En Mi Corazon

En Mi Corazon

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Come away with me..

Now What?

Now that I have told all about Honduras 2005.......
tune in for my next blog site....but first here are some kids from Honduras...

Honduras: The last day at home cont

I titled this the last day at home b/c Honduras feels like home to me. Yes, yes it does.
The flight home was not that eventful, some funny videos were taken.
At the miami airport Judy got pulled aside again.
We were almost late for our flight to Nashville due to the fact we are idiots and can't tell time.
And My luggage liked Miami so it decided to spent the night there.
And out ride home did not show.
I was a good trip. Really.

Honduras: The lat day at home

The last day in Honduras was emotional. When we arrived at the airport Tim informed Brett and Judy that Daisy Mary lou was there to talk to them. Remember, she is the mother of the 3 boys that J and B consider their Honduran family. After we checked in we all sat down and Dasiy asked that Judy and Brett take her two oldest sons back to the states so that they could grow up good boys. Well of course it was an emotional meeting, but I was grateful that Tim told Daisy that that was impossible-the govn would not allow it,SO THEY would not have to tell her no. Tim went on to explain that she should go ahead and move to the safer community. That would be better for her family and the boys would not be influenced by growing gangs. Tearful goodbyes were said and a promise to be back in the spring. Before we left them though we all went to Wendy's to eat and then raced to the security check--only to wait.

Honduras: Retreat time and "Is it safe to be here?"

So, on Thursday night we were told to pack only one bag, and it had to be a small one, for the retreat at the Marriot Hotel. We were going to be spending 2 nights there. So after packing and repacking 2 days worth of tolietries and clothing selections into my backpack we learned Friday morning that all of our luggage was going to be delivered to the hotel anyway. What? We arrived at the Hotel around 4 that afternoon and checked in. Brett, Judy, Terry and Margaret, Jenny, Val and Brian and I went to eat at El Corral for supper. Let me say this...we all ate like we were never going to eat again..it was good eating.
That night I was laying in bed writing in my journal and I happened to look out the window at the City skyline. It looked so pretty..like any other city skyline..it could have been Memphis or Denver.Then it occured to me...that is how Satan traps us...he makes things look pretty and we forget about all the bad stuff. The skyline look like anyother skyline, except what I forgot was behind it was hunger and poverty, disease and pain. I hope that I never forget.
On Saturday morning the guys and Sarasota Katie H. played the COBRAs in soccer. We WON again. 6-5. Go us.
After the game we went to a hospital where Michelle read about a boy who had a stroke 7 yrs before during surgery. We went just to visit and found out that he had tore something in his knee while playing soccer. During surgery he had a stroke, and their might have been some negligence on the part of the Dr's. The sight of him laying there tore my heart out and Judy and I could not get him out of our minds for the rest of day. So....we went on an adventure. Judy and I, along with Brett and Haus, as translator, we set out for the return trip to the hospital, which was a 3 min drive. 3 hours later we made it to the hospital. Lets just say.....We know where the Wendy's is, and that if you think you are just going to drive down this road so you can turn around you will end up driving for 15 miles and still not find a turn around. But we did find out that two school buses and a Toyota truck can all fit around a 70 degree bend in the road at a 50 degree slope and have only about 10 yards of room.
The whole purpose in going back was just to see if we could do anyting for him. 7 years laying in a bed with no PT is not a good thing. I will leave it at that.

Honduras: More carnivals!!

We are on the home stretch now folks....On friday we went to Didasko orphenage about an hour and a half from Teguc. this is the place that a group of guys and Katie worked on building the kids a playground. It took them all week to build it and they finally finished it around noon on Friday. We brought out the cotton candy and popcorn again. The kids watched all week as the playground was being built and when they were finally allowed to get on it they were estatic. One girl followed the guys up the rope to the top of "Terry World." We all watched and everyone cheered as she made it to the top.

Lizards, bugs and spiders oh my!!

Ok, I just wrote a novel about insects in Honduras, TWICE, but I somehow managed to erase them before I published them..It was really funny..my best work yet, sorry but I am moving on. I'll say this...I hate SPIDERS. use your imagination, and thanks Katie Wells and Michelle, your my heros!!

Honduras: Its a small world after all...

On Thursday after noon we all (the enitre torch team) went to the Blind school to visit with the kids. After playing in the courtyard we went in and we sang to them and then they sang for us. It was the most beautiful singing.

