Double Blessing
If you’re interested to see what a day looks like here in Honduras, I’d love for you to follow along. It’s quite lengthy, but it gives you the idea. It’s by no means a ‘typical’ day!
December 22, 2014
We wake up between 6:30/7:00 to have quiet time and eat corn flakes for breakfast. Before we head out, we pray together as a team asking for joy for the day. Then we head on over to the Spangler house at 7:30. The babies are in the process of being dressed and brought downstairs by the night watch lady when we walk in. We help set them in their highchair to a breakfast of scrambled eggs. Then we clean them up.
Our team has been paired into different jobs and so two girls start on cleaning and mopping the floors and taking out the trash. The other two were about to start on laundry, but couldn’t because of lack of water. We have to wait for the water truck to come here and fill up the water tank….normal life in Honduras! One is working on a manual for our host, and my job is watching the babies and preparing lunch. Around 10:00 I feed the babies a snack of yogurt and their bottles, and put them down for a nap.
Then I start cooking an Italian casserole for lunch. I feel like I’m at home and in my element, cooking and watching the babies. I love it! The babies wake up one by one to eat lunch and the others come in for lunch at 12:30. The water truck eventually comes and we have water to do the dishes! Then our host parent Marianne received a phone call from Dinaf, the foster care program in Honduras that they work with, asking her to pick up two newborn babies from the hospital at 3:30. The household soon becomes a fluster of activity preparing for two newborns: preparing a room, getting a bed set up as well as a change table, finding clothes and bottles and going out to buy diapers and formula.
When lunch is cleaned up, Megan and I decide to take all the babies out for a walk since the day was sunny and warm. Sunshine… finally! (The first two weeks have been cold and rainy.) Made several loops around the small circle of houses, but the children loved getting out! Then it’s snack time for them and we start their bath time. Around 5:30 the babies are fed their supper. Marianne returns from the hospital with the news that they are two infant boys! The infants are situated in another house away from the babies here who have coughs and colds. After the babies are cleaned up, I made a quick getaway for a few minutes to see the infants. One is Christopher David (the smaller one) and the other Hector Manuel (the bigger one). They didn’t get any birth documents or anything yet and so we guess their ages to be a week for David and three weeks for Manuel. (We prefer calling them by their middle names over their first names.) They are both so tiny and cute!
I return to the house for a pizza supper and hang around for a bit. Then we all head on over to our lodging place for team time and feedback. Reflecting on this day, we all are overjoyed that God sent us two babies for Christmas, and baby boys at that! Christmas time God sent Jesus and now we actually have two babies we can hold and love on, and just be reminded of the Gift that God gave at Christmas time. Life is so precious. It’s a blessing to be able to love on these infants and take care of them, and work alongside this family and their ministry that enables these infants and babies to be loved, live and have a life!
“And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21
“I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” John 14:18
“Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” James 1:27
Christmas blessings: David and Manuel
