Honduras - Day 4

One of the dorms at Jovenes en Camino

What a wonderful weekend the Lord blessed us with. We had a few days of work, a wonderful day of rest and we are all acquainted and ready for the week ahead of us. Today has been, by far the busiest day. We had an early start, and after breakfast and a quick prayer we drove to the clinic to get construction supplies to take to Jovenes en Camino. Our next stop on the way to Jovenes was the open market. We needed to get food supplies  for one of the ladies who was cooking the food that we were going to hand out at the hospital. Walter and Mr. Greg felt that the open market was something we needed to experience (they have no idea just how wrong they were). I do not have enough words to describe this place other than "horrendously smelly". The guys decided to take us through the meat section. There were flies everywhere due to the raw meat hanging from the ceiling in ninety degree weather. There were slimy animal parts everywhere and half of them were a mystery to me. It was extremely crowded so we had to hold onto each other for fear that we might get lost in the middle of a hallway of pig carcasses. There was dirt and bugs on everything and the people would walk around barefooted. I cannot even imagine what kind of diseases and sicknesses you could get. So of course we practically bathed in hand sanitizer while the guys purchased the things they came for.

We finally got back to the vans and we headed off to Jovenes! Our van decided to take a detour at the mall to get soccer balls for the boys at Jovenes. While we were there we decided to get some lunch. After about an hour we finally pulled onto the long and beautiful road in Zamerano; miles and miles of beautiful farmland and mountains in the distance. And finally I saw Jovenes for the first time in two years. Jovenes is one of my favorite places to go in Honduras. I just love seeing all the boys and playing with them. Today we mostly played cards and volleyball. There are several of the boys who are in bi-lingual school, so they could speak some English. They definitely had the advantage when we were playing cards. They wouldn't tell us they could speak English so they could understand what we were saying but then they would end up being able to trick us. Of course they always won every game.

Working with the youngest boys

 After a while Chelsea and I decided to take a break and go sit under the pavilion with the guards. Hector started showing us how they do push-ups in the Honduran military and so Chelsea decided to try one. Well she slipped and ended up cutting her leg. When she first stood up it didn't look too bad but then the blood came...and it wouldn't stop. Emily went and found Frank and Martha Warren (the doctor's on the trip) while I took her into the office at Jovenes to wait for them. When Frank and Martha saw the cut they immediately knew that it would need stitches. She only needed three but it was still exciting to watch. They gave her a shot to numb her leg and then went to work...right there in Suyapa's office! Chelsea, of course, was freaking out but it was over in no time.

After Jovenes we drove to Wendy's for dinner. Wendy's was always the go to place to eat. We ate there several times during the week. Laura and I sat with Erylin and Edward. We all had so much fun trying to figure out what each other was talking about. We definitely improved our Spanish during the week. We all finished up our food and drove over to the hospital to pass out food, water and toys. This was the first really emotional thing we had to do on the trip. It was extremely hard to walk down the halls and see all the hurt and disease. There were people asleep on the hallway floors and patients on stretchers lining the halls. Babies were crying, people were so sick and the floors and walls were covered with dirt. It seemed like the people could get more sick just from being there. All the people were very grateful and we would tell them, "Dios le Bendigo", which means "God bless you". The group I was in handed out food in the emergency room and then another group went to the children's and women's ward. They had a really hard time seeing all the sick women and children. I can hardly imagine how hard it was for the mothers in the group. We all said a prayer before we left and we sang two songs before heading back to the hotel.

It was a long day but it was filled with the presence of God!