Sorry for the Delay

Well, I had planned on writing this entry much earlier in the month but between helping with my father and reverse culture shock, I was busy and also avoiding the memories of having to leave.

As most of you know the reason for my departure was because of the political unrest in Honduras. One of the hardest things I've done in my lifetime was leaving behind all of my friends that didn't have the same opportunity to leave the country of Honduras like we did. It was especially difficult leaving without being able to say goodbye to the children in Mogote and the people we served near the stadium. But I suppose it's not really goodbye; it's just see you later. I plan to return to Honduras as soon as the political situation and college allow. As of today Amber Foster, the missionary I worked with, is planning on returning on Tuesday the 28th. Man, I wish I could return with her. Unfortunately, I have to return to school soon so I must wait a little longer. 

Thank you so much for all of your support and prayers. Thank you for reading and commenting. This was one of the best experiences of my lifetime. I have truly been blessed to have had this opportunity and to have formed what I believe will be lifetime relationships with the people I met in Honduras, both Honduran and those who visited from the United States.

Thank you again, 

Teresa

Dios te bendiga (God bless you)

Sad Day

I'm back in the States. 

More to come later.

No Quiero Salir

Well, the time has come. As much as I don´t want to leave, I now have to because of safety issues. The political situation continues to get worse and we´re not sure when it will get better. If things clear up fairly soon myself and some others are hoping to return quickly.

The work God is doing in Honduras is powerful and I have been so blessed to be apart of it. I am very sad to leave. It´s hard because I feel like I´m abandoning all these people I´ve been working with and love.

As I said, I´m leaving Honduras tomorrow late morning. All the missionaries I know are leaving. Because of the political unrest.

Please pray for the future of this country and for the people as they go through this process. Thank you for supporting my work here.

A Gringo Drove Our Bus

Let's see, where to start... my feet inch from bug bites...

Yesterday, we went to Valley of the Angels with the Oklahoma group. We were there for SO long! We ate lunch at the same place my group did when we went last year. It was cool to go back to the same place and see the changes that were made. One of my favorite things about this trip has just been actually coming back to a country i've been to before. After lunch, we went to two shops then sat and played card games for about 3 hours. We were playing a pretty intense game and would often get frustrated and may have drawn attention to us from the police officers on accident. lol two of them came over and asked what we were playing. They were really nice. Then we enjoyed the rest of the evening at Baxter eating pizza and helping the Oklahoma with their V.B.S. planning.

Today, watched Arnold's futbol game. (Arnold is a Honduran that we work with a lot and sometimes stays with Will and Rachel. Rachel (the intern) says that he's also her brother and my cousin. haha we made up our own Honduran familes by who stays in what house. Anyway, after the football game we went to Mogote for V.B.S. I was a group leader again which I love doing! It helps me get to know more of the kids there better. Afterwards, we went to the mall yet again... for like 3 hours... so I called my parents and then we had dinner at the nice Pizza Hut. Now, we're just hanging out at Baxter Institute like we do most evenings.

Welp, it's been fun. Thanks for reading!

I'm Cold!

I need my sweatshirt...

But anyway, we spent three days working in Mogote with the Oklahoma group. They are a good group. Have I said that before? We're working on building a retaining wall for the soccer field behind the church. Yeh, that's right I finally figured out why we were digging a ditch. It was really hot while we were working. So we split the group into two smaller groups and took turns working and playing with kids. I got to know the church kids a lot better which was great! I really enjoy when we work in Mogote for that reason.

Today, we went to a community like Mogote that was really close. I don't however remember the name of it. We built a house for a family there. We worked for five straight hours and didn't eat lunch until almost two. It was intense. But we finished the house and it looks great! The family was really thankful. The dad of the family helped us throughout the whole process which I thought was neat because they don't always do that.

Audrey is leaving tomorrow... :( sadface. She's one of the interns. She's been here for a month and I'm going to miss her. All of us interns have gotten really close. It's sad when someone leaves for obvious reasons.

