¡Muchas fotos!

Honduras Children Kinder

Cornflakes are served for breakfast everyday at the Kinder

Why not just tape a note to the child to make sure the parents get it? Love this idea!

My roommate found this crab in the sink... since then, we've found a few more throughout the house!! I'd rather find a crab than a tarantula though!

Daisy--the boxer/pitbull pup at my old house in Tela/my best friend

Visiting the SOS in Tela to see some of my old kids :):)

<3 Miss them everyday <3

One of the volunteers (Jennifer) teaching in a public school close to El Porvenir as part of our PEP Extension Program

A Christian orphanage and school just outside of El Porvenir where some of our volunteers teach English

When it rains, the dirt roads outside of our house flood, making a perfect playground for ducks.

It's hard to see the beautiful mountains in this one, but it was taken just outside of my house. In the other direction, you find the beach :):)

Pictures to prepare for graduation!

Excited to graduate from the Kinder!!

I brought my hammock back from Tela and put it up on our porch :) We have bars on all of our windows, etc. but there is still a nice view of the ocean!

Kitchen

Dining room with some of the kids' pictures on the wall

Hallway where we hang our clothes to dry. The right side of our house is screening with bars and the door to the left is my bedroom.

Home sweet home :) I've recently unbunked so that my extra bed could become my drying rack. I can hear the ocean from my bed <3

Living in luxury: This time around, I have a dresser, closet area, my own bathroom with a usually hot shower, AND mirrors!!

Two of my roommates (Sarah and Adam) at the church where we get to help feed the kids on Wednesdays

The kids are always so excited to see us--it really makes the long walk to that part of town worth it.

Kinder Graduation!!

The kids looked so fancy in their blue :)

On their best behavior...

Lots of parents came to the graduation and there was even a special parent-child dance.

A close-up of the ocean from my porch... interesting juxtaposition of the tropical view through the metal bars.

This little boy ran up to me from a block away and put his arm around my waist as we walked to the church to help feed the kids.

They were hungry!!!

This dental brigade was staying with the missionaries (Scott & Susan) and they passed out toothbrushes.

We were finally able to work out using this church as our 3rd location for the Vacation Activities Program (VAP). It is in the same area where we go to feed the children and they also offer weekly feedings and are supported by the same missionaries. The Pastor is a wonderful, kind man and it was truly a blessing how this all worked out.

My roommate (Chris) prepping for the parent information meeting and pre-registration.

A decent turnout... I have to admit that I was relieved when I finished giving my speech in Spanish.

We registered about 25 kids at this first meeting and I was impressed at how efficiently all of the volunteers worked together.

A few of our volunteers worked very hard to organize our supplies!! Thanks again!

Soccer cleats from the donation drive and balls sent with me from Dad :):) I plan to go to the SOS (where I volunteered before) around Christmas to give them the cleats.

Sunset on the ferry ride to Roatán

Sarah and I had too much fun with my camera on the ferry.

Sunset in Roatán

So peaceful

To advertise for the VAP registration sessions, our friend (Dani, who is from El Porvenir) walked us around to all of the pulperías to hang fliers. The first time, it was just me, Dani, and Anna and we made over 50 stops. We were glad to have more help the second time, but it still took a few hours!!

Me and Anna (my roommate) taking a break at the bus stop

This is the scene just to the right of my front door... life is good :):)

Two of our volunteers made pretty registration posters to hang up on the 3 VAP sites.

Dani took some of us to the local public school to pass out little fliers about VAP registration.

This school is located right across the street from one of our volunteer houses.

The kids seemed to be pretty excited about the program!

During training, I got to facilitate some teambuilding exercises... Here are the volunteers attempting the Human Knot in the downstairs classroom at my house.

People to People outside of the beach house!

It's kind of like human twister...

The volunteers have been using these games with the kids, and they love it!

Lighthouse--also outside of the beach house during training

Spider web debrief with yarn

Worship music at the start of Sunday service at the church in Scott & Susan's house. Scott plays the guitar and others play the keyboard, tambourine, bongos, shaker eggs, etc. Scott reminds me a lot of my Dad, so it's kind of comforting to be around him.

Pastor Gary is a sweet, Southern man with an awesome testimony.

Chili must have been worn out from that service...

Registration at the Kinder

Although we had a lot of parents show up for registration meetings, a lot of our kids signed themselves up.

They don't look too upset to be working through their weekend :)

Registration at the church. This is our newest location in a poorer area of town.

We had a 1 hour time-slot for registration, but there were people pouring in the doors for 2 hours straight.

Registration at the PEP classroom located in the center of town, right next to one of our volunteer houses. 

This is where we teach English classes to children during the school year and we also have night classes for adults. The adult English classes are continuing during VAP and I will start helping to teach next week.

With my roommate, Fabienne.

Each day of training, I asked a different volunteer to read an inspirational story, quote, etc.  My roommate, Adam, chose to tell a story involving some of the other volunteers and it was both funny and enlightening. He is a motivational speaker and does a great job putting his thoughts into words.

With Sarah riding in the back of our director's truck on the way to a water dedication ceremony at the SOS near La Ceiba. There were at least 5 more volunteers also crammed into the back and we made it into a party :)

Hiking up a mountain and crossing a stream as part of a water dedication ceremony that we were invited to... we thought we were supposed to dress up and most of us were hiking in flip flops!!

We made it up and across, despite our flip flops! It was interesting to see how they built the water system into the stream.

With Belinda and Ivana--After the hike up the mountain, we headed to the SOS for the actual ceremony. 

An organization named Amigos de Honduras facilitated the designing and construction of a water system that would provide sanitary water for the entire SOS children's village.

The water dedication was complete with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

Faith Hope Love--with my piece of ribbon from the water dedication ceremony

The men from Amigos de Honduras treated all of our volunteers to a lovely dinner and they were awesome company.  They do wonderful work in Honduras and they were kind enough to share the experience with us.

With Adam and Sarah after dinner

VAP Trial Day 1 at the Kinder--School was still in session, but we unofficially started up for the kids who could make it and we had a great turnout!

Still signing kids up!

Scott and Susan had a group in town on a mission trip and they happened to be building bathrooms for the church we are using on the very day that we started the program up!  That was the one necessity that we were trying to work around and it all came together :)

On the trial days at the church location, we just played with the kids outside on a nice soccer field by the church.

They l.o.v.e. to play soccer... at any age!

These are also some of the kids who come to the weekly feedings at the other church in the area.

Sarah had a big group of kids playing duck duck goose!

These girls are such sweethearts <3 I've been wearing my good luck ladybug earrings from my grandma Trudy!

The kids down here do a great job of taking care of each other... It's pretty typical to see a very young child carrying around their baby brother or sister.

Working bathrooms!! Although the little boys still sometimes just use the field as a urinal... despite being outside with a large group of kids.

Belinda and I rode in the trunk... only in Honduras.

We had a volunteer potluck to celebrate the kick-off of VAP. Sarah and I made guacamole and we had baleadas, homemade chips and salsa, and brownies with ice cream--YUM!

After months of emailing and skyping, I was finally able to meet Eve (one of our directors) in person! She was in town for about 10 days for training and the start of VAP.