February 14, 2008

Well, we didn’t get each other a surprise gift for Valentine’s Day. It’s hard when you can’t leave Faith Home and just go run an errand on your own. But that’s ok. We got to spend the entire day together and it was great.

We were awaken early in the morning by the sound of four young voices outside our front door singing “Every step I take …” in English. We opened the door to find one of Cindy’s daily patients (Gravie) and three friends. They came in, went immediately to the DVD player and pointed to the movie they wanted to watch. They watched a movie, had drinks and snacks while we got ready. Not a bad way to start the day.

Next, Saul came to the house and we loaded in the truck for the 45 min drive to the medical/dental team site for the last week of February. On the way we were selected to be pulled over at the police checkpoint. Brad gave the office the car’s license and registration. But as usual, he veered from the script and asked something we had no idea what he was wanting. Saul interpreted and explained he wanted our driver’s license. Ah oh, we only have our US driver’s license. Hope this will suffice. He looks at. Saul explains to him we here to help the people of Honduras. The officer hands us our stuff and thanks us for what we are doing.

Once again, very humbling. A police officer thanking us for what we are doing and we don’t feel like we’re doing that much. Later in the day we are stopped at a police checkpoint coming out of El Progresso. When they see our General Baptist logo on the side they wave us on before they ask for any paperwork. Humbling once more.

After many turns, bumps, holes in the road, and a climb up a step hill we arrive at the school located on top of a large hill. The view is beautiful of the city of Villenueva. We meet with the principle, explain what we would like to do, he calls his supervisor and Saul it explains our request to the supervisor. They are excited and we are set. The principle takes us and shows us each classroom. It’s the first day of school and the kids are there dressed in their school uniforms. Sorry to tell the med/den team but they are going to have a hard time competing with the cute faces of all those kids sitting in their classes.

We then go a speak with the pastor’s wife of the church we will be using. She gives us a tour of their church.

The day almost ended on a very bad note. Our daughter moved recently and just got their internet hooked up along with her webcam. She called us, she gets our granddaughter on the webcam so we can she. This works for about 15 seconds and then we lose the picture. Today is the first time we’ve seen our granddaughter since we left. Cindy was crushed. Our daughter and Cindy work frantically for next many minutes, restarting computers, instant messaging. Then, finally, our granddaughter pops up our computer screen and we talk with her for about 20 minutes – she’s not quite two yet but for grandparents just seeing them and hearing their voice is GREAT.