Dollar-A-Day

Dr. Andy

2010-08-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, so Dr. Andy is a bit of a stretch. Well, maybe a HUGE stretch. However, I did get to spend some time observing at a private medical clinic in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It's run by a missionary organization called His Eyes. Trevor and Valerie Colby run the mission organization and the clinic. The clinic is called Clinica Cristiana Cuerpo de Cristo (Body of Christ Christian Clinic).

It was amazing to see the work that they're doing at the clinic. They have a medical doctor, a dentist, an ophthalmologist (that's Valerie too), and a number of other nurses and support staff. Working together, they're able to care for a huge number of patients everyday. The dentist told be he sees up to 20 patients a day, and the doctor will see around that just in the morning. They really worked well together, and were able to offer high quality care to people who otherwise would probably not have access to it.

I also appreciated the opportunity it afforded me to be able to meet a number of different missionaries who are working in Honduras as well. I got to spend time talking with Valerie and Trevor about the various ministries they are involved in (you can read about them here and Trevor's blog here).

I also got to meet Jim and Frances Martin of the mission organization Honduras Ministries. Jim is from Kansas, but has been living in Honduras for about 10 years. Their organization provides food, clothing, and the opportunity for children to go to school. All this with the ultimate goal of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I feel extremely thankful to God that I crossed paths with Jim, and he invited me to have dinner with his family the final evening I was in Honduras. I was thankful to hear more about their ministry, but even more so because I ended up needing a place to stay that final evening. I was accidentally locked out of the Casa Lamb, and fortunately Jim lived only about a 5 minute walk from there. If it weren't for us meeting and me having dinner there, I would have ended up sleeping on the tile porch of the Casa. Instead, I had a comfortable bed (and even a brand new tooth brush to use!). Jim and his family were gracious hosts.

All in all, I got to hear about and witness many ways that God is working in Honduras. It was an honor to meet so many dedicated people serving there to bring God glory. I look forward to seeing how I will be able to support all of the new friends that I made while in Honduras.

How you can help

2010-08-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

Visiting Orphans from Amanda Lawrence on Vimeo.

Here is a video about the organization we worked through. While we were in Honduras, we worked with a branch of The Orphan Institute. Their purpose is to speed the process of getting children declared ¨paper ready¨ so they can be adopted. Without their work, it can take years for a child to be declared available for adoption. By that time the child might be too old to be likely to be adopted. They have a staff of social workers, lawyers, psychologists, and support staff to help speed the process along. They´re also beginning to try to work with the Honduran government to change the adoption laws to make less red tape.

What is great about their program is that they´re working to get children into a loving family and out of the orphanages before they´re beyond age 5. Once a child is older than 5, they are much less likely to be adopted. Therefore they will spend the rest of their adolescent life in orphanages. The Orphan Institute aims to intervene in as many children´s lives as possible.

If you´d like to support the Orphan Institute´s program in Honduras you can go to this link. After you enter the dollar amount, on the following page you can choose to designate the money. Add a designation to "Casitas Kennedy Office in Honduras" and the money will go directly to them.

Thanks so much for all of your support!

Andy's Wild Ride

2010-08-08T21:54:00.000-07:00

So, I'm here in Honduras by myself for a few days. The medical mission I am working with told me I could go with them to Lepaterique to do a clothing distribution. I obviously have no idea where that is, so I just assumed it was nearby and would kind of be an uneventful day without much to blog about. Boy was I wrong. Therefore, you will be getting a blog about today instead of how to help the orphans. That will still be forthcoming.

So, I went to church this morning with the family that runs the mission. It was all in Spanish, so I didn't understand too much. The worship was great though, and I could figure out what most of the songs were saying.

After church, a group of women from the US arrived. They are distributing clothing this week to different areas. I helped load the truck, and we were off. I rode in the truck bed and laid on top of the huge bags of clothes. We drove on a dirt/gravel road through the mountains for about an hour and a half. We passed through tons of small villages and saw some beautiful scenery. Here are a few photos I took.

I rode up by the cab, not hanging out the back.

The views were incredible. It was tough to get a good photo though because I was usually bouncing around too much.