Tonight, we fed the homeless at the stadium. I think tonight was one of my favorite times i've gone. We spent a lot of time after all the food was gone just hanging out, so I got to talk to some of the people more than usual. I also got to hold a really cute baby. It broke my heart seeing her mom still getting high off of the glue while we all took turns holding her baby. It made me sad to see her just continuing the cycle of getting high instead of sobering up for her baby. She wasn't even "with it" enough to hear me tell her that her baby is beautiful.

Well, like i've said before, I'm having the time of my life here. Everything just seems right. There are rumors of political riots and other such things right now. But they are all just rumors so far. There is a big vote on Sunday about changing the constitution so that the current president can be re-elected. A lot of the people are not happy with him so that's why there are all these rumors spreading around. I'm not too worried and you shouldn't be either. As my Honduran friends said, the people are angry with the president, not the gringos.

Alright, that's all I got. Thanks for reading!

Agua Splash!!!

haha life is great! I'm enjoying every minute I spend here!

Saturday us interns and Amber took the day off and went to Aqua Splash! It was SO much fun! It was great bonding time for us all. It's like this giant water park. It was more legit than the ones I've been to in the States.

Sunday more groups came in! there are three groups on the baxter campus right now! there are SO many gringos! lol but seriously. We have the group from florida that came Friday (I think) another group from Oklahoma, this one from near Tulsa. And we also have a group from Houston. They are all really nice.

Today, We went with the Oklahoma group to Mogote and started digging a ditch.. I really don't know what we're doing with it... my bad? haha I got to know some of the kids that go to church with us in Mogote better which was great! I love them all! We took a few people from the Oklahoma group to the stadium with us to feed the homeless. It went really well! It was a relaxed evening, which is always nice.

Welp, time to go watch Futbol.

Thanks for reading!

Left my backpack outside

Well, the Oakcrest group has left. But a new group came in today. I feel like we´re at the airport all the time. It´s going to be hard for any group to take Oakcrest´s place because they were such a great group!

My friendshìps with the people here are growing day by day. I´m practicing so much Spanish and helping people with their English as well. It´s so great to be surround by my friends at Baxter once again. I can´t believe I´ve almost been here for a WHOLE month! It´s crazy to think about but i´ve enjoyed EVERY minute of it. The more time I spend here the more I really think I could live here or somewhere else in Latin America. I love the culture and people so much. I feel very much at home.

Tuesday, we went to Jovenes en Caminos with the Oakcrest group and it was amazing. We spent pretty much the whole day there. I made some friends and can´t wait to see them again! While we were there we painted a dormitory. We also spent A LOT of time playing with the kids. I played a lot of soccer and basketball and also just goofed around with them as they laughed at my Spanish. I hope we spend a lot of time out there this summer.



Tonight we´re going back out to the stadium to feed the homeless. I´m really enjoying the work we´re doing there. I´m getting to know the people there and forming relationships and I always look forward to the next time we go.

Well, this room is FREEZING so I think i´ll go explore. I put pictures on facebook so check them out!

Oh btw my backpack is safe...

Hard times at home

Satan continues to try and break me down. Once again something has happened at home that makes me want to be there, but I know that this is where God wants me to be this summer. God had been working in my life daily and continues to bless the work here and my honduran life.

We´ve been working a lot with the Oakcrest Church of Christ group which I have really enjoyed. They are a group from Oklahoma City and are just an amazing group to work with. We have built six houses, we had a V.B.S. at Mogote on Saturday and today we visited the dump and a special needs orphanage.

This evening we went back out to the stadium to feed some homeless people. I´m really enjoying being a part of the work going on there. I´m starting to build relationships with the people and I am seeing good things coming from us spending that time with the people.

Again, I´m going to cut it kind of short. Sorry, but there are people waiting for computers.

Thanks for reading!

Honduran Life is Great!

Life is pretty great here in Honduras, as the title states :) Two more interns came yesterday although one had an interesting journey... haha one of the interns ended up in El Salvador.. how I'm not exactly sure... haha

But anyway, The work is going amazingly... is that a word? Today we went to Mogote and built three houses with the group from Oklahoma City. Then us interns and Amber took a break upon returning to Baxter and played a mean game of Spades. Tonight we went down to the Stadium, like every other Monday and Thursday and fed homeless people. Tonight was a lot calmer than most nights which was good.

