Help The Children Of The Farm!

For any of you who've read this blog before, you know about the Farm of the Child, where I've spent the last three years volunteering. Though I am now currently back in the United States, I remain close with the children of the Farm, and therefore I've organized a fundraiser to provide them with more tools to maximize their talents and brighten their futures.

Although northern Honduras is rich in natural beauty: the clear blue ocean, rolling mountains, and beautiful rivers, job opportunities are scarce. Outside of earning meager wages in agriculture or hard labor, there isn’t much. Permanent, full time jobs are hard to come by. Most have part time work in the fields or in small businesses, eking out a living in whatever way they can. However, there are a few emerging areas that look promising, two of them being tourism and technology. So the volunteers and staff of Farm of the Child are hoping to equip the children that live there, as well as those in the surrounding villages, with the tools they need to go out and find success in these areas. The key tools they need are English and computer skills.

There is currently a small computer lab attached to the school of the Farm, where teachers and volunteers have computer classes and English classes (using computer programs to enhance the learning and strengthen computer skills at the same time). However, the computers are exceedingly old and often function poorly, if at all. Not to mention the electricity is extremely unreliable, and students miss tons of class time because of frequent power outages.

In order to bring a functioning, reliable computer lab to the children of rural Honduras, we are trying to raise $4800 in order to buy backup generators and three new computers. Help us create opportunities for these children who have been given very little. Help give them the tools they need to fulfill their dreams and one day earn a respectable living. As the poor are able to pull themselves up out of poverty, through their own hard work and skill, a more just society can be formed.

English language computer program

How to Donate:

Donations of any size, big or small, would be greatly appreciated! 

Clicking on the link below will take you to Farm of the Child’s donation page:

Click Here to Donate

All donations are tax deductible. A letter will be sent to your mailing address that you can use when filing your taxes.

We are hoping to have as many funds as possible raised by April 20th, in order to have the generators and computers placed on a shipping crate that is headed to Honduras very soon. As you can imagine, opportunities to ship supplies overseas without a huge cost are quite rare.

Having spent the last three years volunteering at the Farm of the Child Honduras, I was lucky enough to share my life with these beautiful children. Therefore, ensuring that the children have all the tools possible to enable to them to pursue their dreams is a huge passion of mine. If you have any more questions regarding this fundraiser, or anything else pertaining to the Farm of the Child, feel free to contact me. Thanks!

Sincerely,

Harrison Hanvey

harrisonhanvey@gmail.com 

www.farmofthechild.org

Wrappin' it up

Now that my time volunteering for the Farm of the Child has come to close, I want to write one last blog post, just for old times sake. As the past three years have gone by, my posts have become more and more infrequent, so I thought leaving a good eight months between the last one and this one would be a fitting way to close it out.

One of my favorite students.

My final day at the Farm was December 3^rd, and the weeks leading up to it were fairly emotional. After almost three years, one can become quite accustomed to a certain place and group of people. I’ve spent many beautiful days walking underneath tall trees and seeing the sun breaking over the mountains, with parrots squawking overhead and a cool ocean breeze blowing across my face. I’ve been fortunate to travel a lot during college and the years after, but I’ve never been to a more beautiful place than the humble rural countryside of the northern coast of Honduras. I’ve also met some of the most beautiful and welcoming people there. Many of the Honduran men and women I worked with and got to know inspired me and taught me many things about life I never would have expected to learn. Just under forty children allowed me to enter their lives and walk with them for a short while, and though myself and our organization are far from perfect and couldn’t always provide them with the love and care they deserved, many of them formed a deep and beautiful relationship with me, and also taught many lessons I hope to never forget. They offered me the most beautiful smiles I’ve ever seen, the most resilient and wild laughs, the most ridiculous senses of humor, and an incredible place to call home. They also gifted me some incredibly frustrating moments in which I wanted to give them a hard smack upside the head, but it turns out that’s frowned upon in children’s home, so from that I guess I reluctantly learned patience and restraint. So on my last night at the Farm, after having visited all of the children and adults, saying our last goodbyes, I fell asleep with full heart. Full of gratitude for the love I’ve encountered and the lessons I’ve learned, but also full of a heaviness knowing this chapter of my life was over. Unfortunately this full-hearted sleep only lasted an hour or two, because I woke up at 4am to get a ride to the bus stop, beginning a two week journey through other Central American countries that would be my, and the other four volunteers leaving with me, last hoorah before heading home.

