Friday, October 30, 2009

october 29

My hives are gone! Horray!! I know this may not be as exciting for you, but after five days of wanting to rip my skin off, I find it very very exciting. Instead of my whole body being itchy, only my bug bites are itchy and it is very comforting to me.

The Infa is still as crazy as ever. I’m becoming very attached to the little girl Lixi. Whenever she has to do her business, I’ve got to clean her up and change her with the little supplies we have. I think that because it’s so disgusting, a bond has grown between us. Haha I’m getting used to it and I really don’t mind it as much. She gets really tired in the afternoons and the other day I sang her to sleep. I’m going to really miss this child.

I’ve also been trying to teach some of the kids the alphabet and it’s extremely hard. I was the biggest nerd as a kid and I loved to read. I did my homework for funsies. These kids… not so much. They’re more on the normal side. I’m working on it… but it’s suuuuper hard. Also… because of elections on the 21st of November, the government wants to close down schools starting November 1. It’s absolutely terrible. The kids are already behind because the teachers were on strike… but now it’s going to be worse. Nelson is talking about hiring a teacher for the Infa, but it’s going to cost a lot of money and he’s not sure it’s going to work out. On the positive side... one of the girls that I’m trying to teach in the morning is learning how to add big numbers well. I promised to buy ice cream for whoever was good and she’s the only one who has been listening to me. So tomorrow she’s going to get one… and I might (more like definitely will) buy one for myself too.

Random fact: Geckos like to poop on my bed. It’s super gross, but I just have to brush it off. They’re always chillin out above me and so they figure… why not. It’s a nice big target. Yes. I know. Ew.

Some of the girls and I, in an attempt to keep our pants size in check, are doing Tae-bo. Do you remember this exercise breakthrough a few years back? Well, we’re trying to do it every night and it’s been happening for a week now… I’m hoping my desire to exercise and be fit is stronger than my desire to eat… although it’s very unlikely. I like my ice cream. 

Feeling generous?
These kids could always use some materials to learn their alphabet. Email me @ shearyberry@gmail.com so I can give you instructions on how to send money…. Or if you have the things in your possession, just send it to this address:


Reach International
El Hogar de Ninos
Shearin Matute
APDO 20
Santa Barbara, Honduras

october 25

Apparently I’m allergic to something… because I’ve had hives for 3 (going on 4) days now. It all started Thursday at 12 in the morning. My eyelids were feeling heavy, but I couldn’t sleep. I felt more itchy than sleepy. I ended up getting up to go to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and I gasped. I looked like a little bug or like I had just cried for a week straight. No wonder my eyelids were feeling heavy… they were GIGANTIC! I looked down at my arms and saw hives all over me. I went over to my “medicine cabinet” (it’s a Ziploc bag on my shelf) and looked desperately for some Benadryl. I didn’t pack any. Great. Now I had to deal with this until morning. I couldn’t sleep the whole night. I slept for maybe 3 hours but it was all broken up. Every time I’d wake up again, it took forever for me to fall back asleep. It was a very long night. At around 5, I got up to ask the “main mom” Maria Jose if she had any allergy medicine. She had something called Alergia and so I took that. Another volunteer lent me some Benadryl too. And since then, I’ve had hives. It’s Sunday. I want to scratch my skin off. I’m hoping it’ll go away soon because I’m getting very sick of it.

october 17

Tarynn and I are realizing that the people in charge of the Infa are not what we were hoping for. The people in charge now are great people and I feel like they’re there for the right reason, but they’re not doing things for the kids. I feel like they sit around in the office with the fan and don’t do much. People have told us about the volunteers this past year. They pretty much ran the Infa. The Infa had to close for a little bit because there was no income for the people running it and there was no money for food. The two volunteers kept it running by putting in their own money to buy the food for the kids everyday. I hear amazing things about these volunteers and how they started having English classes for the kids at the Infa and they had other activities. Tarynn and I really want to get going with the Infa and do more because no one else is going to. Sure, the Spanish hasn’t kicked in, but we don’t want to wait for it. We just don’t know where to start. We do know that we’re going to get in contact with the volunteers that made such a difference at the Infa and we’re going to get ideas from them. So if you have any experience with kids, or even if you don’t… send me some ideas because we’re in desperate need of them.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

