Honduras

The week I spent in Honduras was one of the more emotional weeks I have had in ages.

We arrived in San Pedro Sula and began what should have been a 3-4 hour drive to La Esperanza.  We stopped at a market.  Despite not having slept for what seemed like forever, it was pretty and quite idyllic.

Nothing like guarding your gas station wares with a shotgun.  Keep those Cheetos safe, boys!

Somewhere along the drive, our truck broke down.  So we ended up spending a very long time in a Honduran rest stop.  I actually really enjoyed this fish.  It was salty, but delicious!

Somewhere around 2am we arrived at "the Farm" and got our first night of sleep in 2 days.  Dorm room style.  Girls on one side, boys on the other!

We then made the drive from Yamaranguila (where the farm was located) to La Esperanza (where the "Invasion" was located, where we were building the house).  I really loved the flowery weeds growing on many of the rooftops.

Our first day's task was digging the foundation for the house, by hand, filling it with rocks, and then cement.  

Hand-mixed cement, of course.

I don't have any pictures of the next day because I was working so hard!  We hand-mixed and poured the concrete for the floor.  It took the entire day.  No joke.  About half of the group began digging the trench for the foundation of the other house.  

It rained a lot.  This is what the foundation trench looked like the next morning.

I led up the children's ministry for the week.  It really just consisted of short Sunday-school type lessons.  Here you can see a towering Goliath egging on little David.  David won!

We marched like Joshua, approached the king like Esther, and fed the 5,000 (Swedish fish)... and did a lot of coloring, jumping rope, playing soccer, and so on.

We had to travel to the local river to get water to mix concrete.  All hauled by hand, of course!

These type of shacks are what the people in the Invasion are living in.

The Invasion has a council that votes on who gets the next Mercy International built house.  The family must be in need and not on drugs/alcohol to qualify for a house.  

The Invasion surrounded by mist.

We had really amazing meals at the Farm.  Most of our meals were Honduran, and quite delicious.

The day after we poured the concrete floor a local Honduran masonry team built the walls.  The woman standing in the doorway is the mother/grandma who is receiving the house.  Her name is Margerita, and she works all day doing laundry for others.  She earns about $5/day and is the main breadwinner for her many children (I forget how many.  Around 9.)  and their children (about 7).

This is baby Sulmy, one of Margerita's grandchildren.  She is four months old and the sweetest thing.  Her 18 year old mother, Jenny wants to go back to school to be a reporter, but I doubt it will happen.  She has no access to birth control and she is married...

One day a woman named Daniza taught me how to make corn tortillas.  You can probably tell which of the three that I made.  I won't be starting a tortilla business anytime soon!

This woman is in her 60s.  She looks older.  She told one of our team that she can't read or write, but always has wanted to know how to write her own name.  She learned.

Trusses were built on one day.  And on the final work-day we put the tin on for the roof.

Margerita (in red) taught me how to wash laundry on a wash-board.  It was back breaking and I wasn't even doing it right.  She laughed a lot watching me, and I was glad to give her something to smile about.  I hope that she is in her house tonight.  And if it rains, I hope she thanks God that she is no longer sleeping in the dirt.