Today started out with some roosters. The campus here has about 5 roosters and 12 or so chickens. There’s a coop down the hill that I got to tour later on in the day. So about 3am I hear some roosters, I took a breath remembering i’m in Honduras and fell back asleep. I got up about 6:30 to get ready for the day and did my own thing making breakfast and hanging out with Yui at the table before the work day started at 7:30 am.
Yui is another IWU student who came here about June 5th, she’s a biology pre-med major and is here to learn from Larry in the area of agriculture and just getting some experience for fun.
Larry and Allison are the permanent residents here with their daughter Eva and soon to be new born little girl. I have yet to hear their story of how they got here but I am excited to know those details soon!
For Breakfast, we are able to make our own meals using anything we find in the kitchen. Today I had an egg, cereal and of course some good strong Honduran coffee.
After breakfast, Larry with baby Eva in hands took Yui and I across the street to show us which limbs he wanted to use to build some A-frames (trellises) in the gardens. After we took his direction, he set us up with 3 honduran boys as helpers to cut the limbs and transport them to the garden.
John, Walter, and Harrison (the boys) are orphan boys from a town down the mountain a little ways. Through broken spanish, I managed to find out that Harrison and Walter are brothers and John is their cousin. They were between the ages of 9 and 13 and were helpful at times but also playful and needed a little encouragement to keep working like any pre-teen boys :)
The boys were very good with the machetes, hitting the mark EVERY time and without their help, Yui and I would have taken twice the time to get the limbs over to the gardens.
After many hikes up and down the hill where the limbs were, we spent some time in the gardens building the A-frames giving the beans a structure to grow up on. When Larry arrived, he showed me the yams, cucumbers and toropical pumpkin plants. We built a structure for the cucumbers and he also pointed out some recently transplanted Moringa trees.
Around noon, we took a lunch break and saw Eva and Allison. Allison was sick today so she spent much of the day in the room. Please pray she gets well soon, she is pregnant and due July 16th. Being sick for 2 is not fun.
After lunch Yui and Jessica made Oatmeal Bread while Larry gave me a tour... If I tried to give all of the details of the tour, I would probably be up all night, but just know that it consisted of living fences, dark green leafy veggies that are used in the kitchen often, prikly pears, coconuts, breadfruit, passionfruit, compost and vermiculture, a home made compost toilet (i haven't used it yet, but soon!), dorms, bamboo patches, tire gardens, more moringa, peppers, a shady old building that used to be lived in but from Hurricane Mitch it is now used as a nursery for plants (my favorite place right now), chicken coop, miraculous volleyball court, study and library, squash and aloe plants, basil, spinach, oregano, lemon grass (which i’ll probably make a cup of tea with in the near future), and the home of some really great brothers and sisters in Christ. The tour was amazing and very fun!
After the tour, Larry went to pick up some local youth who came for some praise and worship, bible study, and games. It was great to see Jessica, one of the Honduran interns, in action discipling these kids from the area (she grew up here and has been an intern for the past year).
After hanging with the kids and playing some classic monkey in the middle in the rain, we cleaned up and Jessica, Yui and I made dinner.
Dinner consisted of brocolli, carrots, onions, katuk (dark green leafy vegetable that's high in protein. These are under utilized in the area but have many beneficial nutrients!), eggs and cheese with rice and beans on the side. It was delicious.
After dinner, we spent some “family time” and everyone on campus (except for sickly Allison and sleepy Eva) came together in the study to watch Faith Like Potatoes. Good movie. I had never seen it, but as always I cried at the end.
I’m so excited to be here and as my time here continues, I am constantly affirmed in God’s hand on me bringing me here. I know that He is present with me throughout my days and that He has brought me here for a purpose.
Pray for me as He continues to teach me. I want to be a good student of our ultimate professor. Also pray for the people here, that God would continue to fill them up each day because they give so much of themselves to others in their community. And lastly, pray for Allison’s health.
Thanks for all of your prayers! I love you all!
No comments:
Post a Comment