bayou bound

it's been six years since hurricane katrina swept through new orleans, but the recovery effort still marches on. in some areas of the city there are no obvious signs of the destruction caused by the storm, but in other spots the scars are still very evident. in the span of a block you will see many well cared for homes with fresh coats of paint, but sprinkled between are abandoned homes with overgrown lawns that have yet to be salvaged from the storm. the large X's that search crews used to mark the homes when checking for survivors are still visible all across the city. there is still work to be done.

my mom and i went down to louisiana with a team from calvary to work with an organization called touch global. they have been there since the beginning and are committed to continue serving the community, long after most of the other relief agencies have moved out. the majority of the people still needing assistance have similar stories. they hired contractors to rebuild their homes with the money received from insurance settlements, government assistance, etc., but instead of completing the needed repairs on the homes these contractors skipped town, money in hand. touch global has a waiting list of people still needing help so we headed down to serve wherever we were needed.

our team of seven ladies spent the week working at jj's house. the overall goal was to make some progress on scraping, sanding and priming the house...but we also caulked, weeded and removed a chain link fence. since our touch global site supervisor was in charge of multiple work sites, i put my habitat skills to work and became our job foreman. while we did get some work accomplished, my favorite part of this trip by far was our team. we had a ton of fun listening to heidi's stories, dancing on the sidewalk and enjoying each others company. it was a 24-7 laugh fest.

after our work week was over my mom, heidi and i stayed an extra day to explore new orleans and soak up the cajun culture. we had beignets at cafe du monde, walked along the riverfront, rode the streetcars, strolled through tulane university, listened to live music and experienced a night on bourbon street.

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a day in the life at project manuelito

there's a certain rhythm of life we encounter in honduras. this being my third visit to the project, i know the pattern of the days. it's an amusing balance of a predictable schedule, coupled with the necessary flexibility needed when encountering the latin american culture. a culture where plans are virtually unnecessary, due to the fact that they often tend to change on a minute by minute basis. but even so, this is a fairly accurate glimpse of a day in the life of the manuelito family...

1: the big white bus that gets us to and from teguc for the week

2: we wake up to this glorious honduran sky...the sky is SOOO big here!

3: the kids get dressed in their school uniforms and we all eat breakfast together

4: manuelito now has it's own school on the property, the kids are in classes between breakfast and lunch [which is a typical school day here]

5: when the kids go to school, we go to work...this almost always involves the mixer and bags of cement

6: my first job was bending two hundred pieces of pencil rod into rectangles

7: then everyone else used metal wire to tie them to the rebar to make 'baskets'

8: then the baskets were laid on top of the walls to create the header...this was later filled with concrete

9: once school lets out, we usually end up with a few eager helpers

10: in the afternoon the kids have different chores to do like sorting beans or cutting grass with machetes...that one is not fun, i tried it

11: and of course there is never a shortage of laundry to be done

12: these guys are often wandering by and like to 'help' with the laundry...and by 'help' i mean they eat the clothes off the line when no one is looking

13: usually the kids have some homework to do...there was a lot of cursive letter practice going on last week

14: there is also time in the afternoon and evening to just play...soccer is usually the most popular option

15: once we're done working for the day we get to play too

16: electricity at the project can be sketchy. we went without for about thirty hours in a row this time...a record for our particular group. this is what no electricity looks like. no electricity means no running water. no running water means bucket showers and bucket flushes.

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my mexican birthday

our first full day in mexico just happened to fall on what i consider to be a very special day. i woke up to a house full of birthday signs, hung by my very favorite mom. after breakfast we got to work and spent the day on some projects at the wgm guest house in saltillo. my mom and i constructed some window screens, then helped out the painting crew. and that night i was given a super fun birthday cake.

the rest of our week was spent at one of my favorite kinds of places...camp. since my affinity for summer camp is no secret, it seemed quite fitting that this is where we were able to work for the week. the camp is located up in the mountains, about an hour away from the city. we were helping to prepare for family camp, which meant cleaning, building bunk beds, pouring a sidewalk, deconstructing a fallen retaining wall, replacing a water heater and a bunch of other odd jobs i've already forgotten. of course we also managed to squeeze in some necessary mexican culture...specifically churros and fried corn. they were delicious.

