We’ve arrived in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala.
My team, team Up (formerly known as team dove) are with another team again this month: team roar – a bunch of sweet people!
Here’s what we’ve been up to since.
Last night I hit the sack hard a little after the electricity went out just cuz, no big deal.
In the morning we had an orientation with our contact Paul and Hilda Tonetti.
They run a radio station here and are involved in helping people in many ways and partner with different local people and churches. They are awesome. I’m looking forward to working with them this month.
This afternoon we went to an orphanage. Well the orphanage was actually shut down 1year and a half ago. The board of directors were not handling the money honestly. Now the orphanage receives pretty much no funding. Sometimes they receive some money… sometimes the 2 women who volunteer there use this money to feed their own family…they also have needs. The 2 women who run the orphanage beg for food for the 13 children. Windows and other materials have been stripped to be sold to put food on the table.
When the orphanage was shut down some of the kids were able to go to different orphanages, some have disabilities and are unable to go elsewhere, some choose to stay put because that’s their home, where they’ve grown up.
We came across a boy in a wheel chair. His wheel chair was tied to the window. I guess Julio is about 10… not sure. He doesn’t speak. His arms were tied up to his wheel chair’s wheels. This way his swollen hands could not hurt others, or himself. He sometimes kicked when you talked to him. Other children periodically played some soccer around him.
We were not okay with him being like this. Some of the others ended up unleashing him and moving him to a different room where we were all hanging out and enjoying a meal.
The kids here are so loving and playful.
Another girl, Kathy had an accident on her bike last week. Her wounds were loookin pretty rough – infected and a swollen ankle. Sarah (my team mate) decided she needs to go see a doctor. We took her to get checked out and had her receive a good cleaning and some anti-infection medicine. She was brave ad grimaced through the pain of the treatments she received. I went to buy her nail polish in her favorite colour and the bottle dropped and spilled – woops!… we ended up getting it for free… We’ll go visit her again tomorrow to give her some of our meds.
Tomorrow we’re going to have an early morning (7 am) meeting with the mayor and pray with him. We also hope he will help out the kids at this orphanage.
Please pray that these precious children will be taken care of.
Thank you for all your prayers and support! You guys are awesome for keeping up with me down here. God is good.
P.S.
This is the last month, the last country before coming home!