I had a great birthday that was shared with many friends. Amber, Rachel, Shelby, Audrey, Brittany, Darwin, and I went to Chili's for lunch to celebrate my birthday. It was great! Then I got to spend most of the day at Baxter with my friends here and like 30 different people sang "happy birthday" to me, both in English and Spanish. It was a good day.... but no cake.. haha

Well, I think I'm going to cut it short tonight and go socialize. Hope you enjoyed!

OH and BTW I have now slept through 2 maybe 3 earthquakes... I'm SO disappointed I haven't felt any of them!... but maybe that's a good thing...

Day 14

Today is a day at the airport... or at lest this morning. A group from OKC just left and now we´re waiting for a group from Tennesse (sp?) to get here. It gets a little bit easier to be here everyday, although it´s still really hard to be away from home right now.

Last night was the big soccer game. Everyone here in Honduras was SO excited. Honduras played the U.S. last night in some kind of playoff situation toward the world cup. It was an intense game. A bunch of us watched the game at Will and Rachel´s house through a huge projector. It was a bitter sweet victory over Honduras for a lot of us because the people here were SO excited about the game whereas in the U.S. hardly anyone knew about it.

Got to go. I´ll maybe update later tonight.

Happy Birthday Daddy

Day 12

Man, I never thought i´d be so hard to be away then right now. I got a text message last night from my sister saying that my dad is in the hospital. He was in a accident yesterday at work. He fractured his pelvis and tore an artery in his leg. He stayed the night in ICU and my mom told me this morning that they are thinking about moving him to a regular room.

Meanwhile, the work here in Honduras is great. We finished a roofing project on a church in the mountains (El Sopo) and got some more layers on concrete blocks up on what will be a kitchen at the church in Mogote. We´re going to be taking some people to the airport today and just running errands I believe.

Last night we went back to the stadium to feed the homeless and it ran pretty smoothly. I would have liked to of had more men with us because it was just me, Shelby, Rachel, and Will. but everything worked out. I´m not sure how many people we fed but it was a lot because we ran out of food towards the end.

Please keep my dad in your prayers for quick healing and please pray for me as well that i´ll have strength to continue God´s work while I´m waiting for the day my daddy gets to go home.

Day 10

Well, I don´t remember exactly where I left off last time but I´m going to start with Monday.

Another intern is here, she arrived monday and I love her and I´m not just saying that because she´s sitting right next to me. haha.

Honduras is different without the 1st park plaza group. It´s still great! I just got used to having them around.

Monday evening we went down to the stadium to feed the homeless. It was pretty intense, theywere very much in your face talking to you and it was intense. I pretended that i didn´t speak spanish while I was there... haha because those who found out I spoke spanish were even more so in my face. I had a guy tell me he loved me like three times and when we were leaving he told me he´d love me forever. After a little while Siney came and stood behind me and Shelby (other intern) to ward off the boys. We were very thankful.

Yesterday we went to Sopo with Dudley´s group. It was about an hour drive in the mountains. It was SO cold! We built a house and worked on the church building´s roof. I got really sunburned on my face and on my shins. I talked with a lot of the kids up there and played with them for awhile. When we were done there we went back to Baxter for dinner and then played some futbol. I was SO tired by the end of the game! I´m quite out of shape BUT I did score two goals!

Today we worked with Dudley´s group again but this time we went to the Dump and to Mogote. At the dump it wasn´t what I expected. I expected it to be a lot like when we went to the stadium but here they were a lot more calm. Probably because they weren´t all high on glue. While we were there we spent some time socializing and fed them sandwiches and bananas. After we went back to Baxter and made PB&J sandwiches then went out to Mogote to work at the church. We put two layers of cement blocks on what is going to be a kitchen, moved A LOT of wood and played with the kids. I made two friends. Their names are Jeffery and Joel. They are so cute. I think they´re both about 9 years old.

Well, I need to go so that I´ll have time to get some dinner before we leave the mall.