Here's what the road looked like most of the way. Where the Land Cruiser is ahead there is a bunch of mud.

Here is a really old looking bridge we crossed. It was a little nerve racking.

The view from the bridge.

As we neared our destination, you could see the storm clouds gathering.

This is the church we distributed the clothing and shoes at.

Oscar (one of the workers from the mission) explaining to the people how it would work. About 1 minute after this, there was a mad dash (Black Friday style) for the used tennis shoes. It was humbling to see people so excited about getting some used clothing. If 2 people got only 1 shoe out of the pair, they kind of did this waiting game to see who could last longer before wanting to just give their shoe to the other person so they could leave. I thought it was kind of like a staring contest, but with shoes.

Apparently this kid had had enough of the chaos. :)

Well, the storm finally came and I ended up riding back in the rear of the Land Cruiser. I took a video of it, but it's too slow to upload to YouTube here, so I'll post it later. The ride there wasn't even close to how wild the rainy ride home was. Making turns while driving down a mountain in the rain doesn't exactly settle your heart. I did quite a bit of praying on that ride home. Thankfully we made it back safely.

Final Day at Casitas Kennedy

2010-08-07T20:22:00.000-07:00

Just a warning, this is probably going to be a really long post. I don´t have much to do today, as I am staying 4 days longer to work at a medical mission in Honduras. So, I have nothing but time to blog, and TONS of photos and thoughts to share. :)

Our group´s final day at Casitas Kennedy was one of mixed emotions. It is very tough to say goodbye to all the kids, but we need to realize that us being there is not going to be what makes the children happy. There were a couple of events yesterday at the orphanage that kind of threw a wrench into what we had planned for the day. While we could have been frustrated, we just kind of rolled with it and hung out with the kids.

In the morning, there was a group called Simply Help there. I think there were also representatives from the Honduran government as well. The kids put on a big show for the visitor with a lot of dancing. Then Simply Help distributed clothing, toys, and shoes. We were allowed much more freedom yesterday to take photos, so we all snapped away. Yesterday I wrote about the young girl Katrine and her baby. While I wasn´t able to talk with her today, I did snap a picture of them during the performances.

I got kind of bored of sitting in the performance/political spectacle (especially since I couldn´t understand what anyone was saying), so I decided to go to the baby´s house. Here is a photo of me with Jose. He was so precious, and just loved being outside. When I set him down, he started crying. It just broke my heart.

After lunch, a group of what looked like college students (or that age at least) came to entertain the kids. I hung out there for a while, since a lot of the kids were there. It was a good opportunity to see and realize that our group isn´t the only source of joy to these children. That sounds kind of bad, but I think we felt that way a little bit throughout the week. It was kind of nice to see that we are just one little part of bringing joy and God´s love to these kids lives.

The child closest in the photo is the sister of the 2 girls in the middle (the floral dress and aqua shirt) and the young girl in the dark pink shirt in front of them. 4 sisters from one family here together. They were always with one another, and very reserved. It was nice to see that they were able to rely on one another so much.

The girl in the pink is named Brenda. She was such a sweetie. Her front teeth were rotten, probably from having a bottle (or something) in her mouth too long as an infant. Quite a few of the children had the same problem.

This is Senia. She had a hilarious personality. She would make tease us, and also mimic things we said. She just loved the new dress she´s wearing.

This is Karen. She is deaf and just started to learn sign language. The day that we gave her new clothes she signed that it was the happiest day of her life, and that she would never forget it. Fortunately, one of our team members, Carrie, knows sign language so they were able to communicate.

We bought a couple of mobiles for the baby´s cribs. When I put them in, they immediately started to play with them. It was so cute. I hope that they´re able to get a lot of use out of them.

This is Ramon. He has special needs, and was often just kind of wandering around. I saw him swinging on his own and went over to push him for a while. He seemed to enjoy it a lot.

This is Rixty (probably spelled wrong). She was kind of a tomboy. She followed me around quite a bit during the week.

I´ll continue to blog throughout the rest of this week while I´m in Honduras. We appreciate all of the prayers, support, and encouragement from all of our friends and family. Tomorrow I´ll tell you how you can get involved in helping the orphans.

