For those of you just joining in the blog thanks to WarEagleReader let me catch you up-
I am a graduate of Auburn- 97 Social Work. Then went to Southwestern Seminary and moved back to Auburn. I worked at EAMC for a time, then childrens minister, missions coordinator, admissions coordinator (and a lot of other things) at a local nursing home and now have sold everything and moved to Honduras.
I am at Orphanage Emmanuel in Guiamaca Honduras. There are currently 552 kids here. From baby on up to 18. There are quite a few kids that have aged out but chose to stay and be junior staff. There is a school here. They also have a farm with chickens, goats, cows and tialapia. The kids here come from some of the roughest of situations. They must be court ordered here, either through being orphaned, troubled families, families that cannot provide, or families that just cannot handle their behavior. Minority of the children here are actual orphans. And can I talk for a second about how God takes care of these kids here? There are OVER 500 kids here. Provided for and for the most part safe and protected. I say most part because there is always the child who acts up or happens to do something stupid or just has an accident. But they are healthy. And there are quite a few special needs kids here which presents a special challenge but the staff and other kids do a good job of taking care of them too.
The children are divided boys and girls into separate areas on campus. The only time they are together really is at school. The children are also divided by age/maturity. There are babies, toddlers, power toddlers (not ready for school but preK age) small boys/girls, medium boys/girls, and big boys/girls. They live in large houses and have a bed and for the older girls (I don't know about the younger ones) they have a cube to keep their things in. Shoes stay outside on a shelf. The kids are responsible to clean their homes each day and on Saturday deep clean.
The orphanage relies on gifts in finance and donations of goods and food. So we often get containers from the states- Opelika or Chattanooga with goods and food. The clothes, shoes, and most of the food is donated. We have a TON of moon pies that the bigger kids eat with their breakfast of granola cereal or oatmeal. The little kids have them for snack. Evidently Chattanooga is the home of the moon pie and we get the ones that are made extra or something along those lines. The first thing I had here was an Alabama Moon Pie so later that week when I saw the Auburn ones with my girls breakfast there was much rejoicing.
These are two of the girls who work in the kitchen. Ana and I can't remember her real name but she insists she is called (phonetically spelled) Totcha. I don't know why Ana isn't smiling. She has a great smile.
They do a good job. Especially the tortillas that come every other day or so. I can say that it's all good. Not a fan of the beans so much. But it's a matter of my opinion. Not that it's terrible.
Still waiting on those questions friends. Send em my way.
grateful for each day.
Leave a Reply