Day 5: Fencing, Dirt, Rocks and Roots....oh, I forgot & VBS

Day 5:

Our team spent another day at San Ysidro.  As I said yesterday, there is only one church in the village and it’s a Church of Christ.  It sits on a parcel of land that has been deeded to the community.  The church and the community have begun many projects there.  There are several projects that I may not have mentioned yesterday.

                                          The church (Some of us put in screens in the window and installed ceiling fans.P

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Joy after removing a large root and finishing a row!

One of the interns, Minor, portraying Jesus Cristo.

If you look closely you can see a boat and water.  They are fishing and not having any luck on that side.

The moms are watching the stories and the smaller children are hanging towards the back.

  A group feeds the children out of the church, (we observed this when we were eating our lunch today. The community/church has started many projects on this deeded land. (I apologize if I mentioned them already.) I think I said it was 2 acres, I believe it’s bigger than that.  They are trying to dig a community well, but they have run into many roadblocks. (Pray that things will come together for them.)  They have also dug a pond to raise tilapia, but with the dry spell, it’s totally empty.  They are very excited about all of these projects, and we felt blessed to be able to help them these past two days. 

                                                    I tried talking to this little girl Juanita.  She was kind of quiet and didn't talk much.  You can't really tell but here hair had blond streaks in it.  I found out from Diane that was a sign of malnutrition.  We did notice that when the ladies feed them the meal they also gave them a multi-vitamin.

                                      Chickens behind the church

Here you see where the ladies prepare the noon meal.  They made beans and rice.

Part of our team continued to work on the security fence.  They are very necessary here, because anything of value often comes up missing.  I (and many others) continued to work on breaking ground for the community garden.  We found many rocks, roots, and stumps.  Much of the ground reminded me of the hard packed red clay that we see in Tennessee.  If you are familiar with it, then you know it is very hard to break up.  Luckily today we had three pick-axes and some strong young men to help us!!  Also, an angel from Key West named Cindy purchased two very nice rakes that helped make our job easier!!!

                                          Here Taylor is clowning during one of our many water breaks.  It was warm  and sunny and we were careful to stay hydrated.

                                    Here is the main garden team!

Around noon, we had a VBS for the local children.  Some of the creative young people prepared and acted out the story of Jesus telling the fisherman to fish on the other side.  The story was wonderful and included props, costumes, games, and crafts.  VBS is not complete without cookies and punch.  We had that too!!!

Tomorrow we will go back to worship with our brothers and sisters at the San Ysidro Church of Christ and then we will have a long bus ride back to Tegucigalpa after lunch. 

The rains came just as we finished up for the day!!!

Tyler is leading our singing during our evening devotional.

Until next time!!! Xoxo PJ

Day 4: Rocks, Dirt and then Rain!!!

I have on my sunscreen and I'm ready to garden. (see the ground behind me! :/)

Day 4: San Ysidro                      

We spent the day working with a small village outside of Catacamas called San Ysidro.  JoAnn and Dwight are missionaries that were our contacts that helped coordinate our efforts.  The village has one church and it is a Church of Christ.  The church sits on 2 acres of land that have been donated to the community.  This land is set aside for the benefit of the village.  Several mission groups have already come and worked before us and the villagers are very excited about the work that is done.

This group was putting rocks in the metal posts so mosquitoes wouldn't lay eggs in them.

  Today, we had several projects going.  Some people worked on putting up a security fence around the perimeter, others put together ceiling fans that we brought for the church, painted some of the outside buildings, dug a trench around the fence, put screens in the church windows, and I worked on “tilling” the ground for a community garden.  I put tilling in quotes because of course we didn’t have a tiller, we actually had on pick axe, a metal pole thing with a sharp end (they have a name, but I don’t know what it’s called!)and two not very sharp hoes. 

                                        The community was also working on building an addition to the church.

                                              His sister was the one who worked all day.

 We were supposed to prepare a twelfth of an acre with just those things!!!!  I didn’t believe it would every begin to look like a garden, but by about 5:30, it kind of did. I say this because the dirt was so dry it was almost like concrete and there was lots of rocks!! We had help from a 21 year old Honduran girl named Jennifer, who didn’t stop working at digging up roots all day!!!!

Jennifer is to the right.

El Caballo

It is starting to look like a garden!