Here are all the photos from our final day.

Light suitcases and heavy hearts

2010-08-06T21:36:00.000-07:00

When our team began planning the logistics of our trip, we decided to pack all of our clothing and personal items in our carry on bags so we could fill our checked baggage with donations for Casitas Kennedy. While this made packing for the trip a little more challenging, it was worth the extra effort to bring all the crafts, clothes, toys, soccer balls, candy, etc. We handed most of our donations out yesterday and today, and seeing the kids proudly wearing their new clothes was so sweet.

So today as we left Casitas Kennedy for the last time, we packed our empty suitcases into the van. Transporting our luggage to the airport tomorrow morning will be a breeze, but I'm pretty sure we'd all take a couple of heavy suitcases over the sadness we have over leaving the kids we met this week. We knew before we even started this trip that the goodbye would be difficult, but the reality that we will probably never know any more about these kids than we do right now seems pretty cruel. But that reality is part of what spurs us on to continued action, which is a very good thing. As for the reality these kids face every morning, we are hoping and praying that there will continue to be others who cross their paths, showing them love and hope. We are certainly not the first group to come to this orphanage, and it helps to think that we aren't the whole story, but just a small part of God's plan to take care of His children.

Day 6 - Los niños preciosos

2010-08-05T21:59:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you guessed it, but the title means "The Precious Children". That is the best way I could think of to describe today (and the whole week). We spent the entire day at Casitas Kennedy today. This morning part of the group finished stenciling the last rooms in the baby's house. There was a young girl named Katrine in the house. She was visiting her one month old baby. The girl lives at Casitas, and she is only 16 years old. Her baby was so precious. I got to hold him for a few minutes. I'll try taking a photo of him tomorrow so you can see how cute he was. I hope one of us from the group can talk with her tomorrow and hear her story.

While we painted, the rest of the group sorted through all the clothing that was donated by people back home. We separated it out so we could deliver it to the different houses.

After we finished painting, we went to the toddler classroom to perform a puppet show, sing a song, and then let them bust open a Sponge Bob pinata full of dulces (candy to us gringos). They seemed to enjoy the puppet show, though I couldn't really tell since I was behind the curtain straining to keep my arm above my head and keep the puppet's mouth moving a little (it sounds much easier than it really is). We sang the Itsy-Bitsy SPider in English, then the kids sang it to us in Spanish. It was so cute when the little kids tried to break the pinata open. The 3 year old kids could barely swing the stick. Once the candy started falling out though, it was like bedlam with screaming little ones filling their shirts up. Our group was busy holding the older kids back, trying in vain to convince them they would be getting candy later in the day. It didn't help that none of us knew how to say that in Spanish. :)

Performing our puppet show. I was the girl puppet. :)

Getting the piñata ready.

After lunch we split up again. Part of the group went to the cafeteria to have the kids do some crafts. It was set up with different stations to try to minimize the chaos that occurred during bracelet making with 30 kids at once.

This is when the craft time was ending.

While they did crafts, the rest of us went around and delivered clothes to the different groups of kids. It was so amazing to see the look on their faces when we handed them new socks and a used dress, shirts, and pants. Every kid got at least one whole outfit. We were telling them "probarse" (try it on), and many of them reacted with a pout and reluctantly went to try them on. The little girls came out to show their new clothes off. A lot of the kids wore their new outfits the rest of the day, displaying them proudly wherever they went. One of the little boys named Roy was also SOOOO excited when he got a pair of shoes that light up. He was equally excited to get new socks. When was the last time you were excited about new socks???

There is a group of 7 older boys (ages 8-11) who have really touched the hearts of our group. Most of the clothes that they wore this week were dirty, shredded, and with broken zippers. Many of them ran around barefoot as well. When we went shopping, we decided to get that group a special gift. We bought each boy a some sandals, shoes, clothes, underwear, and socks. We also made salvation bracelets for each boy. We gathered them in their Casita to let them open their packages. Every one of their faces lit up as they opened them up. They all were smelling the clothes, looking amazed that they don't have the grimy smell that permeates everything there (probably from being washed in dirty water). They were smelling the shoes, jeans, and even the underwear. It was both funny and sad that they were amazed to actually have underwear that hadn't been worn before. We were allowed to take some photos of them at this time, so here are several.

