Some memories.

As I approach my first trip back to the States I want to take a moment to share some of my favorite moments from the past eight months, in photos. 

October- meeting the kids and seeing some of them make their First Communion

November- joining the social work team... here we are!!!

December- Christmas which included a visit from our Foundress and her children, plenty of new clothes, backpacks, and toys for the kids, and this Nativity play (the highlight was definitely when one of the “angels” got mad at her older sister for messing her part).

January- attending my first Quinceñera...

...and welcoming a new child to the Finca

February- cows on the beach (this is actually one of my favorite things year around, it’s such a paradox to me)

March- Backpacking to Belize with my friend and fellow missionary Sara to visit my friends from Benedictine, Shelby, Sean, and Russell. 

April- Easter and a missionary adventure to one of the top ten most beautiful places I’ve ever been (which is less than an hour drive from where we live). 

Also, going fishing with the youngest boys...

May- Celebrating the 17th anniversary of the Finca with a Marian Festival featuring songs written and performed by the kids and their caregivers.  

I hope this gave you a small look into my life as a missionary these past eight months. I’ll try to include more pictures in the future, unfortunately, my camera has a tendency to stop working every time something exciting happens so to give credit where credit is due, most of the above photos were taken by other missionaries. 

Pila 101

This is a pila*...

*lion's head not usually included but one of my fellow missionaries saw someone selling them on the side of the road and bought it, I like it, it reminds me of Europe

...it is my washing machine.
Actually, it's not a machine at all but it's very effective for washing clothes (provided that the person washing the clothes is a capable clothes washer). Here's how it works: As you can see, on the left, the water comes out of the spigot (or in this case the lion's mouth) and is caught in a basin. This is a really handy feature around here because we often don't have running water. The right side of the pila is where you do the washing, so if I were to wash my shirt, I would place it over the washboard, use the little blue bowl to pour water on it (this is really important, you always use something clean to pour water from the left side to the right side, if you dunk your dirty clothes in the basin then you no longer have a clean water supply), next I would lather it up with soap (which conveniently comes in the shape of a cylinder so that you can just roll it over the clothes, and then get to scrubbing. Once I've nicely scrubbed my shirt using the washboard, I dump more clean water over it to rinse out the soap, ring out my shirt and put it outside on the line to (hopefully) dry. I love doing laundry, I find it relaxing and I always listen to music while I'm washing my clothes.
...and my dishwasher...
We also have another pila in the kitchen (without a lion's head), except that instead of a washboard on the right side there is just a drain in the middle like a normal sink. We wash all of our dishes there, if you have to wash all of your dishes by hand it's a lot more effective to dump a bowl of water on them than to try to rinse them off with the little stream of water that comes out of the sink. In fact, when I encounter normal sinks I get really confused and have a slight panic attack- what is this contraption? how do I use it? where is the water basin? I have to turn it on?
It's going to be hard to go back to using a sink... and maybe even a washing machine...

Some Stories

The past few weeks I've had some really thought-provoking experiences in Honduras which I would like to share with you:
One morning I was sitting on a porch selling shoes (we were selling the shoes which were too small for our kids so that we could get rid of things we didn't need and use the money to buy the shoes which we do need) and a woman was sitting on the porch with me waiting for the clinic to open so that she could go see a specialist which was in town. The woman began talking to me and telling me about her life. It was the story of so many Honduran woman. She was from a town up in the mountains and had walked over two hours to see the doctor about back pain she had lived with for years. She was in her thirties and had four kids ages 20, 18, 16, and 7. The kid's father(s) had left her and she was struggling to make ends meet with the help of her oldest kid who had to leave school because of financial reasons, her second oldest was studying in the university. She told me "this is what we [women] do here, work hard to try to provide for our kids because the men leave us to do it alone." Machismo culture is still predominant in Honduras and the sad reality is that many woman do settle down with a man and have a few kids with him and then afterwards he leaves her and she has to find a way to make ends meet. It is always a blessing when I see a man caring for his children, attending church with his family, and not only providing money for his kids but also actively participating in their lives, unfortunately it doesn't happen often enough here.
One day I was on the bus from Trujillo to La Ceiba and the food vendors were coming up to the bus selling food and sodas (actually, one of my favorite parts about riding the bus is bus food, yes Mom I eat it, no I don't get sick). I bought a bag of popcorn balls and mango slices from some kids selling food on the bus wondering each time what their lives were like, whether they had parents, whether they got to go to school in the morning. A really nice man came onto the bus selling bread (which I couldn't buy because I had already eaten too many popcorn balls), he was nice and stopped to chat with some of the people riding the bus. I noticed he had a wedding ring and wondered about his family, where his food came from, maybe his wife made it, whether he had kids and if selling food on the bus everyday was enough to support his family.
Last weekend on of my kids was in the hospital and I spent the day with her on Sunday. One of our nurses had been with her the night before and when I asked her if she wanted me to bring her anything in the morning she asked for hand sanitizer and toilet paper because they didn't have any toilet paper or soap in the bathrooms. We sat in the hospital all day waiting to leave but unable to because the doctor doesn't come in until the evening on Sundays. I watch the kids play in a sitting room during lunch wondering why they were in the hospital and overheard their mother talking about how they wanted to leave too but also had to wait for the doctor to come and give them the okay. There are some things we take for granted that should be taken for granted because we should always be able to have them, like doctors, soap, and toilet paper in hospitals, and yet so many people don't had access to them.
This is life in Honduras (and I'm sure in many other places all over the world). Please pray for everyone who has to go without lives basic necessities especially the last couple weeks of this Lenten season.

