I have a friend who is living here for 6 months doing her internship for college. All of you who have prayed for good friends for me, Susanna is the girl. We are often called twins when we are together and by the other ones name when we are apart. Although we come from very different worlds she is from New York and I am from Alabame we have bonded over our love for running (walking here) and cooking healthy meals. She has been a huge encouragement to me as we daily push each other to seek the Lord´s face more and more.

One thing that we have been talking about recently that we both feel like the Lord has been teaching us here is the power of prayer.

Often times I feel in The States I go to prayer as a last resort when things are not working on my own or when things are really bad. Instead of letting prayer be my first response. It is easy to just run to walmart at the first signs of a cold and pick up any medicine you need or stop by urgent care. Here the hospital is the LAST place I want to go and even if you do get medicine often times they don´t have it at the pharmacy. So we pray for healing FIRST. We literally have days with no water where the only thing we can do is pray for rain. We don´t have a grocery store stocked full of fresh fruits and vegetables on every corner  so there are weeks we pray for a boat to come and brings fruits and vegetables.

I still have a long way to go in this area but I feel like being here as brought me to a place in my life where I am daily going to the Lord in prayer FIRST.

This past week Grace was having some trouble sleeping, sometimes she was waking up as much as 12 times or more every night screaming at the top of her lungs. This made for a tired mama and a grumpy Grace. I mentioned this to my mom. Her response was get out your annointing oil and pray out loud over Grace every night before bed.  So that I did and she has peaceful slept through the night since. One night we got home late and she was already asleep so I just laid her in bed and did not pray over her. The second time she woke up screaming that night I decided it was time to get my half asleep self out of bed find my annointing oil and pray over her. Once I did that she slept through the whole night. PRAYER WORKS!!

I want to encourage everyone to embark on this journey of prayer first, even over the little things. A journey of going to the Lord first before our friends.

Over the next 3 months I want to invite all of you to join me in claiming Luke 11:9

¨Ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks the door will be opened.¨

 as we pray over the pretty much impossible steps we are about to begin in hopes of Grace receiving a visitor´s visa.

Living in a region in the cycle of what seems like endless hopelessness. 

A place where children grow up if they are lucky to receive a 6th grade education, but for most not even knowing how to write their own name is the future they face. A place where children litterally have no ¨dreams¨.  Boys play soccer and girls take care of younger siblings, cook and clean until they themselves have children at a young age. A place where drug trafficking, abuse, stealing, and gun shots are so common no one even notices them anymore.

What is the answer? How do we end this cycle?

I HAVE NO CLUE. All I know is the Lord has lead me here to live and only He holds the answer. It is my part to continue to follow His lead daily and continually ask for His guidance step by step. 

So in the middle of all of this it is easy to get caught up and overwhelmed with the needs. My friend told me at the end of every day to write down a few great things that happen every day.

Here is my list from this week:

Encouraging and thought provoking women´s bible study

Girl´s Night playing scrabble

Relaxing tea latte and reading time at the lagoon with a friend while Grace napped

Great talk with a teenage orphan about the Lord´s will for our lives vs. the world´s

Getting water back after 3 days without

Grace said ¨I LOVE YOU¨

Game day with my English classes

Hot sunny days- this means I am caught up on laundry

Hearing Cheeseburger in Paradise blaring from a house as I walked home last night

Seeing plants grow and gardens planted

Looking at the stars in an endless clear sky over the ocean

planting seeds

The last 2 weeks my friend Cassi has been here teaching gardening classes. Cassi taught a class for 3 days at the house where women from all around town came and learned. She also taught a class with the little street boys and a class at the prison. Then my new friend Janna joined us and she will be here for 2 more weeks and she is going to continue teaching the gardening classes. So far she has taught a class to the big street boys and will be helping to check up on all the set up of the gardens as the seedlings begin to grow. 

What is so exciting about this?

Well I saw the husband of one lady from Cassi´s class and he said his wife is doing all these wierd things like saving eggshells and fruit peels (SHE IS COMPOSTING). The little street boys were so excited to tell me that after only 5 days that their seeds are already starting to sprout! The prisoners have already found a place to garden inside the prison. They have worked together to clean it off and one of the prisoners is now teaching anyone who wants to learn how to garden. 

What is even more exciting than this?

While Cassi and Janna  have both done amazing jobs at teaching planting gardens they have also had the chance to teach what the Word says about planting in our lives.

John 12:24 says ¨Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains a single seedling but if it dies it produces many seeds.¨The seed has to die (stop being a seed) in order to become a plant. Just like in our lives we must die to our sinful self inorder to have new life in Christ.

They were also able to talk about what is good for seeds?

What you put into your garden is what you get out. The same with our lives. If you put things of the Lord in your life you will reap good fruit. If you put things of the world in your life you will reap bad fruit. 

I am so excited to see all the gardens begin to grow!! Right now we have started seedlings for 4 big gardens ( one in my backyard) and 4 family gardens.

If your heart were to beat for the lost and the poor the way that God's does, how would that change how you are living personally?- David Platt

I met a man a few weeks ago who has traveled the world on multiple short term mission trips.

 He ask me so how long are you here for?

My response: Forever or until the Lord tells me to go somewhere else.

His response: ARE YOU CRAZY?

He said I have been alot of places ( and began to tell me the horrible conditions of some) but I have never has a change of heart that makes me want to move.