Those of us who left this December had been planning this trip for months, and once the initial shock of leaving the Farm began to wear off, it turned out to be a great way to end our time in Central America. Our first stop was Nicaragua, where we met up with two former volunteer psychologists whom we had previously worked with in the Farm. We left Nicaragua’s capital city of Managua, and traveled to a smaller town named Jinotega, situated in the mountainous coffee growing region of the country. In this town we encountered a very interesting Nicaraguan tradition called La Griteria, or The Shouting, in English. The name sounded strange, and soon enough we found out its meaning. The Catholic feast day of the Immaculate Conception of Mary falls on December 8^th, and is a highly celebrated holiday in Nicaragua, but the night of the 7^th is when the infamous Griteria occurs. Our Nicaraguan friend with whom we were traveling explained it to us, but we didn’t fully understand the explanation until we were able to experience it for ourselves. After evening mass in the main Cathedral, everyone dispersed and began roaming the streets looking for a house or business that had erected a shrine to Mary. When you saw a crowd of people all pushing and shouting (hence the name) to get inside a certain location, you knew you’d encountered a good one. You arrived to the house and began pushing and shoving until you were able to squeeze your way in the front door. Then you stood there for ten or fifteen minutes with the other fifty people who’d pushed their way in, and half heartedly sang songs about Mary. There were normally one or two middle-aged women belting them out, and the rest of the crowd mooching off of their enthusiasm. After patiently waiting and pretending you were interested in singing, you were rewarded with a small amount of candy, an orange, or a small stalk of sugar cane. Upon receiving the prize for your heartfelt songs of adoration, you left the house to look for another, repeating the process. At the end of the night, after hours of pushing and shoving and singing with the other faithful Catholics of the town, you happily returned home with a sack full of candy and oranges and maybe a few small bags of chips. To me, it didn’t feel much like a religious experience, but I did escape without any bruises or broken bones, and fully understood why they called it La Griteria. 

Jinotega, Nicaragua

From Nicaragua we bused to San Salvador. None of us had ever been there before, and didn’t have particularly high expectations for the huge bustling city, but we turned out to be pleasantly surprised. After leaving the hostel our first day in town, we began navigating the ever complicated, but very exciting, urban bus system. We paid twenty cents to ride the bus route 52 for a while, then hopped off at the corner and paid another twenty cents to ride the 42B. I can’t remember the details precisely, but I believe we then changed to the 103A, got off and walked a few blocks, crossed the street,  got on the 33C microbus, very different from the 33C full sized bus, rode it to the intersection with route 13, then took that north to our destination. One way or another, with lots of help from the locals, and a many twenty cent bus fares, we navigated out way to the University of Central America. Here we visited the site of the murder of six Jesuit priests and two women, which took place during the Salvadorian Civil War. We read accounts of each of their lives, their work with the poor and their calls for justice, during a time when speaking out against those in power, the government and the military, was a risky business. Ultimately, on November 16, 1989, they opened their doors to a US-trained, Salvadorian counter-insurgency force, which entered their home and murdered them in. They died for speaking out against injustice, standing up for the poor, and thus, in the eyes of the military, identifying themselves with subversive movements. Later on we visited the home of Oscar Romero, archbishop of El Salvador during the same time period, who was known for speaking out against the ongoing violence and the oppression of the poor. He too was assassinated, in 1980, while celebrating the mass. During his funeral in the cathedral of San Salvador, the military set of bombs and fired shots into the crowd of the tens of thousands who attended. It was very rattling to know that these types of crimes against humanity were going on during our lifetimes, and especially that the US Government was in many ways involved. Those who were in power, fought to maintain it at all costs, regardless of how many innocent lives it required. Visiting these sites were very sacred moments for all of us. Sobering to know of the atrocities, yet for me it was also inspiring, learning of the six Jesuit priests, two women, and Archbishop Romero, whom tirelessly fought for the rights of the poor and the sanctity of life. We too had been living with and working with the poor of Central America, and learning about the stories of these martyrs inspired me to continue to fight for the poor, and for justice, in whatever way that may manifest itself in the future.

