Q & A!

Thanks for the responses to the email I sent out requesting questions!  Here is where I attempt to answer some of them.  Remember -  grace, people, grace.  :)

1.  How did you happen to go see the orphans the first time?

•  During college, I had a scholarship that was sufficient to pay for a 4 year degree.  Since I goofed around and failed two semesters of college due to my drug addiction, I was a bit short on scholarship for finishing my degree.  In the fall of 2003, I had one more semester left of scholarship, and it occurred to me that I wasn't tied to school anymore for the time being.  I began to desire to serve people in a foreign country (specifically Spanish speaking - I just love the language).  Thinking that through led me to land on serving in an orphanage.  I believe that was a God-given desire, because summers when I was in college, I worked for a Christian youth camp called Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, an extreme recreation camp, and this desire started growing in me after a fall trip to the camp.  When I went there for the Christmas reunion, I spoke to the wife of the assistant director about this desire, and she immediately informed me that her dad, the director of the camp, had just recently been in communication with an orphanage in Honduras and that they were wanting to begin building a relationship with the orphanage.  My funding fell into place, and I was the first missionary to go to Honduras from Snowbird - but by no means the last, or the one who stayed the longest.  I went from August to December 2004, and Snowbird took their first group there in December 2004.  They have returned every year, but due to my work of building a family, I have been unable to return until this time.

2.  What prompted you to include your daughter this time?

• Peter and I have a heart for missions, and when I was pregnant with Olivia, we discussed our priority of instilling the same in our children.  We pray, as a family, for the persecuted church in various countries (one time, Emma was asked where the circus was, and she replied that she thought maybe it was in Nigeria!), my brother and sister-in-law are going to the Dominican Republic to be missionaries, and Olivia says she's going to be a missionary when she grows up because she knows the love of Jesus (she also says she's going to be a mermaid so we don't take her too seriously, but we love that she even thinks of it as an option).  Instead of family vacations to Disney World, we want to take our kids to foreign countries (I'm not slamming Disney!).  We also plan to take them to the Dominican Republic in July 2013 and go back to Honduras as a family next year and every year, as the Lord allows.

3.  What are you hoping Olivia will gain from this trip?

• The answer to this question sort of flows from the last.  I'm hoping that she will come home with a sense that all the world is not like the United States, that all children do not live like her and her friends live, and that she really can go into the world into a different country or a different place in our country and live to make an impact for Jesus.  I'm hoping she will gain a more global perspective and understand more about herself and the world around her.  I know for myself, travel has greatly broadened my thinking.  When I took my first solo vacation, I went to Los Angeles to visit my sister, and it seriously changed the way I looked at the world.  I'm hoping to impact her heart, to develop a love in her for people that do not have as much as we have, whether that is material goods or spiritual opportunity. (And I'm hoping that if I give her some food she doesn't want, I can just say, "remember the kids at the orphanage?" and she'll feel guilty and eat it! Just kidding! Sort of. I don't want guilt. But I do want gratitude. I'm hoping she'll begin to develop a sense of gratitude for what she has.)

4.  What do you think Olivia has to offer these children?

• Pretty much the same thing I will have to offer them....love and attention.  The orphanage has around 460 children with about 24 full time staff and a variable number of volunteers at any given time.  They have school in the mornings and then they eat lunch, and in the afternoons, they spend their time together in groups (separated by boys and girls - last I was there, there were two girl yards and two boy yards) supervised by older children who have gained that privilege.  Its seriously like Groundhog Day.  The children love it when groups come to visit them, and they really love Snowbird.  The groups provide them with activities and attention that they will not otherwise get, alleviating a perpetual boredom. Another benefit will be their ability to see a healthy mother/daughter interaction. The orphanages in Honduras are sort of like our foster care system, most of the children have parents but they have been taken from their families.  Some of them will never leave the orphanage during their growing up years.  By bringing families to them, they have the unique opportunity to see something that they would not otherwise see, a healthy family in Christ interacting with each other.

5. Are you aware of other families that have taken kindergarteners on short term trips of this nature?

• Yes!  Actually, every year since 2005, Snowbird families have taken their children to the orphanage.  One of the girls that began going when she was a bit older than Olivia is preparing for God's call on her life to be a missionary to an unreached people group in India.

6.  Isn't it dangerous to take Olivia to Honduras?

• It could be (it could also be dangerous to stay here!).  But, we will go from the airport to the orphanage (about a 2 hour drive) on a bus that comes from the orphanage, and the orphanage itself is gated and guarded, with armed guards that patrol at night.  As I said above, the group has taken their children every year since 2005 without incident, so I feel that the safety is no more an issue than it would be doing anything else.  

Tomorrow, I will do another post addressing questions regarding the orphanage itself.  I feel that this one has gone on long enough.  :)  Please email me or comment if you have other questions or need clarification on anything.