October 15

October 15

Our day goes like this in case I haven’t explained this before: At 5:30, the boys get up. You may think to yourself, “that doesn’t mean your day starts at 5:30.” Yes it does. We are required to get up at 6, but our room is practically the boys’ room so we hear everything that goes on… such as yelling (both children and Hannah who has to get the boys up), screeching, singing, and furniture getting pushed around (they like to move their beds to the middle of the room and they have to move it back in the morning). It really hurts me, but Tarynn and I deal with it. Then we go to devotional. The kids sing some songs and then there’s a little worship thought. After that, we go to the cafeteria for breakfast. I sit at younger girls’ table. They don’t like to drink milk or eat everything on their plate… but I have to be the bad guy and make them. Then they hate me for the rest of the day for threatening to take away something if they don’t eat it. The others are angry at me if someone else gets too much or too little food compared to themselves. Then they proceed to turn on each other… I have no idea what they’re saying, but it always sounds like someone’s fighting with another person. After they eat all their food, they go to school and Tarynn and I get ready to leave for the Infa. We get on the bus (sometimes we’re late and we have to wait for a bit) and after that, we walk maybe 5 or 6 blocks to the Infa. This is where anything could happen. Kids jump on you, fight, play, yell, and everything else that children do. Sometimes before 12, we go with another person on errands. It’s pretty much going to different stores with someone to ask for money or discounts on food for the Infa. Today, I went to get some cheese, bananas, and sugar. My arms were about to fall off brining the big bag of bananas to the Infa… they were soooo heavy. When 12 comes around, it’s time for lunch. If there’s school that day, most of the kids usually come at this time. We don’t have a lot of problems asking the kids to eat all of their food because sometimes that’s all they get. After lunch, we make the kids do their chores. This is a very painful time for us. There’s a list of chores (aseos in spanish) that we have to make them do. We have to ask and ask and ask and yell and yell and yell all that business to get the kids to listen. It takes a while, but they do it eventually. Then it’s time to bathe the girls. We then struggle to get all the girls in the bathroom and there’s so much more to bathing them than you think. Sometimes by the extent and passion in which they protest, you think it might be better for them to not take a shower… but I quickly remind myself that they smell terrible and make them do it anyway. The boys are next, but that’s now out of our hands (horray!). Then there’s devotional where I kill lice and braid many different heads. After devotional, we make sure the kids do homework. Sometimes I ask some of the kids to read to me… it’s pretty sad how behind they are, but by the way some of them get excited to read to me makes me want to do it more. They don’t have anyone to encourage them to read and I feel like maybe I can do it for a few of them. After homework, the kids get in line to get their dinner to take home and then they leave. I can’t possibly explain everything that really happens during a day because every day is different. Sometimes kids come up to me bleeding and ask for a band-aid and sometimes people are fighting and we have to put them in time out… or like today, I had to give a baby a bath. There’s always something new. Anyways, after that, Tarynn and I catch the bus to head back to the Hogar. Sometimes we stay in town for a little longer to use the internet, get a few snacks, or to check the mail. We’re trying to have self discipline because we found a doughnut shop the other day. Yes. Doughnuts. A little taste of heaven. Anyways, when we head back, we have an hour and a half of free time or less… depending on when we get back from the Infa. Then it’s dinner at 6 and we have to make the kids eat again. After that, we have to make the teenagers do their chores (this takes foreeeeveeer) until devotional. We go to devotional and then we can have free time until we go to bed… except our light has to be off because we live in the boys room. It’s a good thing the volunteers before us left little Christmas lights. We keep that on so we can see our way around… and to see if there are bugs on our beds. We’re pretty drained by the time they have to sleep anyway, so we usually go to bed around the time they do too.

Anyways, that’s pretty much my day. I would not have the energy to get through so many of these without God. Good thing He’s got enough energy and patience to spare. :)

