I am not sure where we left off so let me give you the highlights of the week.
I got to meet with another of my girls this week. She and two of her brothers live here. She has 5 other brothers and sisters in Tegucigalpa. 2 younger ones live with her mother and 3 are older and out of the house. She said they came here because her Dad drank too much and bad things happened. She said that the hardest thing about living here is the rules. She doesn't have any real friends here. She said that she doesn't consider herself a christian. Unfortunately the answer to why not was fast and full of words that I couldn't catch. And I wasn't going to ask again. And her favorite thing is to sing. Please pray for this girl.
Wednesday we had a slip n slide for the big girls. It is an old billboard banner someone sent on a container. Best idea ever. There was discussion about it on Tuesday but it didn't happen. I didn't know they were doing it until I went down for lunch. So I hung around after lunch (I don't have to be at the office til 1 and they eat early since school is out this week). After their appointed time for "we just ate and have to wait so we don't throw up" they started back up. I decided it was too good so I changed and joined in. The girls loved to shove you down and often jump on top of you. I made sure my girls knew I did not need this special service. It was a challenge to get down the hill and get up and out of the way before you got slammed from behind. I just prayed the qhole time that my neck, head, and limbs would come out of it all uninjured and mostly painfree. Success. Glory how my abs hurt the next day. It hurt to laugh. Good times.
And we had a Fourth of July gathering with the staff. Hot dogs, honduran fireworks (of the small and tiny kind) left over at the stores from new years celebrations, sides and dessert. No one was assigned to bring forks so we ate our pasta and potato salad with corn tortillas. Finally at dessert time forks showed up for the cake and my apple dumplins (if you haven't tried Pioneer Woman's Apple Dumplings…stop now and do it. worth me even having to make the cresent roll dough. and that's commitment).
Thursday in circle time I clearly presented the gospel to them. This coming week I am going to share about the spiritual armor. I hear girls say alot "why is it so hard sometimes? is it God testing me?" Some of what I will share will hopefully help them see sometimes it is God testing us, allowing us to be tested and sometimes it's just Satan eating our lunch. I hope the girls can understand to ask God "Now what do you want me to do?" No matter the hard situation so he can tell them to fight, continue on, or simply obey him.
We had a small team of 15 here this week from Flintstone Ga. I got to spend some time with them on the bus from the airport and then with a physical therapist as he saw a couple of girls and then took some of them to town (2 trips in one day). They were a quieter group than some but the folks I spent time with were great.
The next team coming is First Baptist Opelika and Ashland on Thursday. So i have some time to catch up on office stuff and hopefully some spanish. My body feels sapped completely and sore. The outta shape old lady got a work out this week.
We had a bonfire last night- volunteers and a couple staff guys. The staff girls we invited didn't come. We did bread on a stick and roasted moonpies. No one got smore stuff so we tried that. We also forgot cups so we had community coke. We had some left over hotdogs from Wednesday so we roasted them. I stuck my hot dog in my cooked bread and put some garlic butter on it. Delicious. And I have officially eaten more hot dogs since I have been here in 8 weeks than I have in all of 2013. And maybe all of 2012.
(bread on a stick at attention while the fire is readjusted)
We have a good crew of female volunteers in the house. In the next week we will be full with the 16 beds we have. Amy is home with her family til next week so we are missing one of "ours" but it's a good time here.
I posted a bunch of photos on Facebook if you want to see some of the action. Sorry they aren't all posted here. If you can't see them because you aren't on FB let me know and I can change the setting for you so you can I think.
Blessings to each of you. I am continually thankful for each of you. And covet your prayers as I work with you to love on these kids and present the Truth in love to them.
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