One year of Grace

Wow it is hard to believe how it has been one year since I became a momma. Surprisingly as much as I complained about waiting this year has actually flown by.

Yesterday I was ask so what is the greatest thing about being Grace's mom?

The greatest thing is getting to see a living miracle in front of me daily.

Getting to see a baby who could not move grow into a toddler who runs and dances.

Getting to see a baby who made no noise to a toddler who is learning FOUR languages.

Getting to see Grace love on all the babies that come into our home. She loves them all so much that she actually threw a fit the other day to get into the crib with a sick baby at the hospital and give him a kiss.

It's been simply an amazing year and I can not thank the Lord enough for entrusting His daughter to me and I am so excited to get be with her ALL the time now!!  

This week:

We took a boat trip to a nearby village completed with drinking coconuts on the beach

Grace ate her first popcicle

Grace started to learn sign languge and she already uses her first signs "more" "please" and "thank you"!

Grace and I went with a group here from Texas to deliver gift bags to the children of one slum.

We spent another amazing Saturday in the prison and are forming more and more relationships!

I learned how to sing Aisubanka Yuban - Happy Birthday in Miskito!



Haley is offically here!! Within two hours of being here she has already brought a malnourished baby named Henry home. This is why we work so great together. He is 8 months old and 8 pounds tiny little thing covered in scabies but precious as can be! We will be taking him half a week and Yahida the other half of the week. Man am I thankful for Haley to finally be here!! Monday we will begin community outreach which I am so excited to get started on!

We also made a trip to the prison and got treated to a mini concert while we waiting on the rained and Lauren a long term volunteer at the House of Hope were ask to sing a song in English and somehow everyone flocked in as we began to sing.. embarassing yes!

Flordeli

Yesterday the Hayden clan welcomed our newest  foster baby.

Introducing Flordeli...

I met this sweet baby two weeks ago at that time she was malnourished and getting milk from the milk program. Yesterday she came back for milk again and at her weigh in she lost a pound. She is atleast 6 months old ( her mom just knows she was born before Christmas) and weighs 10 pounds. I will admit my first instinct was to judge her mom who is over weight. How could she be overweight and not have food to feed her baby? Then I was quickly reminded by the Lord that it is not my place to judge but to LOVE no matter what the circumstances are. So I agreed to take in Flordeli and care for her, love on her, feed her, and pray over her for atleast a month until she gets a little bigger and stronger.

Her mother only speaks Miskito so I had to use a translator to talk to her but she cried ( which Miskito women do not do) as she handed her daughter over to me.

I think about almost exactly a year ago when I became Grace´s momma and what strength and faith this momma must have to be able to say I love my child but I know she is very sick and there is nothing else that I can so so I am going to put her into the hands of a complete stranger. Personally I don´t know if I could do it.

Earlier this week I was reading 1 Samuel and I think it is so cool how the Lord is teaching me things and letting me experience them at the same time. I was reading about Hannah dedicating Samuel to the Lord. So  my question was what does it really look like to fully trust our children to the Lord?

Well for my parents it was letting their baby move to a country half way around the world and knowing that the Lord would protect me.

For Flordeli´s mom it is giving her baby up for a month and praying that the  Lord can use a stranger to provdide what her baby needs.

For Grace´s biological family if ment giving their granddaughter to a little gringa so that she could have life so that she could have ¨a hope and a future.¨

Grace is learning to cook with mommy!

Grace had a photo shoot last night when she realized she could see herself on the camera after I took a picture

and then she got shy

 

Usupum

Today we went out to Usupum which is about a 10 minute taxi from our city for a birthday party for two missionary families sons we cooked out hotdogs ate cake and swam. It was the prefect most relaxing refreshing day completed with a nap in a hammock!

