Honduras 2024!

To start my last week at Orphanage Emmanuel, I gave Eva half of the lump sum of cash that I took from the ATM last week so that she could help me set up my surprise. Other than it being my last Monday at Orphanage Emmanuel, it was a pretty normal work day. But after dinner, I played volleyball with the Grandecitos house in the gym. Tuesday was also a pretty typical day followed by buying chips and soda for my special needs boys and watching our last movie together in the afternoon. But I started feeling worse and worse about leaving as the day and the week moved on. On Tuesday night, I bought Maycol and Olvin some Bigos for dinner. I wanted to eat the meal with them in the tienda but Felipe said Maycol had to watch over the Grandecitos while they played soccer, so we headed over to the cancha to eat the food. We sat down at a picnic table that over looks the cancha and ate our food quick. When we finished, I decided I’d stick around and play soccer with the Grandecitos, since I haven...

On Monday I had to say goodbye to the three remaining members of the volunteem. But before I did that, I took them up to Papí and Mamí’s house so that they could see the most precious view of the orphanage. After that, we walked back down to the girls volunteer house where Luis was waiting for the volunteem. As Olivia was standing around, kind of just taking in her last moments at Emmanuel, I snuck one of my bracelets into her backpack for a reason I’ll go over later. After that, we all said our goodbyes and gave each other hugs and wished each other the best. As soon as the volunteem left, I started writing them letters over text since I didn’t have pen and paper to do so. Then, I had nothing other to do than to go to work, so my day just kind of continued as normal. On Tuesday morning, I realized that the small girls flash drive that I had bought had slipped off my key chain somewhere around the orphanage. This made me lose my mind because I don’t have a lot of time to buy a new fl...

Sunday of week 19 was Father’s day in America, but it wasn’t Father’s day down here. So I talked to my mom about when we would make a call home and she told me she would call home around one-ish to talk to my dad. That morning at church I decided not to take any of the small girls to church with me. This being because the last Sunday I went to pick up two of the small girls to take to church, the whole house was begging to go to the tienda with me and not asking to sit by me in church. One of the worst mistakes you can make down here is forming a relationship with the kids through the tienda, which is why I didn’t start taking kids to the tienda with me on Sundays until late April-ish(with the exception of my two brothers, who I’ve already formed healthy relationships with). While sitting in church I got to ‘hi’ to Morgan who came with the most recent team which I was super excited about. Morgan also gave the sermon which really hit hard as she spoke about cutting people off if they...