Kaylyn's First Gator Ride!

    Kaylyn and I were in the Chosa all morning while Jaden pulled weeks, ran errands with Chino and pulled ticks off of a horse.  When afternoon came, we were told that we could head into town.  April, Zoey and Ellie (a long term college-age volunteer) all came with us.  We stopped first at Glenda's house and this was the first time I was allowed to stop here since 2019 (pre-COVID) as last year we were taken in a vehicle due to precautions still existing.  Glenda was happy to see us and I so wanted to get a picture, but the rains were heavy all day yesterday (think climbing up a mudslide to get to her house) that it just was not meant to happen.  I am hoping to make another trip into town so that we can make it happen.  We did buy some groceries from her and she said she would set them aside for us to pick up on the way back from town.

   At the first grocery store we got quite a few supplies as well as some banana bread with margarine (they do not sell butter as we know it here) and a huge baked cinnamon frosted bread.  Then April and Ellie wanted to stop at a cheese store en route to the next grocery store.  Being from Wisconsin, we decided to "pass" on the cheese.  It does taste quite different here.  In the second grocery store we bought some more items on our list and then a soda for Josi who was sent along with us.  The rains came down hard at this point which was going to make walking back a little difficult.  We took our time packing the groceries in each of our backpacks so that by the time we were ready to head out of the store the rain was a bit light, not yet a drizzle, but light.  

   My next stop was the pharmacy because we were going to run out of antihistamine for Jaden, so I wanted to ensure we'd have enough for the duration of our stay, especially since I didn't know when or if we would get back into town.

   Of course the last stop was to Matilda's.  This has been a long standing tradition since Alina to stop for bananas that were dipped in chocolate and had sprinkles put onto them before being all frozen together.  They sell for $14 Lempiras, which is about 60 cents in our U.S.Dollars.  I purchased one for Josi as well.  April decided to buy donuts here for her kiddos.  

   On the way back to Emmanuel, I sent Jaden up to Glenda's house because my shoes had ZERO traction on them.  Both he and Glenda brought April and my vegetables down to us and then we headed back to Emmanuel.  Chino saw us towards the front of the orphanage with all of the bags of groceries and asked me if we needed a ride back to our place.  I knew that there was no way that 7 of us as well as bags of groceries would all fit on his gator, so I kept my backpack, but helped everyone else on (except Josi who walked with me to help me get my Fitbit steps in) and they all got a ride back to their respective houses.  It was Kaylyn's first ever ride on a gator, so she was pretty excited.

   We got the groceries put away in the spots they needed to be.  As I have mentioned before, there is not much you want to leave out because the bugs WILL find it.  So while most items go in the refrigerator, there were some prepackaged or vacuum sealed items that I put in the extra suitcase in our room to take back to the States.  We headed to supper and then we decided to call it a night.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His Good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:10

Knight and Day

    This morning the big boys in charge got to recite their verses in front of all of the children.  Josecito was part of that group.  Generally children memorize an entire chapter when they recite their verses.  This group's verses came from Psalms.  After reciting their verses, it was Graciela's turn to give the lesson.  Graciela is in charge of the Toddler House where Kaylyn and I work, so that was extra special for us to be able to see her speaking to the large group.

   At the Chosa, I used the Color Street nail strips (semi-dry nail polish) that the Ohio team had given me, and because I was extremely conservative with their usage, I had an entire set to do Eva's nails as well.  She is in the chosa with the toddlers every day helping care for them, and she was pretty excited about having her nails done.  A little while later, April came with baleadas for all of us.  These are handmade tortillas with refried beans inside and sometimes an egg or cheese.  These had an egg.  She also bought sodas for everyone, but I passed on the opportunity to have one because I tried one earlier in the week, took 2 sips and had to give it away.  After drinking water for so long down here, soda just has lost its touch with me.

   April also mentioned the possibility of changing her flights and heading back to the States the same day as we do.  They fly out a week earlier, however our kids were getting along so well, that she may stay a week longer...just because.  Her plan is to return in September as an even longer term volunteer, potentially staying indefinitely.  Kaylyn braided my hair in the Chosa and then helped Karen and Zoey take the toddlers to class to work on educational activities.  This class of Karen's would be similar to a "Head Start" program.