After singing I did my famous TRIP for Margaret. I did it perfectly. For those of you who do not know of this triping...I can run, make myself trip and fall down and it look real. If I do it right I will not get hurt. Margaret, however thought it would be great if I did it again for Tim. I should have stopped with the first one, but I can never let a good opportunity go to waste. So, I ran back across the street to Tim and performed the TRIP. This time however I did not land so well and tore my leg all to pieces. You know the feeling when water is poured of a strawberry on your skin..when I got in the shower that night it felt like I was slidding down a slide of razors into a pool of alcohol. I am surprised no one heard me screaming. I wish I had a picture but I do not. I do have the scars to prove it. Come ask me.

Honduras: Thursday like no other.

On Thursday I went with Jute and Breddy (brett and Judy) to show thier adopted family another community that they could move to because the community that they live in now is being over run with gangs (of new york--a great movie). It is a dangerous area to live and the mom (Daisy Mary lou) wants her kids to be able to grow up safe. This is the family. Judy and Brett came to know them about 3 years ago when torch was building in thier community. Torch built them a house and last year it burned right before we came. Torch rebuilt thier home and put a concrete floor in. Each year Brett and Judy bring boxes full of supplies for the family.

Tim Hines went with us to translate. I went to video in order to tell their story to you with pictures.We picked them up at Baxter, a seminary in Teguc, and then went to the community of Nuave Oriental to show them where they could live. When we got there Carlos, the oldest, did not like it and was very with drawn from Judy and Brett. He did not want to move. We spent a while there, mostly b/c Tim kept stopping to talk to people and answer his phone.
Dasiy liked the community but she did not want to leave her church or pull her kids out of school just yet. She said she wanted to wait 4 months untill the school term ended. Tim gave her his card and told her to call him if she ever felt in danger.
As the day went on Carlos began to come around and even wanted to hold Judy and I hands as we walked back to the truck.
We took the family to Camparos chicken to eat lunch. The boys were very excited. Judy said that she didn't think they has ever been there before. After lunch we took them home. It was dangerous for us to be there and Tim hid a gun under the front seat, but we did not run into any trouble. We all said good- bye to the family in their house. It was the first time that Judy and Brett had gone into thier house.
It is going to cost about 1500 american $$ to move them.
Daisy works by selling fruits to her neighbors....and a fear of hers and of Carlos is that no one will buy from her in the new community since she will be new.

This is Eduardo, the middle boy.

Honduras 4.5: Cont

Where were we....Oh before I forget..I have a friend named BETH...This is for you.
After we made it to the VOA we had about 1 hour to find Judy a chicken key chain that she has been wanting for years....Michelle found her a pin instead.
From the Valley we went to eat at a restraunt that had....Kareoke!!!!! The food was good and we found the Honduran Jeremy Smith. Me and Judy took pictures together since we failed to do so last year, but she has informed me her pictures are completely black and mine are fuzzy, but I do have one of her and Brett. Aren't they cute. After dinner we were suppose to go have devo at the catholic church i was telling you about earlier but the main road was closed and the buses could not make the turns on an alternate road so we went back to the mission house and had devo.

The next day the medical team and one VBS crew left to go to Chuloteca, near the pacific coast for two nights. We went last year but only for a day, well actually for about 3 hours. It is about a 3 hr drive from the capital. Monday morning we loaded all the boxes from the previous day onto the bus AGAIN and headed out. As we were coming down out of the mtns you could feel the temp getting hotter and hotter. We stopped for lunch at a tiger express esso station (exxon where we found little gorditos (really good cheese puffs) we had been looking for for sometime,a honduran must). Side bar: my overwrite is on and I cannot find where to turn it off so if sentences look wierd..sorry. Ok back to the story..The bus would not start after we got back on so we coasted down the hill untill it stopped. The battery was dead. we had another truck with us with an extra battery but the truck liked its battery so much that there was a lock on it. The temp in the bus was getting hotter so I got off and started filming the experince. AB, a translator, got off too and started sking next to the bus

