Not for the Weak-Stomached

This morning would be our last BIG circle (where all of the children come together to sing praises to God, pray and hear the message).  Alexander led BIG circle.  Alexander has been at the orphanage since a child and is currently on a scholarship studying to be a missionary.  He came back to the orphanage for 2 weeks between trimesters, so I got to see him once again.  He should be completing his studies this November.  He has such a peace in him!  He said that at missionary school, he had gotten really sick with sinus and breathing problems because it's in another part of Honduras which is always fairly cool and damp.  After talking with doctors, he will eventually need surgery to correct his health problems...but he's determined to finish his studies so that he can do the work that God is placing before him.  Please keep him and his health in your prayers as he goes through these last 3 months at school.

We began washing clothes that we would be leaving behind this year.  Generally Alina has been leaving plenty of summer clothes behind, since she'll be bigger and her clothes will not fit next summer.  I tend to leave a lot of my clothes too (Esperanza asked for many of them this year).  This year Noah is leaving his clothes too...so we just wanted to be sure they were clean before passing them off.

I headed to school to check on the status of the two students who were supposed to retake their test today.  I said that I'd be back in the afternoon to help Profe Ramon correct the retakes, but I never did make it (will explain why later).  Sometime during the morning the electricity turned off for a couple of hours, which put us quite a bit behind in doing the laundry.

They told us that they would be killing chickens at 8am.  We walked over there, but then it was switched to 8:30am, then 9am (Latino time is a little different from American time).  I think they started around 9:15am...but we were there and ready.  Alina wanted to leave after a little bit to go back to the baby house to work - not sure she had the stomach for the process.  It took Noah a while to warm up to what was going on, but eventually he did okay and ended up deciding to feed the vultures the 'left-overs'.  I was at the end, bagging the prepared chicken so that it could be frozen or go straight to the 'comedor' to cook.  They processed 40 chickens today.

Noah getting used to dealing with processing chickens - the chicken was still opening and closing its mouth

This chicken is still alive and waiting to be processed

Pulling the feathers off

Getting the insides out

This is before ALL of the vultures came for the leftovers - only about 1/10 of what actually came

We headed back to the room to change clothes (so that we could wash these clothes) and then Noah took a shower.  Then we headed to the 'comedor' to eat lunch with the boys.  When lunch was over, we headed back to the room to ensure that all clothes were getting washed and then I spent the afternoon making guacamole for all of the medium boys.  It was a LOT of chopping of avocados, onions, tomatoes, cilantro, and garlic (and I missed heading back to the school because of it), but it was completely worth it!  The medium boys were surprised I did that for them and they said it tasted REALLY good.  EVERY boy asked for some with their food!

When supper was over, I quickly headed back to our room to pick up the clothes for the boys that Noah was going to leave as well as the Jurassic World movie we were going to watch tonight and the popcorn we had bought for the boys.  I dropped off some things at the big boys house first, before heading to the medium boys house.  They were giving the medium boys buzz cuts when I arrived, so that gave me time to get ready to watch the movie with the boys.  I gave each boy a 'paleta' (Mexican chili-coated mango sucker) as he came into the rec room, and we got the movie going.  About 1/2 way through the movie, I had Rudy (one of the bigger boys in charge of the medium boys) distribute the popcorn equally among the medium boys.  The boys got special permission to stay up past 6pm (when the doors normally get locked) so that they could finish watching the movie with us, since it was our last night there.  When the movie was over, they all surrounded Noah & I, giving us hugs and saying their goodbyes and good nights.

We walked back to our room and started packing our two suitcases.  Alina's suitcase would get left behind since 1 zipper broke off of it, but we generally leave one suitcase behind anyway since we leave so many clothes here.  The suitcase still has a working zipper, but we just don't need it.  There may be a greater need from a future volunteer whose suitcase gets completely destroyed in transit to Emmanuel.

We got to bed later than normal...around 9pm.  But all things considered, it was a great day!