First Week Back at Orphanage Emmanuel *Week 1*

 

For my first blog post I want to start by thanking God for the incredible upbringing I’ve had that led me to where I am today. Thank you to all my family and friends that have supported me throughout this journey. For a little insight the first seven weeks of my trip are being blogged late. Hopefully I don't leave out any details!

    I left home Friday, February 2nd, at around 5:30p.m. for an overnight stay in Chicago with my family. I was so nervous about what lied ahead, I'm not sure how I got any sleep. On top of this, I got the absolute pleasure of waking up at three in the morning for my five o'clock flight. In the morning, my mom and dad brought me to the airport because my siblings didn't want the pleasure of waking up at three in the morning. Anyways, I got to the airport on time and said bye to my parents. It wasn't until I was all alone waiting for my flight that I started to feel confident about my trip. From Chicago I flew to Charlotte, had a short connection but made it. Then I flew from Charlotte to Miami and from there I flew to Comayagua, Honduras. The plane touched down pretty smoothly considering the windy mountain terrain. I hopped off the plane and got in line for customs where I met two men named Charles and Joseph. I asked if they could help me figure out how to get through customs because I had no clue what I was doing. While we waited we conversed and I found out that Joseph was moving to Honduras to stay with family and Charles was just dropping him off and staying for a week, which I thought was pretty cool of him. After customs, I grabbed my bag and met up with the infamous "February Team" along with Jean Carlos(an old friend of mine) and Mike Madsen(who funnily enough graduated from Neenah High School back in 1970, what a small world!!) and I caught a ride with them to the orphanage. The three hour bus ride was just as I remember it being in years past and that put me at ease quite a bit. Once we arrived at the orphanage we pulled up to the team house for a welcoming meal(can't remember what we had, sorry to those who cared a lot to know😢🤷) and all the ladies at the team house remembered me and were very excited to see me. Lastly, I got to see one of my greatest friends that night, but he had some extremely sad news for me...


    Solomon(a.k.a. Moncho) has been one of my best friends for the past eight years. Almost every summer that I came down with my mom I would be assigned to work with him. We've grown a friendship throughout the years that I cherish very deeply. While planning for my trip I expected I'd be assigned with him once again for the 5 months that I'd be down there. I soon found out that wouldn't be the case. When I sat down to catch up with him he told me that he would only have two more weeks left at the Orphanage and that his last day working was the day before I came down. Though this was really sad news for me, I knew the situation he was in gave him no choice but to move his wife and two kids into town. I'm very happy and proud of him and his family for reaching this milestone in life!

    On Sunday I relaxed a lot and walked around to visit the kids that I've known for years. Almost all of the children recognized me and called out to me as they saw me. The orphanage took in an influx of kids from a different orphanage the day before I arrived, so to welcome them, they played a soccer game in the big field that they call "El Campo." Of course the infamous "February Team" was there to watch and show support so I took the opportunity to get to know some of the members. They were a very old team, meaning they've been known as “THE February Team” for a while now and that their group's average age was right around 60.

    On Monday I got my assignment from Danielle and Raleigh. I will be working in the boys special needs house in the mornings and afternoons, and during the day I've been assigned to the wood shop. When I showed up to the wood shop after my meeting with Danielle and Raleigh I was surprised to find out that the guy who runs the wood shop, Maestro Victor, remembers me from past years when I'd show up with Moncho. Maestro is 63 years old and has been working at Emmanuel for 14 years. Pretty impressive. There were two team members in the wood shop as well, so I took the opportunity to introduce myself. They are a father-son duo that own a construction company in California. Matt and his son David were very nice to me and offered me to eat with the team every day that they saw me, which is a huge privilege. But while working with them it became immediately evident that they didn't speak any Spanish. I already knew that Maestro doesn't speak English so that could only mean that me and my broken Spanish would have to team up to become the translator of the wood shop. I did very well and it was a really nice way to immerse myself into learning Spanish. I never failed to get the point across so I guess credit to my high school Spanish teachers... ... ... ... Right, anyway, I forgot to mention that the team brought three dentists down with them which was VERY convenient for me since I had my wisdom teeth pulled out four days before I left home. So on Tuesday a very nice lady named Anne looked at my open sockets and pulled out a bunch of food. Though I had been swishing A LOT with salt water, it still wasn't getting all of the big chunks of food out of my sockets. So I told her that I had a syringe that the oral surgeons gave me for "emergency use only" but Anne recommended that I use it regularly to clean my sockets. The syringe helped a lot but it didn't stop my sockets from getting infected by Thursday and causing me some of the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life. Because of this I made the decision to come back home to have my sockets examined further. To be continued…


               Me with Matt and David                                                      Me with Anne

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