I was lucky enough to be standing in front of the muffler when the bus was jumped. It spit black junk all over my face and shirt. Judy had to wipe my face off.i wish I had a picture but I don't. After we got back on the road we went about a mile until we arrived at the hotel we would be staying at for the next two nights. Once there we unloaded all the boxes from the truck to the bus and then went to meet the people we came to see. See we were suppose to go to a village outside of the town but the rains made the road way to muddy so the people walked 3-4 hours to meet us on the highway.Once there we reshuffled the boxes in the bus into men, womens, girls, boys and infants. When the families would come by we would give them 2 outfits per person. It looked like astormwas coming and that is why we stayed in the sweatbox. Let me tell you it was HOT and SWEATY but we loved it and we had fun doing it. We left around 6:30 and went to eat at Wendy's and headed back back to the hotel.
The next day we went back and did the medical clinic, VBS and adult bible study. There were alot stories for these couple of days but here is the one that means the most to me. Judy and I were working the wound care station. We saw our share of bumps and cuts but then this one lady (21 yrs old) came. She had burned her arm with cooking oil 8 days ealier. She had gone to a clinic in town but they did not think it was that bad and did not (or was not able to) give her medical supplies. So when we saw her her arm was dried out and the dead skin needed to be removed. We soaked her arm in sterile saline for about 15 min and then spent 45 min picking off the dead skin. We wrapped her arm and gave her supplies for a couple of weeks. I will never forget that. Stayed tuned.......

Honduras 4: Man, I thought I was not going to sweat today!

On Sunday July 17th, we had morning worship at the mission house instead of at the church planted in Los Pinos because the rains and mud slides had made it impossible for the buses to get there, which is unbelievable since the drivers seemed to be able to get the buses into an ant's nest on top of Mt. Hood without hitting a single ant. The plan for the day was worship-> pack boxes --> Valley of Angles --> Dinner at a nice place --> Devo at the oldest Catholic church building in the West, but most of all.......NO profuse sweating.
After worship, the VBS crew got busy practicing their skits before they went to the Valley Of Angles to shop, and everyone else went on ahead to VOA (Judy thats for you), EXCEPT Judy, Margaret, Brett, Ken, Terry, Steve, Brian and I ( if I forgot someone I'm sorry). We went to the Bodega to load cloths and medical boxes for our trip to Chulateca the next day. We quickly changed out of our Sunday's best and headed to Wendy's to eat lunch on our way to the Bodega. We got got disiel in the truck, or so we thought, but quickly found out the station attendent put gas in the truck. While loading the bus, Terry, Ken and Brian with the awesome help of Ruben and the Bodega guys syphened the gas out of the truck and replaced it with disiel from another truck. While the gas exchange was going on, the rest of us had a assembly line running from in the bodega to the bus. Let me mention that it was extremely humid and hot this day. I am not sure who (Brett) told me to get in the bus to pack the boxes, but I proceeded to sweat half of my body weight packing the boxes with alot of love and care. (everyone else was sweating too) On the way back to the mission house in the bus my packing job totally failed with all the boxes falling into the bus floor. We unpacked the bus and the VBS crew loaded on the bus and they took out to the VOA. We changed back into our Sunday best, after taking a wet nap bath, and waited for the truck to be fixed so we could join everyone at the VOA for an hour of speed shopping.

Oh My gosh, I almost forgot...before we left to go to the bodega Margaret, Ken, Brett and Judy and I went to the look out to take pictures but came out with a short film about Survival and Letting Go...starring Ken and myself. Look for the link later.

I am going to the YMCA, but I'll be back to finish this day.

Honduras 3: carnivals, soccer and being HOT!!

Ok, so where were we.... On Saturday the 16th of July we all headed out to a childrens home called Good Shepard. It is not an orphanage but a lovely home for children. There are currently around 135 kids there whose age range from 6 months to around 17-18 you. When we got there (late as usual) we quickly went to work setting up a carnival for the kids. We brought it all..Cotton candy, popcorn,clowns, games, prizes and more. Judy and I were in charge of the Frisbee throw which consisted of 2 discs and a tree & no participants. We quickly made an executive decision and parted ways with the frisbees and took to filming the days events.
I caught an awesome shot of Sarasota Shane getting nailed with a soccer ball and also caught a couple of cute boxer puppies taking naps, along with Tons of smiling kids!!

After feeding the kids lunch of peanut butter and honey with a side of fly we said out goodbyes and headed out to the hottest place in all of Tegucigalpa....The Olympic Soccer Stadium.


