A day in our lives

WARNING- this will probably bore most of you to death.

 

 

Many people have asked me what does a  typcial day look like for you

I decided to write down what our day looked like yesterday.

Here is a little glimpse of our lives.

 

Saturday  September 8th 2012

5:50 am Wake up to my 2 year old shoving a kiddie potty in my face that needs to be emptied.

6 am  Buy a few minutes satisfying G with cup of milk while I make breakfast. make a bottle for DP who is waking up. Give DP his bottle. Boil water to make coffee.Change DP’s explosive dirty diaper.Eat breakfast- yogurt and muffins. Grace prays for 2 people from her prayer cup.Throw some toys on the ground and put on my ipod and have a little quiet time for a few minutes while drinking my coffee.

7 am Put kids in the stroller and head outside to wash clothes by hand.

8 am take out trash, wash dishes, bathe kids, mop floors (this has to be done daily we live in a city with only dirt roads and the dust is unbelievable)

9am put on a movie or YouTube video while I hop in the shower for 3 minutes or less.

Run out of water while I am covered in soap. Scream at the top of my lungs for my landlord. No answer. Find my phone call my neighbor who turns on the pump. 15 minutes later I finish my shower.

Get everyone dressed.

10 am Head out to the Feeding program.

Cut up oranges for lunch. Take the kids swimming, do lice treatments, skip rocks, dish out 20 pounds of food and run out. Make a note to buy more next week!!!

 

1 pm Walk home. Gracefully slide into an outhouse trench. My shoes got stuck. Ended up having to have a kid dig around for my shoes. We continue on our 40 minute walk through town out house covered legs and all.

 

2 pm Return home. Go to get in the shower first thing. NO WATER.

Make lunch -pasta and apples. While the guy works on the well.

FINALLY WE HAVE WATER!

Bathe babies put them down for nap. Wash the dishes from lunch.

3 pmTake a shower.  wash the morning clothes and the shoes from the outhouse trench.

Buy a light bulb from the store below my apartment. It doesn’t work. Spend the next 30 minutes switching light bulbs around until I realize the problem is not with the light bulb but the wiring or something. Note to tell the landlord tomorrow.

4 pm Babies are up. Time for some wound cleaning on G’s boil followed by a pretty new band aid and cookies.. maybe I am trying to win her love after putting her through so much pain.

Grace does some art work, we play puzzles, and Lego's.

5 pm Make dinner- bean and cheese tortillas, eat, wash the dishes again and get ready for scrabble.

6 pm missionary women’s scrabble night and my kiddos get to play with the other missionary kids.

10 pm get home- read a few books and then straight to bed.

For those of you who don’t know me I am very much an average plain jane.

My clothes are not fashionable. I’m a solid color t shirt and cardigan kind of girl.

My hair is one length.

Blow drying my hair  and makeup are things left for special occasions.

I am a planner, a list maker, a organizer, and yes I use a calendar.

So there you go boring me.

 I guess what I do is live vicariously through my kids.

 

scrape on his head was not a result from his haircut

that happened when he thought he could crawl off a side walk and mommy's reflexes were a few seconds too late.

 

 

 

 Daniel Paul got a nice little mohawk today-earning him the title of only baby in Puerto Lempira with a mohawk.



UPDATE ON CRISNA:
She is doing a million times better.
She is eating food and drinking out of a cup!
She was sitting up and playing with rocks when I saw her yesterday.
 She even smiled!
I am not sure how much weight she has gained but she looks very much like she is on her way to becoming a healthy happy toddler.

Thank you all for praying for her!

Crisna

This past week we received some donation boxes sent from Alabama. They included a donation of 60 pounds of pediasure. The pediasure I originally thought was formula and I had been thinking of some babies who could use formula. When I opened the boxes and saw it was pediasure age 1 and up. I started to think of any other kids I knew who were malnourished but over a year old.

 

I thought of another little girl who had been sent home from the House of Hope because she would not eat for the nanny. She was enrolled in a rice and milk program to monitor her weight but would be cared for by her mom.

 

I ask a nurse volunteer to go visit her house with me and take her some pediasure. On the walk over to her house only a few blocks from mine I was very nervous about what we are going to find.

A few weeks little 18 month old girl who was sent home weighing 13 pounds.

 

What would she look like today?

 

We walked up to this little wooden shack with dirty children happily playing outside. We saw her mom sitting outside with her 7 children but no Crisna in sight. My heart dropped a little as I thought here it is -my biggest fear she died. We ask through a Miskito translator where the baby is. Since I don't know what they are saying and no one moves I start to panic inside. The translator then tells us she is just sleeping inside. We ask for her to please go get her and bring her outside. The mom returns with a lethargic baby in her arms way smaller than the girl I had seen a few weeks ago. My nurse friend lifts up her shirt to reveal her tiny skeleton like body. I look into her unresponsive sunken in eyes and see a baby who is not done fighting. I put a few drops of pediasure in her mouth and she gags because she is has not eaten in so long.

 

My friend and I both say we are taking her back to House of Hope.

 

She now weighs a mere 10 pounds at 18 months old.

 

Please pray for sweet Crisna and those fighting with her.