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my favorite week of the year

last week i checked another item off my bucket list when i came out of retirement and reclaimed my original role of counselor at kids camp. i hadn't had a cabin for the past few years and i was ready to get back in the mix. [although i did miss the nightly laughs and conversation at the "pub"] i had a really fun group of fourth grade girls and almost no drama. i'm not sure if i got lucky or if i'm just that good.

aside from the girls themselves, my favorite thing this year was the music...hands down. dave milliken also came out of retirement and graced us with songs from camps gone by. it was a great trip down memory lane and i loved every minute of it. especially the time he broke out "grandma's in the cellar" at the campfire. gooberdinky's and all.

these are my cute girls

fun story. one day during cabin devotions the topic was having a peaceful heart. we talked about things we're afraid of and how God is always with us and can help us when we're afraid. after the discussion the girls all got a blank pillowcase and some fabric markers to decorate it with. the instructions were simply to draw or write things that would remind them that God will be with them when they are afraid. about ten minutes later gracie [who had sat on the inflatables for the whole hour that morning because she was afraid of the fish in the lake] came back with this little gem...

it says: "i ain't afraid of no fish. i will jump in very happily next year. i will not sit on the inflatables the whole time next year."  how great is that? i wish it were next year already...i'm having withdrawals!

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the cruise report

old people are great. not only are they entertaining to be around [you never know what they'll say next] they are also good for your self-esteem. they were always telling me how nice i looked at dinner and how much fun i am. plus they laughed at all my jokes. i've never felt better about myself. the only drawback is the fact that 99% of all conversations end up on the topic of medication. but hey...nothings perfect. we had a wonderful time. ate a ton, went on some adventures and laughed a lot. here's a quick rundown of the highlights:

day one:

• i imposed a "mandatory" tour of the entire ship for my mom, bonnie, gary and myself [which i know jenn is proud of]
• discovered the best dessert of the week: fruit crisp. i know it sounds simple, but it was stinkin' amazing. we ate it every day.
• began our nightly card playing ritual

day two: @ sea

• relaxed in the sun
• met my favorite towel animal of the week...elmer

day three: grand turk

• went kayaking and 'hiking'...and even brought my mom along
• starred in a cruise ship tv show [slight exaggeration: i just kept walking back and forth behind the cruise director as he filmed the daily bulletin for the next day, but i was on tv all day long!]

day four: san juan

• flew through the rain forest on a zip line
• visited the bar that invented the pina colada

day five: st. thomas

• underwater sea helmet trek...definitely the most unique adventure of the trip

day six: @ sea

• played cards by the pool
• dressed up for formal night
• found out i won the oscar ballot contest...and i had a gift bag of goodies and a bottle of champagne waiting for me in our room

day seven: half moon cay

• read in a hammock on the beach and floated in the ocean
• went jet skiing with gary
• ate the final fruit crisp of the week...sadly
• found a five dollar casino chip. put it on red. doubled the money.

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cruisin' with the classics

one short week from today i'll be setting sail for a week in the carribbean, where it is a lovely eighty degrees. just me, my mom and a rousing group that is essentially made up of senior citizens.

a few months ago my mom started talking about wanting to go on a cruise with the classics from church. [read: the sixty and over crowd] she asked around to see if any of her friends would be interested and/or available to go and when they weren't, i got the nod to be her roommate. score one for me. i immediately went to work convincing bonnie and gary to come along as well.

i envision a lot of laying in the sun, reading, playing games [bonnie LOVES games] and most importantly...eating. i am so looking forward to multiples meals of real food every day. we're sailing from ft. lauderdale on a holland america ship and will be porting in grand turk, san juan, st. thomas and half moon cay. we've looked into shore excursions and i'm holding out hope that we might even get my mom into a kayak.