I will not pretend to think or sound like I know what I am taking about with soccer so...Our guys played some other guys in soccer. That picture is our guys (in the gold) having a prayer with the other team....that WE BEAT. Of course I was not paying that much attention to the game during the game, but I did manage to catch a few actions plays that I would not have seen had I not been sitting next the the coaches wife (Judy) or 2 loud mouth soccer moms who will remain nameless (Margaret and Gayna). We started off watching the game in the shade but the sun slowly crept on us. It was around 4:40 pm and it was HOT! You could feel your innards melting. The only relief was to stand on the top of the bleachers where there was a warm breeze, so it felt 115 degrees instead of 116 degrees.
We did have an ice cream vendor at the bottom of the bleachers who thought it necessary to ring his bell the ENTIRE time even after everyone who wanted ice cream had bought some.
We had some over achievers in our group who hit the track walking in the sweltering sun, but they did give us an idea. The other side of the stadium was in the shade...We quickly left the soccer moms in the dust an headed for paradise. After crossing the dessert we layed out on the track where it was not only cooler, but closer to the action of the game.

Well, my fingers are raw so...Tune in next time for Honduras 4: Man I thought I was not going to sweat today, and DADDY!!

Honduras Part Dos

So, I left off telling you about the hospital visit. Well, after we left the hospital we went out to the community of (sorry about the spelling) Nuave Orinental. It is a community that was given to the people after the hurricane in 98 that wiped out villages.

I personally think that the community is very beautiful. From the front door os many of the houses you look out to see huge mountain ranges. But, I can see why some people might have a hard time adjusting--you have to walk up and down gargantuous hills in order to go to the market or just to visit your neighbors.
While we were there our team split into two groups. One group passed out clothing and the other group passed out food boxes from door to door. Ok, think back to what I told you earlier....Steep hills... I was a hill warrior. I have a video clip of our food passing out trek that I will attempt to attach. A member of each family had to be at home in order to receive a food box and they could only have 1 box, but what amazed me was that instead of asking for more than the alloted 1 box the families would point us to thier neighbors to make sure thay to recieved a food box as well.
After we passed out the food boxes our group went to the school houses of the community, where the cloths distribution was going on, to play with the kids. Some of the group played games with them or sang songs with them. I did what I do best...take pictures and videos.

This is my favorite picture from that day. Is that not the cutest picture ever? Well, this is where I have to end this blog. Jeremy and Evelyn are coming over to talk Honduras.

Tune in next time for Honduras 3: carnivals, soccer and being HOT!!

Honduras Part Uno

Ok well, I did not get a chance to update while in Honduras, so I am just going to hit the highlights of the trip.

While reading this remember: This is my online journal of events in my life and my thoughts. Enter at your own risk.

First of all, I would like to share that Judy once again got stripped searched at the Nashville airport. I know it was because she is Canandian! This is Judy.

Our first day in Honduras was different than usual. As soon as we got off the plane we went to the town on Santa Ana, which the locals pronounce Santana. We got right to work moving very large cinder blocks. During this time Judy and I decided to throw out new words we had learned this year in PT school. Everyone commented on of smart we sounded!!

Santa Ana is a cool little town outside of Tegucigalpa (the captiol). There is a plot of land that IRC bought to build a medical clinic, duplexes, an orphanage and a school house. Some from our team worked there for 3 days straight digging drainage ditches and other things.

On Friday July 15th I went with a group to a hospital to play with the little kids who are sick or hurt. For those of you who know me this was a challange for me, but I got the honor of meeting a little boy of 2 yrs named Jorge. I do not speak alot of spanish so what I gathered was he had a heart problem. He was very pale but he was CUTE and I only got to stay with him for about 20 min.

After I left Jorge I went across the hallway and into a room with a little 7 yo girl. I cannot remember her name but she had the prettiest eyes. She never sat up and I never could understand what her mother was trying to tell me what she was in the hospital for.

Some of the children were at the hospital all day without their parents because the parents cannot afford not to work, and some of the children lay on beds without sheets but lay on the plastic of the mattress. I know that may seem just awful to us, but those plastic mattresses they were sleeping on might have been the first real bed they have ever sleep on.

Terry made a journal for us to keep and one of the questions that was asked was what is our biggest challange right now. Last year I did not go into the hospital and this year I went away feeling numb. My heart hurt for the kids but I did not let myself be affected or my heart broken. This is was my answer for that question after a few days of thinking and searching--I have not been allowing myself to feel emotions.

Ok my fingers are tired. Tune in again for the next installment of Honduras 2005--Anna style!

PS-- sorry if pics are in the wrong places or not even on the page, I am still learning this blog stuff.