Pinata Party

After devotions this morning, I once again headed to the little girls' house to help with getting them up and to help with circle & breakfast.  While cleaning was going on, I headed over to where the Ohio group was helping with cement.  The road between the big girls' yard and the team house has always been a combination of dirt, gravel, and rocks.  Over the past 6 years, various teams and the orphanage have been working to cement these roads.  Since Bob was working with the Ohio team and Papi this morning, I went to get some pictures of the work.

Smoothing out the Cement - Honduran Style

I walked the girls to school and then held the lectura (reading) classes.  Today since two of my students (Raul & Jorge) wouldn't read in class and got made fun of for not knowing how to read, I pulled them out after my 5 classes were finished to have them read with me in a small group...just me, Alina and them.  I had Alina read along with them so that they felt empowered in helping her pronounce some of the more difficult words.  I think that they walked away with a confidence partially built up from having had it crushed just an hour or two before.

During lunch, I went over to the girls' volunteer house where Kimberly was baking for her boys.  We chatted for a bit and then I talked with Leslie who is looking to take over the classes at the school, since she will be here for 10 months.  I let her know that she'd need to talk with Amy, and if all was okay, I would get her some of the materials either later in the evening or tomorrow.

When I got back to the little girls' house, I found out that their classes were cancelled for the afternoon.  Because the Honduras Independence Day is coming up in September, they will need to use a series of afternoons to get their band ready to have a marching parade around the orphanage.  The little girls don't participate in this and today was a practice day.  Because of this, members of the team came to do a bible study with our little girls, followed by coloring pictures and then a pinata party.

Pinata Party for the Pequenas

Because supper was not ready after the pinata party, we decided to bathe the girls first tonight since were were on a tight schedule with it being a Wednesday night and there was church at 4:30pm.  Supper consisted of a nice white rice with green beans and carrots mixed in.  I'm amazed at all of the girls down here who refuse to eat their vegetables...some may say, "well, kids in the States refuse to eat their vegetables", but to me it's just a little different when they refuse to eat EVERY veggie you offer them.  Although they DO eat fruits of all sorts...some that I don't care for and wouldn't choose to eat.

The church services down here last around 2 hours (not sure if I mentioned that before or not).  It was given by a pastor from the California group named Alex.  He gave us an abbreviated version of the book of James in the Bible, but the emphasis he provided on us showing our love of God and relationship with Him to others and encouraging them to do the same really was something!  After the church service, while Kimberly went to serve crepes to the female volunteers, Pastor Jeff came back to our place and Bob made a delicious chicken supper from the left-overs from last night.  Although I wasn't very hungry and didn't eat (since I had eaten at the little girls' house), I conversed as they ate.  After supper, it was completely dark out, so we said our good-nights and went to bed.