Britani and Natali

   Jaden let me know that he watered Alexander's plants in the Greenhouse, moved dirt, then ran errands with Chino and also added to his "Espanol con Chino".  He raked grass at the horse barn, cut grass with a machete (which is the typical way to cut taller grass here) and in that grass-cutting process didn't realize he was on an ant hill (fire ants)...so got bit.  Later he hung out with the medium boys for a bit.

   Kaylyn slept in the afternoon and then at 3pm we headed to the Toddler House to help wake up the toddlers and walk them down to the Comedor for supper.

   After supper, and since it was Friday, I decided that we could have a family night like we try to do at home on Friday nights.  So I opened up the computer, connected it to the Hotspot my phone was projecting and then brought up Netflix.  We decided on an age appropriate comedy called Knight and Day.  I would say it was pretty good since it got late and none of us fell asleep on the movie.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.  

Psalm 19:14

Hair Braiding

    This morning the power went out and was out until 2:45pm, so there were no fans to cool down slightly and no lights or television for the toddlers to watch a few clips in the morning.  Because Karen decided to take all of the big toddlers to the Chosa this morning for painting (there were 9 kiddos), she asked for both me and April to come.  The lesson was Noah's Ark, and she asked me to read the story to the children.  Then they got to paint different sized cardboard rolls various colors of the rainbow.  Each time she takes the children, the activity lasts for about an hour and entails learning either vocabulary or fine motor skills.

   When we returned to the Toddler Chosa, Kaylyn wanted me to ask if she could get her hair braided.  I talked to Eva but she said that Yessica is the one who does the small braids.  When Yessica came back, she got the supplies to braid Kaylyn's hair and it turned out so well that Zoey asked if she could braid her hair as well.  

   Jaden lets me know each day at lunch what he did in the morning and then at the end of the day when he did in the afternoon.  He spent today in the Greenhouse mostly, moving dirt and watering plants.  Although there was an hour prior to lunch that he was with a few team members doing origami up in the gazebo at the Team House.

   After supper, Jaden headed to the soccer field at the school with Zaiden to play soccer with the grandecitos.  He was back in the room at 6pm, when the grandecitos have to be back at their house for the night.  Kaylyn and Zoey headed to the grandecitas house where they were busy chatting and painting each other's finger nails and toe nails.  Because they were in the house with the girls, they stayed a bit later (until 7pm).  I did walk up that way at one point to let Zoey know that she should come back to our room so that both Jaden and Kaylyn could walk her home.  It gets dark here about 6pm, so by 7pm...it's extremely dark and we just want the kids to be safe and not walk alone.

A Close Call with a Beetle

    This morning Jaden headed to the Greenhouse once again to week, plant and move dirt to make a new flowerbed.  He told me that he would most likely be reporting to the Greenhouse every day morning and afternoon unless otherwise specified.  

   Kaylyn and I headed to the Toddler House to watch over the 19 toddlers that were there today, 20 if you count Micah (a volunteer's 5 year old).  Kaylyn has told me that one of the toddlers, I will not name this toddler, is her favorite.  I let her know that it is never good to play favorites with children...hoping down the road, she remembers this if she has some of her own.  Right now, she says "no way"!

   About 9:30am, I headed back to our room to gather my materials to teach the 9th grade math students.  I was pretty sure that Profe Jorge told me the class went from 10:10am-11:15am, however I ended up being there until just before they let out for lunch at noon.  The original plans I went in with had to get scrapped, because they were way past where I was told they were at, although when Profe Jorge came by, he said that they definitely needed to review.  And I quickly saw that they had no clue how to create a table for linear equations, in order to create points to graph the linear equation.  And just like students in the United States, they also struggle with using fractions.  All in all it went well.

   In the afternoon Jaden headed to the Greenhouse, watered some plants, and then headed to the Horse barn where he swept and helped Chino fix a fan.  Then they headed back to the Medium Boys house to watch a little bit of Mortal Kombat before heading to the Comedor for supper.  Kaylyn and I spent the afternoon with the grandecitas in their house.  They drew quite a few pictures of flowers for us to send home with us.

   In church this evening, Andi spoke to everyone while Rollie translated.  Zoey came over to sit by us.  And after church we were invited to have supper one last time up at the Team House.  They had fish, rice, beans, salad, and of course warm chocolate cake.  Kaylyn thought tonight's chocolate cake was even better than last night's!