Survived my first earthquake and I didn´t even feel it because I was sleeping!

Finally a computer that will let me update! I don´t have much time because we´re at the airport waiting on another intern to arrive.

Last week I arrived with the first Park Plaza group. We went to Las Cabas to work. We had a lot of fun and got a lot accomplished. We built 9 and a half latrines (toilets) and taught several classes at the church. I spent a lot of time with the kids of the church and made some new friends. The place we stayed is what I call roughing it. It was a big building with wall that didn´t reach the ceiling, lot´s of bugs and bats, a creeper (drunk guy that wondered onto the camp site), an earthquake, and less than disirable bathrooms. to flush you have to pour water from a bucket into the toilet.

We came back to Tegucigalpa Saturday and the first park plaza group left yesterday morning. I´m ready to kick things into full swing here. I have already seen pretty much all my friends at Baxter which was amazing! I have missed them greatly. I even got to see my host family from last year.

well facebook and email are calling my name. Hopefully I can update again soon.

Less than 12 hours away!

Wow the time has flown by! I feel like it was just a week ago that I applied for the internship. I'm SO excited but I'm also pretty nervous. I still haven't even started packing. oops? ha ha I'm really bad about procrastinating, in case you couldn't tell. 

Hasta luego! 

7 ish more days!

Wow down to the wire! I have SO much to do in SO little time. Just finished purchasing my books for my summer courses, still need to finish supply shopping and thank you note writing, need to start laundry and packing... and other things I can't think of because I'm probably just blocking them out of my mind at the moment.

Random thought of the day...

I love how God places challenges in our lives to help us grow in our faith. In this last week and a half I have had religious discussions with two complete strangers of different religious backgrounds. 

The first one I met was Brenda. She was raised in the Muslim faith after growing up in the Middle East. I met her on my flight from Houston to Tulsa and we talked the entire flight about our faiths. We pointed out what we believe to be flaws in each other's religion and somehow managed to end on a good note and said goodbye with big smiles like we were just best friends.

The second I met tonight. Her name was also Teresa and I met her at Victory Christian Center when I went to their program called "99". We talked about our beliefs. We discussed speaking in tongues and baptism. I never realized how different their views on baptism were. (at least this woman's belief) At the end of our discussion we spent some time in prayer together and she gave me her key chain that said "Teresa" which I thought was very sweet.

These two experiences have made an impact on my life and I'm so grateful that God placed these two strangers in my life. I can't wait to see what other challenges he places in front of me this summer!

34 Days

It is always amazing to see God's wonderful work in progress. I have been very blessed financially and am very grateful. Knowing all of this I believe it will be easier to focus on the last week and a half of school. 

I have been messaging back and forth with a former intern of Amber and am receiving great advice about different aspects to expect this Summer. I absolutely can not wait to arrive in Honduras! Okay, so maybe it will be difficult to to concentrate on the finals days of school.

57 days!

Dates are confirmed and plane tickets have been  purchased! I'm so excited! It has been hard to concentrate on school lately. Oh I changed my major this past week. It's now Spanish with a minor in missions! I don't know why I hadn't figured out this one before... well I am a blonde so maybe that has a little bit to do with it :) But anyway, I really shouldn't be awake right now since I do have a 9am class tomorrow.

Buenas Noches!

Getting Closer

Well, I'm currently bored in Colorado so I decided why not update my blog... I'm here for spring break and it's been pretty amazing. But I would much rather be on the beach. I found out that I'm leaving for Honduras May 25th and I'm SO excited! I'm still trying to figure out when i'll be returning to the states. It's been really frustrating waiting to hear but I guess I should just get used to Latin American time anyway. I'm just ready to be done with this semester of school and be in Honduras!

Summer Plans!

I have been accepted to go to Honduras for the summer and be an intern for a missionary. I'm not sure about many of the details, I'm still waiting to hear back. But I am super excited to have this opportunity! I am going to try to update this blog more often than my last one and hopefully update while I am actually there. :) 

Once I find out more details, I'm going to start writing letters and sending them up and hopefully receive enough funding.

Well God bless you all and I can't wait to hear more details!