1st Week

I apologize for the briefness and/or lack of thought that went into my last post. I felt like I needed to write something to let you know I made it ok, but couldn’t think of what else to write. I was also kind of overwhelmed with the newness of everything that I didn’t know where to start. I will try to make this one more informative. I will tell you a little about what I’ve done since I’ve been here.

I arrived on Thursday morning. The flight in was interesting…or let’s say adventurous. I had heard that it would be, but didn’t know really what that meant until I experienced it myself. We circled the city a few times in our descent, complete with lots of turbulence, and finally hit the runway where they immediately hit the brakes. When we turned around to go to our gate, we could see the end of the runway very close outside the window. It’s apparently the shortest international runway at a major airport in the world. Everyone applauded when we came to a stop. We were all thankful to have landed safely. We made it through customs and everything fine and met Kymm, the ranch hostess and her husband. They took us to lunch in the city, a nice American meal at Church’s chicken and then headed to Rancho Ebenezer, about an hour drive from the airport up a windy mountain road full of potholes. That night we, the new teachers, had dinner at Kymm and Eric’s house along with their 5 kids. It was a great time to get to know each other and find out about how we all had ended up working with WGO.

The next few days involved unpacking, having dinner with the 2 girls that live above us, touring the ranch, meeting the families, getting to know each other better, adjusting to the lack of power (a transformer blew the first night we were here so we ran on generator power in the mornings and evenings and didn’t have any electricity during the day), adjusting to the slowness of life, the speaking of Spanish, lots of rain, and lots of flies. As you can tell, there’s been lots of adjusting.

On Sunday we went into the city for church and shopping. I enjoyed getting to talk with one of the girls that will be in my class at lunch. She is the daughter of one of the missionary couples that work here on the ranch. She told me all about her family, extended family, pets, etc. I was impressed how mature and grown-up she sounded. She’s only 8 and will be in 4th grade, but it seemed like I was talking with another adult.

The other day, I had the chance to meet the other 2 kids that will be in my class. The 3 other new teachers (Jae, Jesse, and Jenny) and I went hiking on a trail that’s on the property to find the pond we’d heard about. I was pretty exhausted from the hike (it was really steep and I’m out of shape), so I was planning on heading back to my apartment to shower and take a nap, but ended up hanging out at the soccer field for a while. It was there and on the playground that I met my other 2 students. One of them, Kevin, saw me and said “Are you Miss Hannah? I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to get here!” He ran and gave me a side hug. He talked pretty much nonstop for the next 20 minutes telling me all about himself, school, a little bit about his background, etc. After asking if he could call me “Ms. Han” and introducing me to Julio, my other student, he asked it was ok if he went to play with his friends. Julio wasn’t as talkative, but it was fun to talk to him too. All 3 of my students seem very full of energy, so they should keep me on my toes J. I was very excited to finally meet these kids that I had heard about and had been praying for over the past few weeks and months.

I’ve enjoyed getting to know everyone here. They are all so nice and welcoming. Today, the man that does a lot of the maintenance work around the ranch and who is a houseparent to 5 Honduran girls with his wife came to finish up some work on our apartment. When he was finished, he invited us over to his house to let us try some Honduran food that he was telling us about. He ended up giving us several things including a loaf of bread, chips, refried red beans, and this stuff that’s very similar to sour cream. He said that he didn’t want us teachers to go hungry. The first day we were here, he was also doing some work here in the bathroom and invited us over to meet his wife and girls. They were so nice and gave us cake and coffee and we talked about a lot of stuff. We went to church with them on Sunday. They are the only North American house parents. There are 4 or 5 other houses that all have Honduran house parents. There are several other North American families here, but they have other jobs around the ranch.

2 more teachers arrived yesterday, Abby and Jennifer. Abby is a new teacher and Jennifer has been here for a few years, but had been home on furlough for a few weeks. It was fun getting to meet them. Now we are just missing 2 teachers. They both arrive in August.

We start our teacher training on Monday and the kids start school the following Monday. I can’t wait!

It’s been amazing to be in the midst of the peace of God’s creation.

Sorry this has been so long, but I felt I should account for the last week of “adventures” in this new place.

Thanks so much for your prayers and support. Please keep praying for this transition period and the kids here at the ranch. Hearing some of the kids’ backgrounds breaks my heart, but makes me thankful that WGO has taken them in and they are now in homes with loving families.

Thanks!