   After heading home from the Team House, I took a shower and we got ready for bed.  Typically Kaylyn showers at night before going to bed as well, but there was a rather large cockroach in the shower, so she decided not to.  After turning the lights off and settling in, I was laying on the bed on my pillows and a heard quite a large thud on the pillow right next to my head.  I knew right away that something had "landed" or fallen on the pillow.  Although I didn't scream, I am pretty sure my exact words were, "Oh HECK no!!!"  And I sat up and grabbed the flashlight and shined all around but I didn't see anything.  When Kaylyn heard me, she turned the room lights on and that's when I saw it...a HUGE beetle on my pillow not to far from where my head had been!  I grabbed the pillow, gently, and carried it to the door...unlocking the door and then flinging the pillow towards the outside where the bug fell off onto the porch.  Oh yuck!!!  What a way to end a night.  Needless to say, it may have taken me a little longer than normal to fall asleep this evening.

Ladies' Night

    With Kaylyn getting pretty sick and feverish yesterday, I told her she would need to stay in all day and rotate taking ibuprofen and tylenol every 3 hours along with keeping ice on either her forehead or her neck.  There were a few times during the morning where she felt a little less feverish and decided to sweep the room and the porch, cleaned off her bed side table (lots of gum wrappers) and threw the laundry in the washer.

   I headed to the Toddler House until 9am when I had to meet with Josecito to go over his math.  He wanted help writing multiplication tables and doing division.  I stayed with him until about lunch time.

   Jaden spent the morning and the afternoon in the Greenhouse again to plant more cilantro and move dirt.  After supper, he went with the grandecitos to play soccer.

   Kaylyn and I headed up to the Team House at 6pm because they were having a Ladies' Spa Night, where they first fed us supper (hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon, cantaloupe, and chocolate cake), then they gave us all hand treatments with a wonderful sugar scrub that contained peppermint and citrus essential oils, then they did our nails using Color Street nails.  I chose to just take it with me as time was running a bit late and I wanted to get back to sleep.  Kaylyn was feeling better by this evening, so she should be back to work tomorrow!!!

Español con Chino

    This morning I headed to the Toddler House and was in the Chosa all day.  Since it was a school day, Kaylyn had originally told Danielle that she would be with the babies (and then on non-school days she would be with toddlers).  So she went to the Baby House, however got pretty sick by noon.  She has had an on and off fever over the weekend, but this definitely pushed that illness over the edge.  I am thinking she is suffering from the heat down here, so she will be resting as well as alternating ibuprofen and tylenol for the next 36 hours.

   Jaden began in the Greenhouse where he weeded, planted cilantro, and did some weed whacking.  He then went to feed the horses and got to drive Chino's gator just a short, short distance...but from the sound of it, he won't do that again while he's down here (did terribly bad).  Jaden said that at the horse barn, Chino began teaching Jaden some common expressions in Spanish, even getting a notebook and the first expression he wrote down for Jaden in Spanish was "I am going to take a bath".  Guessing Jaden may be stinky?  Jaden said it's like school all over again and called his day 'Español con Chino'.  

   The Ohio team decided that they would eat all 3 meals with the children in the Comedor today rather than have someone cook for them.  I don't know that I have ever seen a team eat all 3 (or any for that matter) to get the experience of what the children do.  That was actually one of my highlights of the day.

   In the afternoon, I went to the school to chat with Profe Jorge about the math classes that I would be teaching.  He is giving me 9th grade and 10th grade.  Currently the 11th grade (calculus) doesn't have math this term, so the subject matter I will be teaching should be easier.  He gave me the 9th grade book, but has to get the 10th grade book yet for me.  There are no classes tomorrow and I will only be teaching 9th grade on Wednesday.

   This evening, Jaden was invited over to the grandecitos house to watch movies.  This is something Noah did pretty frequently (I went along with him many times too).  I was back at the room with Kaylyn who was still sick and April sent some chicken soup over her way with Zoey and Zaden for her.  It smelled absolutely delicious and when Kaylyn finished it and went to wash it in the kitchen, she found a nice sized cockroach in the sink.  She wanted me to include the picture below.  Generally it's difficult to get pictures of these because as soon as the lights come on, they disappear...but she got lucky.

