Reading Month

As the month of November closes, I reflect back on all the fun stuff I was able to do with the boys at the Alison Bilingual School. Ever since I arrived (for full time) back in August, the boys want to read more and more each day. At first, it was like pulling teeth. This was understandable when some of them couldn't even read their own language and are in 2nd grade. 3 (of the 6) of the boys are much more advanced than the others.

The oldest, Nelson (pictured above), is in 5th grade and basically fluent in English. He has enough potential to be the next president of Honduras in my opinion, but maybe that's the mom in me speaking. Either way - I believe it wholeheartedly. He can have a bit of a temper, but we're working on that. This picture was taken back at the International Fair in October - where Nelson and I proudly made an Israeli cocktail (minus alcohol, clearly). He was so proud we sold every last drop.

There are 4 in second grade - Daniel, Cristian, Norman and Luis. The best way to describe them is that they are all freaks. I love them for this. I'm a bit of a freak myself. They exhaust me. But "valen la pena" - which translate to mean "they are worth it". This picture is missing Luis, but includes Jose Alexander - who is in 1st grade. This was taken the night I took the boys to the "pajama party" at school. We got to wear pj's to school, read books to the kids, and drink hot chocolate and eat Christmas cookies. SO FUN!

This picture was taken this morning at "Dress as your favorite Character in a book" day. That's a mouthful, but as you can see - it was precious. All the boys dressed up as superheroes. These costumes are the greatest - shout out to whoever donated them a while back. This is Luis and Daniel and one of their classmates. Needless to say, it was a great month at JEC and at Alison Bixby.

On a different note, I head home in 13 days. I can't wait to be with all you beautiful people.

My Week in Pictures

Too busy to post a blog - hope you enjoy the pictures :)

Nelson, Juan David, and Luis after they decorated their first Christmas tree

Sweet Shelly let me paint her fingernails at the soccer game.

LOTS of Christmas decorating going on. All thanks to Harpeth Hills Youth Group!!!

Took these boys to a Pajama Party at their school on Thursday.

My own personal Christmas cheer :)

Yummy food.

Things I Miss

While I do absolutely love being here in Honduras (mainly because of these boys and how easily they have stolen my heart day-by-day), there are a few things I dearly miss. This is my top 20.

1. My family

2. My friends

3. TJ Maxx & Target

4. Real cheeseburgers (not fast food)

5. WALGREENS

6. Eating foods that 1 of the main ingredients isn’t OIL

7. the YMCA

8. Driving a car

9. HOT SHOWERS

10. Chick-fil-A

11. Tank, Maddux, Wig & the cats

12. Speaking english (every now and then)

13. JULIA PARTIES.

14. My grandmothers

15. Church worship... songs here don't actually have a tune

16. Watching the leaves change colors as it gets colder

17. High school and college football

18. Mrs. Wanda's home cooking

19. LAS PALMAS

20. Cooking my own food

Halloween Recap

For those of you who know me, you're well aware Halloween is my favorite holiday (second best only to the birth of Jesus Christ - which I fully celebrate). This picture should come to no surprise to any of you. I had little resources here, and I had honestly planned on not celebrating the holiday entirely until some friends informed me they would be throwing ME (hehe) a halloween party. I decided to buy simple black and white paint and go for it.

I was inspired by the Jay Z music video, "On to the Next One", that I saw "back in college" (that sounds weird). The guys face was painted all white with only teeth and black eyes. As weird as it is to say, I fell in love with the idea for Halloween. Here was my perfect opportunity, and I sprinted full speed ahead with it. I simply added a skeleton nose and was done with it. Hope you like :)

My Crazy, Movie-esque Life Lately

First off I have been very blessed to have help from one of my very best friends, Sarah Catherine Thetford, and her boyfriend, Richy, here at Jovenes the past month and a half. I know this picture is far away, but we were more concerned about getting as much of the scenery in the picture than us being close to the camera.

Scat, Richy, and myself have been working ourselves like dogs the past few weeks, but it may be better to just say “working a normal day” that the employees here work day-to-day. It’s consisted of 2 weeks of waking up everyday at 4:30AM and doing the following:

4:30- wake up, get ourselves ready

5:00- wake up the boys, get them showered, teeth brushed, dressed, beds made, and hair gelled

6:00-taking all 18 boys to breakfast

6:15- getting the juice boxes filled, snacks in lunchbox deal

6:30- all boys (except 6) on the bus and ready to leave for school with backpacks/lunchboxes

7:00- one of the 3 of us take the 6 boys who attend bilingual school to their campus to drop them off

7:30/8:00- start cleaning (sigh)

8-10:30- CLEAN: sweeping everything, mopping everything, washing pee-stained bed sheets & PJs, & cleaning pee smelling bathrooms (the worst job I’ve ever had)

11:30- eat lunch with the high schoolers & prepare bilingual school lunches to take to campus

12:00- take lunches & deliver to Alison Bilingual school

12:20-12:40- their lunch... we wait until they finish, pick up dishes, and head home

12:30- boys from public school arrive, change clothes, wash hands, and eat lunch

1:00- play time

2:00- public school homework sessions

2:30- head to Alison to pick up 6 boys at bilingual school

3:00- return home, change their clothes, continue washing clothes

4:30-5:30- Alison boys' homework session

5:30- heat up/prepare dinner

6:00- serve dinner to yellow house boys

6:30-8 - the boys play and finish HW if they hadn't already finished earlier in the day

8:00- bed time

8:30- I die.