To which my reply was and is I am living here because the Lord has graciously given me the opportunity to love on His children so that they might know their Father. He placed the dreams for Root Ministries in my heart. He made the desires of my heart to bring a hope and a future to the Miskito Indians. It is not on my own or by my will that I live here but by the LORD'S.

1 John 3:20 "For God is greater than our hearts"

What have you seen God's love do?

Yahida is CRAWLING!!



Since I couldn't upload these on the 4th of July.. HAPPY 4th OF JULY from The Hayden's in Honduras!




We have started eating Sunday lunch with our "Papa K" my landlord who has taken the role of our Dad here in Honduras. Last Sunday we went out to Usupum and ate at a friends house.



Our friend also has a 4 month old baby girl who she has yet to name (a miskito indian thing to do is not name your baby for a while) she gave us the priviledge to name her. We decided on Setare which means star in Persian. Papa K is from Iran so he speaks Persian.



We went on a boat trip to two villages I have never been to before Laka and Tumtumtara this was also Grace's first boat trip to go on. I was a little nervous that it would be amazing or everyone on the boat would be miserable.




Well... It was AMAZING. Baby girl chased a chicken in Laka for a good 30 minutes.



and loved the boat.



Playing dress up as an African princess with Haley's headband




Alyson and Cassi have arrived!




they brought suitcases full of goodies. It has been like Christmas around here! Grace got a new pink hoodie towel from Grandpa.


Haley also introduced Grace to chapstick which she tried to eat.



Grace is becoming more and more independent. She even went on a walk with Mel today at the prison.


We had Haley's going away lunch and got to use Papa K's big kitchen. Susanna our new friend from New York made vegetable stirfry, hummus, mango salsa, and guacamole with homemade corn chips. Yeah she is an AMAZING cook.







Baby girl loved all the food as usual.



Alyson (my best friend from highschool) and Grace are already bonding.

Sorry I haven´t updated in a while its been busy around here:


First we finished going through all the houses in the slums... We found out the major needs. ( I will update on this later)


My friends Cassi and Alyson will be coming next week for 2 weeks. While in the slums we found several women who Cassi will teach to garden on a model garden at the House of Hope. Then each woman will go back to her neighborhood and teach the women there how to garden and they will work together on a community garden. Cassi will also be teaching the women how to cook in healthier ways. Since I know very little about gardening I will also be learning with these women and starting a garden in my backyard as well. My friend Susanna who is here in Puerto Lempira working with a sustianable resources company has volunteered to help me on weekends keeping up with all the gardens and teaching more cooking classes.

We went with Norma ( the 14 year old mother who is teaching me to cook) to her house to see her brother. We had heard about some bad conditions with her brother and so I ask her to take me and go with me to see what her opinion was. She said yeah I want to go but I have a little problem my mom told me I was never allowed back in her house after she found out I was pregnant. So she obeyed and had not been home since then but she was really missing her family. While what we found was hard to see something good did come out of the situation. Norma´s mother ask her to come visit and bring the baby because she wants to know her grandson. Norma ask me to go with her so now every monday after we cook and hang out we will go over and visit with Norma´s family.


I started teaching English to 3 very intelligent children from House of Hope. My neighbor found out and he is now going to join us.


I met with the Catholic church to talk with them about their program Brotes Nuevos which is what seems to  be an amazing program for street boys here. I will be teaching their kids English 2 days a week.

My new project is to get 10 copies of the devotional "Jesus te llama"(Jesus Calling IN SPANISH). These will go to the prisoners. I want to give one to one man in each cell and then he will be responsible for leading the devotion every morning for his cell. I think this will be good for some of the men there to take on a leadership role. If you would like to donate a copy they are less than 9 dollars on christianbooks.com and you can have it mailed or take it by the office: Mitchell Hayden 1228 Carmichael Way Montgomery, AL. 36106

For everyone praying for Mel my friend in the prison. He just received his new sentence of 30 years meaning he has 24 more years left. This has been really hard for him as you can imagine so continue to pray for him.

Comfort zone

Grace's Miskito grandmother, aunt, and cousins came to visit.

this is what it looked like...

Grace's grandmother who hasn't seen her in a year was thrilled to see her and had a huge smile on her face as she baby talked to her in Miskito and held her arms out to hold her. Immediately Grace clung tighter to me as I tried to coax her into going to her grandmother she began to scream at the top of her lungs and kick reaching as hard as she could for me.

so many times I feel  like this is how we all act.

There is the Lord right there infront of us ready to love on us and we cling to what is familiar in the world. Like with Grace's Miskito grandmother wanting to love on her and Grace refused it because it was not what was comfortable or familiar to her.

my point in all this rambling is that sometimes we have to get outside of our comfort zone in order to receive all the blessings that the Lord has in store for each of us as His sons and daughters.

Here is Grace with two of her aunts, her grandmother, and the two boys are her cousins.

By the end of the visit Grace would give them kisses but still clung very tightly to her momma.

So an update just if people are confussed on the foster babies:

 Flordeli has gone home ( she was the 6 month old baby girl). Haley has been a little sick so we haven't fostered babies this week just for their health but we have Yahida (the sweet baby that is the same age as Grace) half the week and Henry (the 8 month old who is now 11 pounds) the other half of the week.

So I only have Grace and then one other baby at a time.