This one was from the other day at the pier

 here is the start of our day.. loading up the back of a truck ¨taxi¨

Grace thought about liking the water ....

but decided she liked mommy holding her better...

but she did like to play in the sand

Grace was not so happy when there was no more cake

Baby Girl living the life taking a nap in a hammock by the beach

I wrote about this back in December with Elizabeth but I have been reminded yet again how these people who have NO material posessions but they are still so willing to give whatever they can. A few days ago I went to the first neighborhood that Root Ministries will be working in just to hang out and start to get to know some people. ( If you are wondering why we haven´t started the community outreach yet I am waiting on my friend Haley to get here in 2 weeks!) So I go into this neighborhood. First of all I could move there and be perfectly happy. They all live in these little shacks on the beach and it is just perfect!  So I walk up and there are a group of moms and kids sitting on an old canoe. I planned to sit down with them but while I am getting Grace out of the stroller the kids start running around and next thing I know I was brought what I am pretty sure was the only chair in the whole neighborhood to sit in. I felt kinda weird sitting across from everyone in a chair but they were all very proud to give me a chair to sit in so I accepted the seat. Then I see a kid climb a coconut tree and a man get out a macchette and I had a fresh coc to drink and then another kid climbs a mango tree and I have 3 fresh ripe mangos to eat. It was really neat to see that I came to bless them and I end up being the one who was blessed beyond belief. I love the fact that the Lord has all of these little surprises planned out not only for the people of La Moskitia but for me as well.
Then yesterday I was working on filling out applications for Habitat houses. I went to 3 families and helped them do the paper work. Just so you have a picture of these families one of the questions was about what bienes you have which is like things you own that are worth something. The man had 2 pigs and a chicken, one woman had a chicken and a dog, and the last woman 10 chickens and a dog. So the great news about filling these out was that they are all really deserving familes and great friends of mine but one is very special because it is my friend Bes the woman with AIDS. I love how faithful the Lord is to provide!!! The mayor has donated her land to have the house built on and she will have a house hopefully by the end of the year! Also one of her children has been sponsored to go to school next year.

This is Cheslor her 14 month old son who weighs 14 pounds.

 

My friend who is teaching me to cook has been a little skeptical of my cooking skills but I keep telling her that I can really cook ¨American food¨ now that I have a stove I made mashed potatoes for her the other day and she was very impressed and has now ask me to teach her to cook American food.

Here are some pictures from this week

Here are some pictures of my apartment.

 Everything is still packed up because we will be moving again in about 3 weeks.

Yahida and Grace. How cute are they together.

 I told yall she was smart. This is how she ask for water.

One of Grace´s favorite things to do is walk down to the pier like 2 blocks from our house. It is so beautiful so I took some pictures.

And then miracles like this are the highlights of my week! Baby Yahida can stand in her crib!!

Enough

So one of the things I absolutely love about being in La Moskitia is that I do not have to go out looking for ways to serve the Lord or looking for people in need. Everyone here is in need and the Lord puts just the right people in my path almost daily now and He provides me with what they are needing. 

Like one day last week. There is a lady living at House of Hope right now with AIDS. She has 5 children the youngest of which is 14 months old and weighs around 14 pounds and he is HIV positive. I have seen that she is an amazing mom and I have been wanting to spend some time with her and really get to know her. So I am on my way to eat lunch with Grace and Yahida and I see her and her kids in the park next to  my house. At first I started to wave and walk on but then I thought what a great way to get to love on her than to take her and her family out to eat for probably the first time in her life and forsure the first time her kids had ever been out to eat. There are very few resturants here in Puerto Lempira nothing super nice by any means but I took them to one of the nicer resturants overloooking the water and we had a nice lunch. It was funny because they were such Miskito´s throwing their food they didn´t want under the table and their napkins over the balcony but they loved it. I loved getting to see the mom love on her baby and then as if she doesn´t have enough to do with 5 kids she is sick and her baby is sick she was loving on Grace and Yahida. My food was late so she gave Grace half of her food. I was just so blown away that she would do that. I am also praying about hiring this woman to work for me once we move into the house. Maybe to clean or cook or wash clothes. Not alot just something to provide her a little support. I know she needs it more than me and even though this money is not in my budget I know we have areas where we can live on less.

Next time was at our Friday night spend the night parties that I have with 2 girls from House of Hope every week. This week was 2 sisters. I was expecting to have to cook for 4 people so I made spagetti. Well right before they show up my friend Norma comes over with her baby. She is the one who is teaching me to cook. Here is a pic of her ONE MONTH OLD Joseph Emanuel and Grace giving him a kiss. 

