Another Adventure - HONDURAS

Hello everyone! It's been eight days since I took off on this new adventure. I am currently in Guaimaca, Honduras volunteering at Orphanage Immanuel. It's been pretty random and crazy, but when is my life not this way? Haha! We were finally given our ''duties'' on Tuesday. Mine are:
1. To hang out with the special needs children from 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM. Along with the twenty or so special needs kids, there are about forty seven new kids that joined the Orphanage about two weeks ago. These kids came too late to be put into the school here, so they have to wait for the next semester to begin - which is in January. (School just ended last Thursday, but students are still taking exams this week)
2. From 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM myself, Hillary and Laura help our new friend Kate in the school library - organizing, cataloging etc ... I have a feeling that this job will be quickly finished, so we'll see what the next project will be.
3. Helping with Christmas cards around four o'clock. This is where we go to specific kids houses and make Christmas cards with them for their Sponsers. They all have their picture on it and then they can write a note, draw a picture, or both.
That is it for my specific duties, but since I sometimes feel like I have nothing to do I've been helping out in other places if needed. A couple of nights a week I go to the Toddler's House and help put the "babies" to sleep. There are about six of them ... boy, let me tell you ... they do not want to fall asleep sometimes. And then a few afternoons a week I've been going to the Toddler's House to help feed all the toddler's (there's probably around forty of them), then help Stephany clean up in the kitchen, and then help shower and clothe the kids. And then I play with them for a bit, and it's darling because they call me Tia Ericka (aunt in spanish)!
The Orphanage is pretty big, Honduras is greener than I expected and there is a semi-farm here. With the special needs kids, we often take walks around the farm to look at the cows, chickens and pigs - it's a riot. I live in the volunteer girl's staff house which has ... twelve girls in it currently. Apparently we will be getting two more volunteers in a couple of weeks.
Because I am sort of on a time limit, I won't get into the details of the Orphanage quite yet, and I'll tell you all about the girls in my house later. I hope this brief blog will let you all into my life a little bit. I hope to write more later!

Oh, and PS: I play soccer with the twelve year old boys (twelve of them) pretty much every other day and it is THEE highlight of my day - these kids have TALENT!
Also, if you could, I know all of us here would appreciate prayer - specifically for strength, joy and energy (and for me, the ability to sleep) Thanks and love you all!

Home Away From Home

Hello everyone - It's been quite awhile. We finished our Capernwray duties about ten days ago (to be exact). It was a lovely experience - so lovely, in fact, we are going back for a week two days from now. Since leaving the beloved place, we have been to Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Billingham, and now Manchester. We spent a lovely week with Molly's relatives in Aberdeen. They were so lovely to show us the area and just take us in like I was apart of the family. (And Gretchen made some delicious home made meals!) We saw many historical buildings, and I think our favourite was Dunnoter. It is a castle ruin right on the sea cliffs. SO beautiful. It actually started to drizzle rain, so it really added to the overall ''ancientness''.

Next, we move on to the story of Edinburgh. It was... well, an experience. We were in a room with who knows how many other people. And well, they decided to come into the room at three thirty in the morning - slamming doors, laughing and talking. Not cool - the second night that happened, the girl we met from Finland actually shouted, ''Shut UP!''. I was secretly cheering her on in her outburst, because I was dealing with my own rage and trying to keep cool and not start yelling, screaming and throwing stuff - haha. Besides this MINOR detail, Edinburgh was so full of history, we decided to take a three hour walking tour. This was a very smart thing to do, because you see alot and are told so much history about random things. For instance, there is a heart carved into the sidewalk/cobblestone on the main road - just random - and apparently people will spit on it for good luck, because this is where the old tollbooth used to be (for collecting taxed) and the townspeople would spit on the door of it, in disgust obviously (not sure how disgust turned into good luck...)

