Sunday, 18 April 2010

Our last Day

Our last day here and we were up early to get our final packing done and to say our goodbyes to the children. When we went up to the kitchen to get our breakfast we found the weekend cook on duty was Mirna, who is Jorge's mom. Jorge is the young boy that St Luke's sponsors. It was delightful to meet her and to see the closeness of mom and son. The team had various chances to connect with Jorge throughout the week and he and his mom thank us for the opportunity and the support we give to Jorge through our sponsorship of him.
We took our traditional team picture by the El Hogar logo and said goodbye to our wonderful American friends.






Raul, who had been such a wonderful driver, guide, friend and project manager throughout the week, had to take two trips to the airport to get all of us and our luggage there.





Jane and Tom are staying on for a few more days and there will always be jobs for them to do. They are experienced ones as this is their 8th journey to El Hogar. It is the Reycraft's 9th trip to Honduras.






Eight of the Burlington team spent 16 hours in transit with three legs of the journey to get them home. Now, Luisa has the distinct honour of having her carry-on inspected every leg of the trip, both this year and last! Matt and Erika stopped overnight in Miami again. Steve got on his choice of flights as he was flying standby (He's our Delta Airlines pilot). Susan's plane was 2 hours late and we hope she got her connection back to Memphis.

En route home, we had lots of time to analyze and think about the week, retell the stories and we felt that we had accomplished much of what we had come to do. With a team of 14 who were dedicated, compassionate and hard workers, working every spare minute in the projects, we hopefully made some headway in the long list of tasks that needed to be done there.

We had special time with the children where we interacted with them in play and in teaching.
















We left knowing we ourselves had changed from the experience we had there.


In our devotions and sharing we had a new thought each day and today's seemed very appropriate:

Go out in Joy. You are not here in the world for yourself. You have been sent here for others. The world is waiting for you.

There are many projects that could be done at El Hogar because they had been without volunteers for the 6 month period during the political unrest last year. Claudia had reported to us that it had been a very hard year for them because of the political unrest. There were days when the staff couldn't leave the premises due to riots, violence and curfews, however El Hogar was never harmed. The Angels of God protected the children and the property so that she and the staff could continue on with the goals and ministry of the school. Below is Claudia talking to the children at morning opening devotions before classes start for the day.



As the first van load us left for the airport, Erika opened the gates for us to head out (she was in the next trip to the airport) knowing that many of us would be back. We have been blessed and privileged to have been here.





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