The chapel in the Farm of the Child, Guatemala

Leaving El Salvador, we headed to our final stop: Guatemala. For all of us the journey had begun there, spending several weeks in 2012 studying Spanish before heading on to Honduras. And for many of us the journey was going to end there as well. We went because we wanted to see the sight of an orphanage founded in northern Guatemala, by the same couple that founded our orphanage in Honduras. The original Guatemalan orphanage was begun in the 1980s, and after building it and running it for many years, the couple moved to Honduras to begin another, which would become the Farm of the Child as we know it today. Unfortunately the original Farm of the Child in Guatemala didn’t last long after the founders left, the children were relocated to other homes, and now the site is only ruins. While planning this trip, we talked to the founder, and she told us that no one had visited the site in over ten years, and that there was probably very little remaining. Many more phone calls later we got in touch with a man who said he would take us to the original site and show us around. So from Guatemala City, we got on a night bus, and more or less 15 hours later, arrived in El Naranjo, Guatemala, a city well known for… absolutely nothing. It is close to the Mexican border, so it is a good stop off point for all immigrants heading north, but other than that all the town has is a big river and a lot of cattle. In fact it didn’t even have electricity until it was just recently installed this past November. Our soon to be friend, Victor, a former teacher at the orphanage’s school, met us when we arrived, and took us to the hotel where we would stay. Immediately he began telling us one story after another of the old Farm, one of his favorites being about Pablo, the resident howler monkey who lived in the trees and was constantly harassing the kids. If one of the children attending the school wasn’t playing close attention, he would steal their backpack and carry it up the tree to inspect it for anything he was interested in. He kept what he wanted, and threw the rest back down. He would even steal the babies’ bottles of milk, carry them up the tree, then upon drinking the milk, hurl the empty bottle to the ground. For years it seemed like the children had a love-hate relationship with Pablo, until one day, the German man who directing the orphanage at that time, sent all the kids into town to buy some ice cream. While they were gone, he got out his trusty rifle and ended the Pablo’s mischief once and for all. When the kids began to ask where Pablo went, he replied that he must be off in the forest somewhere playing with his friends. Finally Victor finished with his favorite story of all. The story of how he married one of the English volunteers, who is still his wife today and with whom he has a fifteen year old son. Obviously Victor could never forget the Farm. The next day he put us on a boat, and took us on the short trip down the river to the site of the Guatemalan Farm of the Child. The only buildings really left standing were the chapel and a few chicken coops, but the concrete foundations were all still there, and we were able to vividly imagine the stories Victor explained. Kids making loops on rollerblades in the one room schoolhouse, the female caretaker who they always tried to keep from going to town because she frequently ended up pregnant afterwards, and Vicente, the founder, taking off in his Cessna on the dirt runway, bringing someone to the nearest hospital hours away. Getting to know the original Farm of the Child, and hearing Victor’s endless stories, was a dream for us, and a very fitting way to end our journey.

My three years at the Farm of the Child in Honduras was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. It involved some of the lowest lows, and some of the highest highs, and because of that it urged me to learn and grow in ways I never would have imagined. I encountered a dark side of humanity I’d never known much of before, in the suffering of the children and the struggles they deal with daily through no fault of their own. But I also encountered a force and a resilience I’d seldom seen before, in the way they respond to their demons, and the way the volunteers and employees of the Farm fight their battles with them. And finally I found a real beauty in the landscape and lifestyle of rural Central America, and in the unlikely relationships formed between abandoned children, Honduran adults, and American idealistic volunteers. Those three years were far from easy, but for that I’m very grateful, because it allowed me to learn what I have, and grow into the person I’ve become. I’m grateful for the opportunity to be there, to God, and to each and every one of the people I’ve had the pleasure to meet over the past three years. And I pray that the things I’ve learned and the ways I’ve grown continue on with me as I move forward with life.

Group of Farm boys along with neighbor boys after a 3-1           The fear-inspiring, mustache-wearing Farm male volunteers

And for all of you who’ve lost countless hours of your life reading these far-too-lengthy blog posts, thanks I guess. I enjoyed writing them, so I hope ya'll enjoyed reading them.

  

Mud, Guatusas, and Socialism

For the four or five people who actually read this blog (two of them being my parents), you’ve probably already heard most of this. I tend to forget just about everything, and can only remember a handful of stories at a time, repeating them over and over to whoever will listen. So if this all sounds familiar, just give it a quick scan and go back to facebook.

