Honduras. Day 15.
We slept in a little today, and then me, Nolan and Karis (the TORCH interns) went downstairs and loaded up with Marc, Nicole, and Matt to set out on what was to be a really cool day. We went and met one of the TORCH groups from West Virginia (a pretty cool, nice group with several veteran TORCH members in it) in some community where we have never done work before. The TORCHers had bagged 200 bags of food for the community, and we came and helped them distribute the food. Let me just say this: just because I didn't build a house today in no way means I didn't get a work out. The hills in that community were intense, and delivering that food up and down those hills took a toll on me. But we gave out every last bag, and some of the looks on some of those faces were looks that said, "I genuinely appreciate this, and I can't tell you how thankful I am for it."
Yeah, that was pretty cool.
Then we rode on the bus with them to Casitas Kennedy (basically a child warehouse, where Casa de Esperanza gets a lot of children from). They had 60 boxes of pizza for the kids. I really appreciated that; that was a cool idea. But we waited for Marc at Casitas until he got out of a meeting and picked us up and took us to Sector Ocho (and as we were driving up I could already here, "Arroz! Arroz!" And that made me smile). But we were on a mission in Sector Ocho. We found our friend named Kelline, who we met there because of how much she worked at the new church building (and she knew some English so it was easier to hang out with her). Kelline was turning 15 today, and we told her we were going to take her out to eat. She got really excited, and said she would run back and ask her mom.
When she left, me and Nolan got David (one of the kids we'd played soccer with) to take us to see Reyna, the lady who had had appendicitis. It was a brutal hike to her house, but we eventually got there. I told her, as best as I could in my broken Spanish, that we just wanted to come and see her and see how she was doing. She and her grandmother were very appreciate, and we sat with them for a while. Reyna was bedridden for the day, and she said her side was feeling a lot better (not sure if that's a good thing or not yet, though). I asked if there was anything we could get for her, and she asked for some orange juice.
Reyna just wanted some orange juice.
So we marched to a pulperia, got her some, and took it back to her. She said thank you, we said it was good to see her and that we hoped she'd get better. We said God bless you, and parted ways.
God, please bless Reyna.
We took Kelline to Pizza Hut for her birthday (she loves Pizza Hut). We all had fun sitting around and laughing, and right before we left, Marc got me to go ask the waiter to get everyone to sing Happy Birthday to her. When they all came out, at first I thought she was embarrassed. And when they all started singing, Kelline began to cry. I was wondering if we had made the right move, but then she lifted her face after the song was over, and she was smiling. She looked around at us all and said, "Thank you very much. My cries are happy. Very, very happy. Thank you so much." That was a moment I think I'll never forget. Rob Bell would call it a "sacred" moment, where I could feel the happiness of God around the table as we had taken this sweet 15 year old girl out to Pizza Hut for her birthday.
Then we went and hung out at the warehouse, and then we went and had some amazing chicken and mashed potatoes at Marc's house in Santa Ana. We just got back to the apartments a little while ago. And as I reflect over today, again, all I can say is: "It is good."
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