Kaylyn's Jumping Spider

    This morning began with church at 8:15am (after breakfast, of course).  As we were singing, Kaylyn let me know she needed to go back to the room because she wasn't feeling well.  She has been on and off sick all weekend.  So I gave her the keys and she headed back to our room.  I sent Jaden out to the parked vehicles in front of the church to watch her as she went back to make sure she made it back to the room okay since she looked pale as if about to faint.  Rollie, a long term volunteer, spoke in church about honesty and integrity.

   After church, Jaden and I did laundry and swept our room really well.  We typically mop on Sundays as well, however since we just arrived on Wednesday, we figured we'd let it go until next Sunday.  Sundays are our days off, so as we relaxed in the room and Kaylyn sat up, I noticed movement behind her.  In particular, I was pretty sure it was a nice sized black spider.  Typically one of these size lends itself to be what we call a "jumping spider".  It has white stripes down its back and tends to jump when you get close.  We have these same spiders at home, but of course everything is bigger down here...and these spiders are no different, probably at least 5 times bigger.  Kaylyn's back was to the spider, so I started by saying, "Don't freak out, but is that a cockroach, beetle or spider behind you?"  Of course she looked extremely concerned and slowly moved away from the window behind her.  Jaden went to kill it, but as with his lack of experience when trying to kill these types of spiders, it jumped behind Kaylyn's bed.  The next hour or so was spent getting the mattresses off the bed and taking a flashlight all underneath the bed and around it trying to find the spider.  We were not successful.  Kaylyn even told me she was going to be sleeping with me for the night which I was NOT okay with.

   After lunch, Jaden and I went to the farm because the big boys were playing baseball.  I found Gibran (Noah's sponsored child) and Cristofer at the farm just resting in the gazebo as their roommates were playing baseball.  I sat with them and Alexander and we spent the next couple of hours chatting.  At one point, I offered to call Noah so that Gibran could chat with him.  He was very excited at the opportunity to talk to Noah and for him, the call went well.  Alexander had asked how long I have been coming down and I let him know that my first trip had been in 2008 and I had not missed a year until the 2 years of COVID (2020 and 2021), due to the orphanage not being able to allow people in.

Approaching the farm area where big boys were playing baseball

   When Jaden and I returned to the room, Kaylyn was happy to report that the spider reappeared on the window where it originally was and that she killed it. She even took a video to keep the memory!  We put the laundry away and then had our 1/2 hour of reading.

   At 6pm, the team from Ohio had invited all staff (this includes volunteers) to a dinner up at the Team House.  They served chicken, rice, beans, pico de gallo, toast, watermelon, cantaloupe, and cake.  We sat with Oscar and 2 of the team members (Faith and Heidi) came over to eat with us.  They introduced themselves and asked many questions of the 4 of us.  Heidi even told us that when the team had went on a tour of the orphanage earlier in the day, Alexander had pointed up to the hotel and mentioned "Gloria lives up there".  So I guess Alexander made me part of the tour!

   Andi Longest is with this team.  She was a long term volunteer for 5-6 years quite a while back.  She came up to me during dinner to thank me for the tennis shoes I had brought down.  She let me know that she had worn them for 3 years at Emmanuel and then she took them to Israel with her and wore them for her work there, and still has them in Ohio.  She told me that she didn't realize how much of a difference there was between the "average" tennis shoe and higher quality shoes until she received this pair.  That was when I had to be honest with her and let her know that they weren't MY shoes, but that twice in my time coming to Emmanuel I had noticed a need for shoes at the orphanage and reached out to friends and family and they provided numerous pairs of shoes for me to box up and send on the semi trailer down here.  There was also once where my godson Maximus also asked his friends to give him shoes to send to the orphanage as a birthday gift rather than getting him an actual gift, and I boxed those and sent them to the container as well.  So the shoes that Andi had were most likely from one of them.  I was just the messenger.  But I am very glad she got really good use out of them!

   As I left the Team House for the evening, David and Mike were spraying the walls and ground of the team house with various cans of Raid and the like.  Due to the heavy rains, the fire ants were all over the place and lines of them were going up the Team House.  It was crazy to look at when I looked at the mulch surrounding the bushes...it was like the mulch was MOVING, of course those were just all the ants.  As they emptied the cans of Raid, along with all of the others watching the big cloud of chemicals, we decided to call it a night and walked back to the hotel.  Kaylyn and I typically shower at night before bed, so we took care of that before we called it a night.