Some Thoughts...

I had an epiphany on Thursday: I realized while I was coloring with the children that I was talking to them. Having a conversation with them in Spanish - I couldn’t help but smile. 

 

What else is going on you ask?

 

I met my new favorite person in Honduras. She isn’t actually Honduran, nor does she even speak Spanish. Her name is Eve and she is the volunteer coordinator with HHK. She is by far the hardest working board member that I have met thus far.  She held three training meetings a few weeks back for us that I thought went really well. I learned a lot and we got some ideas for when vacation care starts.

 

Right now at the Hogar, there is a bad cold going around: coughing, sneezing, runny nose, and high, high fevers. Maynor had it and Santos has it now. Yesterday he didn’t participate at all because he was lying on Cheyanne’s lap wrapped in a blanket to keep him warm. A lot of the children have passed it from one to another, and I pray I don’t catch it myself. I have actually been getting a headache lately, as well as feeling achy. We’ll see how this ends… :]

 

I know in the past, I have tried to keep this blog as cheerful and uplifting as I can. I want to keep it that way as much as possible, but I also want to be honest about what is going on, and what I am thinking. With that said… I wanted to talk briefly about the things I am struggling with in my head.

 

First off, these kids have made a life-long impression on me. I see in their eyes so much pain and so much sadness at times I can’t help but want to just hold them and tell them I love them. I want for them the same possibilities that I have for myself. They don’t even know how big this world is and what is really out there. These kids have really nothing in their futures except what they came from: poverty, abuse, pregnancy at 14, no running water, no electricity, and the list goes on and on. I want to just be able to hold them in my arms and tell them that everything is going to work out, but in Honduras, with this much poverty, that would be a lie; and that is the saddest thing to me. To not be able to tell a child that their future holds much more than what they may possibly be able to know.

 

Along those same lines, I want to say how much of a hard time I am having being able to swallow the fact that I can’t really help them as much as I want. I am pretty sure this is a taste of parenthood. You love your children sooo much, but there is only so much help you can give them before you cross the line and make things worse.

 

I have had a hard time with a battle that is going on in my mind. I feel very guilty at times for what I had as a child and the wants I still have. I feel guilty for being so blessed with everything that I ever needed as a child and even now, and I still always want more. Why me? What did I ever do to deserve the loving parents and family that I have? What did I do to have the life I have? I would trade places with these children in a heartbeat so that they may know what it is like to have parents that LOVE them, parents that won’t abuse them, physically or sexually. A loving mother to take care of them when they are sick: make them soup, get them slurpees, take them to a doctor, and tuck them in at night with a kiss. I want them to know what that is like. But I am only one person, so I hope even though they can't have some of these things, maybe the time that I am spending here with them will impact them enough to one day be able to give these things to kids of their own. I can only pray so.