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honduran happiness

i read a good article the other day about finding happiness, here's a bit of what it said:

"...one of the keys to happiness is strong relationships with other people. so when you're deciding how to spend your money, consider whether the purchase will strengthen your relationships. if you're trying to choose between spending money on a train ticket to visit a friend or on a new pair of boots, the visit to your friend will bring more happiness in the long run. experiences tend to make us happier than stuff..."

while i think this is a good rule for life in general, i realized that it's also a great description for short term missions. this past week i felt like i learned so much about the ministries in honduras and especially the people. this was the second year my mom and i had gone with calvary to this same project. since we already had a foundation of friendship, we were able to get to know people better and see their hearts for this ministry.

on our last night jorge pinto, who is a honduran pastor and the 'father' of project manuelito, was talking to our team about how some people only want to send money to support the project. while this is an obvious need, he talked about how important it is to come and meet the children face to face. sending money and helping in other ways is great, but nothing can compare to becoming friends with both the kids and the staff, and being a part of their lives.

during the week we spent time working in talanga painting the new school, enlarging the tool shed and other random projects. we took a trip to el sembrador, which is an impressive farm school for underprivileged boys. [this was a highlight for me...it really gave us a vision of what manuelio could be like in another forty or fifty years] but the best, and most important part, was the time we spent playing with the kids and struggling through our spanglish with our honduran friends. i really like them.

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ode to kids camp

calvary kids camp is the bomb,

i even get to bring my mom;

there's crafts and games and so much fun,

and swimming in the summer sun;

we learn a lot and make new friends,

i wish that it would never end;

the best is when we dance and sing,

to celebrate the risen King!

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me gusta mexico mucho

i have returned from a great week in the land of sombreros...complete with guacamole, churros and an infinite number of trips to the super chico for be-light.

we did quite a bit of manual labor at the orphanage...the main projects were:

• painting, moving and installing a playground for the kids [which involved, among other things, lots of hole digging and the risk of being impaled by rebar]
• cleaning up the property, removing thorny brush and shoveling rock
• putting the finishing touches on the new bedrooms and bathrooms for the kids [resulting in "the incident" - daryl and i accidentally getting high on some serious paint fumes...now that's what i call a memory]

we accomplished much more than we thought would be possible in one short week, but the highlight was most definitely the kids. they are fun, loving and pretty hilarious...listening to them laugh is one of my favorite things.

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to mexico i go

a week from today i'll be heading back to the 'house of joy' orphanage in san pedro mexico. i was there last october, just two weeks after they officially opened their doors. on that trip our team of five helped make their new house a home by painting the interior and having fun playing with the seven kids who lived there. we also heard some sweet stories about our new friends ruby and lizeth, and spent a lot of time cracking up at little aneth's laugh.

our team has grown to nine and it sounds like the orphanage has grown to seventeen! the plan this time is to install ceiling fans in the interior, build a playground outside and create a fire-pit with a seating area on the property. we're excited to see how the building has progressed in the six months since we've seen it, but we're even more excited to see our friends again! [one can only hope that our serenading drunk friend will pay us another visit]

after our last trip, heidi [our fearless leader] made a 2010 calendar with pictures from our visit and sent it to the kids. our april trip was already marked and terry [the missionary] tells us the kids are counting down the days! here they are looking at the photos and anticipating our arrival...

although, if i'm honest, i do have to say that one of the driving forces behind my desire to go on this trip has to do with the guys that sell fried dough out of their pickup trucks...it's mmm mmm good.

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word to the tithe

i mean really, this is some serious sunday morning entertainment...

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what makes a little girl smile

this is lizeth, she is eight years old. i met lizeth and her two younger sisters a few weeks ago on a trip to mexico.

lizeth is a serious little girl. before coming to live at casa hogar de gozo she had a lot of responsibilities. her mom went to work very early in the morning and did not come home until very late at night, so lizeth was in charge of taking care of herself and her sisters most of the time. she made sure they were dressed and fed, if there was food to be had that day. recently the three girls were invited to come live at the orphanage run by a couple named pedro and zoila.

during our visit, we noticed that lizeth and her sisters had pretty bad cases of head lice. so when we went shopping to get some toothbrushes, toothpaste and some other items to leave for the kids, we picked up some lice shampoo as well. to be honest, i wondered if it would even make a difference, knowing that it would be difficult to get rid of the lice altogether. before we left, we made sure zoila knew what the shampoo was for and we said our goodbyes.

yesterday our team received an e-mail from the missionary we traveled with. he wanted to tell us this story. last friday lizeth was looking in the mirror with a smile on her face as zoila fixed her hair for school. zoila asked her why she was smiling so big and lizeth said, "this is the first time in my life i do not have any head lice and the kids can't tease me anymore!"

it doesn't take much to make a little girl smile.

on that same trip i also met ruby. she is eighteen. when we were visiting i had a very hard time getting ruby to let me take her picture...and now i know why. ruby has a bad front tooth and recently told zoila that she is really embarassed about her appearance and smile. it will cost $950 american dollars for two years of braces to fix her teeth. to me, that's a lot of money...but to ruby, it's unthinkable. i want to help change ruby's life, and maybe you will too.