Back in December, another one of the missionaries, Kevin, and I, went home on vacation with one of the Honduran staff here at the Farm, Dynia. She lives in Patuca, a town on the southern side of the country, not far from the border with Nicaragua. We hopped on a bus from Trujillo at 5am, and for the next seventeen hours fought  dirt roads in the heart of the rainy season. About three or four in the afternoon, the bus finally fell victim to the forces of nature, and all fifty or so of us had to get off while they called a front end loader to pull it out of the mud. For the next hour or so, this strong piece of Caterpillar engineering, with tires balder than Samuel L. Jackson’s head, attempted to pull us out. Meanwhile we’re standing in the rain, wondering whether or not we’ll make it there before midnight. At one point, another car came up, got stuck in the mud as well, and being the gentleman I am, decided I would help push it out. God, having the sense of humor that He does, repaid my good deed with mud being slung all over my jeans and nice shirt from the spinning tires. But then again, maybe I should’ve seen that one coming… By the time the Cat is able to pull the bus out and we made it to town, the moon was starting to rise. We finished the adventure with a half a mile trek through mud up to our calves and suitcases over our heads, and Kevin falling over every five minutes, before eventually reaching Dynia’s house. The town had no electricity and the house had a dirt floor, but I have never felt so welcomed in someone’s home. I think they killed half the chickens they owned in order to serve us meat at every meal. Some might say, however, that Dynia’s uncle, Mando, was the most hospitable of all. Mando is a farmer, and our time in Patuca coincided with the beginning of the corn harvest. Kevin and I woke up one morning, had a breakfast of chicken, beans, and five or so corn tortillas, then walked over to Mando’s house to see what his family was up to. His wife was grilling some corn, and we eagerly accepted the invitation to eat an ear. It was delicious, and so they offered us another. Now it’s a little rude in latino culture to turn down a gift when offered, so we obviously said, “Yeah, we’d love some more!” Then they offered us a third. “Great!” we said through slightly gritted teeth. By now my stomach is starting to rebel. Then a fourth. “Uhm… eh… well… okay,” remembering that other than a priest back in the 90s, we’re the first white people to ever come to this village, so we better make America proud. Then a fifth! At this point I’m not sure if this is called hospitality or a sick joke, but finally we said we’d take it with us so we could eat it back at Dynia’s house, secretly planning to ditch them somewhere in one of the patches of knee high mud. I, personally, didn’t want to see corn of any sort for the next year, and Kevin literally became sick. I think he was still puking up corn a few days later…

       Their humble abode.                         Dynia cookin up some good chow.               Backdrop of their house.

 Another exciting thing that happened around the same time was that I became the proud owner of a baby guatusa. A what? A guatusa! In English they’re called agoutis, but since you’ve probably never heard of that name either, we’ll just stick to the Honduran term. It’s a rodent, kind of like a mix between a guinea pig and a rabbit, and weights around ten or twelve pounds as an adult. The story is that one day, I was talking to my friend Marcos, one of the Honduran maintenance workers, and we were discussing how people down there often have wild animals for pets. So I told him that if he ever found a baby animal while he was out hunting in the mountains, to bring it down for me. And a few weeks later, I’m the proud owner of a baby guatusa. She was definitely very latina and very sexy, so we named her Shakira, and made a cage for her. She eats just about any fruit you can find, a few vegetables, and loves nuts. She’s actually the only known animal that can open a Brazil nut! (yeah I don’t know what that is either) But since I’ve been on vacation back in the states,

Shakira with her game face on.

the other volunteers have found out she loves Cornflakes more than anything. I bought a cat leash here in the states, so soon I’ll be able to take her around the Farm, to class, and to morning prayer. I’m pretty sure St. Francis would’ve loved to have a guatusa with him in the chapel during prayer, so I don’t wanna hear any complaints from the nuns. No doubt Shakira will be a faithful friend to the volunteers for many years to come. In fact, they say guatusas can live for twenty years in captivity. But then again, I just might smuggle her back to the states with me.