A Day in the Life

One thing that people often ask me is "what is an average day like for you?" or "what is your schedule like everyday?". Well, as a social worker at a children's home in Honduras, I think it's safe to say, I don't have an average day. My "typical" day is waking up every morning and knowing that my day will probably be anything but "typical" and definitely will not go as planned. For example, last night, I was planning on going to the office after dinner and working on case notes and some other paperwork while listening to my Friday Night Country playlist (because nothing says Friday night like sitting in your office doing paperwork), but then one of the girls in one of my houses asked me if I would come help here with her division homework (and you just can't say no to a kid who wants to do their homework on a Friday night) and then one of the other girls asked me to bring a game so that we could play afterwards (we ended up playing Disney princess addition flash cards, classic), so at the end of the day I could safely say that I'm still behind on office work (as always) but what I did with my time was probably way more important in the long run. So, in order to answer the question "what exactly are you doing in Honduras anyway?", I've decided to start a new blog series called "A Day in the Life," which will be sporadic like all of my blogs, and will capture some of my "typical," or not so typical, days at the Finca. Here I go... 

A Day in the Life, mid-January, 2013

2:30 am- I wake up to the sound of rain pounding on the "techo" (rooftop)

3:00 am- I wake up to the same sound thinking it's a few hours later

5:45 am- it's raining really hard again

6:13 am- I wake up to my alarm clock, it's still raining really hard

6:17 am- I get out of bed even though I know if it's been raining this hard we probably won't have morning prayer

6:21 am- I look outside, these are the biggest waves I've ever seen here, there's no morning prayer, but I decide to stay up and write a letter instead of going back to bed

8:30 am- today would be a "rain day," [the Central American equivalent of a snow day (go ahead and smirk, I used to smirk at it too but (1) we can't make it to town to pick up our vegetables or go to the bank because the rivers are too high and (2) even if you don't have to drive through a river there is no way to walk anywhere without getting wet,  unless you own a rain suit, which most of us don't] except that there is a psychologist visiting and giving training for all of the staff and we need to "aprovechar" his time here, so I put on every bit of rain protection gear that I own (and make sure to wear my Christmas socks under my rain boots  because when else are you going to wear socks in Honduras?, thanks mom!), and I walk to house 3, the youngest boys house, to cover so that their tía can go to the charla. We also don't have electricity or water because of the storm (but that's nothing unusual here, it doesn't take a storm to lose either of those things)

8:30- 9:30 am- Things ten-year-old boys say: "El mar es furioso hoy" (the sea is furious today), "Hay un posa atras de nuestra casa" (there's a swimming hole behind our house), "¿Puedo traer Lolo a escuela del invierno?"-no, you can't bring your pet baby squirrel to winter school with you 

9:30 am- we run across the Finca to winter school during a slight break in the downpour, I tell the boy's we're playing a game: whoever gets to the bibilioteca the least wet wins. My game doesn't stop two boys from running into the pond that has formed next to the school, I arrive when they're already up to their knees in agua, luckily I stop them before they get their shorts wet. 

1:00 pm- during lunch the missionary coordinator informs us that we are "abajo de un aviso verde" for the next 48 hours, which means it will probably keep raining but there's no danger

5:30 pm- still no water, or electricity, good thing a "montón" of water is falling from the sky, we set up tambos in the courtyard and I start writing my journal by candlelight 

7:45 pm- HAY LUZ (we have electricity)

A "typical" day in the life of a Finca social worker...

Happy New Year

As we enter into 2013, I wanted to take a moment to share some of my favorite moments of 2012. So, if you were me, these would be some of your best memories from the past year in “that moment when” form. 

