along with the racks into the store! Friday hopefully we'll get to paint and then well set the store up! This is an awesome way for the girls to work and become self-sufficient. Pray for paperwork to go smoothly (which would be an anomaly for Honduras) and that a contract could be signed next week so the store can open soon!