I know…I know….I’m really far behind on keeping you guys up to date on what’s been happening with me. As many of you know, I’m not currently in Honduras. I’ve been in Guatemala for a while now. But I don’t want to skip straight over my wonderful experiences last month. Last month, we were privileged to be placed in the Valle de Angeles working in the Hogar de Angeles (or Home of Angels). This was an orphanage for the mentally and physically handicapped. The majority of them were actually adults and had been there since childhood, so in some ways it was more like a home for the handicapped.
Now, I don’t know about you guys, but I would not describe myself to be someone who is good at working with the handicapped. I’m not particularly good at understanding their struggles and I’m really impatient. If you’re someone that does well in this sort of environment or just loves it and eats it all up–I have SO much respect for you and you are officially my hero.
We showed up with all these expectations of working with the people and getting to be really really close–but week one that was not at all what happened. Somehow we ended up cleaning abandoned buildings, sweeping, and working in a garden with a shovel and ho. We were chopping down banana trees with machetes and uprooting them with picks and shovels. The field was meant to become a horse therapy space in the future. It was good work, it was fun, and it was hard. BUT. It was kind of tough doing all that work and feeling like we’re not making an impact or sharing our hearts. We still had the opportunity to hang out with the residents for the last hour of our time there, but as someone who is extremely out of shape I had a hard time putting forth much energy into that hour.
A couple of days into working on our assignments the president of the orphanage dropped by a house I was cleaning to meet some of us. She wanted to come and thank us personally for all of the work we were doing. I got to hear more about this place and some of the recent things that had been happening with it. Originally, this home was funded by and supported by the government. A few months ago, the government pulled their funding and the president also withdrew from her position to be replaced by the woman I was speaking with now. When she looked at the place for the first time she was overwhelmed by how sad and broken it was.
There was barely any money to sustain the people that lived there. Every day for months several of the workers would go door to door and beg for food or money to help the residents. Somehow, God would show up at the last minute in a lot of these circumstances and just enough food and supplies would come through. The president explained that our group came through in their greatest time of need and that she was overjoyed when she heard that we were coming. Then, she learned that we were not only going to be there for a few days but the entire month and just started crying.
It was so good to know just how much of an impact we were making. Our work was getting done much more quickly than I expected. To top that off, we did end up getting more opportunities to work with the people (mostly because it rained almost everyday.) I cannot begin to explain what the Lord has done in me that made this whole ministry so much easier. We were got to sing worship songs, Christmas songs (hey I’m behind on updates remember?), dance around like crazy, and goof off. This really is a “Home of Angels” and I’ll never forget it.