So they show up and I invite them to eat as well but I am going to need a few more things so off we go to buy some bread and some fruit. Then some workers show up to put misquito screens up on my windows. So we eat and walk Norma home and I realize we still have a ton of food so I invite the workers in to finish off the rest of the food. 

Saturday since I don´t have a fridge yet it is somewhere on a boat on the way to PL I put all the fresh fruit in plastic containers but with the heat it was going bad in just a day. So I was trying to think what to do with all that good fruit that we are so blessed to even be able to buy. Fruit and Vegetables are expensive here so it is something that most people skip out on. So there is a knock at the gate. The lady who cleans the outside hall was there to clean. Light bulb went off in my head as I ask her if she had kids at home and she tells me yes that she has 4 children. I ask her if they ever get to eat fruit and she says no so I load her up a gallon sized bag of watermelon and pineapple to take home. As I was handing her the fruit I notice that she did not have on shoes and I also had this pair of flip flops that gave me bad blisters so I was trying to think of what to do with them so I gave her the flip flops as well.
Now all I have are my crocs which are really my favorite so now I have a great reason to wear them all the time haha!!

It is something that I really love about here just being able to give and serve in such a tangible way and really humble myself to see what I really need and what is ENOUGH. 

Here are some new pictures!

 This is Yahida. She is now 17  months old she is severly malnourished. She wears 3 to 6 month old clothes.

 

And Grace at 17 months old 

  

A new thing in the past 2 days is that Grace now loves to play in the bathtub. She will spend atleast 30 minutes a night playing in here. And this ¨tub¨ is the best 10 dollars I ever spent. It is the bathtub for Grace, the sink for washing dishes, and the bucket for mopping.

 

This is for you mom!! A picture of me and Grace this morning at church.

Well it has been raining here for 6 days. Hard rain. This is good because cools everything off alot. The nights are perfect I don´t even need a fan. It also means Grace´s heat rash is gone and we have plenty of water for the well.
 I have a friend who is a 14 year old mother and she just needs a friend and I need to learn how to cook Honduran food so she is coming ove and bringing her very healthy 15 pound one month old little boy over to play with Grace and teaching me how to cook Honduran food.

Then 3 days a week I am fostering a 16 month old little girl who is malnourished. Yes, that is the same age as Grace. Only difference is Yahida can not crawl or walk or run around and play or eat real food like Grace but she is getting stronger and she is now sitting up on her own. Please pray for this sweet baby there is no doubt in my mind that the Lord can catch her up quickly!

This is Yahida and Grace playing.

Grace has this toy in her mouth shaking it back and forth and Yahida was loving it!

So how is Grace with another baby if the picture doesn´t show it... she is is GREAT!! She has taken on the big sister role very well. This morning I was washing dishes and I look over and Grace had gotten out a cup and a baby spoon and was play feeding Yahida. Grace also kisses Yahida every time she cries and she had even learned to share her toys.

So I might be crazy for taking on two 16 month olds but we have only had one crazy time so far and that was this morning Yahida had an explosive diaper that went every where all over her clothes so I just decided to take her straight to the bath tub and left everything on the ground to clean up later. Well that was a mistake because while I was bathing Yahida Grace decided to play in the diaper and then run around the house and jump all over my bed. So when I walk out of the bathroom and discover our nicely decorated apartment I laid Yahida naked in a towel in the crib grabbed Grace and put her in the tub and then their was a knock at the door and the people were there to deliver my stove. So they are probably thinking I am a pretty crazy gringa at this point. But good news is by tonight the stove will be installed and working and we can really start to cook!! Until now we have only had a little hot plate.

The man I rent my apartment from( I could write a whole post on him. I LOVE him! )  He felt bad for me being alone in the apartment so he brought me a tv the other day and gave me cable for free! Not that I have that much time to watch tv but there is one english channel I found and it shows CSI Miami at night which is like one of my favorite shows! So that has been a blessing to relax and watch after everyone goes to bed.

Grace´s new trick to hide everything on top of her fro.

She also has learned to blow kisses when she gets in trouble.