Finding Esperanza

Sometimes it’s easy for me to focus too much on the difficult or frustrating aspects of living in Honduras.  When I find myself doing this, it’s important to take a step back and put things in perspective— so I would like to share some good things that have been happening in my life lately.  These are also things that give me esperanza, or hope, for the future. 

I recently did a small writing project with my fifth graders, where they had to write an anecdote—a personal story about something that had happened in their life.  Pretty broad subject, I know.  Most of them had a really hard time getting started, because they couldn’t think of a single thing that had happened in their life.  I worked hard with them though, and shared an example of an anecdote from my own life, and eventually they got the hang of it.   The cool thing was to see some of them really getting into it!  They wrote, I edited, they rewrote, and they illustrated it.  It was a simple project, but to see how proud some of them were when they had finished was really exciting for me.  I don’t think they do very much creative writing (aka not copying from the board) in the classroom, so this felt like a big deal and I was proud of them!

A few weeks ago I was invited to be part of the youth group planning committee.  This is a brand new group and it was started because, well, youth group was boring and people weren’t coming.  This means that we meet twice a month to plan (yes, plan!) what we will do each week at the youth group.  We are each assigned roles (I’m in charge of snacks and helping to lead a small group of girls) and decide what the theme will be each week, as well as what dinamicas (group games) will be played.   This is a huge improvement from what youth group used to be—starting about 40 minutes late, singing a few songs, listening to a guy preach, and going home.  Now it is so much more interactive and actually fun!  It has been exciting to see more youth coming and inviting other people to come.  I am also happy to have been invited to be on a leadership team like this, where I can spend time with some more people around my age.  I didn’t realize how much I needed that until I was in a place without many opportunities to do so. 

Last week we celebrated my baby sister Allison’s first birthday!  This meant that she wore her new dress and we all ate dinner together and gave her 100% of the attention.  It was a lot of fun to have everyone all together, happy, and listening to people tell stories about the little “princesita”. 

Someone recently visited MCM, and then donated some money to the library project.  After hearing that kids do not have books at home, nor can they check books out from the library, he wanted me to buy books for ten kids to keep.   So I made a list of the ten kids who have come to my after-school program the most and show the most interest in reading.  Yesterday I went to el centro in search for bookstores, and came back with a book for each child!  I am so excited to hand them out this week, and to see how they react.  I hope they like them!