Orphanage Emmanuel in Guaimaca, Honduras: Sunday at Emmanuel

This morning we got to sleep in a big. On Sundays the volunteers have off of their daily assignments, so we slept in a little more than normal before getting up and getting ready for church. I will still up a bit early (5:00am), but it's much later than my normal 3:30am wake-up time. Alina and Noah woke up and we all headed down to church. A man from the Ohio team led the sermon today and talked about how we will not find safety, security and significance in physical things (family, husbands/wives, girlfriends/boyfriends, friends, jobs, house, car, etc). We only find these things in God.

Zelenes had come back this weekend on a short break, which was pretty exciting. She had graduated last year (VERY smart in math) and was now in school in order to become a police officer. She was leaving shortly after church was over, but had asked me yesterday for my phone number so I tracked her down before she left to get it to her.

We headed back to our kitchen and made pancakes for breakfast. When I bought the box of mix last week I bought vegetable oil thinking that I would be making them in one of the big frying pans, but when we arrived to the orphanage I found that the kitchen had a fairly new griddle, which made making pancakes SO much easier! Noah took a couple of pancakes (with syrup) down to Michell, who was playing soccer just below us, and she said she really liked them. After cleaning up the kitchen and changing out of our Sunday clothes, we headed down to the cancha (soccer field) to watch the girls play with the team. Noah played soccer while Alina and I watched. Noah said that it was the 'Americans vs the Hondurans'.

We walked the big girls to lunch and then rested a bit in the tienda where I bought Noah and Alina a Gatorade and Alina also got some cheesy popcorn. We waved at the boys as they walked by to go to lunch. After lunch, Noah got to ride on the tractor trailer and go collect garbage with Luis David (a boy I've known for the 10 years I've been here). Luis David works for Papi (David, the founder of Emmanuel). It's nice that this is Noah's 2nd year here and he is getting more used to how things work. Noah helped to collect all of the garbage cans around Emmanuel in the trailer, take them to where they were to be dumped, dumped them and returned the empty garbage cans. Then he asked permission to go to the medium boys house where he got to watch a movie with them.

Noah collecting garbage around Emmanuel

While Noah was away between lunch and supper, we hung out with Michell some more and just enjoyed the afternoon. It was overcast and breezy, so perfect weather for us Wisconsinites, although the Honduran girls were a bit cold. At supper, I noticed that Nikol and Alejandra were wearing the dresses that we bought for them. When they saw me, the quick jumped up from their supper table and came running to give me a hug and said thank you! In the comedor there are now 3 TVs where they sometimes play a movie while the children eat. It is just such a relaxing environment down here.

After supper we walked with the little girls until we got to our room (which is on the way to their house), and then Alina and Noah played a few games together (Phase 10, Connect 4, etc) and played a few card games with the Miller children who are in the room next door to us, before we went in for the night. As usual, we each read a chapter in our books to settle down for the night before turning the lights off and heading to bed. With all of the sun and all of the work that we do down here, it is VERY easy to fall asleep by 8pm.