Thank you

This week I have been getting a big lesson in being thankful… from my 2 year old.

Grace has been learning to say thank you.

She has taken saying thank you to a new level. Believe me when I say she says "thank you" for and to EVERYTHING.

So I have started to think. What would it look like if I were to be that thankful?

Thank you Lord that I get to change dirty diapers all day long because it means I have a healthy baby who gets more than enough food and bottles each day.

Thank you Lord for the dirty dishes piled in my sink because that means we had food today.  Thank you Lord that we have dishes to eat off of and utensils to eat with.

Thank you Lord for this hot sunny day that allows my clothes to dry in a few hours.

Thank you Lord for the rainy days that cool things down and fills our well with water.

Thank you Lord that we have so many clothes that I had to think about what I was going to wear today.

Thank you Lord that we have electricity that allows us a little family time after dark each night.

and the list goes on.

 

What would it look like if you were thankful for everything?

"Be Joyful always; pray continually,

give thanks in all circumstances"
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Since I am bragging on ministries let me brag on two we get to serve along side right here in Puerto Lempira.

A few years ago I searched the UMVIM  website for a place to go on a mission trip I came across a place called House of Hope  in Puerto Lempira, Honduras. That summer I came for a two week visit that changed my life in every way possible. 

House of Hope is a short term home (although they do have some long term kids) for partially handicapped and malnourished children. Thousands of children have received nourishment from House of Hope and hundreds have been sent out to the city for surgery.  House of Hope was founded by Dr. Tom Brian and run by missionaries Katrina and Roger Engle who have lived in La Moskitia for 20 years now. Katrina is known by the whole region as “Mama Miriki” or American mother. She is our go to person for any missionary and cultural advice.   Katrina and House of Hope have paved the way for all the Americans and ministries in this jungle town.

Novelina weighed 13 pounds at 3 years old. This is her a month after being at HOH.

Another great ministry is Reach Out Honduras founded by Laura and Alex Waits. The Waits family and their 5 kids are our neighbors, family, and friends here in Puerto Lempira. I have said a million times I don't know if I could make it here without the Waits family.  They work in the areas of discipleship, education, and sustainable solutions. They are starting a bilingual christian school that will provide "private" education for those who can not afford it.  They have almost completed construction on the first room classroom!

Forgotten Children's Ministries trip

from the Forgotten Children's Ministries website: 

Our mission is to rescue the forgotten and abandoned street children of Honduras. Psalm 9:18 states, "The needy will not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the afflicted perish forever."

FCM changes the lives of "high risk" children.

Many of these children come in at a very young age addicted to huffing glue, used to lives lived on the street, and doing anything they can to provide for themselves.

They are transformed into children who know the Lord loves them, they know they have a family who cares for them, they have a passion for serving the Lord, and they have a passion to help children who are still on the street.

One boy shared his testimony with us one night. He came into the program at 10 years old addicted to drugs after living on the street for 4 years. At his initial psychological assessment the doctor said his brain was fried from all the drugs and he would never learn anything new. He admitted the first few years were tough, he ran away at one point. They allowed him to come back and now he is in university studying to be a computer programmer. All he wants to do now is find the doctor and let him know that he( the doctor) and the world might have said one thing about him but the Lord had plans for him. He hopes to work as a computer program and mentor the new boys who come into FCM.

Another boy names Carlos - I am not sure his story but if I had to guess probably very similar to the boy's testimony.  Carlos is in high school. Every day when he gets out of school he hurries to his room grabs his bible and his guitar.  Sometimes he even  forgets to even change out of his uniform. And he heads to the streets of Tegucigalpa to preach. We actually met him out walking the streets while delivering food one day. He joined our small group. I thought he would probably just walk around with us but at the first house Carlos totally took me by surprise. He pulls up a chair next to this lady gets out a bible and begins to share what the Lord has done in his life. No holding back for this teenager. I know the Lord has HUGE plans for him.

Grace was loved on in one week more than she has been in her entire life… and that says a TON. She was spoiled by all of our friends from Alabama and she has 16 new big brothers.  The girl has it made.

Before each meal we all gathered in the courtyard in a circle held hands and prayed. One afternoon I am not totally sure what happened because my eyes were closed but Grace fell during the prayer hitting her head on a step. The sound itself told me it HURT. She began to scream at the top of her lungs. I fell to the ground holding her as tight as I could while praying her skull was not cracked open and afraid to look. After everyone finished praying 16 little boys circled around Grace, very concerned, rubbing her back, and giving her their brand new toy cars. Everyone went upstairs to eat and I stayed in the courtyard with a few others to calm Grace down and access the damage. Turns out she got her first goose egg and that was all. But she was still pretty upset for a while. The boys teacher came out and said "okay, y'all can go upstairs and eat now" and the boys refused to go until Grace was better and able to go with them.  That might have been my favorite moment of the trip, seeing so much care, love, concern in the eyes of these little boys who not too long ago were rough, tough street kids.

We are HOME!  We had a wonderful time of serving with friends at Forgotten Children's Ministries. I will tell some stories in another post. I was very encouraged and blessed and Grace had a BLAST!