Safe and Sound!!

I'm happy to say we made it safe and sound aaaall the way to Balfate!! :)
For those of you who don't know who "we" is or how we got here...
My dad and I both flew from Redmond to San Fran to Sacramento to Houston to San Pedro Sula and with a few layovers and a delay too, which meant we literally made one of our connecting flights with 10 seconds to spare--running to the terminal, yes. And then we drove 4 hours by truck to a small town in Balfate, where the hospital is.
My dad came with me because our church, New Hope, has a sister church we support here and a mission family (with whom we've been friends with for many many years) that our church also sponsors and we try to have a person or team of people visit them every few years and it had been a while since someone last went so my dad figured he might as well come with me and check in and help out with agricultural stuff here too and then travel to Tegucilgalpa, the capital, where the church is on the 2nd half of his trip.
Anyways! We made it safe and we are not exactly caught up on sleep yet...but I'm sure in a few days I'll feel 100% :)

About where I am:
A tiny town in the county of Balfate, the state is Colon and the country is Honduras. I'm about 30 miles East of La Ceiba (nearest big city). On the Loma de Luz Cornerstone grounds there is a hospital, school, children's home, and farming that all benefits the community and is nonprofit. Anything we make 'profit' on goes towards funding the hospital and making care cheaper for the patients.

     Children's home (casa de los ninos): Kids ages newborn to 16 live here. Some are foster children that the state has placed there, some are orphans, or the family can no longer support/ are unfit to raise their children, or at least not all of them, so they send some of their kids to live in la casa de ninos.

     School (escuela): Children from the community and kids from the casa de los ninos attend school and ages range from 6 to 18 yrs old for the students. But how old the child is does not always mean they will be in a class with kids their same age. For example: a child who is 13 could be in the 1st grade  with 6 year olds because they were not educated prior to attending this school and have to start from square one like the younger kids.

     Agriculture: We grow acres of palm trees, right next door to Dole's farm of the same trees (surrounded and patrolled by armed guards that have machine guns), and ours are growing better!! We don't use pesticides and they do. ha just had to throw that in there.

     Hospital: I toured it today for a few minutes and then got right to work! I am a certified nursing assistant (cna) and mostly what I'll be doing at first is taking vital signs and signing off on charts of the patients once they check in at the front desk. What I did today: Work, continuously sweating in the 90 F heat with 90% humidity, from 8 to 12:30. Normally I will work from 7:30 am until 3:30ish, depending on how many patients we have. Never have I been so appreciative of air conditioning!!!! WOW. I went in to the lab room for a few minutes to say hi to my friend Sydney and I was actually cold in there because it has a/c in there, when that's probably the normal temp of my house back in Bend. haha. Crazy. Anyways, there is a continuous line of patients waiting, kids running around, mothers nursing, children's snacks dropped on the floor and everyone is dabbing sweat from their forehead. Surprisingly, it's calming to me. I know writing it out and reading it back to myself it sounds like pure chaos, but I can't explain it--there's a peace about me and the patients. The only thing I can say about it is that it's God working there, there can't be any other reason for the hospital to run so well and for the staff to continue working as happy and welcoming as they do--it's the power of the Holy Spirit. And for that, I thank God for blessing this ministry. Without Him, it would be impossible.
So today I took so many vitals I honestly don't know how many patients I saw--50? Maybe more? Idk, i'll have to keep track next time because I've never worked to efficiently and continuously, stopping for a sip of water twice.
So since I only worked a 1/2 day today I went back to my room after lunch and took a short nap because I wasn't feeling good, I had a really bad headache. So then I decided some beach therapy might do the trick :) After a few ibuprofen, I went to the beach with Syd, Amy, and mi Papa' for 2 hours and swam and bobbed up in down in the warm, and soothing beautiful waves of the Caribbean Sea. I honestly don't think I will EVER get over how much I love it. <3

About where I'm going:
This week I will be staying in Balfate and working. Next thursday me and the Wards (mission family here that's moving to Florida soon, Sydney is their oldest daughter) will be traveling to Western Honduras to visit some of their friends they have their from the first place they lived in before they moved to Balfate.
I'll try to post once or twice a week and keep you updated. Thank you for reading and your prayers are appreciated!
Mucho amor,
Maria

Only a few more days!

First things first: Where is Honduras? Well, here it is! All the way from Oregon in the U.S. to Honduras in Central America. :)

And here is a bird's eye view of the school, hospital and the apartment building I'll be living in too. Really close to the ocean, and lots and lots of greenery everywhere.

I'm going to try to post on here at least once a week while I'm away and will post lots of pictures on facebook and some of my favorites here on the blog.

I fly out Sunday evening, June 24th, so I'll do my first real post from Honduras soon after that. So until then--stay tuned!

And gracias a todos for all your thoughts and prayers going into my trip this summer. It really does mean a lot to me to hear such amazing encouragement and to know that people have been praying for not only my health and safety, but also for the people in the community there and the frienships and relationships that I will be making soon. I can't wait to see what God has planned for me, and to share it with you guys!