Happy Birthday America from Honduras!

Happy 4th of July! I'm kinda sad that I am not celebrating America's birthday in America, but I am decked out in my America clothing! Today has been a more relaxed day we woke up and went to church, which was so neat. They do everything in spanish and then english, so everyone knows what is going on. I'm still amazed that people from different countries all worship the same God, that just begins to show how big our God is! On Sundays all the volunteers get together at the Tienda (store) and eat lunch and then just hang out, so that was fun getting to know the others better! One of the little girls (13 years old) broke her leg yesterday so she has been staying in the medical clinic all day and night. All the female volunteers have been taking shifts staying with her, because there is not a permanant nurse here. I am currently hanging out with Ruth right now. She has such a sweet and gentle spirit, even with a broken leg. She doesn't speak much english and i barely speak any spanish so our communication has been limited but we are making it work! I sang and danced to some High School Musical for her, which was quite a scene haha! I tell ya the kids here love Disney, almost as much as me:) I'm learning to be a mom...Shelly (another volunteer) and myself helped shower her, which was my first time to shower anyone with a cast and a full leg one in fact! But she just fell asleep about 20 minutes ago, so hopefully the pain will not be unbearable! In Honduras the medicine they have given her is Children's Motrin ever 8 hours. It makes me so sad because I know she is in a lot of pain. So I pray that her leg starts to heal and she is able to function fully soon! Well right now all the volunteers are having a 4th of July celebration that I will be joining in a little bit and I can't wait to sing some patriotic songs!

p.s. these are some pictures from kamp at KAA not Honduras...but they are just late coming up!

when in hondo...do as the hondurans do

a few pictures:)

2 chronicles 7:14

I’ve started getting in the swing of things and I’m really enjoying my time here at Emmanuel. My amiga, Katie, got here today! She was supposed to come with us on Monday, but her passport expired a month ago but she didn’t realize it until the day before we left, Sunday. So she ended up coming today with a group from Georgia, it’s great to have her here! I’m learning a lot of Spanish and it’s so fun being able to use my new Espanol skills to communicate with the kids more and actually start to build relationships with them!

My friend Olivia and I have the responsibility to shower 10 special needs (between the ages of 8-14ish) girls twice a day, once at 6am and then again at 4pm. It is truly a growing and humbling experience. I never thought I would be doing this, but I would not have it any other way. Spending time with these girls and seeing them joyful truly makes my heart happy! I really like getting to serve the girls in this way, its very different than what I had ever imagined. We shampoo their hair for them and most of them have lice so that is kind of gross, but I’ve learned just to accept it! I figured it's more than likely that I am going to get it and I've decided I'm okay with that. I'd rather get it and be able to hug these kids than be paranoid and avoid their hugs haha! Good thing I have lice killing shampoo, because that will probably come in handy soon! We help wash and dry them off, they have it down to a precise system so that made helping much easier! In the special needs houses they have 5 older girls that normally take care of them, but we are just helping now. I love watching them serve each other and truly care for one another. The girls in those houses have such servant hearts it is so amazing and encouraging to watch.

During the day I work with the special needs kids. We typically stay in the yard during school hours, because they do not go to school. Sometimes during the day we will take them on little field trips to different areas of the orphanage. Its fun to do different things with them! During the day we just play on the swing set/ kick the ball/ just play with them. Yesterday one of the older girls that just helps the special needs kids gave me a Spanish lesson which was so helpful. I’m learning so much Spanish. I now know 4 phrases that mean “I don’t know what you are saying because I don’t speak Spanish”! I use those a lot haha!

So part of working with special needs that we started yesterday is horses. We are going to start taking some of the kids to pet/groom/ride horses twice a week. We took our first group yesterday and it was precious. Some of these kids are great around horses, for some of the kids being around the horses is such a great thing for them. It was so fun to be a part of that! After we let the kids pet and groom the horses. Two other girls and myself stayed down at the barn and cleaned up a.k.a. scooped manure (as I was doing it I said “my dad would be so proud of me right now” hahah) and cleaned out the stalls and started getting the barn ready. We have 4 horses…Amore (“love”), Pharone (“pharo”), espirite (“spirit”), and grumpy. We will eventually teach the kids to ride the horses! We feed them 2 times a day in the morning and in the afternoon. I am so excited to work with the horses. It’s cool how God works because I really wanted to go back to Camp Winnataska so I could work with the horses, but who knew that I would be working with Honduran horses…so much cooler! Hahah. I’m really looking forward to doing that everyday.

This past Wednesday we had church and it was absolutely incredible! It was awesome singing worship songs. We would sing a song in English and then we would sing it in Spanish. I think it is so amazing that our God is so big that people from all languages worship Him! They talked about how important prayer is in our lives, and I think a lot of times I overlook/underestimate the power of prayer. But I am working on making that a bigger part of my life and using it more to communicate with God more. He also talked about humbling ourselves, and that was just a great reminder of the way that we are called to live our lives.

One of the weirdest things to me is how much all of these kids love Disney! I know Disney is played in most countries, but it still baffles me! They always ask me to sing High School Musical or Hannah Montana. I always sing and dance for them and just act silly. Whenever they see me they say “Hola Loco!!” and then giggle! I love making them laugh and glad I can do it in that way considering I don’t speak Spanish. But I love it more everyday! It’s been really fun to also get to know the other Auburn people better too! That is all for now because I need to get sleep!

