Orphanage Emmanuel

Orphanage Emmanuel of Guaimaca, Honduras has captured both Tyler and I's heart on first site. Tyler was there for a week and came back a slightly different person, I must say. He said several times that words couldn't describe the Orphanage and its beauty. God is truly at work there.

Just a little background on the Orphanage.......

It was started by a couple who felt called by God to go to Honduras on mission. Once there, God showed them His plan for them to help the children there. Through translation mishaps, they bought a 1,000 acre farm for the same amount as the 80 acres they had intended to buy. The land had 2 buildings and they began with 5 children; that was in 1989. Now they have 408 children and 15+ buildings. The children attend church and school on the grounds. The outside community is not very safe and is poor, to say the least. Guards are positioned outside the orphanage walls and also around banks and stores in the town. Picture below is of the market on the dirt streets of Guaimaca.

All of the buildings that have been added on the Orphanage have mostly been done by volunteers. Our church has been going for 13-14 years, and one of our members is on the board for the orphanage. Our church and surrounding ones sent groups over a period of 3 weeks to build 4 new staff houses this year. Tyler worked with our Sunday School teacher, Carter, on connecting power lines to them. Carter is a Linesman per trade. Tyler and others helped him, on the ground thankfully, to do the job. These pics are of Tyler getting a lesson on how to climb, he only went 7-8 feet up this one time. I was very relieved!

Carter up a pole...

The children are there for all different reasons. The orphanage tries to bring them out of their tragic background through God's promises and love. The kids have group time with their house mates each day which includes a devotion/ prayer time. Then on Fridays, they have "big circle" which is what you see below. While he was there, he saw 20 kids baptized!

The children are grouped with their age and sex. Here are the boys after their bath before bed. They LOVE to have their picture made, according to Tyler, and then see themselves in the camera.

They don't get candy much, so when Tyler started passing at candy one day, they just flocked to him.

These two girls, Rosa and Korina, latched on to him. We are going to sponsor them both, because Tyler (or Tylo as they say) became attached to them, as well. Sponsoring includes a monthly payment to help pay for the expenses of feeding/clothing them and then you are encouraged to keep in touch and send them little gifts as you want. All the children get the same treatment outside of recieving gifts/letters even if they aren't sponsered, but having a sponsor gives them someone to form a relationship with outside the Orphanage.

The orphanage has 2 deep wells for clean water......

This is a pic of the slaughter house where the orphanage processes and stores their own meat. They have cows, chickens and pigs that are raised on the farm. One of the staff members, that lives on the farm now after coming there on a mission trip, graduated with an agriculture degree. They also consume milk from the cows (that they process first) and eggs from the chickens. It helps them with their costs, not to mention the limited sanitary food in the town. Tyler saw the meat market which is a little open air room with meat hanging from hooks on the ceiling.

They also have some green houses where they grow some basic veggies and ornamental flowers to sell and use aroung the grounds of the orphanage.

Here is one of the 4 houses built mailnly by volunteers. Honduran construction workers laid the foundation and brick, the rest was finished in the 3 weeks the church groups were there.

Tyler went into town one day and bought a snack. A drink and chips were only like 50 cents. But that wasn't as shocking as when they didn't let him have the drink bottle. They pour your drink into a plastic bag and stick a straw in it! The price for the bottles is too high for them to give them to you, its like a recycling thing or something.

You can tell this playground has been built by some Chattanoogans.......

Laundry area for the girls house......

Basic pic of some of the buildings.....

Tyler loved his trip. He felt he was able to talk to God constantly and see His work. We will definitely be back!! We may even go this summer! There were over 180 pics that Tyler took, if you are interested in seeing more just let me know, or you can go here and see a lot more about Orphanage Emmanuel.