Honduras - Day 2 - We have arrived.

By Sunday morning, the realization that we were in Honduras was still setting in. Even as the week came to a close six days later, the thought that I was in Honduras baffled me and put the biggest grin on my face. Waking up in our nice hotel room and being able to take a hot shower helped wake my tired body that had traveled more than 1500 miles the day before. We had three more hours left in our journey and we would finally be at Rancho el Paraiso for the week.

After my shower, quickly re-packing my already stuffed backpack, and slowly eating a granola bar for breakfast to help calm my nervous stomach, David and I left our room and went to meet the youth in the lobby. Some of them were still finishing breakfast and a few were already there waiting on us. It was lightly raining this morning and the sky was cloudy. The security guard with his shotgun was standing by the door when we got to the lobby.

The kids who had gone to breakfast by the pool said they had fruit and pancakes. I'm not much of a big breakfast eater, so I stuck with my granola bars for the duration of our trip. After the previous night's long bus ride, we had no idea what could in store today. We knew we had to go up and down a mountain in order to get into the valley where we would stay for the week.

As we re-boarded the bus, we adjusted the curtains and windows carefully to keep the rain out as best we could, but also to keep as much air moving through the bus as possible. The next three hours on the bus would be a constant game of raising and lowering the windows next to our seats to keep us as dry as possible.

We stopped to refuel the bus a few blocks from the hotel, our huge bus narrowly missing buildings and street signs as it made the turns from street to street. Honduran drivers might scare the crap out of me at times, but they don't hit things. We drove past the capital building that was building sometime in the 1800's. It was a beautiful building made out of white stone that stood out from the blue and red shacks around it.

As we left town, we quickly began twisting and turning up a bumpy mountain road. In the rain, the trees and plants appeared even greener than the day before. We drove past a statue of a Honduran war hero who helped the country gain freedom from Spain. I couldn't see the statue on this trip, but Martha, one of our leaders, pointed it out and spoke very proudly about the man carved in stone.

As the rain came down harder, the bus grew warmer. Thankfully, a woman a few rows in front of me had decided that the rain would not be a factor for her; she had put on her poncho and left her window down completely. I sat next to one of our impressive youth on this trip. This particular teenager is impressive because he can fall asleep anywhere. We were literally on the side of a mountain, in the rain, with our bones rattled from the lack of suspension in the old school bus, and he was asleep for at least half the trip. I'm not sure how he slept or how he kept from hitting his head on the cold metal walls of the bus, but he did. David, I salute you.

About halfway into our trip, one of the youth came and told us that he had to use the restroom. We had been told there would be a bathroom break at some point during this trip, but we weren't sure if that was true or not. We asked him to wait 10 or 15 minutes to see if we stopped. After the 15 minutes had passed, he came back and we told him to tell Ali or Martha that he needed to stop.

Two minutes later, two of our youth were standing outside of the bus in the rain, peeing on a mountain in Honduras. Inside the bus, the rest of us were howling with laughter and some people were taking pictures. They took care of their business and were greeted with applause and cheers as they re-boarded the bus. These few moments of good-natured humor helped make the second half of our trip easier.

We continued up the mountain, moving at what seemed like a snails pace, yet the bumps in the road never seemed to let up with the slower speeds. Finally, the road began to straighten out and we had come into the deep valley of Olancho. After half an hour of rocky dirt roads surrounded by open pastures and rice patties, we turned onto a road that had a sign for our ranch. 1.5 kilometers stood between us and being able to get off of our bus.

We drove into the ranch, let the group we traveled with off at their dorms, and proceeded to be dropped off at our dorms. We had a little while until lunch to choose our rooms and start unpacking. We had three rooms in our building, so the boys took one, the girls took one, and the adults took one. I love my youth, but being able to have a separate room to relax and sleep for the week was spectacular. It took David and I a couple days to remember that Tara was in our room, but that was a small price to pay for quiet evenings and mornings.

After our first lunch on the ranch of chicken, rice, delicious tortillas, and more savory Coke, we met with Ali to discuss the ranch rules and what we would be doing through the week. We took turns reading each rule one by one and Ali listed a long list of projects that needed to be accomplished at our village. At the time, it didn't seem as daunting as it should have.

Ali then took us on a brief tour of the ranch. She showed us the offices where she and many others work in the evenings, the homes where the ranch staff live, the clinic and pharmacy that is open to the surrounding villages throughout the week, and all of the animals being raised on the ranch. The ranch had pigs, chickens, and cattle.

I was surprised at the varied reactions from our youth to the different obstacles and smells a working ranch provides. Having grown up in Indiana and spent many days on farms or around not-so-pleasant smelling animals, this was no big deal to me. But I quickly realized that the big city of Nashville was all many of our youth knew. This was both surprising and amusing to me.

After our tour, we returned to our dorms to relax for a couple hours before dinner. Most of us took the time to lay in hammocks and sit in rocking chairs, while a few of the youth played kickball in the rain. For dinner that evening, we once again enjoyed chicken, rice, beans, tortillas, and natural cola. After dinner, we returned to our porch and passed the time talking and laughing before our devotion would begin.

The devotion this night was led by the youth who had read from Tuesdays with Morrie. We started by going around the group and giving a high and a low from the day. If I remember correctly, my low was the rocky bus ride and my high was just the fact that we were in Honduras. I'm still amazed that I was able to make this trip and do the things I did. I hope I never lose that feeling of amazement.

After everyone in the group had taken their turn to share, Emily read a chapter from Tuesdays with Morrie to us. It was about doing the things you love and not worrying about money. It set the tone for our week perfectly and hit close to home for me. I work with these youth because I love it. I don't get paid and I don't want to be paid for the work I do, with money comes pressure and expectation. Seeing that these young adults were able to grasp the concept, if only the concept, of doing what you love over doing what gets you paid is so impressive to me. I envy their youthful wisdom.

After we prayed together, the leaders had a few announcements to share (confirming wake-up times, what time we be leaving the ranch, etc.) and then it was mail time. After a few mentions from different people leading up to the trip, the idea of having mail "delivered" to each youth every night got more and more exciting to me. In the weeks leading up to our trip, I organized several groups throughout our church to write letters to the youth that would be given to them each evening during our trip.

Most of the youth didn't know that these letters were coming, so they were very excited to receive them on the first night. Our first group of letters came from the junior high youth group and members of our church Session. Two of the youth got letters from my brother, a Session member, instructing them to give me lots of hugs throughout the week and to keep watch over me. They kept their end of the deal and I received many hugs from them as the week went on.

Our days at the ranch ended in the same way for the most part: after our devotion, announcements, and mail time, some people would head immediately to bed, others would stay on the porch for awhile talking and listening to music, and we would slowly head to bed one-by-one as the night grew later.

These were the times I cherished with these 12 young men and young women. The time spent where we were all relaxed and enjoyed one another's company. We swung in our hammocks, passed bug spray bag and forth too many times, and laughed with one another.

After some time on the porch, David, Tara, and I retired to our room for our first night on the ranch. Tara and David read before bed and I wrote in my journal. I wrote about our long and bumpy bus ride. I wrote about how amazed I was to be where I was. I wrote about how green the trees were. And then I slept.