October 14

Today, I changed my first diaper. Not to gross you out or anything, but the baby had diarrhea. And they don’t have baby wipes. Okay, first of all, there’s one baby that lives at the Infa and today there was another girl that came with her sisters… and she’s still in her “diapers.” I say “diapers” because she came without a diaper. She came in two pieces of ripped up shorts tied together that served as a diaper. Tarynn was coloring with some of the kids and she suddenly smelled the smell of trouble. She turned to the kids and she said, “necesitas pupu?” (do you need to poop?). And the sisters answered yes for her. Tarynn and I took her into the bathroom. We took toilet paper to wipe and shampoo to clean her up. She did all the dirty work and I went to the “laundry room” to wash her dirty poopie shorts and pants. Tarynn went to buy diapers because they had none (By the way, any money you send me would be greatly appreciated for buying things like this for the kids). Then after all that was over, the baby that lives at the Infa started to cry. Tarynn was busy because her pant leg just ripped and so I went over by myself to find out what was going on. The little boy also smelled of trouble. I took him and washed him and put on a new diaper and he cried the whole way through. Then I went and washed all of his clothes and hung them up to dry. Diaper changing is not a very fun job… I give my parents props for their hard work… and I’m glad they didn’t have to use rags for diapers. EW.

Also, Mirian left today. She was anther lady in charge and Isa was very sad that she left because she’s been working with her for 5 years. She’s going to Bolivia, but she doesn’t know if she’s going to come back because her husband works for ADRA and they may be moving because his job may be relocated or something. We had all of the kids write her cards and I was really sad to see her go. There’s a guy that’s in charge of the Infa now. His name is Nelson the other Nelson. Yes, it’s a little confusing. He seems nice though and he’s doing the boys’ showers now… which is WONDERFUL. It’s an automatic plus. I hope it turns out okay and I hope he has a lot of good ideas. He can’t speak English either, so we’re all doing the best we can to find out things to do with the kids.

Back at the Hogar, we’re still trying very hard to get the kids to do their chores every day. Tarynn and I have to deal with the teenagers and they get really grumpy when we ask them to do something because they say they’re too old for that. I get super frustrated with them sometimes and I struggle to keep my patience. Some of the kids are even angry at me and won’t talk to me because I told them to do their chores. I’m going to have several serious heart attacks when I have a teenager. I never knew the pain that parents around the world had to deal with. Haha, it’s okay though because sometimes they make me laugh. Tarynn and I were telling a girl named Flor to do her chores and she refused. She kept saying that her name was not Flor. She finally said that every time we say, “Flor, go dry the dishes,” she won’t listen. But if we say, “Daughter of Brad Pitt,” then she’ll do it. And so we asked her to wash the dishes as the “hija de Brad Pitt” and she went to do it. Haha, I had to laugh at that.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

October 7

I had my hair searched for lice today... and the girl found lice eggs, one lice.... and a flea. Yes. A flea. I wanted to cry. I immediately called my mom for comfort and almost started crying because I wanted to go home. Then we hung up and I breathed deep and thought... it's just a flea and it's just lice and it's not that bad here...I can take it. I'm not going to die and it's not the end of the world.

please pray for me... i miss being clean.

October 6

Tarynn and I came back from the Infa and I went to help some of the girls pick through frijoles (beans) to pick out the dirt and the deformed ones. This was extremely boring, but I’m glad I helped because one of the older girls said she would look through my hair for piojos (lice). I was very thankful for this. Mandy, one of the other volunteers, was getting her hair searched also. She was saying that she freaked out when she first got lice, but she realized that she was going to be there for a while and she’d just keep getting it so she calmed down and just accepted it. Then Ingrid shows up (she’s the one who came to visit after volunteering for a year) and she says that after only two weeks at the Infa, she has loads of lice. She told me that she took four blank pieces of paper and she combed her hair with a lice comb and put the lice on the paper, and the four pieces were filled. I wanted to cry. Now we find out that Laurel is safe. She’s another volunteer and she had her hair checked as well. Meanwhile, I’m considering cutting my hair… or even shaving my head. I figured it might be easier with the heat… but then again, I’d have some crazy sun burns. I then pushed aside my momentary loss of judgment and I grasped on to the fact that I really didn’t want to cut my hair. These girls have dealt with it and I can too. They say that there’s no avoiding it and I have to accept it. Berta pulled out two lice eggs from my hair. They were right. There’s no avoiding it. They said that I don’t have any lice, but I had a few eggs. That means there had to be at least one in there. My parents are sending me a package with some lice killers. Oh FedEx men of Honduras, where are you when I need you? I’ll accept you whether or not your wear khaki pants. Please come quickly.