The last part of this blog has a different tone. At the risk of sounding like a self-righteous young American who’s spent time abroad, I’d like to throw out some thoughts I’ve had lately about material poverty. I’m giving fair warning through, my dad’s been calling me a socialist for a few weeks now, so if you don’t wanna hear my idealistic rants, you should go now. Spending time in rural Central America has made material poverty a very real concept for me. Instead of the poor being starving Africans on tv or people I heard about at mass, the poor are the kids I have in my English class, or the friends I’ve made in the surrounding communities. I know that there are kids in my classes who go without meals, or that eat meat once every blue moon. One of my good friend’s family members recently got very sick, and the family had to sell two motorcycles and a property they owned to pay for the treatment. Another friend is planting as much as he can on a little bit of land beside his house, and fishing when possible to try to put food on the table for his large family, now that he doesn’t have a steady job. I met a lady in one of the mountain villages who walks five hours roundtrip to town a couple times a week to wash clothes for a woman there. I asked her why she doesn’t take the bus and she replied, “I only get paid 100 lempiras (5 dollars) each time, and the bus tickets would cost 40 (2 dollars).” Sick people often come in our clinic without the money to pay for the treatment they need in a hospital. And here I am with money in my bank account, wondering if helping these people out would be “sustainable,” or if I might need that money for retirement some day. I don’t give because one day I just might need that money, and I’ll be glad I saved it. But the thing is, they need it today. All my life I’ve heard the stories about Jesus telling the man who had fulfilled all of the commandments to give everything to the poor, or the woman in the temple who gave the only two cents she had, and I’ve thought to myself, sure I’ll give, but first let me get a house, a car, good health insurance, a healthy 401k, some investments, and enough money to go out with my friends on the weekend. Then I’ll give a few bucks to feed the hungry. But since I’ve had sustainability on the mind anyways, one thing is for sure: my type of lifestyle is certainly not sustainable. The whole world cannot live like middle class America, the earth simply does not have enough resources. Therefore, because I am financially and materially secure, someone else will live in poverty. Not everyone can be rich, one has to be a result of the other. I did a quiz online, and based on my salary when I worked on cargo ships, I was of the richest 0.5% of the world. Sure I call myself middle class America, but I’m certainly not the middle class of the world. The stereotypical “good Christian” avoids the big three: alcohol, drugs, and sex. But when I look at the gospels, Jesus seems to do a lot more talking about the rich and the poor than he does about these. Maybe for the past twenty years I’ve just conveniently skipped over the parts that threaten my comfortable lifestyle.

So what is the answer to global poverty? I’m not sure. Should I forget the retirement fund and give all my money to others? I dunno. But I do think it is a question that we ponder far too little. And if I had happened to be born in rural Uganda, Bangladesh, or Honduras, it would definitely be something I’d think about far more often.

Ok, dad, that’s the end of my socialist rant for today.

It's Not November Anymore, But Maybe Still Interesting...

Tied in a hammock strung from the ceiling. This is normal.

The month of November has a notorious reputation here at the Finca del Niño. Whenever I came in the front door of the volunteer house this past month, complaining about something, the replies normally sounded something like, “Well, it is November after all...” For one reason or another, that month seems have a corner on the market of exciting events here. Not all of them necessarily bad (although some definitely are), just things that get your heart pumping and your blood flowing. So for this blog entry, we’re gonna do a quick rundown of some of the more notable events that got the adrenaline flowing in November.

Number one. Honduran presidential elections. Back in 2009, Honduras decided to make its most recent big break into the world spotlight by staging a coup d’ etat, ousting then current president Mel Zelaya, letting the military control for a while, having an interim president, and eventually choosing the conservative Porfirio Lobo Sosa, or Pepe Lobo for short. Lobo, by the way, means “wolf,” in Spanish, so electing him was for sure a good choice. It would be like if our president was named Obama Sabertooth-Tiger. Legit. Finally, we might get some respect from North Korea... Anyways, in the past few years, most people would probably say Honduras has steadily gone downhill. Not to say that life was rosy before, or that it’s the president’s fault that Honduras is struggling, but I haven’t heard anyone lavishing praise on the current government. Unemployment is raging, petty crime is high, and it can now claim to have the highest murder rate in the world. Beautiful. So everyone’s been pretty invested in these elections. The problem is that this “everyone“ includes the gangs, the drug traffickers, and every sort of low life looking for money and power. There were eight political parties with a presidential candidate this year, and five of them newly formed this year. One of these candidates also happened to be the wife of the president who was ousted in the coup a few years ago. Surely she just happened to have her own political ambitions, right? Every week in the newspapers there was some new ridiculous story. One drug trafficking gang says they will kill one of the candidates if they don’t pull out of the race. The daughter of the ex-interim president (that took power after the coup) had her car shot multiple times as she’s driving down the street. A candidate vowing to make a huge military police and claiming, “I will do whatever needs to be done to return the peace to the people of Honduras.” That doesn’t sound like Hitler or Mussolini at all. One candidate claiming the supporters of another are going to vote early on election day, then take to the streets and harass and threaten the people so that they won’t go to the polls. One candidate claiming  that if they don’t win, they won’t accept the results, and take to the streets rioting. Candidates for mayor or department representative have gone into hiding or have fled the country after threats on their lives.  You know, just normal, everyday stuff. So on November 24^th, the day of the elections, we were all listening to the radio to see what would happen. And by a miracle of God, things went rather smoothly. There were no full out riots, no huge claims of fraud (although there were definitely a few floating around), and at least for now, no murdering of presidential candidates. The conservative candidate received the most votes, and barring something crazy, will be taking office at the beginning of this next year. So with that being said, here’s to change, and to the next four years being better than the last.