A few days later we ended up south of Newcastle, hanging out with our friend from Capernwray New Zealand, Adam. He works as a volunteer in Billingham at a church. Molly and I got to hang out with the youth group kids - what enthusiastic children! A day later we decided to treat ourselves to a B & B in Windermere. This is in the Lake District AKA beauty. We went on a little hike and then decided to walk to the next town for a little bit of hot chocolate and bananas. Ps: Swans are not all pretty and graceful - they like to stalk Ericka Brown, don't know why.

After a good sleep and delicious breakfast, and of course, the pandemic of swine flu resting on our shoulders, we set off to our 'home' in England. Because of some miscalculations of train passes we weren't able to go some places and had extra days - why not spend it with friends in a castle?

So now, here we are at The Hall once again, hanging out with our friends we made and meeting 110 other new students now here. It's quite amazing how you can meet someone and become so close so quickly - it's really a blessing from God. I can't believe the friendships both Molly and I have begun, and I know they will last for quite some time - actually, forever. I will leave you with this picture - it was from a few weeks ago, but it's just fantastic.

Left to Right: Andrew, Belinda, Martina, Janine, Luke, Me, Molly and Tamara

Bizarre Border Lady to Bizarre Hair Day

CONNECT: Kid's Camp
(i have dreads, sort of- and molly has teased her hair)

Wow Folks - It's been a long time, and we do apologize. We arrived at Capernwray on the 20th of March - after a struggle at the border. The border patrol lady didn't quite believe we were volunteering at a Bible School and apparently we didn't have particular documents needed (we were unaware that we were supposed to have these). She called us unorganized and basically stupid and then cause us to miss our train to Carnforth. PERFECT! After a long trip, we got to Carnforth - here we thought we might have been forgotten because no one picked us up for about an hour.

Over the next few days we got to know some of the former students that were working over their one month break. --- insert picture of lorea and hannah ---- These two are Lorea and Hannah. Molly and I bonded very quickly with these girls. They were just ridiculously welcoming - and quite hilarious too!

(molly, hannah, lorea, and ericka)

Lorea and Hannah ended up leaving the first week because they went traveling. By then we got to know almost everyone else on staff. Our favorites: Belinda Nyabako (student - Zimbabwe), Martina Bukovska (student - Slovakia), Janine De Waal (kitchen staff - Holland), and Andrew Wilson (receptionist - N. Ireland). And of course there are many more. --- insert photo of all of these people ---

(Belinda, Molly, Ericka, Andrew, Janine)

Let's explain our living arrangements. Ericka is in the castle on the upmost floor with four other girls, while Molly is in a van down by the river!!!!!!!!... just joking. Molly is down yonder in a building called the conference hall. She lives in the rooms underneath it with five other girls. Our jobs have changed since the beginning of our stay here. At first, we were both part of housekeeping. There were no guests here at Capernwray for the first week, so the 20 or so of us as staff did 'spring cleaning'. Basically, hardcore cleaning of every single room....and there are a lot of rooms here! The weekend following we had a women's retreat. Eighty women were here, so Molly became part of the dishwashing crew and I became part of the Kitchen crew. Haha - I feel like I'm at Haggen again, minus the fact that I actually have fun working here. Then the next weekend was a second women's retreat - one hundred and eighty women!! It was crazy. But, the ladies were blessed and refreshed. (Mom- I think you would have enjoyed this women's retreat). Right now, we're in the third week and there are 161 kids here, between the ages of 10 and 14. They are just a delight! Both Molly and I are slightly involved. We are room leaders - so, we hang out with about ten girls each from 10:00 pm to 10:20 pm. We just talk, play games and get to know eachother. It's also a time for us to discuss with them the talks of the day about Jesus. It's a lot of fun!

(John Dewitt and Martina)

We've been doing some other crazy things during the few days here and there when we don't have anyone staying at Capernwray. We've played lots of games like sardines and hide-and-seek in the Castle at night- it's perfect because it gets really dark and there are so many rooms that it's kind of creepy. We've also started up Ultimate Frisbee - WOW, we are out of shape!

