Finally Feeling At Home

Things have been pretty busy around here! First we'll start with a little country situation update:

We don't really know what is going on. Last we heard the Honduran Government will not allow the "President" (Mel Zelaya), to land at any of the airports. He has tried but they took over both airports, shut them down, and had all their military men standing in the landing strip/runway. So needless to say, he couldn't land.
We know that many countries are backing Zelaya but the more I hear about it, the more it seems like the Honduran Government did what they could. Yes, they did something illegal/unethical when they escorted/forced Zelaya out of the country (especially since he was literally in his pajamas), but I believe they felt they had no other option if they wanted to save their country from becoming a dictatorship. Now, my opinion is based on little knowledge and much heresay. And I understand that some countries (probably including ours) cannot back a coup... but I can't help but think of Valkyrie (probably b/c that's the last movie we rented before we left the states).

Anyway, things in town have calmed down. We went grocery shopping last week and stocked up quite a bit. Also, volunteers have been able to fly in and out with no problems. As far as the orphanage goes, Derek and I are starting to become quite acclimated.

Our normal schedule is as follows-
For Derek: (Mon-Fri) Wake up at 5:30. Be at Circle Time (morning worship) by 6:15. Eat breakfast at 7:00. Run the Medical Clinic from 7:30-8:15 (regular morning meds). 8:30 work on the day's task until lunch. 12:00 lunch. 12:30 work more. 3:30-4:15 Run the Medical Clinic for round 2 of meds. 4:30 finish any unfinished work and then come home.

For Nancy: Wake up about 6:30 (girls start later than men b/c we don't do manual labor). 7:00-7:45 dispense medicines to all girls and toddlers who need it during Circle Time. 8:30-11:50 Teach English (Mon-Wed only). 8:30-11:50 work on art for kids/clean/do dishes with the girls in the kitchen/translate sponsor letters from English to Spanish or kids responses from Spanish to English (Thurs and Fri). 11:50-3:30 Help at the Toddler house (I eat lunch with them). 3:30 grab my dinner to go as I do the second round of dispensing medicines until 4:00.

Other randoms we have:
Monday evenings- volunteer meeting
Tues evenings - worship prac and dance prac (Nancy only)
Wed evenings - church
Saturday - work a half day (or full) and worship prac in the evening
Sunday - church and another scheduled activity like soccer, etc.

Derek's days are much more varied than mine in terms of what he could be doing. So far he has measured and cut glass, killed and processed chickens, cut grass, measured and made screen for almost all the windows in the orphanage, worked on the septic system, built a work station and shelves, taken apart scraps of wood to use for their parts, and tomorrow he is going to lean how to run the "lecheria"/dairy barn. It hasn't even been a full month yet!

That's about it for now!
More next week!
All our love.


P.S. Some of you have asked if there is anything that we need. Well, in all honesty, we don't NEED anything, but there are a few luxuries we miss or could use. So if you'd like to send us some snail mail (which, who doesn't love snail mail!?), here are some ideas:

---pictures, cards, letters (we miss you all)
---scented candles (they are expensive here and our bathroom has a funny smell that I cannot get rid no matter how much I clean)
---extra virgin olive oil (can't find it here)
---crunchy peanut butter (a true rarity and delicacy)
---matches (the ones they sell here are tiny and 5 break before one works... not to mention we have a gas stove and us them almost daily)
---work gloves for Derek
---art supplies for Nancy (construction paper, markers, acrylics, canvas, anything really)
---duct tape/scotch tape (so we can put things on our brick walls)
---aluminum foil
---night light (trying to NOT step on a tarantula on my way to the bathroom at night and our bathroom light works about 1/2 the time)
---cake pan (we bake a lot here)
---cake mix/brownie mix (we bake because there are so many birthdays to keep up with)
---ant traps (they are EVERYWHERE and find the smallest of crumbs)
---a mosquito net (for our bed)
---guitar strings and picks (somehow we managed to not bring spare strings and we only have one pick... D prefers medium in both strings and picks)
REAL LUXURIES THAT AGAIN WE DON'T NEED BUT WOULD ENJOY:
---dvds. (when the work day ends around 4:15, you have spare time in the evenings. most nights we cook and if we don't have another scheduled activity, we'll pop a dvd into our laptop. we brought about 10 movies (mostly disney for the kids) so we have already watched almost everything we brought.)
---books (another way we like to spend our downtime)

PLEASE DO NOT FEEL OBLIGATED AT ALL TO SEND ANYTHING. SEVERAL PEOPLE HAVE ASKED SO WE THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE THE EASIEST WAY TO LET EVERYONE KNOW. YOU HAVE ALL DONE SO MUCH MORE THAN WE COULD HAVE EVER ASKED FOR.
If you do send something you will want to address it to:

Derek and Nancy Lehman at Orphanage Emmanuel
c/o Dr. Don Reynolds
4611 Hixson Pike
Hixson, TN 37343

We receive mail at Emmanuel about every 6 weeks. :) And it is quite an anticipated event!