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una semana en mexico

our small but mightily hilarious team of five just returned from a week in san pedro mexico. [which is outside hermosillo for those of you with stellar mexican geography skills.] there is an orphanage there called casa hogar de gozo which just opened two weeks before our arrival. right now there are seven children from three families living there, so we spent the week helping them make their new house a home. we painted all the interior rooms with fun, bright colors and gave the doors and windows a fresh coat of paint. there is still work to be done, but eventually they hope to house fifty to sixty children here.

this is lizeth, the mexican jumping bean

this trip also provided one of the funniest mexican experiences ever. one evening we were sitting on the porch chatting and laughing while the kids played around us, when a man in a cowboy hat appeared out of nowhere and joined the group. he joined right in the festivities and started singing to us. at first we assumed he must be friends of the couple that runs the orphanage, but we soon realized he was just a random drunk man who wandered through the gate and onto the property. he was the friendly sort, though we didn't understand a word he said. he entertained us for about twenty minutes until the police came and kindly offered him a place to stay for the night. here is a bit of his little song...

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happy times in honduras

*disclaimer* - sorry if i worried some of you with the last post...the policemen always come along when they take groups to the street [political crisis or not] just as a precaution. we were safe the whole time!

that said, i have to admit i was surprised at how fond i became of this country in one short week. other than knowing it was somewhere in central america, honduras wasn't really on my radar as a place i was too interested in. there are, of course, many similarities to mexico, which isn't a surprise. but i was amazed at how beautiful it was, especially the bright blue of the sky. and i'm not really sure why, but their flag is one of my favorites. [maybe it had to do with all the soccer fans waving and wearing it everywhere]

we spent the week in the town of talanga, about an hour from tegucigalpa, with a bunch of lovable kids. they all come with different stories, but the bottom line is that at some point they each found themselves without anyone to care for or about them. most had been living on the streets for a period of time, forced to take on the responsibility of a grown up at much too young an age. but thankfully, God decided to give a man a desire to help these kids, and project manuelito was born. there are now thirty six kids who are off the streets and are instead being fed, loved and cared for by some very dedicated people.

our main job was just to love the kids and have fun with them. it's really cool how they consider those that come to visit as their family. we also had some work to do, as in manual labor. the biggest project was to finish pouring a sidewalk from the dorm to the dining hall. i managed to get in a little weight training as i pushed the wheelbarrows of cement back and forth from the mixer to the sidewalk. there was also some painting, sewing, washing and other little projects to take care of.

what made this trip different from any other i've been on is getting to see the same kids all day, every day. even though they mostly spoke spanish and we mostly spoke english, we were able to laugh and play together. [and just in case you were wondering, high school musical crosses all cultural and language barriers] these kids are all special and very unique. i don't really know how to get it across in words, so i'll just let you see them for yourself...

sara

cristian

jenni

sara kisses

while i'm so thankful that these kids are being loved, there are so many more on the street right this minute who don't have anyone to care for them. to help them all is an overwhelming task, but you gotta start somewhere. there are currently over 20,000 street children in honduras, or as they like to say at manuelito...20,000 minus 36.

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a landing to remember

our honduras adventure began with quite an entrance. we had heard stories of the bumpy landings that are common in the tegucigalpa airport. the runway is very short, making it a difficult place to land a plane. in fact, there are a limited number of pilots who are even certified to fly here. so needless to say, we were prepared for a less than smooth landing. as we bumped down on the runway, i thought “is that all? that was a lot of hype for nothing.” immediately following that thought the plane banked hard to the right, and lets just say if i hadn’t been wearing my seatbelt, this aisle seat passenger would have been plastered to the window. you know the landing was exciting when the pilot comes on the intercom during taxi and simply says “wow”.

saturday night we stayed in tegucigalpa, the capital city. after dinner jeremy [an american missionary] took us out to the streets to hand out some food and see where the kids at project manuelito come from. there were less kids than usual, probably due to the recent political issues and government curfews. many of the ones we did see were high on glue and pretty out of it. while it's hard to see kids living in those conditions with no hope, it does make me excited for sunday afternoon when we'll get to talanga and get to meet the kids that have been blessed with a chance for a better life.

we had a personal police escort for our night on the street, so i'll leave you with a picture of my new friends...

