En Serio?!

UPDATE: Mandy no longer has lice (I actually haven't had it in a long time, I found out I had it on a tuesday or something and on Thursday when I had someone check, it was gone!). No need to worry, Mandy is still alive and well, a little disturbed, but ok.
Honduras is good. It's been cooling down lately. We're in rainy season now so there has been a lot of that going on lately. Actually we found out that this is the most rain they've had since Hurricane Mitch which hit them 10 years ago in 1998, so in other words there's been a heck of a lot of rain! The main bridge going into the capital, Tegucigalpa, which is like 3 0r 4 hours from here, was actually run over (or however you say it) by water and 4,000 people have died so far from drowning. In other parts of the country there are floods as high as 2 or 3 feet. It's pretty serious. Pray for them, who ever knew rain could do so much damage.

Ok next topic of discussion, we, the volunteers, have officially decided that we would like to put on a evangelistic series here in Santa Barbara. Now this will not just be your ordinary evangelistic series, we're putting a lot into it. We are planning it for late January/early February for right before school starts (the school year here is Feb-Nov). It is going to be eight days long Saturday night to Saturday night. The program will consist of a short sermon, singing, special music and other such things. We will also be providing transportation to and form the place where we are having it in hopes that more people might come. There will be a children's program as well so that people can bring their kids. We are also hoping to have some kind of snacks to pass out every night as well. It doesn't stop there: we are wanting to advertise on the radio, the local television station and by passing out fliers. We are also wanting to broadcast the programs on the radio and/or t.v. Big goals, we know, but we know that nothing's too big for God and we feel that He has big plans for this. The kids, volunteers, and staff members here at the hogar will be involved in all of this as well. Ok, now you ready for the catch? - We need two things: fervent prayer as we go through the planning process and you guessed it = $. In the next week or so we are all going to be making/sending short videos back to our churches to ask them to help us raise the money for this. This is a way that you too can get involved! 

I am now praying that God gives me something to do that causes me to think, stress out a little bit, gain/use some skill, work hard on, initiate, stretch my ideas and most of all point to His work within me. 

hmmm... that's it for now. Thank you once again for reading :)

Mandy (Taco Bell deprived in Honduras)

JIMMENY CRICKET!

I can't believe I am actually going to say this on an international level (the internet) but I feel that you (my readers) would be interested to know, that for the first time in my life, today, Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at approximately 5:45 pm discovered that I Amanda A Corea have/had lice....AAAAHHHHH eeewwwww, gross, gross, gross (please take note of the picture)... Okay okay, no more talking about it anymore, I can't think about it, I'm too disgusted. I never thought I would utter those words..EVER! Please just know, that all of the "Mandy never bathes" jokes can stop right now, because I do...everyday! I wash my hair everyday... which you're not supposed to do because it's bad for your hair, but I do anyways...!!!! They only found like 5 or so little ones but still.... when they found those little stinkers, I started telling everyone goodbye because I was dying. I told them I might as well go into seclusion because I was so dirty and unworthy of anyone's presence (and my roommate thinks I'm dramatic! psh!).

So back to the whole bathing thing: I do wash my hair, it's because all of the sweet little chilens' rub their heads up on mine all the time because they love me so much ;) No really though, they do rub their heads against mine.

*sigh* ok well now that I've gotten that disturbing news break out of the way, another small piece of interestingness: I learned how to make pupusas!!! Yay!!! (for those of you who are unaware of what a pupusa is - look it up!) Gente, do you know what that means? I am officially a true Salvadoran!! YAY!!! 

Ok... that's all for now...tata... :)

Not About Me

So I've realized that pretty much every blog has been about me, granted I am the one in the foreign country but, this year is not about me, it's about Him and them, Him being God and them being the people that God chooses to touch through me.... or am I wrong, is this whole thing about me and my spiritual, personal growth? I think it's both. You always hear people say, I went into the mission field thinking I was helping people and they ended up teaching me so much more than I ever could have taught them: this is true, I've experienced it before. But at the same time as a part of my personal ministry and work for Christ I have chosen to come here to Honduras, b/c I want to do something for someone else for once, I don't want it to be about me, I want to completely submit to doing God's work in serving others completely and wholly, not partially or with ulterior motives. I want Him to work in me and through me... wait that makes it about me then doesn't it?!
At the hogar here, we have a grand total of 42 kids (I think). We used to have 43, but a girl left this past Monday. She is the first one to leave since I been here and much to my dismay, I do not think that she will be the last. This time it was ok because I haven't been here long enough to have really built up any deep personal relationships with the kids yet, but I know that as time goes on, kids leaving will not be an easy thing to deal with. It's different here, than in the States where most of the time if someone has no skills they can kind of get by. When a kid/teenager leaves there are so many factors to worry about: Have you taught them everything they need to know in order to survive out there on their own? Will they be smart enough to not get caught up in anything that they shouldn't be doing? Where will they end up in life and how will they get there? With the schooling that they have or haven't had, will they be able to provide for themselves? And most importantly, how do they view God and where He fits into their lives? Life here is HARD!

Among the 42 kids here their ages range from 8 to 19, including three or four older ones that grew up here and either haven't left because they aren't mentally capable of being on their own, or because they have yet to find a job, so they still live here and work/help out here.

Not all, but most of the kids that are here are here for one of four reasons: 1- they are true orphans, meaning that they have no family and were found on the street; 2- their parent(s) abandoned them because they simply didn't want them; 3- their parents brought them here or abandoned them because they were not physically/financially (money, in jail...) able to provide for their children; 4- the home situation was not a good one: abuse, not eating, parents wanting to use/sell their children for different things (food, clothes, drugs, etc.), children running away, etc. 

At this point there are some kids that I know better than others, but I can very quickly see myself getting attached to each and every one of them, the older and younger ones. Besides some weekends, for the most part life isn't that boring here. When it's time to work, all of us, children, adults and volunteers alike, work hard. But we can also have so much fun :) They make me laugh, which I love and when in doubt I can always someone to accompany me.

Also included in our large family, there are 6 adults that work here, live here, and run the hogar, plus the 10 volunteers that are here.

Ok, well, I think this is enough for now. Thank you so much for your emails and prayers, they are greatly apprecitated!!

Until later.... Mandy :)