Meet Daniel

We have some new members of our class, this is Daniel. Daniel is a very sweet little boy. He has a great imagination, and I enjoy watching him play. His voice is music to my ears. He is very informative. Daniel is smart. He thinks English is "cool" and is eager to learn it. He informs many people that he house mom can speaks both English and Spanish...it is his pride, and gives me great hope that he will pick up English very quickly. Until then he keeps up busy with his precious Spanish. One of the first days he was in the class I was dancing to some children's music and Daniel looked at me and exclaimed "look, the way she dances is like a boy!" (that is a rough translation of what he said.) He has brought a lot of laughter to the class, and I am so thankful to have him.

and Yolibeth

This is Yolibeth. She is Daniel's sister. She is spirited to say the least. She is a delight to me. She smells so sweet. Weather this is true or not I imagine that I was a lot like Yolibeth as a 3 year old. Yolibeth is all smiles, that is until what you want differs from her opinion of what should be taking pace in that moment. She is very stubborn and yes I would even say feisty. I imagine she will grow up to be an incredible woman who will fight for what she believes in. She is a precious little girl and she has warmed my heart. I am honored to have her in my class.

Concrete Floor

Today some of us from the Ranch went down into the community to pour a concrete floor . We had the privilege of helping a family that lives very close to us. We were able to provide them with new floors throughout their whole house. Their house is only two small rooms and before today only had dirt floors. They had a very common house, one made out of mud and covered in plaster. It is not uncommon for people to have dirt floors or for their walls to be made out out a mud brick. Having concrete floors will help to improve there home greatly, and is better for their health, since they will be able to keep it clean. It was my first time to help lay a floor and was a great experience. It was awesome to watch the progress unfold before me. I felt honored that I got to help in such a simple way. I have to admit that it wasn't all work and that there was some play. The bad part is that we were playing in with concrete which got pretty messy. It started when Jhoselyn pushed me in the mud, I retaliated by smearing some concrete on Jhoselyn. It was a nice relief to the work and caused quite a bit of laughter between us. Ron and William also got into it...smearing...and receiving some concrete. It was a tiring day but one filled with joy and purpose.

Back To School

I can't believe that we have just finished our second week being back in school, and that this is the first chance that I have had to sit down to write something! The weeks have flown by. I have racked up hundreds of thing that I want to blog about, but have racked up no time to do it. My kids are precious as always. I was blessed the other day by my kids and reminded of why I love preschool so much. I walked into the room, having put very little effort into getting ready that morning. I had thrown on the first thing I had seen and grabbed something to eat. The moment I walk into my school room I was bombarded with hugs. One by one each kid complemented me..."Oh, Miss Jessi I love your shirt." "Your hair is very beautiful." "I like your shoes." This went on for several minutes as a smile spread across my face. Now I know that I did not look beautiful that day, and that mostly the kids were just trying to out do the other one...so that I might love that child the most. But what they have yet to discover is that there is no way I could love any of them more.

Happy New Year!

We had a great New Year's Eve at the Ranch. In line with Honduran tradition, we had an "old year man" which is much like a scarecrow, and blew him up to welcome in the new year. I had heard of this and was quite excited to see it all play out before me. On the 30th, shortly after returning to Honduras I went over to one of the boys houses to help stuff "Cornelius Hatcher" (as the boys affectionately called the old year man) with straw, news paper and fire crackers. Before Cornelius passed away with the old year we gave him the privilege of driving the busito (van.) On New Year's Eve we had a "drive in movie" up at the soccer field followed by a bonfire and the blowing up of "old year man," who had the verse of promise for the next year proudly on his front. The verse was Philippians 3:13-14 "Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." I felt that the verse was very appropriate for the new year. No matter what happened in the last year, we are still straining forward, looking to God for what is next, to what He is calling us to. I look forward to seeing what God has in store for this next year!