Honduras Day 4

Once again our day began at 6 AM with breakfast and devotions. We had a planning meeting to discuss special situations we might face at Fundacion CasAyuda, a special needs school. We left at 8 and when we arrived we split into 3 teams. One team did sports, one team did balloons, and the third team painted. The children were split into two groups, special needs and hearing impaired. The children were precious, so loving and happy to see us! The sports group had the deaf children first, and the children gave each of them signs for their names that related to their actual name and/or how they looked. In the balloon room, we had between 40 and 50 people in a 13x15 room. It was so hot, and we were making balloon animals as quickly as we could! The moment one was made, we'd hear another one pop. Most of the children thought that was funny, but it did scare a few. So we just kept making them for 45 minutes. We must have made at least 250 bunnies, dogs, butterflies...it was so much fun seeing how much joy the balloons gave them! Then it was lunch time for the children. Part of the team served them chicken and rice while others continued painting (we had the goal of painting the cafeteria, one of the classrooms and the outside of one of the buildings...and we got it all finished!!!) Afterward we had a program with all the children. We did our Daniel and the Lions Den skit, sang a few songs, and then Jordan Haskins shared a testimony with the children. I have to say that one of the most wonderful moments for Corey and me was seeing Jordan speak to all the kids. He was one of our youth in Bemis, and it brought us so much joy to see him stepping up and leading by speaking in probably the most intimidating situation we have had since we've been here. This required 3 way translating and speaking with a translator at all definitely takes getting used to. After the program, we all changed into painting clothes to join Corey, Mark, Dwayne and Jack who had painted all morning. We finished up with all the painting a little before 2 PM and then went back for lunch. As we left, the children who live at the school were standing at the gate waving the "I love you" sign to us...so precious! They had asked throughout the day if we would be back tomorrow. After lunch, lasagna, we were initially going to a school, but because of the strike they weren't open, so we loaded up on the bus again for the 45 minute drive to El Ayudante. Once we arrived there we finished up priming the guys dorm area...that means that the whole building has now been primed!!! After dinner we had our group devotion led by Matthew McSwain. This was another one of the highlights for Corey and me because he was one of our youth also. Today was a long, exhausting day, but it was good and we got so much accomplished.