“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35

Adios

No Ablo Esponaol...aka I dont speak spanish:)

Today was my first full day at the orphanage and it was awesome! it started off this morning at morning circle which is where the kids break up in age groups and have a short devotional and sing songs. Of course it was in spanish so i didnt understand any of it! i got to meet the girls this morning and they were all so beautiful! i tried to say "My name is Rebekah" but instead i said "I love rebekah"...FAIL, but its okay because I worked on that one and got that figured out haha! when i would talk to the girls i picked up on some key words but not enough to fully comprehend! but I learned the phrase in spanish for "i dont know" and "i dont understand"! ill be using that a lot. another time i asked one of the girls her name in spanish she shook her finger at me and asked me in english what my name was hahah! i think its cool how the language is such a barrier, but im still able to love on these kids and communicate some with them! they are all so precious!!! while the kids are in school we played in the school yard with the special needs kids because tehy dont go to school. I really enjoyed getting to do that! And actually starting tomorrow I am going to work with the special needs children all day! I am waking up at 5:30 in the morning to help the older girls shower and get ready for the day and then i will help them again at 4:00 pm. They need our help because many of these girls are incapable of doing this. I am so excited to be able to serve in this way! thats all for now because i need to go to sleeep so i can wake up bright and early!

adios amigos!

Hola from Honduras!

Well, I made it safely to Honduras after a long day of traveling. My group flew out of the ATL airport on Monday morning and flew to Tegucigalpa. There was bad weather in Tegucigalpa so we flew to San Pedro Sulo (sp?) instead and wait for 2 hours. They said if the weather did not clear in 3 hours we would either have to find our own transportation to Tegucigalpa or fly back to Atlanta so we were kind of freaking out! But thankfully the weather cleared to we made it safely to Tegucigalpa. We went through customs and got picked up from the airport by our taxi bus from the orphanage. We stopped to get food at the Metro Mall and we saw Subway so of course I stopped (Mom, I'm making you proud)! Considering I don't speak any Spanish ordering food was a struggle. I did a whole lot of pointing and smiling and shaking my head. The whole situation was humerous. I didn't know how to say mustard so instead I said amirillo (sp?) which is yellow in Spanish! HAHA it was just a struggle! Our bus ride was about 3 hours to the Orphanage. The scenery was absolutely beautiful and so sad at the same time. I've never seen such poverty...it really broke my heart. It really looked like it was from a movie. We got to the orphanage last night and we just got settled in and went to bed. P.s. as i was getting ready for bed i heard a cow outside my window hahah!

KAA...U KNOW

Well, I am done with kamp and it was an amazing summer! Definately a summer of learning, serving, and loving....hence the name of the blog! I was in Golden, Missouri for 5 weeks and loved every minute of it. It was amazing to see God change some of these kids lives in ways that I never thought was even possible. I had an amazing "co" (counselor) and her name is Amber Gibson. She is from Texas and she was absolutely wonderful. She has been coming to kamp for many years so it was really nice to have a veteran counselor, because she helped me so much! Amber and I had so much fun together. Being co-counselors is kind of like being married in the sense that you have 10 kids together and you are basically being a parent to these girls haha! Amber and I also went by "Ebony" and "Ivory" haha, I really learned a lot about the African American culture and I taught them about the white/caucasian culture. I always said that I was white and one of my kampers corrected me and said that I was caucasian and not white! haha. I got asked if other counselors were my sister all the time...and I always told my kampers that all white people don't look alike!

my favorite story from kamp is we had a girl and she was just angry at the world...rightfully so. Her mother was killed by the mother’s boyfriend 3 years ago; lived with grandparents and they are going through a divorce; victim of hurricane katrina; 5 older sisters that made fun of her her whole life; and other junk in her life. she pushed every button that we had the first day just to see what she could get away with. but we were consistent, strict, and loving (with the help of God) and didn’t allow her disrespectful attitude. i honestly think it was the first time she felt loved unconditionally. After the first day we never say her disrespectful attitude and it was awesome to see God change an attitude like that, and then on the 2nd to last day she came up and told me that she wanted to be saved! She really understood what it meant to be a Christian. She understood that she had to change the way she was living her life. I just pray that the change is permanant!

One of my kampers this past week was from Iraq and so she was the closest to white of all my kampers. I let her borrow my sunscreen hahah! Anyways she was really disrespectful and she had no idea. But she is the 2nd oldest of 8 kids so she raises herself and her siblings. She translates for her parents because they dont speak english, but she just didn’t know how to be a kid. it was really sad. on her thank you she said that her counselors taught her that there is always time to laugh. that really made my heart happy just because how much joy i get from laughing, it was wonderful to see God bring that kind of joy in her life.

Kids Across America is such a wonderful place, I enjoyed being a part of these kids lives. Some of the kids that came to kamp came from rough families/pasts but other kids came from good and loving families. It was awesome to be able to serve all types of kids and just love on them! This summer I really learned what it meant to serve selflessly and to put others before myself. It was great to see how I was exactly where the Lord wanted me this summer, even though I doubted it back when I was making my summer plans. I could not imagine spending my time anywhere else!

Now I am in Atlanta and I am heading to Honduras for a month! I am so excited and so nervous at the same time. I will be using this blog to update y'all while I am in Honduras! Hopefully I'll be able to update a little more about kamp!