Here are all the photos I took today.

Day 5

2010-08-04T21:09:00.000-07:00

Today we visited an orphanage run by some nuns from the same order as Mother Teresa. There were about 30 kids there, mostly under the age of 5. The facilities were much worse than the government run center we've been at. They don't have wipes for the children, no sheets for their beds, and most of them didn't have shoes. It seemed like the nuns give them as much care and love as possible, but with no money and few workers it is a challenge. To top it off, 3 workers were sick with dengue fever (along with many of the kids) so they were short staffed today.

Since this orphanage isn't run by the government, they are not as strict about taking photos. These two boys are Dustin (on the right) and Alexander (on the left). They were SO naughty. Alexander kept opening the gate and running across the compound, making me chase after him. They certainly knew how to get attention. I realized how starved for attention these kids must be, with so few people there to work with them.

I'm not sure of his name, since he couldn't speak, but the boy at the center of this photo was so precious. He has something wrong with his legs that caused him to have to kind of bear crawl instead of walking. I picked him up and carried him around for a while, and his face just lit up. He'd probably never been that high up in his life. He was touching everything he can't normally reach. Then I lifted him above my head, and he just laughed and laughed. I hope I never forget the joy I saw on his face.

So much happened today that it is difficult to put it into words. I hope that as I process it all, I'll be able to articulate it clearly.

This afternoon we went back to Casitas Kennedy to work some more. We showed the older girls the movie "Enchanted" and fed them pizza, popcorn, and coke. This was a special treat for them, and they really enjoyed it. I think they enjoyed the good food more than the movie though. They're the group that is the most challenging to interact with, and they seemed to talk more with us after that.

I've learned that I make an excellent jungle gym for these kids. Within about 10 seconds of walking into the orphanage this morning I had 2 boys climbing up me. At Casitas Kennedy, there are a few kids who always want me to carry them or put them on my shoulders. Jessica and Kimberly are always fighting over which one will be carried, so today I thought I'd see if I could carry both at once. I found out I could, so I spent the rest of the afternoon with a kid on each shoulder. One of the older girls gave me the nickname "papa grande" or big daddy. :)

Another funny thing happened while I was setting the movie up. The older girls were talking to Janell about the baby, and Janell told them that I was the daddy. They all started laughing so hard. I'm not sure what exactly they were laughing about, but their reaction was hilarious.

Here are all the photos I took today.

What you can't buy at WalMart

2010-08-04T16:25:00.000-07:00

Last night during our group discussion time, I found myself a little distracted by the party going on in my belly. Every 30 seconds or so, my stomach would bulge out in a certain spot, and I could feel the tiniest hand or foot pushing out against the walls around her. After our meeting I showed Andy where she'd been moving and we watched together as her little feet or hands pushed out on my stomach. A couple times she pushed out right under Andy's hand, making both of us laugh out of wonder and joy at the tiny, incredible life growing inside me. And right in the midst of that joy, I suddenly felt very aware of the greatest need of each child we've met here in Honduras. The clothes and shoes we bought for them will be appreciated, the toys we bought will be exciting (for as long as they last), the food we bought will help provide nourishment, and the pinata filled with candy will be a fun and memorable way to end the week.

But what they need most is for someone to find so much joy in their very existence that they never question their value, or whether there is at least one person who loves them, who cares enough about them to laugh when they do something silly, to be proud of the picture they drew or the question they answered in school that day. I can't help wondering as I try to show these children love if anyone ever marveled over their unborn movements, dreaming about who they would be, what they would look like, and how they could ever adequately express the depth of love their very being has brought into existence.

There are so many complicated, broken stories behind the face of each child - some are abandoned, some abused, some neglected, some just separated temporarily from their families. "Fixing" all of those problems is beyond the scope of any person, church, organization, or government. But I am convinced that there is still value in trying. We will never place every child in a home. We will never eliminate the broken families and social structures that lead to children with no place to live. And we will never fully understand all the factors and cycles that contribute to these children's stories. But we will reach many more trying than we will by giving up. It can be difficult to have hope for the orphan situation in Honduras, and all over the world. But if the alternative to hope is despair, we owe it to ourselves and to these kids to choose hope.

