Sweet Life in the City

I am sorry that I have not posted in a week or so. We were in Chicago ( I will share more in a minute) and then this week has been "operation projects" for me. I have 4 weeks of class left and I have several projects that are due. They have been hanging over my head so this week my goal is to get ALL of them done so I can enjoy these last few weeks of school with my 2nd graders. It has been easier than I thought getting back in the swing of things. This week actually just flew by! It is exciting thinking about how close Summer time will be here even though it still feels pretty much like winter. We had some great 70-80 degree weather days last week and then it dropped back down to the 30-40's. Well, as I mentioned we were in Chicago last Friday and Saturday. We left Thursday and headed to my parent's house which is about an hour south of Chicago. My nephews had been there all week so I got to visit with them for a few hours before they headed back to Nashville. We sta...

[caption id="attachment_2477" align="alignnone" width="1024" caption="A common scene in Guatemala"] [/caption] It is hard to believe that it has been a week since I was at the orphanage. We worked a half of day last Thursday. We played with the girls for a few hours and then said our painful good-byes. Meeting those girls and hearing their stories has forever changed my life and I am so thankful for that experience. After we said good-bye we loaded our bus and headed to Antigua. Thursday night and Friday were set aside for us to relax and have some free time. We got to Antigua and got ready for supper. I started to not feel so well. We went to eat and I knew I was getting sick. One of the guys walked me back to our hotel and for the next 12 hours I was sick. I was so sick! About every three hours I found myself in the bathroom vomiting and diarrhea. I was miserable and did not think I would ever feel better again! I got up Friday morning and went...

I really wish I could have blogged during my experience instead of afterwards because I know there will be so much that I will not be sharing. I would like to take this post to talk some about the girls we had the privilege to meet and love on last week. I stated yesterday that there are 31 girls at the orphanage. There are 5-6 girls that are older and in high school. A few of these girls are actually in their late twenties but the school system is so different there that they are still in high school because of the rate they are progressing. There are three little girls who are either 2 or 3 years old and the rest are first grade through 6th grade. The girls are just beautiful and despite their hardships they have a smile on their face and are full of love for others. They really are a family there. The girls take care of all the other girls. While we were there we were able to do crafts with them and play games with them. They love to play basketball and soccer! They love to sing and...

I would like to start by giving a little bit of details about the orphanage/girl's home.  The home has been opened for about 14 years. The property is owned by the Guatemalan government. We are not quite sure how the home was started but we think that the property was built to be used as some sort of military hospital but was never opened so the President's wife pushed to have it used as an orphanage. There are 3-4 nuns at the orphanage at all times but they may not be the same nuns since they rotate in and out. The Catholic church provides the nuns but do not provide any money for the operation of the orphanage. There is a Rotary Club from Ohio that pays for the girls tuition at school and provide $100 a month to the orphanage (which is not much). The facility holds 40 girls ages newborn 18 years old, right now there are 31 girls at the home. Our church Grace Community discovered this orphanage about a year ago. Our leader and another leader went last March to Guatemala and vi...

Day 1 and 2 of my trip The first day was our travel day. Both flights were only a little over 2 hours long. They all went smooth and quite quickly. We landed in Guatemala City and was welcomed by our bus driver for the week, Adolpho. He is a very sweet Guatemala man who drives the bus for us all week and helps interpret for us. He is used by many missionary groups including the groups from our church that have gone in the past. He picked us up from the airport and we started our 5 hour ride to Mazatenago. Before we got too far on the road we stopped to eat at Burger King. People that eat at these places tend to be ones that have money so there are armed guards in the parking lot to keep things safe. It was quite a sight to see a man with a machine gun greeting us as we went into Burger King. After we ate we got on the road. The weather was beautiful! The scenery was a mixture of beautiful and a bit disturbing. The landscape is very mountainous and green. There is also the presence of t...

WOW! What an amazing week! We did not have Internet connection the first three days of our trip and then it was spotty for the entire time. I am also having trouble loading pictures to my computer but they are all on Facebook via Jeremy's computer. I am hoping to get the pictures on my computer tomorrow so I can blog about certain pictures and the experiences that go with that picture. I will be taking the next few days to go over my trip. There is so much to post that I am still trying to organize my thoughts. It was an eye-opening trip and has changed my life. Once again, I know that I am not sharing much tonight, but I want the pictures to go with what I have to say:) I will take this opportunity to say "THANK YOU" for your support and prayers. I could feel them the entire time. I will go ahead and list a few things that were VERY different from what we are used to; 1. You cannot flush the toilet paper. You have to place it in the trash can. 2. There are armed gunman (...

It is hard to believe that I will be leaving TOMORROW to go to Guatemala. It seems like I have been planning and talking about this trip but it seemed it would never come. I am  excited but I cannot help feel a little sad tonight. There have been several times today that I have thought "what am I doing going on this trip?" Sam and Emma have been a bit sad and not themselves the past two days. They both keep asking about my trip. This morning Emma crawled in bed with me and was just kind of staring off at at wall. I asked her what she was thinking about and she said "I just thinking about your long trip". It makes me sad that my kids are sad about me leaving. I circled the day on the calendar for Sam to see what day I will be back. The truth is that I will be back before you know it! Well, I am not bringing my computer with me on the trip. I am not sure of what Internet I will have and I did not want to have to worry about lugging my computer around. There was a team...

"This hand is bitterness. We want to taste it and Let the hatred numb our sorrows. The wise hand opens slowly To lilies of the valley and tomorrow. This is what it means to be held. How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life And you survive This is what it is to be loved and to know That the promise was that when everything fell We'd be held" Natalie Grant's song Held   I am not sure how old I was when I knew I wanted to me a mom. I am pretty sure I was quite young. I remember as early as middle school that I loved babies and if one was around you better watch out because I would be wanting to hold that baby. I was good with kids and they just seemed to love me. I would spend hours thinking about what I would name all of my kids, I would be having six. They would all look just like me of course. Of course as the years went by their names would change and some of their features, but I still had the same picture of my what my child would look like. I could no...

I cannot begin to thank you for all your prayers. I am feeling so much better. I was going to post last night but I was so tired when I got back from class. I went to work Monday and let me tell you, it was a struggle. I did not feel well and it was storming so bad Monday morning. Thankfully we did not have any severe storms pass over us. Monday night I had a Guatemala meeting at our leaders house. It was the first time that I actually met the people I will be traveling to another country with and spending seven days with in a foreign country. They were all really nice but I did feel a little awkward. It is no secret that I look incredibly young. You may not know, but I am so insecure about looking so young. I know, I know, I will love it when I am older. When I was in my 20's I did not mind it so much but now it is just ridiculous. The part that gets me is that people tend to make a BIG deal about how young I look. So, any time I am going into a new situation I feel weird about my...