All of this day-to-day routine doesn’t include soccer games, after-school activities, or anything else that usually pops up last minute. We had Lindy here for the first week of this, and the second week it was just us 3. While at the end of everyday I laid my head down on my pillow counting the hours until I had to wake up to repeat the day again, I remembered the fact that these employees are here day in and day out and probably not getting paid nearly enough. This also goes without mentioning the families these employees have waiting on them to return each night. I seriously don’t know how they do it. These workers here are truly SERVANTS. They’re saints. I don’t know how they do it. All I can say is thank God for their presence here in JEC- it does not go unnoticed.

On a lighter note - I went to cross the border yesterday to renew my permission to be in the country. Of course we waited for the last day possible (it expired yesterday, the 23rd) which made me super nervous. Luckily - everyone here is usually super lax about all this stuff, so I just paid a heavy $3 and didn’t even have to pass the border. Elvin, the house parent in the yellow house, drove me in his tiny truck, and two of my best buds from my green house, Julio and Ochoa, went with us. Since we saved so much time by not crossing into Nicaragua, we treated ourselves to a delicious, sit-down meal in Danli, a city which is close to the border.

This is a picture of Kevin, who just turned 18 this past week. He has decided to go back to living with his father, who lives in a poor area about 8 hours from Teguc. While some of these kids have parents, the parents have chosen to give them up or simply cannot afford taking care of them. Kevin is a case of the later. Since he is now 18, he is not bound to be here, and he has chosen to go look for work and live with his father to help support his family. I wish him all the luck in the world. Kevin gave me a spiral notebook of love poems a few weeks ago and told me he would miss me. The poems were all hand written by his truly. Quite the gesture. Hope you are all well in TN or wherever you are - I can officially announce my arrival date is December 13th. Can’t wait to see you all over the holidays. You have been missed.

I love my job

This week was by far the hardest I've worked at a job in a long time. When people come to JEC, they see the happy faces, smiles, and picturesque moments. Unfortunately this is not real life. These boys are in fact, growing boys, and are mischievous, rough, and sometimes just plain mean. This doesn't make me love them any less, but this week I had the chance to see what life is truly like here 100%.

We were filling in for the house parents from the yellow house, Elvin and Mary. Elvin's sister had a baby, so they headed to the southern part of the country to spend a few days with family. The picture above is of Elvin, Mary, Scat, Richy, Lindy, and myself. This substitution included waking up every day at 4:30 in the morning to wake the boys up, make sure they were showered, dressed, brushing teeth, gel-ing their hair (when in Honduras), and ready to go eat breakfast by 6AM. This also included packing a snack for each of the 19 boys, washing all their dishes, clothes, and cleaning the entire house from top to bottom every day. I can now mop and clean bathrooms like a pro. It's pretty disgusting since they're a bunch of little boys. Naturally several of them pee the beds at night, so we have to deal with washing those sheets as well. After we took the boys to school each day, that's when we cleaned. After cleaning we usually had about an hour to rest before I had to take lunch to the boys at Alison. I have to pack their lunches in the kitchen and then carry it to the school. After they finish I take their dirty dishes home, wash them, and get them ready for the next day.

This picture was taken at 5AM one morning... each day at least we get a beautiful sunrise/sunset. After lunch we work on homework and more laundry for the boys who attend the public school - because they get back every day around 12:30. This is play/rest time. I usually try to clean my room/shower until I have to go back to Alison (private, bilingual school) to pick the boys up at 2:30. At 3 we come home, change their clothes, and start homework. One of my jobs here is to work every day with the Alison boys. I'm in charge of their homework and making sure they complete it/study. There's 6 in all - 4 in 2nd grade, 1 in first grade, and 1 in 5th grade. They're also all on completely different skill levels. After homework is done, we helped prepare dinner to serve at 6PM. The boys sing a song, pray, and then we serve their food. While they're eating it is a good time to prepare our dinner, since after dinner the boys just watch TV for about an hour/hour & half before bed at 8PM. At 8PM we turn off the TV, and the boys get ready for bed. Sometimes this is an easy task, sometimes its extremely difficult. As much as I love the little boogers, we had to play the "bad guys" this week a few times in order to make them actually do what we wanted. This is a picture of all the little guys and us yesterday

Thank God the house parents came back yesterday, so today I got to sleep in until 6:45 instead of 4:30. Today Lindy is heading back home, and I'm so sad. She's one of my very best friends, and she will be very missed. Got to get ready to head to the airport now. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Happy Sunday.

We're spending the afternoon fishing, swimming, and playing with our guest - Lindy! Lindy, better known here as "Wendy", is here for the week, and I'm SO EXCITED.

This is Wendy and myself a few years back in Nashville. Hope you all had a great weekend!