The guest house was very quiet by 9 p.m. last night and we had a refreshing sleep after our long travel day yesterday.  It is Sunday and the busy noisy city outside the walls are relatively quiet for an early morning.  We awoke to the realization of where we were and we have already moved into a team rhythm and pattern.  Our breakfast was watermelon and cake which we have had other years.  We enjoy eating in the new dining room where the boys are, though we have a separate eating area as the noise level where the 100 children eat their meals is pretty high.  I'm sure you can imagine that! 

Raul came and picked us up for church and again we found it very friendly and most welcoming.  Such joyful worship and music though with all of it in Spanish, so much of it still familiar.  I was delighted when one of the parishioners came and sat down beside me to translate the sermon in my ear which made it all that more meaningful.  The priest talked about how we see God in ordinary things and events and while this is true, we feel that our presence and experience here is not particularly ordinary.  Though we feel blessed that in the ordinary people that we are, God has called us to be in a very special place this week.  While the culture and language are different, the children are children and they need attention and love and play time and hugs and we try to fill in some of this that they have not always received in their lives.  The church is vibrant with it's people and the music. We have also met up with a busload of the boys from the Technical Institute who come into town from the Tech School which is about 3/4 hour outside of the city.  Louise had been visiting the Sunday School and she and all of the Sunday School children (perhaps 75 or so) came in at the end of the service for communion.  Below:  the children lined up ready to enter the church for Communion.

We were delighted to be able to give Dean Alonzo four of the packages of baby clothing that Caroldean had made up for us to bring to Honduras and he will most certainly find a place for them in his congregation.

We went out for lunch - a Honduran version of KFC and 13 of the children joined us.  This was a special treat for them and was a reward for them because of good school grades, or good behaviour or leadership demonstrated during the week and we enjoyed interacting with them.

Thought we would just add a picture taken in front of the guest house after we arrived back from lunch and church as this may be the last time we are all dressed up considering tomorrow we start diligently in our projects.  More on that later.
Ooops, Rick is missing from this one as he has gone to find the keys to get into the work room to fine some tools to fix Louise's bed!  

The afternoon is free time for the children and some of them have family visiting, and it is good to see those bonds.  For the kids who do not have any family visiting or do not have any family at all, we try to fill in the time with these kids as much as we can.   They do enjoy activities and each of the team found a group of children clustered around them if they had something interesting to do - futboll or puzzles or games or drawing.  They love to draw something and then give it to us as a gift and we are touched.  The group playing soccer must be finding it pretty hot with the heat here.  We haven't told you about the heat - about 34 yesterday and it must be the same today.

As I write this blog in the hotspot on the property for the WiFi, I have several of the children come and visit and they seem interested in what I am doing and interested  in what is on my computer.  I show them the pictures of the snow we had this winter and they were fascinated. 

Ros and Lynne have met with Directora Claudia this afternoon and she has identified a number of children that Lynne, the special education teacher needs to observe and assess for the teachers.  Ros of course is the translater.  Here they are preparing their week and the 17 children they have to assess.  Do they look fatigued already?  And this is only 10 minutes into their planning time!

 Others are preparing for the craft times tomorrow and it seems that Jane will be teaching an English workshop for 5 afternoons, so one never knows what we are going to be called to do.

The theme of our sharing time is looking at the UN Millennium Development Goals and how El Hogar is working hard to accomplish many of them.  We have had some interesting discussions and this is only Sunday.