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simply be who you are, where you are

that's a quote the bible study girls and i came up with while we studied ecclesiastes this summer, and that's what i hope to do next week in honduras.

my mom and i are leaving in the morning with a team from calvary, our church in st. louis, to spend a week at project manuelito. calvary has been partnering with this ministry for a few years now. it is a place for kids who were formerly living on the streets to live, be loved and have the opportunity to choose a different kind of life for themselves.

we know we'll be doing a lot of "handy work" around the property...fixing things, painting, washing clothes, etc. we're also planning on giving out a lot of smiles, laughter and hugs. but as with most mission trips, we'll never really know until we get there.

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africa the sequel

we finished up our vbs and headed out of town for our two day safari at mvuu camp. our first day there we went for a game drive, during which you are given strict instructions to stay inside the jeep. twenty minutes into the drive our jeep broke down, so we all had to climb down in order to switch vehicles and gallivant around with the animals a bit. the drive began in the afternoon and lasted until evening so we could also see the animals at night with a large spotlight one of the guides had. once night fell and it was good and dark...we got a flat tire. out again we went, into the wilderness. thankfully there were no elephant stampedes passing by at the time.

round two of ministry was working with save orphans ministries in ntcheu. we spent some time loving on kids at an aids clinic. there are about fifty kids that spend friday, saturday and sunday at this clinic getting medicine, nutritious food and learning about the love of Jesus. the kids don’t look any different than the other kids around, but all of them have tested positive for hiv and most won’t make it past the age of fifteen or twenty at the most. but they were just as happy as can be singing, playing and laughing. we gave out lots of hugs and were able to encourage them by just reminding them that there are people out there who love them and care about them…they are not forgotten.

my girl zondiwe

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three days in africa and so much to say

in the mornings we've been doing a vbs at the african bible college for the children of the missionaries and the kids that live in the city [as opposed to villages]. these kids are educated, well fed and have families. not the sort of kids you generally think of people going to serve in africa. but whenever teams come they want to help with orphans and these kids are often overlooked. it's been great to see how much they've been looking forward to and enjoying this week. and many of the parents have expressed how much it means to them for someone to come do something for their children too.

monday afternoon we took an authentic trip to the market. we hopped on malawian public transportation [which is an adventure all by itself] with our shopping list, which included a chicken. that's right...a live chicken. which we carried home. on the mini bus. and ate for dinner.

tuesday we walked about thirty minutes into a nearby village to help feed orphans their afternoon meal. it was like a parade. all the kids would yell "azungu" [white people] and run after us waving. it was so cute. the kids we were feeding and playing with all loved to get their pictures taken...all together i think our nine person team left the village with approximately one gazillion pictures. thank goodness for digital.

wednesday we spent a couple hours at a crisis nursery holding and feeding babies. if malawi allowed international adoptions to people other than madonna, we would have had a few more passengers coming home with us for sure.

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the best welcome ever

after spending an obscene number of hours on an airplane, i am really in africa. it's a bit surreal still...we just arrived at the african bible college in malawi this afternoon, so i haven't had too many adventures just yet. [unless of course you include the countless times we've loaded, unloaded, checked and claimed our seventeen pieces of luggage] but we've already seen why malawi is called "the warm heart of africa". as our plane from johannesburg to lilongwe was taxiing to the terminal today, our nine person team [all conveniently located on the left side of the plane] looked out our windows to see this...

in case it's too small for you to read, the banner on the right says "welcome calvary church . vbs 2009 . abc malawi". the funny part was that i had just remarked earlier that day how fun it is to be greeted at the airport with a sign...and there it was! it's really nice to be loved.

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kids camp 2008

i've spent the past week at one of my all time favorite places...camp! i was at kids camp with calvary using my mad assistant nurse skills. i really enjoy getting to spend time with calvary people during the week, especially since i don't see them very often. i've been support staff at camp for the past couple years [as opposed to a counselor] so i get some extra adult time to chat with the pastors and leaders that are there. let me tell you, they are some seriously fun people, and they can really make you laugh.

[don't tell, but ben's my favorite!]

mom and me

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