It is incredibly, incredibly, incredibly difficult to share my daily life here at the Finca with my friends and family only via a monthly blog, an occasional video call, or by sharing photos of fun experiences with the kids and our missionary community. The Finca, specifically our kids within the Finca community and from neighboring communities that attend our school, have captured my heart in ways that I never even deemed possible when I discerned serving at the Finca for 16+ months. This beautiful, amazing, yet certainly imperfect children’s home in rural Honduras fills me with an unimaginable peace and joy, and I am beyond grateful every single day to respond to God’s call to serve here.
That being said, truly the only way for my loved ones to fully understand my daily life and why this place makes me so dang happy is to visit. & ALYSSA AND NICK CAME TO VISIT FOR 8 DAYS IN MID-JUNE!! Getting to the Finca from the United States is not an easy task and takes at least a full day of travel with multiple layovers and a 4-to-8-hour drive on Honduras’ northern highway, but it is so dang worth it in my admittedly biased opinion!
WE HAD AN ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE TIME TOGETHER!! The kids living at the Finca are a source of great joy and peace for me, and I thoroughly enjoy simply living everyday life with them and spending quality time with them every chance that I get throughout my day. I was SO, SO excited to share our kids and my relationships with them to Nick and Alyssa, and we were so blessed to be able to spend amazing time with our kids at their houses, in the campo, in the park, at the beach, and everywhere in between during their 8 days visiting.
One of my favorite things to do at the Finca is to eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner at our kids’ houses because there are SO, SO many jokes and laughs shared around the kitchen table and I am able to spend such quality time with all the kids in the house at one time. Nick, Alyssa, and I were able to eat at every one of our kids’ houses at least once, with some houses twice, during their 8 days here, AND IT WAS UNBELIEVABLY AMAZING!
However, it is inherently challenging to know how much visitors will enjoy eating at kids’ houses with the language barrier. I knew that I would appreciate it so dang much, but I was a tad nervous about how much Nick and Alyssa would enjoy eating at the houses given their minimal Spanish. Nevertheless, they enjoyed it so, so much!! They really relished the opportunity to spend quality time with the kids and tías before, during, and after meals, and I was able to translate between Spanish and English so that they genuinely got to know the kids on a deeper level. There are a thousand different ways to show love besides speaking the language, and it brought me a lot of happiness to see Nick and Alyssa playing soccer with Casa 2, relentlessly chasing around Casa 4 and 6, and joking around with Casas 5, 3, & San Valentin during our time at their houses.
It is truly remarkable every time the entire Finca community is together, and I am so grateful for the sense of community and companionship every time this happens. This happens nearly every day during our spiritual events at our Finca church, but it is an inherently different atmosphere when these gatherings take place away from the church. That being said, probably my favorite activity/day at the Finca is when there is a Finca-wide beach party, and Nick and Alyssa got to experience one on a Sunday afternoon! I am filled with an incredible peace and joy when every child and tía at the Finca comes to the beach for a community lunch cooked by the tías. After lunch, every kid at the Finca is swimming and having fun in the ocean with missionaries and sometimes tías, and the endless laughs of our Finca kids brings joy to my heart. We were celebrating the arrival of our three summer missionaries during this Finca-wide beach party, and it was truly a phenomenal day filled with laughter and love as we enjoyed one another’s presence. I was so, so excited that Nick and Alyssa got to experience a Finca-wide beach party because it is truly some of my favorite memories in my 9 months here!
I am the English teacher for 3rd, 4th, and 8th grades, so Alyssa & Nick went to my classrooms with me almost every single day to teach! The school kids, especially in 3rd and 4th grades, absolutely LOVED having Nick and Alyssa in class, and they were genuinely sad to see them leave after their 8 days here. One of my favorite parts about being a teacher at our school is playing with the kids at recess and simply being present with them, and the kids obviously wanted to play with Nick and Alyssa as well. On the first day that they went to class with me, the majority of the kids in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades were chasing Nick all around the school premises during recess. While still adjusting to the Honduran heat, Nick finally entered class in a full sweat and was clearly tired, and Alyssa and I couldn’t control our laughter for long. WELCOME TO THE FINCA, BUDDY!
Nick, Alyssa, and I also got to spend some really quality time with our missionary community as well, including the three new summer missionaries that arrived a day before Nick and Alyssa arrived. Luke made them coffee almost every morning, and we had some fantastic times chatting around the kitchen table with missionaries as they stopped in and out of the house throughout their busy mornings. We also were able to eat at CST (the missionary house) a handful of times throughout their stay at the Finca! Our time as a missionary community around our kitchen table during and after meals is truly one of my favorite things about my time at the Finca, so I am glad that Nick and Alyssa got to experience that aspect of my life as well.
All in all, OUR 8 DAYS TOGETHER WERE INCREDIBLY AWESOME!! I will forever be grateful that Nick and Alyssa were able to visit me at the Finca, and I am excited to be able to share my Finca experiences with them for the rest of our lives!
Please continue to pray for our next Finca director, as the interview process is well underway and we will hopefully have an onsite director sooner rather than later. The director is such an important position for the success of the Finca and for the future of our kids, so please pray that our Board of Directors is able to find the best possible candidate for the job.
Please let me know how I can pray for you!
GOD BLESS!