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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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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fun flight facts

total air miles traveled from june 2009 to present: 30,080

most surprising inflight movie selection: summer catch [starring jessica biel and freddie prinze jr.]

best airport food find: nathan's corn dog nuggest for $2.50

annoying airline that doesn't give you a snack even when you're flying across the country: united/u.s. air

most exciting airport for landing: tegucigalpa, honduras

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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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