Also, another sad note… I entered my room today and found dirt all over my bed. Not only that, but I saw a little splotch of blood on it. The boys were climbing over the wall while we were gone. I tried to ask one of the boys who did it, but he said that he didn’t know. When Maria Jose found out, she went into the boys’ room before it was time for bed and she scolded them. I’m not sure what she said, but she made them change the room around. She said that there shouldn’t be anything touching our wall that they can climb on. In the end, Elias (the seven year old raptor) confessed that he did it. The thing that made me really angry was that when Maria Jose was scolding them, two of the boys said that I had let them climb over before. They said that I had locked my key inside and I had them go over the wall and open it for me. I couldn’t believe they could lie and I was standing right there. I always make sure I have my key. I do that because I want to make sure I never has to ask them that because I don’t ever want them climbing over that wall. It made me really angry that they had to do that.

It was also Mainor’s birthday tonight. Ingrid had taken the time to go into town and buy him a cake to celebrate with the rest of the boys. We had the cake in our room and there was a candle that I was going to light. When I tried lighting the candle, it blew out. Silly me… I forgot about the fans facing my direction. I was about to get another one, but Ingrid yelled at us to open the door. We let her in and she said that Mainor didn’t want it. I was shocked. He was being a huge jerk to Ingrid. She had taken the time to buy him a cake and he told her that he didn’t want it. Ingrid left with the cake, the knife, the plates, the candle, and the hat she bought him. She was angry and I don’t blame her. Tarynn and I went to talk to her and she just said she needed time to cool down and she hoped he would say sorry for hurting her tomorrow. I really hope he does. He needs to learn how to be grateful. I wanted to have a talk with him… but of course I have no idea how to do that. My Spanish is on the limited side.

I’ve been reading this book by Lynn Cox… she is an amazing woman. She’s a famous long-distance swimmer who has accomplished a lot. She swam the Catalina Channel when she was super young and then went on to swim the English Channel and different places… even in Antarctica. The book describes a lot of the crazy conditions that she had to go through. I think there’s a lot to learn from her story. Her endurance and her willpower are amazing. There are many times in the book where she thought she couldn’t make it and she didn’t want to go on, but she remembers why she’s there in the first place and continues. Whenever she swims, she has a team of people helping her. She has navigators, pilots, people who watch her to make sure she can take the water she’s in, people to throw her food in the water if she needs energy, people ready to give her medical attention if she needs it, people to shoot the sharks if they try to eat her, and even people to swim ahead of her to break the ice and tell her when she needs to turn to avoid icebergs. Just like her, I’ve got to remember that I have someone who’s got the map all figured out, someone who knows the waters that I’m swimming in, someone who can give me the energy I need to get me through my day, and someone who is in front of me and beside me who can help me get through the obstacles and battles I encounter. I’m not going to lie… It’s really hard being here away from my family and friends where it’s easier and comfortable. I think about home all the time… but I’m trying to remember why I’m here in the first place and I have to remember that I have someone who is carefully watching over me and would never give me more than I can handle. I never have to go through anything alone.

October 5

Little Shearin used to wake up with the sun and be happy. My parents like to remind me that I used to wake up earlier than anyone in the house and I used to go into their room to see if they were awake. When I saw that everyone was still sleeping, I would just sit there in their room waiting for them to wake up. They said that sometimes I would startle them because they would wake up and see two little eyes looking at them. Yeah, I know… kind of creepy. I have no idea what I was thinking. Now, I’m more on the opposite side. I don’t exactly find joy in waking up early and staring at my parents. I find joy in sleeping in. I wish I was a morning person… I’m sure many of you understand my pain. Well Tarynn and I can’t have that joy of sleeping in anymore. We now have to wake up at 6:00 everyday. We are required to get up in the morning and go with the kids to have morning worship. It’s hard to accept that we have to do this, but I figure we’re half awake in the morning anyway. The kids have to get up at 6:00 and we’re living in their room. Did I explain how our room is made? The little boys have a big room that they live in and we live in a cubicle in that room. Our walls don’t actually go all the way up to the ceiling so both sides can hear everything that’s going on over the wall. This includes little Elias (7 year old that looks like a 3 year old) who screeches like a little raptor. It’s actually pretty cute, but not so cute at 6 in the morning. The other night one of the boys peed in their bed and we could smell it in our room. Haha… not so pleasant. It’s even possible for them to climb over our wall and into our room… which scares us because one of the volunteers that used to live in this room said that her movies were all stolen. I just hope they don’t take any of our stuff.