Day 4 - A Trip to Walmart

2010-08-03T20:48:00.000-07:00

We started off the day at Casitas Kennedy again. Today we got to perform our puppet show and songs to a couple of the classes there. It was tiring holding the puppets up the entire time, but the kids seemed to enjoy the show. They also liked the song and hand motions that Janell and Karen made up.

While we performed, part of the group went and did some more stenciling. Here are some photos of them working.

From Day 4

Jessica and Samantha working on a stencil.

From Day 4

The stencils we did yesterday.

In the afternoon we went shopping to buy some things for the orphanage. We thought it would be easier to buy it here than to bring it on the plane.

From Day 4

Well, as you can see, we did okay at the Honduras version of Wal-Mart (same company, but it is called Hiper Paiz here). The receipt is about 10 feet long, and we had 6 carts full of stuff. We're giving it to Casitas Kennedy and another orphanage we're visiting tomorrow morning.

To finish the day, the leader of our trip, Anna, talked to us about the current state of orphans in Honduras. It was eye opening, sad, and a little discouraging. The important thing is to not let that discouragement keep you from trying to make a difference though. Here are a couple of videos she showed us. The first is from an organization working with orphans all over the world (including Honduras), and the second is from the same group, but it is about the orphanage we're working at.

Day Three

2010-08-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day we went to the orphanage. We aren't able to take photos of the kids at the orphanage because it is run by the government, and we technically need the permission of the parents. Our leader said that we may be able to take some photos by the end of the week though.

When we arrived we got a short tour and overview of how the facility runs. For the morning half the group went to work with the babies, and the other half went to stencil the walls of the casitas (little houses) that the children live in. We should be able to take some photos of the stencils.

After lunch we went and played with the kids in the central area of the compound. They were excited to play with the gringos. :) We just hung out playing soccer, frisbee, and jump rope. During that time groups of kids got to make bracelets as well.

This was a wonderful time of just getting to know the kids, hearing their stories, and showing them personal attention and love. Many of them had lice crawling on their heads and several of the boys didn't have any shoes. It was tough to be close to the kids with lice jumping off their heads, but I feel like I need to love them as Jesus would. I think He would probably treat them all the same, regardless of what health issues they have. He spent time with the lepers and outcasts of society. I can deal with a little head lice.

Per your request...

2010-08-02T16:43:00.000-07:00

The correct way to pronounce Tegucigalpa is: Teh - goose - i - gal -.pa

More updates this evening. :)

A Sunday in Honduras

2010-08-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

Today was our fun/relaxing day here in Honduras. We started out with a breakfast of pancakes and papaya around 7:30 am, then headed to church with Anna, the coordinator for our trip. While her church is attended by primarily Spanish speaking people, they did have a translator for us today during the message portion, which was very helpful considering the only words I consistently recognize are "hola" and "gracias". I realized shortly after we arrived at church that I am actually part Honduran...everyone came at least 10 minutes late, and church probably didn't start until 9:20 or 9:30. :) It also lasted a little longer than it normally does in the U.S. - 3 hours! They have an outdoor facility overlooking the city of Tegucigalpa - pretty incredible view.

After church we went out to lunch with our coordinator Anna. She took us to a place where we could get an authentic Honduran food called pupusas. They are kind of like a round quesadilla, but the breading part is make of a cornmeal mixture and is softer and thicker than a tortilla. They are usually filled with cheese, pork sausage, beans, or a mixture of those three. They are served with a pickled carrot/onion mixture that you put on top, or with a cilantro coleslaw type topping. Everything we ate there was excellent, and our whole group of 14 ate for less than $50.

After lunch, we took a road that our translator told me translates as "road to the belly" that wound through the beautiful mountains of Tegucigalpa, and took us into the little downtown area of Valle de Angeles. It's meant mostly for tourists, but the majority of the people there seemed to be Hondurans rather than visitors. And unlike some tourist traps, most items were very reasonably priced. We spent a couple hours there before heading back to Casa Lamb for dinner.

