Family and Friends,

THANK YOU!  For Thanksgiving this year, I am especially thanking God for your financial and moral support and prayers.  I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for your support.  I am so grateful for this opportunity.   Also, don’t worry about me today.  Yes, I will definitely miss the usual Thanksgiving with my family (with extra emphasis on family), but the gringos here are going to celebrate with a meal too.  Also, we’re in the midst of a month-long soccer tournament, which is a good distraction from homesickness.  I scored two goals in my team’s game last week!  :)  Though, ahem, I was playing with younger children and other women.  

A few weeks ago, I had an awesome experience, and I wanted to share the story with all of you.  A group of our Amigos de Jesus kids had the opportunity to partake in a service trip.  This service trip was organized by Joanna, one of the volunteers, and I was lucky enough to be invited along.  The trip was centered around sharing a day with people of another hogar, El Buen Samaritano, which is especially for adults and children with severe disabilities who have nowhere else to live.

We set off early on a Saturday morning for the drive to San Pedro.  We were a little squished in the pick-up truck, but the atmosphere was jovial.  Our group was comprised of two of our young men, two of our teenagers, one of our school age boys, and two of our school-age girls.  When we arrived at El Buen Samaritano, we were greeted by staff into their beautiful facility.  They brought us to an open cement court surrounded by foliage, and they began to bring out the adults who live at the home.  Almost all of them appeared to have severe handicaps as most of them were in wheelchairs and were unable to speak.  When our kids saw the severe condition of the adults, they jumped right in to help.  They began pushing the adults around the courtyard, and the faces of the adults just lit up with these gigantic grins.  We also had brought art supplies with us, and some of the adults enjoyed watercolor painting.  I watched our university boy patiently guide the hand of one particular adult from water to paint to paper over and over again until the painting was finished.  Another one of the adults was extremely talented and used his feet to create his own work of art.  We also had brought face paint, and pretty soon the majority of the people had some sort of facial embellishment.  After an hour or so, we ended our “play time” with a game of bingo.  

Next came lunch.  We went inside the home, and we were all handed a bowl or bottle of food and directed to a person to feed.  Personally, I was slightly uncomfortable because I wasn’t sure what I was doing.  Some of the people were sitting in wheelchairs, and some were laying in beds.  There was also a lot of coughing and other eating-related sounds that were a bit unnerving.  But then I looked around and saw our kids giving food to these people, and it brought tears to my eyes.  They didn’t hesitate at all, and they completed the task with such care and willingness.  I was so amazed by them and so proud of them.

Though we interacted mainly with the adults, there were also a good number of children at the hogar.  Somewhere in the course of the day I noticed most of the group of our kids standing by a bed inside the home.  I walked up to join the group and saw that there was a baby in the bed.  His head was swollen two times the size that it should have been.  I know that I had a pained expression on my face because our little Amigos boy looked up at me and simply said, “Que bonito, How beautiful.”  I could only respond with a strained “Si” as one of our kids once again moved me to tears.

After lunch wrapped up, we said goodbye and loaded up into our truck.  We did a little bit of reflecting before we headed home.  Our kids reflected positively about the experience.  They expressed gratefulness for our health and also that we had gotten to help others that day.  On the way home, the beautiful Honduran mountains were bathed in sunlight, and the littlest guy of our group fell asleep on me.  I felt so at peace.

The day, like the people of El Buen Samaritano, simply was bonito.  It was a beautiful day, and we have beautiful kids.

Two of our kids having fun with face paint after our visit

Thank you for making it possible for me to have experiences like this.