October 4

Ladies and Gentlemen, today I killed my first cockroach. In Spanish: La cucaracha (All these years I’ve been singing that song and I had no idea it was about the dirty dirty creature that makes me want to cry). Okay, well… I didn’t exactly kill it. My best friend Raid did (I’m making a lot of best friends). I was in the room minding my own business when I turn to look at my bed and there is a big disgusting cockroach just lying there thinking that he’s going to scare me away. A month ago, it would have. But after watching Tarynn conquer the little disgusting things over and over again, I decided I’d be brave and try to take back what’s mine. (By the way… Tarynn was out doing something. I like to say that I was just brave, but I’m pretty sure if she was there, I would’ve made her kill it for me). I sprayed the Raid until the cockroach stopped moving. Then I picked it up (with a HUGE wad of toilet paper) and I flushed it down the toilet. I felt very proud of myself. Later that night when Tarynn walked in the room, she commented on the smell of the room. I admitted that I went a little crazy with the Raid and added to my defense that I was very scared. She laughed and said that the whole room smelled like Raid. I’m sure it did, but to me… it smelled like victory.

Anyways, on to other things… A group of us went to a pizza place for dinner last week. I didn’t know what to expect when it came to Honduran pizza… banana cheese… who knows. To my surprise, it was very much like pizza at home. It was actually really good… although I thought it was interesting that they gave us ketchup to eat with our pizza. Different strokes for different folks I guess. Miguel suggested that I keep the packets to give to the kids if they did something good. I thought that was weird too, but I did it anyway. The next day one of the kids helped me out when Tarynn and I were cleaning our room and so I gave him two packets. He was extremely excited and when he sees me he says, “salsa, salsa.” Who knew ketchup could be so exciting?

I also want to mention coming back home from the pizza place in our neighborhood. Ingrid and I had a nice talk again. Our group was a little on the rebellious side because it was past curfew and there were no buses and so we had to walk back to the Hogar in the dark… but it lead to our conversation about fear (and don’t worry parents… it wasn’t a dangerous walk. We were very close to the Hogar). Ingrid is a crazy woman. I say this in the best way possible. She loves to travel and to have adventures… but these adventures are sometimes on the scary side. Ingrid is a very tall German with blonde hair and blue eyes and so she’s easy to spot and that would make me be even more frightened about travelling. She has walked and camped along a beach by herself and has hitch hiked and has stayed at some random person’s house in the middle of the night in some country that I can’t remember and has done many many other things. I asked her if she was ever scared and she told me that she was at first, but she has more of the mindset that God has everything under control. She said that God would not let her die if He didn’t want her to. She finds comfort knowing that He knows exactly what is best for her and even if she ends up dying, she said that she knows it’s not an eternal death. I know many people who will read this and think that she’s absolutely crazy (in a negative way) and that she isn’t smart for travelling the way she does and saying what she says and not being careful, but I think that her point of view is very admirable. She wants to see the world and she wants to travel and so she does it knowing that she’s not travelling alone, but with the God of the universe watching over her. I know that I say that God has everything under control. I know that I also say God is with me wherever I go and that I trust God with all that I have, but sometimes I wonder if deep inside I truly believe it. That sounds terrible, doesn’t it? But it’s true. I’m not perfect. I want to believe it, but I guess it takes practice and it takes time to get to know God in a more intimate way so that I will be able to trust Him in everything I have in front of me. So I’ve got to trust God like I trust Raid. Haha, I’ve got a lot of work to do on myself folks and I’m realizing that it’s not going to be easy… but I have eight months here in Honduras for God to break me and build me up again… and I think it’s for the best.