Here are a few more pictures from today:

The city of Tegucigalpa, looking down from the hill our church was on this morning.

The landscape around Tegucigalpa. A lot of the mountains were steeper than this, but I was too afraid to stick my hand out of the van for a picture. We took the curves pretty fast!

Andy in front of his Honduran barber shop. Who knew?

We really enjoyed the day to bond as a group, getting to know each other better before we head to the orphanage and attempt to work as a team over the next several days. I think we're all looking forward to actually going to the orphanage though. We've spent so many months preparing for this, and in a way it feels strange to be so close to the children we're here to meet and serve, but not to have gone to the orphanage to meet them yet. That'll change tomorrow morning though - we leave at 8:30 am. Thanks again for all the prayers, and for caring enough about our trip to check on us. :)

Day 1 Continued...

2010-07-31T16:06:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos from our trip so far. We ended up making our flight to Honduras even though we were delayed for an hour. Apparently the plane that was going to fly from Miami to Honduras was out of commission, so we ended up riding in the same plane we did from Chicago. That was an answer to prayer that we didn't miss our connecting flight.

The flight from Miami to Honduras was a little more interesting than the first flight. About 30 minutes into it, we hit a pocket of air and the plane dropped significantly. Some girl screamed when it happened, and the rest of the ride was a little tense. THEN there was the landing. That was quite an experience. You're turning pretty much until the wheels touch down.

Well, we've made it and are resting up after a long day of travel. Hope you enjoy the photos, and keep checking back for more updates.

Here's a video of what a landing looks like.

Day 1

2010-07-31T04:53:00.000-07:00

It's 6:50 am on Saturday morning, and our team successfully departed from the hotel at 3:30 am to arrive at O'hare for our 5:55 am flight...which is still sitting on the runway. It sounds like we'll be taking off soon, but probably not soon enough to catch our connecting flight in Miami. Stay tuned!

Less than 24 hours...

2010-07-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

Here is the weather forecast for Tegucigalpa, Honduras for tomorrow, July 31st. It's actually forecast to e 1 degree cooler there than in Aurora.

I've got tons to do before we leave, but please keep us in your prayers as we travel and begin to serve the orphans at Casitas Kennedy. Thanks for all your support.

It's been a while...

2010-07-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

I was talking to a friend yesterday about a book I just finished, and she asked "Did you blog about it?". So, I decided I'd do that. It's been quite a while, since I've posted here. The busyness of summer has gotten to me. So, here is a little update.

#1 - A lot of you probably know this, but Janell is pregnant! :) She's due November 19, so she's still able to go on the trip. Now, for those of you doing the math in your head, yes, she was pregnant during Dollar-a-day. This was quite a surprise for us. We found out when we had about a week left. Needless to say, she started eating more a more balanced diet as soon as we found out. However, I finished the Dollar-a-day on my own. That made it even more challenging for me, with her eating other things.

I felt quite guilty though, because we didn't want to tell people about the pregnancy so early, but I didn't want to lie to people about her finishing the dollar-a-day. I probably didn't handle it particularly well, but I didn't know what else I could do. I tried to be as vague as possible, but I still ended up lying about it in some later posts and when people asked me about it. So, I apologize for that. I'm not 100% sure what I'd do differently if the same thing happened again, but I hope nobody is too disappointed in me.

#2 - The book I just read is Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. Here's a description of it:

In medical school, Paul Farmer found his life’s calling: to cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. Kidder’s magnificent account takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that “the only real nation is humanity.” At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb “Beyond mountains there are mountains”—as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too.

It is the story of a doctor who wants to achieve medical equity for everyone, whether they are rich or poor. It is just amazing the way he devotes his life to the poor. He works on changing global health approaches, but also hikes 10 hours both ways to make a house call to someone in Haiti. It is an amazing book to read. Here is an excerpt to check out.