It's sad to think we only have a week and a half left, because we developed such amazing friendships already with the staff here, but we hope that these friendships are for a lifetime!

--and now that I've become really cheesy in my writing, we will now hold hands and sing to Michael W. Smith's song, 'friends are friends forever' and kumbyah it up ---

PS: This is our friends Jeremy and Brie-Anne in line for a Disneyland ride!

München

Our experience of München was quite awesome. We had the blessing to stay with our friend Andreas for basically a whole week (thanks Andy!). Molly and I toured the town looking at shops, churches, and eating some delish pastries. We had this one called ''Erdbeere Royal''. Erdbeere is strawberry in German - it was heavenly. On wednesday we went to Andy's home town of Ulm outside München. We made it for lunch with his Mom and sister Katrin. They were very nice. After, we decided to climb the tallest Christian Church tower in the world - yup, better believe it. It was, in total, seven hundred and sixty- eight steps. Son of a Nutcracker- our legs were soooo sore the next day. When we got to the top, Andy started talking about how you can feel the tower swaying in the wind - not cool. Molly peeped out of the tower, her legs shaking, took a picture and ran back down to the lower platform. Ericka was trying to steady her panicked breath - (yes, Hillary and Laura, I was a bit scared...haha) and went around the top of the tower. She felt like it was going to crumble beneath her and her legs felt like jelly. When we started descending the tower, it felt like it would go on forever and you would almost get dizzy from going around and around and around. Later that night, we went back to Andy's parent's house and had dinner with his parents, two sisters and one of his brothers. What a great family. Andy's Father was so funny! Before we left, he gave us both silk ties from his work - haha, he said ''Give these to your father or boyfriend''. Oh man- what a guy.
The next day we had an emotional trip. We decided to go to Dachau, a former concentration camp, now a memorial to those who lived and died there. There's really no words to express the feeling that you have when you're there. It's so full of stories and information - for one, Dachau was the first concentration camp, an example for all the rest, and it was the only one that kept running from start to finish. Afterwards, it really makes one have a lot of respect for those who lived to tell the tale. SO many of the men that were there wrote stories, biographies, and/or gave tours of Dachau after they were liberated. Can you imagine? Giving a tour to a bunch of people to your personal hell on earth? Wow - it's really quite amazing.
Also - Andy set up a party for us. Eleven capernwray friends were there (plus two new friends)! It was quite hilarious. It was so good to catch up with all of them and just laugh.

peace

One Word: Copenhagen.......and Hans Christian Anderson (second phrase)

(ATTENTION: BEWARE: THIS BLOG CONTAINS LIFE- READ IT THAT WAY, WITH A PARISIAN ACCENT, WHILE PLUGGING YOUR NOSE)

Welcome: We are your hosts, Ericka and Molly. Ericka comes from the chocolate factory called Willy Wonka where Oompa Loompas run free, and Molly comes from the World of A Bug's Life.
We were very fortunate to visit our good friends - Soren, Tanja and Kasper. We stayed with Soren and Tanja in their apartment for the weekend. From delicious pastries to church via bike - that had a sweet basket in front and we put our bibles in it, and molly had a bell, and Molly froze her right nostril and Ericka bruised her femur- it was a danish experience straight from the Great Danes themselves.
On Saturday, our three hosts and us gallivanted across Copenhagen. We started with the changing of the gaurds at the Queen's Palace and ended with a hippie-esque/drugs being smoked/bob marley/woodstock era pusher street (We feel like we mention drugs every blog - we apologize). Through and through, we ate some delicious food and had a full out battle playing the game '' Bohnanza''....and uno. Our trip was refreshing, in the way of hot drinks, fellowship, and laughter. (perhaps too much laughter considering it took three hours for Ericka to eat her burrito)
I hope you are enjoying your lives - blessings upon all of you.

(Tanja, Kasper, Soren)