Looking Down at a Miracle

Day 2, started the day bright and early. It was the first time in a while that I had had a nice cold bucket bath. After breakfast and getting ready, we had our mentor time with Gracie. She went over our weekly schedule with us and gave us a little orientation. It turns out that we are going to be doing a few classes with the girls and starting a new program with some of the students at the local high school. I’ll be honest, I’m a little anxious about that…again, because of the language barrier and I really don’t like not knowing what to expect. I think most of it though is just me being afraid of embarrassing myself. But again, this will be one of those humbling teachable moments for me where I learn to just trust in God’s abilities and not my own.

After mentor time with Gracie, she took us to Talanga to pick up a few things from the dispensa (grocery store) and the market. Once again, I was reminded of the markets at home, and Gracie wasn’t kidding when she said that the whole town knows who she is. People either know her as Gracie, or “La Gringa”. She jokes about it sometimes and introduces herself as “La Gringa Loca” (the crazy American).

When we got back home, the boys (Moises, Alejandro, Diego) rushed to the car to help us unload the groceries. They love helping around the house. Soon after, they were splishing and splashing in their kiddie pool. Those boys could play in that water for hours! We took a break for lunch and I had my first plate of Honduran style spaghetti, this particular kind didn’t have meat in it. I guess their way of making it differs everywhere you go, but it was pretty good. After lunch it was back to the pool! I played with the boys for a good while. They had a blast with their little plastic buckets!

I’ve slowly been trying to talk to the girls using the very little Spanish that I know, but I’m still feeling a bit insecure. It’s really different being on this end, but God’s teaching me a lot about humility. I saw Karen (the deaf girl) smile for the first time today. She actually tried talking to us this morning when she offered us some coffee. The girls also taught us a little sign language so we could at least say things like “hi” or “how are you”, which apparently is entirely different from American Sign Language.

Later that night Gracie asked Evelin and I to pray over Ericka and Ivannia (the two little girls with cerebral palsy) and sing them to sleep. She also needed us to plant an audio recorder in their room because that’s where Karla and one of the nannies also slept. Apparently they have been plotting an escape plan to get Karla and her baby out, but Gracie was needing some solid evidence. So our being there was double purpose, but we did spend quite a bit of time praying over the girls. It was a little difficult with Ericka because she wouldn’t stop crying. Apparently she cries herself to sleep quite often. It was pretty warm and stuffy in the room too, so maybe she was a little uncomfortable. I got something to fan her with and I started singing to her. Not long after, she slowly began to stop crying. I guess she and I have something in common in the sense that music calms us down. It’s pretty mind blowing to think that if God hadn’t brought these girls here, they probably would have been dead by now. I was literally looking down at a miracle.