Didasko

Hello all my Norteamericanos (North Americans)!! Welcome to the blog. I want to take this moment to thank you all for your support. I'm sure I sound like a broken record at this point, but you really have no idea how much it means to Matt and I. This trip wouldn't have been possible without you! And I want you all to remember as you read our blogs that everything that happens here, happens because of you all! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!



This morning I find myself in beautiful Tamara, which is about 45 minutes outside of Tegucigalpa. Amy, Allison and I are working at an orphanage here called Didasko. We're staying with a missionary named Rhonda who lives on campus. In a minute I'm going to tell you a little about Rhonda, but first a few sentences about yesterday:



From the retreat, we went to Alex's church which was really cool. The people were so nice, and the service and music was great (although I didn't understand a lot of it). Then we went to lunch at Pollo Supremo. And then it was off to the orphanage.



The guys are staying at the retreat through Thursday, and they'll be working with Alex, and then a little with Pablo again.



So anyway, about Rhonda. She is such a great woman, and you can really see what a big heart she has for these kids! She's about 28 and from Orange, TX. Yesterday we got to sit and talk with her for a couple of hours, so we heard a lot about the kids and where they come from and also Rhonda's personal journey to Honduras. So now I'm going to recount her journey:



She started the story with her working for a church in Washington. She was in charge of the Bus Ministry (picking kids up from low-income homes to go to church), and also did lots of activities with them. She worked there for 7 years. Well, at this point she never would have guessed she'd be in Honduras! What she did know was that God had given her a desire to care for kids. She wanted to work in an orphanage, but figured that would come later in life when she was married and settled down. About 5 years into her bus ministry in November, she was doing some activities with the girls when a mother came to pick up her daughters early. Rhonda started moving quickly to get their turkeys finished while not knowing how to communicate with the mother because she was a Spanish-speaker with very little English. Well, the mother walked over, and told Rhonda, "You good with children." Rhonda smiled and replied, "Thank you." The woman shook her head and said, "No, you good with children." They repeated this a couple of times before Rhonda decided that "thank you" isn't working, so she responded, "Well, thank you. These kids are my life, it's my calling from God." The woman stared at her, and replied, "NO, you very, very good with children. You come to my country." Rhonda was a little started at this and said, "Why would I go there?" She said, "In my country there are babies on the street. No one to care for them. You go to my country." At this point in Rhonda's life, she thought at that moment, "I might just do that." So she asked the woman, "Where is your country?" She said, "Honduras." And Rhonda replied, "I might just do that."



Well although she was now thinking of the possibility of living in another country, she still thought it would be farther down the road. Two years later, after going to a conference about your dreams being placed in your heart by God, she decided she would look into working at an orphanage. Through her church, she found 2 orphanages with open positions; one in Nicaragua and one in Panama. So after a lot of prayer, fasting, weeping, and excitement, she felt God say it was time. Through her church, she went to a language school in Costa Rica. As it turns out, two positions in Honduras opened up while she was in school. At first the church didn't want her going because the American missionary there was leaving, but not long after, he decided to stay. It was like as soon as a hinderance came up, a solution would arise.

So she visited all of the Central American orphanages affiliated with her church. So finally upon God's leading she committed to the Didasko orphanage in Tamara, Honduras. She went back to the US to start raising support. After all the money was raised and she was about to buy her plane ticket, she felt God saying to wait, and that she would be in the states longer than planned. So she decided to wait 5 days. Within that time, she got a phone call from her mother saying that her dad didn't make it in to work. She drove to her mom's so they could go look for him, and about that time, the sherriff was pulling in the driveway to tell them that he had been killed in a car accident. Rhonda stayed with her family after this incident in September, and in February of this year she felt it was time for her to go.

I'm sorry if that was a long story, but I just felt it was worth sharing. She cares so much for these kids here. Right now, her mother, two sisters, their families, and various friends have come to visit her for a week. They total 10 people, and will be helping with many of the projects we'll be doing.

Today, Allison and I are measuring the main building of the orphanage (dorms, bathrooms, kitchen) and I'm making a sort of technical drawing so Mark can figure the costs and amounts of materials to build a new roof. Everyone else is painting Rhonda's house.

Tomorrow, I'm going to tell a few of the kids' stories.

Love you all! It's time for me to get back to work!
Allie

PS. Sorry still working on pics of the hike, etc