I left my heart in Honduras- Part 1

Yes I have to admit that my heart is definitely still in Honduras. Who would have thought that in 11 shorts days you could LOVE a place so much!! With this just being my second trip to Honduras I know that without a doubt and Lord willing this is going to become a yearly thing for me. I had rather spend my summer vacation in a third world county rather than hanging out on the beach!! (And that says A LOT- I do love my beach) I am going to give you a quick run day of what my 11 days in Honduras consisted of!
Thursday July 1- Traveling… bright and early! My mom and I left from Nashville. We arrived at the airport around 5. However, once we got on the plane we were delayed and due to that delay we almost missed our flight from Atlanta to Tegucigalpa Honduras! And there is only one flight a day from Delta that flies into Hondo! However we made it!! And when we landed I felt like I was home. It had been 5 years since I was there last! Once we landed and had out language we were off on the awesome TORCH school buses! Whew riding in Honduras is always an experience. Stop signs and stop lights exist over there BUT no one pays attention to them! You just hope for the best and GO!!! OH and maybe honk your horn if you want to pass! I love the rush you get from it! Ha We first go to the little mall grab some lunch and then go grocery shopping. Two of my good friends from Freed were also on our flight- Mariano and Christina. I was so happy to see them! Mariano is just like another brother to me! Once we got our groceries we headed to the Mission House! This is on a mountain and it like a campus. We waited for the other groups to arrive and then we had a meeting to get room assignments and all that fun stuff. Once the other groups arrived I was so happy! I was being reunited with some of my closest friends from FHU! All of my “brothers” were there! Nathan, Chad (Nino), Rudy, & Mariano…oh yeah and my real brother flew in Saturday. (All of these guys played soccer together at FHU! They really are my brothers and I love them dearly) I was a little nervous about the room assignments because I didn’t know many girls on the trip! However, my roommates turned out to be AMAZING!! (I’ll save that for another post) We got our stuff to the room and then went to work! Two of my roommates (Haley & Allison) and I went to do the bodega (storage building) and helped unload a container that was sent over. This contain had the most random items in it. Several things were from a hospital- lots of medical things! It took forever! But it was fun! We unloaded two that night and then went back to the mission house! Here we had dinner and then had devo and got the run down for Friday.
Friday July 2- Today I chose to stay around the mission house and do the little behind the scenes things! First it started out going through boxes and getting items out for our hygiene kits we were to make. We had to sort everything out. My table got stuck with sorting and opening tooth brushes, toothpaste and floss. I have never seen so much toothpaste! It was also! We also had tables full of soap, shampoo, conditioner, lotions, razors, you name it, it was there for the hygiene kits. And the best part was knowing it had all been donated. After we did the kits we had to go back to the bodega to unload yet another container and man this one has the BIG stuff in it!! And sadly we didn’t have nearly the men we had had the night before! However, we still got the job completed successfully! After we unloaded back to the mission house we went. Now it was my time to be a pill pusher/drug dealer, however you want to say it! We had TONS and TONS of medicine donated and we had to go through and count pills and label the drugs! This would have been a miserable task however knowing I was doing it for the people of Honduras and I had Karen & Haley by my side for nonstop laughing made it a wonderful task! We were in this room for hours upon hours sorting pills. The worst thing we had to do was the TUMS!!! I have never liked those things cause of the smell…well I had to overcome that!! I don’t even know how many TUMS we bottled up but it was A LOT!!!! But Karen, Haley, & I made some good memories! After being a pill pusher we had our devo and got Saturday’s game plan!
Saturday July 3-
I was really looking forward to Saturday because my brother, Matthew and his wife Hannah and some other good friends…Zach and Meagan were arriving. I decided to take on a new challenge…I helped build a house. I really went out on a limb because I didn’t know anyone I was going to build with. I forgot what mom did that day. But it was a good thing I went solo for a day. I met new people so it was good. However I liked building houses but maybe not my favorite thing todo…and also we had too much help so I felt worthless most of the day! And there weren’t many kids around to play with either! However, when we finally left to get back on the bus to head to the mission house…we left a family with a roof over their head…which they didn’t have that morning!! Such a great feeling!! And I was really tired ready to get on the bus and sit down…did we no we had a full bus!! ha BUT I was the last one on the bus and guess who was sitting in the front seat of the bus..MATTHEW AND HANNAH!! Boy was I excited!! At this point I was ok standing for the bus ride because I had them to talk to. I was so glad they were there!! Once we got back to the mission house I took a shower and read some of my book for my masters program! Then we had dinner and devo- the usual and the hang out time!
Sunday July 4-
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY…from Honduras! Not your typical 4th no fireworks but that’s ok!! We got to sleep in this morning which was good! After a few short days of work I was exhausted!! We then went to see the TORCH guys play the Cobras- Honduras Police in soccer! It was fun all the “soccer guys” (Matthew, Nate, Nino, Rudy, and Mariano) and some other guys that play soccer played. It was fun watching all the guys play and we won!!!!!!!!!!! 3-2 I believe was the score! After we left the game we went to get something to eat and went out to the Valley of Angels. This is a cool place to shop and just walk around! After there we went to the Jesus Statue for our church service! WOW This was my first time to go there and it was beautiful. It’s a huge statue of Jesus that overlooks the city! Breathtaking!! We had an awesome devo- the singing out there was great! (Made me miss the Clayton chapel days at FHU!) After the devo we go back to the mission house! Sunday was a nice relaxing day- helped us prepare for the amazing week we had ahead of us!!

Well I am going to stop here for now! The rest of the week will be coming soon!!! And I’ll add pictures later too!!