Number two. La Gran Inundacion de 2013, or the Great Flood of 2013. Rainy season in coastal Honduras is supposed to be three months of semi constant rain, starting around mid October and lasting through the winter. But this year it didn’t start off so strong. A few clouds, a little bit of rain, but nothing worth writing home about. And by the end of November, we were starting to wonder if this “rainy season” would ever come. Well it did, and it came with a vengeance. The Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, around 9:00, it started raining. And it rained pretty good. It then continued to rain Wednesday, accompanied by heavy, heavy winds. It also rained Wednesday night. And Thursday. Thursday night. Friday. Friday night… Catch my drift? For more than 72 straight hours it never stopped raining. Rivers that normally only have a few inches of water going over them at the crossings, rose up to three feet or more. The ocean was muy enojado or “very angry,” as they say down here, and rose up to where the waves were lapping up into the walls of our chain link fence. Three of the older children that work in town got stuck there because they couldn’t cross the rivers, and ended up staying at the house of one of the Finca school teachers until the rivers went down. A Mitsubishi truck tried to be brave and cross one of the rivers, but underestimated it’s power, and got swept several hundred yards downstream before running up on the shore, giving the people inside a chance to escape out the back window mostly unharmed. Full grown, gigantic trees got blown over. The first of which just happened to come down as I and another volunteer were directly under it… Wednesday morning we were walking back from the beach back to our house when suddenly we hear the cracking of limbs behind us. We look up to see a huge Nansi tree slowly coming down right on top of us. We take off running for our lives and jump on the front porch of our house as the tree crashed to the ground, not fifteen feet behind us. I think I might have accidently taught the kids some new words that day, as I was screaming expletives at the top of my lungs. Trees weren’t the only things falling either, as many of ours and the neighbors crops got blown to the ground and ruined. I planted a few plantain trees next to our house about a year ago, and I have religiously water and fertilized them as if they were my own children since that time. In the matter of a few hours of wind, the tallest, most beautiful one, which was just starting to put off a great cluster of plantains, was broken in half like a matchstick. Honestly though, I have little to complain about, as some of our neighbors had entire fields of crops destroyed. By the end of Friday, large portions of the Farm were underwater, and we even had to put sandbags around the door of the food storage room. The school, the front gate, the storage building, one of the houses, and the yucca crop all had several inches (in some places six or eight) of standing water. Tree limbs everywhere. All kinds of trash washed up on the shore. I believe the Farm has never been dirtier in my time here. But I must say, it was a really impressive storm. Driving rain, howing winds, crashing trees, threats of flooding, swept away cars, and running for your life. I must say, I’ve been waiting a year and a half for one like that. 

Lots and lots of water...