October 3

So the other day, we had unexpected visitors. The ladies at the Infa were talking to us during lunch and telling us that there were Americans coming today. I was super excited because when we’re at the Infa, no one speaks English. I can’t explain how refreshing it is to actually understand what someone is trying to say to you. They were here to check out the Infa and see if there were small projects they could send a church down to help with. They took pictures and they asked us to take individual pictures of the kids that go to school so they could try and find people to sponsor them. It really excited me because these kids definitely need it. They seemed honestly concerned and I really hope that they send help to build on to the Infa so more kids who need help can stay there. They also left us a first aid which we definitely needed. Later that day, we had to make the kids brush their teeth and I noticed that there was one boy who was still in the bathroom. I asked him what he was doing and then I saw him spit up blood. It’s normal to see some of the kids spit up blood because the ones that don’t come every day don’t have toothbrushes or toothpaste at home. But Kevin kept spitting up blood. It wasn’t just because he hadn’t brushed in a while… it was because a tooth was gone. Well, I can’t say it was completely gone. It was so rotten that most of it had just come off. I saw some of the tooth still in the gum, but the rest was gone. I had no idea what to do. He looked like he was in a looot of pain. I don’t know anything about teeth or anything about anything and so I went into the first aid and I grabbed the gauze and some pain killers. Kevin is a boy that is usually smiling and extremely hyper (he likes to jump on my back when I least expect it), but he just sat in a corner looking down. It broke my heart. I made him take the medicine and had him bite down on the gauze. I really wish I could do more to help these kids.

There were also three other unexpected people who came the Infa that day… but these were kids. There were three siblings named Lourdes, Noe, and Angel. Nelson visited today and he said that their mother had left them and their father doesn’t know what to do because he goes to work and can’t take care of the kids. They don’t go to school… I’ve been trying to find out why, but I can’t figure it out. These kids were super shy at first. The eldest, Lourdes, didn’t talk very much, but now she jumps on me whenever she sees me… which gets very tiring after a while because it’s contagious. As soon as one person thinks, “wow, that looks like fun!” then there’s no end to the jumping. I kept feeling like I was going to fall over. Anyways, I’m glad that these kids warmed up to us fast. The kids looked like they hadn’t showered in a very long time. Two days later Tarynn and I noticed that they were wearing the same dirty clothes everyday. We took them to the back and we hand washed their clothes. Thankfully there was a person before us who bought a bag of soap. It’s not what I’m used to at home (a nice big bottle of good smelling goodness that you put into a convenient machine). It’s just a stick of soap that we have to scrub onto the clothes. Some of the other kids saw that we were washing their clothes and so they gave us theirs too. One of the boys had mold all over his shirt and his brother’s shirt smelled soooo bad that he doesn’t wear it. I rarely see this boy wearing a shirt… and I wouldn’t blame him. If I were a boy and my shirt smelled like something died, I wouldn’t wear it either. I haven’t smelled clean clothes in a long time. Don’t worry folks… I do clean my clothes. It’s just that nothing feels or smells completely clean to me. It’s okay though. I keep reminding myself that no one notices because everyone else smells just as lovely as I do!

September 28

Today, I beat Tarynn. Before you jump to conclusions and think I’ve suddenly turned violent, I’ll clarify. Tarynn eats faster than anyone I know. One minute the food is there and the next minute it’s gone. We’ve talked about this many times… especially when we’re eating baleadas and she finishes ten minutes before I do. She’s grown up in a very active family and she said that her brother’s only reason to stop to eat is to live. So whenever she ate, she ate quickly so she could go on and do the anything else that was more important. I, on the other hand, find food to be very important… not that I’m a slow eater… I’m just faster than Tarynn. Haha, but today, I beat her with our topoigios (little frozen treats). We both laughed when we realized how fast I had eaten and she suggested that I record this moment in my blog… and so I did. 

On to other things… we went to another water park type thing today, but this time it was with the Infa. The bus driver came to tell us that he would meet us at the escuela (elementary school) at around 10 and so we waited there for the bus. We saw the bus from a distance and there were kids heads and arms flying out all of the windows. It came closer and we heard our names being screamed by the whole bus of children. We realized that this was as close as we are ever going to get to being celebrities and so we enjoyed it while we could.

We arrived safely after fifteen minutes and we experienced a little déjà vu because when we got there, the main pool was drained. It seemed oddly familiar to the time when we went to the water park with the Hogar children and the main pool was drained. The kids were forced to swim at a smaller pool. I was surprised how nice this park was because it was free for the kids. Don’t get me wrong… it was still terribly dirty and extremely dangerous (there was this water dumping thing that was so strong that the younger kids couldn’t go on without us hugging them and making sure they wouldn’t get hurt). It was a fun day, but I am really tired of yelling at kids to stop doing things.

Anyways, things are going great here. It’s gotten a lot easier going through these days. The kids are still very hard to handle and they don’t listen… but they do have their shining moments. It also helps to know that people at home are thinking about me and praying for me. So thank you again for all of your support… it means the world to me.