Top “That Moment When” Moments of 2012

1. That moment when you find the mission you want to be a part of the next two+ years of your life and you turn in the application the first day of your last semester of college
2. That moment when you get your picture taken with Carlos Gonzalez at Spring Training in Arizona- GO ROCKIES!
3. That moment when you are at a coffee date talking about how much you want to know whether or not you’ve been accepted to the Finca and you get a phone call two minutes later saying you’ve been accepted 
4. That moment when you commit to spending 27 months serving at a home for orphaned and abandoned children in Honduras
5. That moment when you graduate from college 
6. That moment when you are driving a jeep up a giant rock in Utah to celebrate graduating from college  
7. Those moments when you drive 6-10 hours to see your friends one last time before moving to Honduras
8. Those moments when all of three of your roommates from your senior year of college show up at your house within two weeks of each other (but, unfortunately not all at the same time)
9. That moment when you get to language school in Antigua, Guatemala and meet the four other people you will be sharing the next 2 1/2 years with 
10. That moment when you go swimming in a cave by candlelight in Guatemala
11. That moment when you arrive at your home for the next 2 years and meet the kids who you will come to know and love 
12. That moment when you receive a letter in Honduras 
13. That moment when you walk out of your room to find a dance party going on in the courtyard of your house
14. That moment when you jump off of a rock into a river 
15. That moment when the sun is out and the Caribbean Sea is your favorite shade of blue 
16. That moment when you’re playing soccer with the girls on New Years Eve and one of them says, very impressed and a little surprised, “Emily, sí puede jugar” (“Emily, you can play soccer”)
17. That moment when you score a goal playing soccer and every time the boys talk to you for the next three days they tell you how cool it was when you made a goal
18. That moment when after playing soccer you jump into the Caribbean Sea to cool off and play in the waves
19. That moment when you can’t walk for three days afterwards because you’re really out of shape
20. That moment when you realize how blessed you are to have had such a wonderful year

Happy New Year!!! I hope that this year is filled with blessings and moments of joy for you all as the past year was for me!!! 

Disconnected

“The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy.“ -Mother Teresa

I have been at the Finca for just over two months now and one of the challenges of living in Honduras is being disconnected from my family, friends, and culture. To give you an idea of where I’m coming from and where I am now:

I used to see my friends at college everyday...now I haven’t seen any of them since August. 

I used to be just a phone call or text message away, pretty much all the time... now I’m reachable by e-mail which I’ll get 3-4 weeks later or they can send me snail-mail which will reach me in about the same amount of time. 

I used watch at least a couple movies or TV shows a week... now I watch a movie about once a month. 

I used to check my Facebook account multiple times a day... now I’ve deactivated my Facebook account. 

I used to want to be constantly connected, reachable, in touch... now I’ve realized there are more important things and that any relationship worth having does not rely on being constantly connected but remains connected in thought and prayer. 

Many of you may have noticed that you don’t hear from me as often now. It is not because I don’t miss you or care about you but because I simply don’t have time to constantly be on the internet writing blog posts or responding to e-mails. I expected this adjustment to be hard but I think it’s been harder on the people back home than it has been for me here. For me, it is a freedom not to need to be constantly connected, to put all of my relationships in the hands of God and trust that even though I am far away they will become what they need to be. It is also a freedom not to be constantly sitting in front of the TV in boredom. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a great movie or a witty TV show now and then, but I’ve come to realized that the television has become a sort of “god” in our lives. It’s somehow expected to always provide entertainment, relaxation, or escape no matter how much we use it. Television can do all of those things, but not to the extent that many people use it. I know that back in the States many of you reading this rely on your SmartPhone to make your life run smoothly and Facebook is essential to planning an event. However, during this season of Advent and “season of giving, sharing, caring etc.”, I encourage you to take a step back and reflect on the words of Mother Teresa:

 “The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are.”

Then turn off your TV, computer, SmartPhone, even for just one hour and look around for the people who are waiting for you to give to them even a simple smile as you walk past on the street. Spend some time in prayer or reflection, volunteer at a soup kitchen, bake cookies for a friend, write a letter, or spend some time with someone who is lonely. I guarantee you that it will be more satisfying than the next episode of whatever your favorite TV show is. 

My New Home

I made it to the Finca!!! (Almost a month ago) My life has changed so much in the last month that it’s hard to decide where to start. I have been going through new missionary training and trying to learn all of the nuts and bolts of life at the Finca.

I also have a job!!! I will be serving as a social worker here at the Finca!!! I will be working with a second year missionary who is also a social worker, two Nicaraguan psychologists, a Franciscan sister, and eventually we are hoping to find a social worker to join our team as well. I will be in charge of three houses: Casa 1 (the youngest girls), Casa 3 (the youngest boys), and Casa 6 (the oldest girls). I have been training for my job the past few weeks and will officially begin on November 1st. I am both excited and a little bit intimidated to begin my job. I will also serve as a girl scout leader, tutor, and a member of the spiritual life committee this year.

So what is my life like? I’ve had so many new experiences the last month that it’s hard for me to even know where to begin. In many ways, my life here is too hard to explain, I don’t realize how different it is until I sit down and try to write about it and then I just end up spitting out random snippets such as: I live in a house with 19 other missionaries, I’ve learned how to wash my clothes by hand, I’m learning how to cook over a fire, and I’m learning how to be a social worker. So I guess that’s what this blog is going to be for the next two years random snippets, stories, and thoughts that attempt to describe an experience beyond words.