Number three. La despedida, or the leaving of the old class of volunteers. Every year around this time the oldest class of volunteers returns to their respective homelands. As I decided to extend and do a third year, the class that left was the class that I came into the Finca with. Some will be looking for work, some heading to graduate school, and Kevin just plans to sit on his couch and watch TV for a couple months. But when they left a couple weeks ago, it definitely left an empty feeling around the house and around the Farm. We’ve had 19 volunteers in total for the last couple months, and now we have 11. It’s a big change. For me personally, my best friends and closest confidants here at the Farm were in that class. One story I’d like to share, that I will always remember from my time with them, was one night about a month back. It was a Monday night, and we had just recently done our annual volunteer house talent show, which normally includes, singing, disco, interpretive dance, and bilingual rapping. Most of us were sitting around in the living room afterwards, still playing a few songs on the guitar. Throughout the past year, another volunteer, Erin Lucia, and I would often play together. Since I can play guitar but sing like a frog, and she can sing like an angel but not play guitar, we made a good combo. With Erin leading the vocals, me on guitar, and the rest of the community forming the chorus, we laid down some great renditions of Hootie and the Blowfish and Jack Johnson. Then, as we were doing a real inspiring version of American Pie, the electricity goes out. Pretty normal down here, so all that really meant was that the night just got more romantic as we lit up some candles and kept singing. Eventually we moved on to some praise and worship songs. As we played How He Loves by David Crowder, something special could be felt in the air. I closed my eyes and listened as the voices flowed together with the guitar, just like old dance partners, each one knowing exactly the others next step. I felt surrounded by the music. Enveloped by it. It was coming forth from me, joining with the other voices, and wrapping all around me. We were in the presence of intense beauty. In the presence of God. In 6am morning prayer every day or Tuesday night rosary, I often don’t feel the presence of God. But that night, surrounded by some of the finest people I know, being part of some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard, I felt closer to God than I have in quite some time. As the song finished, we all sat in silence for a while. The only noise was the sound of the strong ocean waves pounding against the shore. Even nature joined in the chorus. 

David, Haydee, and I watching a parade in the Finca.

So with that though fresh on my mind and heart, I bid adieu to the class of 2013, and wish all of you the best of luck in the future. And if you get the urge to come back to your old stomping grounds this next year, we’ll be here waiting for ya. With a poorly functioning government and life threatening rain storms, but also with a lot of good times to share.

One last note, not related to anything above in any way, but something worth sharing. By the end of 6^th grade English class this year, we were getting a little bored with new vocabulary and practicing the “to be” verbs, so we decided to make a Bob Marley music video. We haven’t signed with any record labels yet, so I’m still free to show the video for free. Click on the link below and check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3TRf0_vHj0&feature=youtu.be

Love, Joy, and Sunsets

Welp, it’s mid October now, and that means there’s a lot of movement going on down here at the Finca. The school year is wrapping up, a group of volunteers are getting ready to leave, and a new group of missionaries have just showed up. All of the volunteers that came at the beginning of 2012 (myself a little later in April of 2012), will be heading home in December. I decided a little while back, though, to go ahead and stick around for a third year. At the beginning of this year, I started the discernment process of whether to stay or to go, and decided to go ahead and stay. Basically for two reasons. The first is more logical, tangible. There’s a big push in our organization to strengthen the vocational program for our kids, and since I’m the volunteer in charge of this and have a lot of passion for it, I’ve really latched on to it. I knew if I was only going to be here for one year under this position, nothing sustainable would happen, so I decided to hang around for another year.

Photo by Father Mark. Angel David making tortillas.

 

The other reason is a little more lofty. The first year here was one of the hardest years of my life. It was that way for a lot of different reasons, but one of them was because of my relationship with the kids. I came to the Finca expecting to form deep, lasting, loving relationships with the youth, filled with meaningful conversations and a lot of fun. But it didn’t feel that way very much at all the first year. Often the older boys would scowl when I walked by their house, for seemingly no reason at all. I would try to start a conversation with them and they would answer with one word or just walk off. That certainly didn’t give me the feeling of a deep connection, that was for sure. It felt like more of a battle a lot of the time. And the more I began to understand the Finca and the lives of the kids, the more I began to understand why they reacted the way they did. These kids have a lot of reasons to be angry. Their family might have left them or abused them, they were taken from their homes, maybe passed around the Honduran system for a little while, or maybe came directly to the Finca. They got here, lived in houses with nice caretakers or house parents, and met the volunteers and the nuns. But every year or two the house parents and volunteers left and new ones came, and the cycle continued year in and year out. This affects a child. I grew up with loving parents, constantly supporting me and helping me, and there were still plenty of rough times. These kids had everything taken from them. Their home, their family, and their freedom. They get here, and it’s a nice place, but people come, and people go. And that leaves them with the feeling that they’re pretty alone in the world. That no one really loves them enough to stick around. And that can make them pretty bitter. Pretty unsure how to love others, and unsure how to accept love. They make bad decisions, hurt others, and hurt themselves. It’s a very different environment than anything I’ve experienced before. But I think God brought me here specifically to see that. To learn what it means to love a very beat down, broken population. And learn how to accept love from them. And as I sat there thinking about whether or not I should stay for a third year, I felt like I still had a lot more to learn about love. That God still had a lot more to teach me; That he wasn’t done with me here yet, and that I was gonna need a little more time. That this experience in the Finca is very unique one, and one that could teach me things about love that I couldn’t necessarily learn in other places. So here I am, learning a little more, day by day, until December of 2014.