We're really looking forward to our trip. We leave on July 31st. We will be blogging while we are there as well, so be checking back for that. :)

An endorsement

2010-04-26T22:07:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share my experience with my first pair of Tom's Shoes. I love the business model the have. For every pair of shoes they sell, they give one pair to a child in Africa. As of April 2010, they've given over 600,000 pairs of shoes away! How cool is that? You get a cool pair of shoes, and you help out someone on the other side of the world.

In past, I've worn flip flops almost exclusively all summer. The past 2 summers though, I've gotten planters fasciitis which hurts like crazy. It hasn't fully healed for about 5 or 6 months each time either. So, I decided that I wouldn't wear flip flops anymore. Then I ran across an ad for Tom's, and decided to check them out.

I ordered a pair, and brought them to San Diego. I wore them to the airport and talk about the easiest shoes ever to go through security with. When I got to San Diego, while they'd been comfortable to wear for normal activity, I was concerned about walking around in them all day. I decided to give them a shot, and I was really impressed. I wore them all day, everyday I was there. I walked all around San Diego in them, and my feet felt amazing. They have a really nice leather insole with solid arch support. I've always had trouble with my feet, but these shoes rocked. The build quality is great. I've actually got a second pair coming soon.

If you're looking for some relaxed, comfortable, awesome shoes AND you want to give a pair to a kid in Africa, I highly recommend Tom's. Anyone else who has a pair or if you're buying some, post your comments too. :)

Some cool news

2010-04-22T23:19:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about our trip to Honduras this summer, and I realized that being a teacher not only makes it easier for me to take a week long mission trip over the summer. It makes it easy for me to take an 11 day mission trip to Honduras this summer. Janell and I discussed it, and decided that there wasn't any reason for me not to spend a few more days there. I'm really excited about the opportunity to spend more time there with the kids. I'm not sure what I'll be doing those extra days yet, but I'll keep you up to date via our blog while I'm there.

Just so my friends back in Illinois aren't too jealous of me right now, I thought I'd post a picture from my hotel room of beautiful San Diego that I took today.

Slightly unrelated

2010-04-21T18:20:00.000-07:00

As part of my Master's program, I have been chosen to attend the National Math Conference in San Diego, CA. I got here last night, and had most of the day today to just hang out. Since I was still on central time, I woke up at 6:30 am Pacific Time. This gave me a lot of time to explore. Unfortunately, the weather has been a little cool and windy, with intermittent rain storms. My hotel is a block from PetCo field, so I decided to attend the day game today. While I only got to stay for about 3 innings, it was quite enjoyable. I'm looking forward to eating out at some of the restaurants I walked by today. The nicest thing is that the program is covering all my meals. I'll steer clear of the Mexican restaurants though. I'm not ready for rice and beans yet. :)

An amazing happening...

2010-04-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

For those of you who know me well, hopefully you're sitting down for this one. I have eaten my first salad of my entire life. That's right, it had real lettuce and everything. While I'm still not going to eat iceberg lettuce, I have expanded my food repertoire to include romaine, field greens, and spinach.

For those of you who don't know me well, here's a run down of other things I've never eaten.
- Hot dogs
- Fast food hamburgers (Portillo's is the closest I will get)

I think that's the extent of my list. Since I met Janell, I've become more adventurous with what I'll eat.

For you doubters, here is photographic evidence too. :)

Just to keep you updated, we haven't heard back from The Rachel Ray Show yet. We think it would be great to be able to share our experiences, and why we did the dollar-a-day, to such a large audience. We'll see what happens though. I'll keep you posted. :)

Some neat happenings...

2010-04-09T18:45:00.000-07:00

In the days since my last post I've been enjoying some normal food. Though, I am still eating a flour tortilla with peanut butter for breakfast. :)

We had a follow up article in the Beacon News on Wednesday. Wednesday morning, Good Day Chicago, Fox's local morning show, mentioned the article on the air. I didn't see it, but I had several people tell me about it. I'm working on getting a clip of it to post on the blog.

That day, I got a call from NBC Chicago, who then posted their own story about us on the local portion of their webpage.

This morning, I get an email from the Rachel Ray show! A producer from their show talked to Janell and I today, and we'll find out if they're going to do a segment about us. How exciting would that be!

