Friday

Today was an up and down battle emotionally for our team here in Honduras. Our first stop of the day was to the special needs orphanage. When we arrived we were told some devastating news. The girl Ashley had been telling me about all week, Izzy, had became ill and had passed away. Even though I had never met this girl I knew she had to be absolutely amazing from just listening to Ashley talk about her with such love and admiration. While at the orphanage all of us had some great experiences with the children. Their smiles and laughter are some of the most amazing things here in Honduras. The boys spent the night again last night so they were with us all day again!

After the first orphanage we went to the Dump. The Dump here in Tegucigalpa you have to see to believe. Hundreds of people live, and I do mean live in the dump. Our goal today was to feed some of them. As you drive towards the dump the scenery goes from sad to heartbreaking as you see men, women, and children in conditions you never thought possible. As we drove in we had to have people guard the food on the back of the truck so that it was not taken. When we got to a crowded spot we had the kids stay in the van as we got out to great the masses. The man in charge of the feeding is Mark Tindel. He works at Casa de Esperanza and at least once a week comes to the dump to feed. We passed out beans, rice, tortillas, and water to the people at the dump. Mike and I were in charge of passing out the water and it went fast. I got down to just one pouch and my goal was simple, give the last bit of water we had to a child. Two people came towards me, a man with a machete, and a little girl with a smile. I don’t even have to tell you who ended up with that water.

After leaving the dump we went to the Mother Theresa Orphanage. This place had some amazing kids. Daniel quickly made a new friend who wouldn’t part from his shadow. And his name was Daniel too! Steve also connected with a child, Kenny. They were inseparable all afternoon! One of the nuns there pointed out a small girl, Jacqueline who was shying away from our group. She was such a sweet little girl! The nun told me that when I leave the little girl would cry. But it didn’t take that long because as soon as anyone but me touched her she started bawling. Luckily Hines was there to help me calm her down. Side note, she also covered me in warm strawberry milk.

Our busy day continued when we went to the Jesus statue at one of the highest points of the city. From there we got to see a storm roll in and the view was breath taking. We then had to run back to the car to beat the storm and luckily we all made it back before the storm came.

Our final trip of the day was to KFC where we took the kids from Casa de Esperanza for dinner. Those kids are quite possibly the most energetic children I’ve ever associated with. The KFC has a soccer field in it so Daniel and I got to play some soccer with the kids! There were some sad goodbyes as we left KFC though.

In closing please keep Ashley in your prayers tonight as well as anyone else whose life was changed through Izzy.

(Written by team member: Corey Bryant)