This is a pond they have dug out because they want to have a tilapia pond.  They are also trying to ge)t a community well dug, but it hasn't happened so far. (for different reasons)

taking a little break from the sun

And the rains came and we got soaked!!!

We plan on going back there to finish what we started tomorrow.  We will also be having a Vacation Bible School sometime tomorrow for the children and we will go to church there on Sunday! 

Soaking wet and heading back to the hotel

relaxing before dinner, That is Minor Perez, everyone teases him because with his accent he says "deen-her".

This is the Honduran rainy season, but we found out that it hasn’t rained in two weeks.  (not good for the crops that they rely on to feed their families)  Our small group of ladies and girls had decided to say a prayer before we started our work and one of the things we prayed for was rain for this village.  God answered our prayers around 5:00, when it started pouring down and we had to run back to the bus.  We were all soaked and dirty, but it sure felt good!!!!

Until next time!!!  Xoxo PJ

Aeropueto Y Autobus (Correct Spanish???)

Day 3 Airports & Bus rides (I realize this isn't very flowery or descriptive, but I haven't had a lot of spare time to do this.)

                                        The airport in the capital city of Honduras.

Today our main objective was to pick up 50+ people from the first team from the airport.  They were coming in on their different airlines within about an hour an forty-five minutes of each other.  Basically, this meant we had a lot of standing around and waiting at a crowded airport.  Teguc’s airport makes Nashville look fancy, but it serves its purpose.

                                             Waiting in the shade, it is much warmer down in the city.

                                              The matching shirts make it easy to identify our team as they arrive.

As the different flights came in, we collected their passports, exchanged some American money for lempiras for them, and walked with them to get something to eat.  There was a little excitement at the airport and some of our group heard people saying that the former president was coming in on one of the flights.  If you will remember, he was the one that was run out of the country for illegally trying to change their constitution.  That was also the reason we had to cut our trip short because they were advising everyone to leave.  I didn’t personally see him, but I did see the news cameras.

                                            Sights as we travel through the city

                                      napping in the park????

                                      Just the beginning!!

Some of the beautiful countryside between Tegucigalpa & Catacamas.

After we picked up all of our team members, we loaded up the bus for a 4+ hour ride to Catacamas.  Once you leave the city the country-side is beautiful, it is not uncommon to see cows and horses roaming along the roads (or in the roads).  We made it here around 7:30 and had dinner at a local restaurant owned by a member of the church we will be working with.  We were tired and the food was delicious!!

                             Sorry for the finger in the picture!  This was taken out of the bus window.

                                                 Where we had our delicious dinner

                                        The hotel has a very nice pool, but we are only here till after church on Sunday.  We also have lots of work to do, so I'm not sure how much relaxing we will get to do!  I know for one, I'm enjoying the very cool A/C!

We are staying at a hotel that seems to have good Wi-Fi.  I’ll try to add some pictures too!

Day 1&2 Pictures

(I moved to the hallway upstarts where the internet is better, so I was able to upload my pictues.)

Yes, I am alive!!!

                                           The hall of the ladies' dorm, you can see some of the supplies left over from the last Torch team.

                                           More supplies left over from the last team.

                                                Some of the ladies of the advance team (minus me)

                                       We call this the advance team because we are doing things to get ready for the 60+ people who are coming to work tomorrow.

I'm sorry these are so out of order, but this was taken as we were waiting to go through Customs at Honduras. (All of the people in the light blue shirts are from another Church of Christ mission group from the KY/TN area.

                                   Some of our group (can you tell Taylor loves getting his picture taken?) The people with the neon orange shirts are also with a mission group.

                                      Waiting for the rest of our group to get through customs

Wednesday we sorted through a mountain of donated clothes that we had shipped down here.  I didn't even ask for clothes from our church because I felt like I would get so much, I wouldn't be able to get enough boxes to ship them!!!!

  Riding our trusty schoolbus to do our work for the day

            

                                
                                 We see this view when we drive down the mountain every day into the city

                                           Sites we saw while we were sitting in traffic

                                        Sorting and folding the unending pile of clothes

                    Every day after we sort the clothes we have to carry the 100 or so boxes back inside so everything will be secure.  (we have done this twice already!!!  Carried them out, back in, out and back in!!

               Unfortunately, a lot of the clothes were very big!!!!  The Honduran people aren't quite as big as Americans!!


Until next time!!! xoxo PJ