Just thought I'd share some of the neat stuff that's happened in the past few days. :)

Our first feast

2010-04-04T20:15:00.000-07:00

We had a delicious meal today, and a wonderful time celebrating Easter with friends and family. In fact, we were so excited to be eating a normal meal, we forgot to take photos of it. Oops.

We had turkey, cheezy potatoes, asparagus, and potato rolls. For dessert, we had caramel apple pie, which was DELICIOUS.

I'm waiting to see how my body reacts to this rich food. So far, so good though. I was careful to not overeat too much though, as I don't want to go right back to eating as much as I did prior to March.

As far as our blog goes, we're going to continue to post periodically between now and our Mission Trip. While we're in Honduras, we will be posting daily again. We hope that all of you who have followed our dollar-a-day experience will continue to see how we're able to serve the orphans in Honduras this summer.

Finally...

2010-04-03T22:40:00.000-07:00

After a long month (plus a few days), we will be having a "real" meal tomorrow afternoon. I'm looking forward to enjoying the turkey that Janell has been preparing to cook yesterday and today. Though, I won't be eating too much, since my body isn't used to large portions. :)

This has been a challenging, yet great experience. I feel like I've been able to get a small glimpse of what it would be like to actually have to survive having just enough food. While we had a decent amount of variety, I can't imagine how much more challenging it would have been to have truly limited ourselves to just a couple of basic foods like so many people in the world are.

One of the toughest things for me was not so much the hunger, but the knowledge that this was a choice we were making. I could have gone to Oberweis whenever I wanted to, but I had to choose not to (though I really wanted to). I'm guessing that for people who are just thankful to have any food, there isn't quite as much longing for treats and special foods. It's kind of tough to say for sure though...

One thing I do know is I am looking forward to not having any more pinto beans for quite a long time. :)

Finished my book

2010-04-02T22:39:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading "The Hole in Our Gospel". It is an amazing book, and I highly recommend it. It does a great job showing us just how fortunate we are to be in America. Did you realize that if you make $50,000 a year, you are wealthier than 99% of the people in the world? That was an amazing statistic to me. So much wealth is concentrated in a handful of people. This statistic really put this discrepancy into perspective:

- In 1820, the gap between the richest and poorest countries was about 4 to 1
- In 1913, the gap had grown to 11 to 1
- In 1950, 35 to 1
- In 2002, 75 to 1

In less than 200 years, look at how wide the chasm of wealth in our world has become. This lack of money/resources is the root cause of many of the issues that poorer countries face. Think of all the things we have and often take for granted: access to health care, clean water, unlimited sources/varieties of food. Why do we have these things? The majority of us were fortunate enough to be born in a country with these luxuries.

So, what can you do to help others around the world who weren't born in a country with these luxuries? Here are a few ideas for you:

Mocha Club - For $7 a month (the price of 2 mochas), you can choose to help any of a number of causes throughout Africa (Women in poverty, orphans, clean water, etc...)

Kiva - This is a microfinance program that provides loans to people around the world looking to start or develop a business. You can read about the people, and choose who you want to loan to. For as little as $25, you can help someone across the world better their life. Then, they pay you back, and you can use that money to help someone else.

Compassion or World Vision - These are both reputable programs that let you sponsor a child around the world. You'll be able to communicate with the child, and hear how your support is changing their life.

Feed My Starving Children - This is a more hands on opportunity. It is an organization in Minnesota and Aurora, IL. You can go there and package food for children around the world. In a 2 hour shift, each volunteer will usually package enough food to feed a child for a YEAR

Anyone else have other ways to help out the less fortunate? Post a comment and let us hear about it. :)

Blog stats

2010-04-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

Since, technically speaking, today should be my first day eating normally I thought I'd share some neat statistics about our blog's visitors.

I suppose this post falls into that dorky teacher side of me

We've had visitors from 5 different continents (North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe). I want to know where those Aussie's and Antarctican's (not sure about that one) are at??

Here is a list of the 14 countries we had visitors from:

Canada. Taiwan, Poland, India, United Kingdom, Italy, Czech Republic, Brazil, Chile, Iraq, Bolivia, Belgium, Mexico, France

We also had visitors from 37 of the 50 states.