Experiencing Honduras and Tierra Santa a second time around is definitely a different experience from the first time. Walking around the home and having many of the kids remember me from my previous trip is such a cool thing. And what’s really fun is that I’m interacting with both the kids I spent a lot of time with last trip and a bunch of kids who I hardly talked to on my previous trip. So I feel like I’m building a whole new bunch of relationships.
One of the kids who latched on to me this trip who didn’t before is Umberto.
Umberto is about four years old and is the twin of Keekay. When he sees me across the grounds of the Hogar, he’ll come running up to me and wrap his arms around me. Yesterday he grabbed me by the arm and said, “Vamos. (let’s go). Then he proceeded to take me back to the courtyard adjacent to his bedroom and hop on the swing. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to push him or take his picture on the swing, so I did both.
We had an amazingly productive day on Monday with multiple classes being taught and a good amount of work being accomplished in the preschool room. Heather and Rose prepped the preschool room in the morning, then a bunch of us, including three Tierra Santa girls, started the painting process in the afternoon.
One of the kids who latched on to me this trip who didn’t before is Umberto.
Umberto is about four years old and is the twin of Keekay. When he sees me across the grounds of the Hogar, he’ll come running up to me and wrap his arms around me. Yesterday he grabbed me by the arm and said, “Vamos. (let’s go). Then he proceeded to take me back to the courtyard adjacent to his bedroom and hop on the swing. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to push him or take his picture on the swing, so I did both.
We had an amazingly productive day on Monday with multiple classes being taught and a good amount of work being accomplished in the preschool room. Heather and Rose prepped the preschool room in the morning, then a bunch of us, including three Tierra Santa girls, started the painting process in the afternoon. 
John and Geovanni went after a dead tree hard core in the courtyard. Not only did they cut it down with a circular saw, but they even removed the stump with an array of tools including an axe, a shovel, and a machete. John has assumed the role of Doug Duchon on this trip. He’s the Honduran Bob Villa, attending to all sorts of miscellaneous projects. In the afternoon it was his assignment to repair a bunch of strands of Christmas lights. He later was proud to report that he managed to fix one strand. John’s other hidden talent in the afternoon was his ability to paint the tops of the walls in the preschool room without a ladder. This may not seem like a big deal, but if you got a glimpse of the Tierra Santa ladder, you’d understand why a 250 pound plus guy wouldn’t want to get up on it.
Of course I was once again impressed by our Eden Prairie teachers and how easily they shifted into “teaching” mode with these kids. Jill, Tricia, Christy and Erin led a craft class in which kids used all sorts of materials to decorated the Christmas boxes that are sent to them by their sponsors. Jill blew us all away with her ability to hand cut each child’s name out of craft foam while keeping all the letters connected. We’re finding out that Jill is a woman of many talents!
And the EP teens really impressed us by how well they could maintain crowd control during their beading class. They must have had twenty or so kids coming and going throughout the morning – kids of all ages and with varying degrees of need. Abby and Drew did an awesome job jumping right in talking, teaching, showing, and interacting with the kids. Lots of bracelets and necklaces were produced. So…that’s all I’ll say for now, but I missed a whole bunch of other things that happened Monday. Hopefully some of the others will blog about their experiences as well so you can get a view of the day through their eyes. It was just a classic great day in the Villa!
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