I made that decision to stay a third year, during my vacation back to the states this past March. And after a

Independence Day Parade.

little time to reflect, I came back to Honduras refreshed and ready to get back to work. Part of that work includes fifth grade English class. The fifth grade class in our esteemed Saint Peter Catholic School, has a little bit of a reputation. They’re known to be a little wild, wreck a little havoc, and take teachers to the end of their rope. As much as I’d like to say I’m a young, hip, inspiring teacher who can harness their energy in positive directions and get them excited about and engaged in the English language, that wouldn’t really be true at all. I have to admit I’ve raised my voice more than once or twice in class this year… And the wildest, loudest, can’t stay in his desk, and blatantly disrespectful one of them all, we’re going to call Pedro, has been the target of my glaring looks and raised voice more than most. Pedro’s a small, wiry, wild-haired kid with the energy of a monkey trapped in a barrel. And as soon as I got back from vacation, my first day back in the classroom, Pedro was bouncing off the walls as usual. I probably yelled at him a bit, and made him stay a few minutes after class. I walked into class the next day, though, and I’m embarrassed to say that I was pleasantly surprised to see Pedro’s seat empty. I let out a little sigh of relief, and went to the chalkboard to start writing, but I couldn’t find any chalk. The class eagerly told me the chalk was in the cupboard, surprising me that they were even somewhat excited to see what I was going to write on the board. I walked over to the cupboard, opened the door, and, well, didn’t see any chalk. What I did see, however, was my little friend Pedro, curled up in the second shelf of the cupboard, laughing his head off, thoroughly enjoying that he had duped me again. As short and wiry as this kid is, and as many wild and crazy things as he has done, even I was surprised that he could twist his body into that small crevice in the cabinet. But this time, I didn’t yell at him, and I don’t even think I made him stay five minutes after class. This time I think I laughed actually. He’s a real wild child and normally just makes me mad, but that was pretty funny.

Our community of volunteers is a big group of readers, so there’s always a couple of good books being passed around. One that has been passed around for a few years now, is a book called Awareness, written by a Jesuit priest from India named Anthony De Mello. It’s not incredibly well known, and not very long, but very provocative, and makes you question a lot of your commonly held beliefs. At one point he talks about the Kingdom of God, and how if we stopped worrying about what heaven will be like, and started worrying more about how we can bring His kingdom here to earth, we would do a lot more good in the world. Later he talks about being aware of and really taking in the joys of life. The beauty of a flower, the song of a bird, the taste of good wine, a good conversation with a friend. That if we could take in the full extent of the sight of a beautiful flower, the joy we would pull from that would bring the kingdom of heaven into our lives. A few weeks after reading this, I was sitting on the porch of one of the houses watching Yadira, our pudgy two and a half year old, youngest member of the Finca community play with a coloring book. She was scribbling on it as usual and having a grand old time. At first I thought she was just making a mess of the book, but then I began to watch her a bit more closely. She would take a crayon, strike it on the page making a short mark, stare at it inquisitively, and then burst into uncontrollable laughter. Every subsequent mark was followed by ten second of laughing and screaming for joy. Just the mere act of being able to create color, and put it on a sheet of paper, brought her the most intense joy, the most intense laughter. When Jesus said we must be like a child if we are to inherit the kingdom of God, maybe this is what He meant. If I could look at a color, the beauty of a single color, and my ability to take part in the creation of it, and let it beauty fill me with uncontrollable laughter, maybe then I would be able to feel the joy of the kingdom of heaven here on Earth. Maybe if we all saw the world a little more like Yadira did, we would all understand a little more what the kingdom of heaven on earth could mean.

For the end of this blog post, I’d like to leave you with a few stanzas of one of my favorite poems. It’s called The Invitation, written by Oriah. 

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

Here’s to one more year at the Finca. One more year to learn about love. And one more year to see the world as three year old would.

Kevin and I took the older boys camping on top of the tallest mountain outside of Trujillo. This is a view from the top. Pretty nice sunset...

And one more thing. A group of high schoolers came down this summer to spend some time with us, and one put together an incredible video about life at the Finca. Check it out, it describes us pretty well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVb4lPHYAas&feature=youtu.be