Honduras Mission Trip New Years 2018-19

Hola friends and family!
First of all thank you all for your prayers and financial support before and throughout my trip to Honduras. Without you guys I never would have been able to go or have the energy to power through. This was my first mission trip ever and my first time flying internationally so it was an impactful and profound experience for me.

Just a quick rundown first though. My dad and I went to the island of Roatan, Honduras, for a week from the 26th of December, 2018, to the 3rd of January, 2019. We went with the One Seventeen Project team, whom many know as the hosts of Love Vallejo. We stayed at Sandy Bay Children's Home Orphanage on the South West side of the island. The facility had separate boy's and girl's dorms as well as a school and large garden in a lower field. There were about 25 children total with about 11 boys and 14 girls, aging anywhere from 2 months to 18 years old. There were also 5 staff members there as well. While there, we served in multiple ways, from prepping lunch and dinner, to taking the kids on field trips. There was also a smaller all boys home we also visited a couple times. Almost all of the orphans we met were not there because their parents died or were necessarily neglectful. Instead, they were left by a parent, simply unwanted for one reason or another. As we heard it, this was because fornication often led to a woman becoming pregnant, the man leaving, and the women tries to remarry and her new spouse doesn't want the children from the previous relationship around. These children knew abandonment and hurt more than loss.
Here are some major highlights and praises...

• On New Year's Day, we went out into the slums of Roatan, armed with gift packages filled with toys and necessities like toothbrushes and soap. Think operation Christmas child, just with 25 orphans and 17 "Americanos" handing out the packages. It was simply incredible to watch the joy that the Sandy Bay children showed handing out gifts to kids who had even less than they had. It was personally moving for me to see the conditions that these other families and children were living in.
  
• I was able to get to personally know one of the boys there named Angel, who was fifteen years old. We talked about our lives, and he was a Christian so I was able to encourage him and he me. It was simply amazing that even though we had nothing in common, our shared relationship with Christ led us to becoming fast friends and brothers. He is a funny kid who loves soccer and is very very fast.
  
• Earlier on New Year's day we, that is the one seventeen team, served the entire staff and children of the home by making them a special meal. We transformed the orphanage dining room into a fancy restaurant and we were the wait staff. Everybody enjoyed it, whether they were being served or serving themselves. It was a wonderful opportunity to show the Sandy Bay staff our gratitude for being hosted and to show the kids how much we loved them. Each child and staff member was written a personal letter from a team member encouraging them and sharing God's love with them as well.
  
• We also held some nightly devotions for the children. During this time we sang songs, then heard a short devotional from various team members. There were three sessions on three different nights, with my dad teaching the final message. The three lessons were divided into three sections: we are created in God's image, every man has sinned, and finally that Christ has redeemed us into his family. The kids had a lot of fun with the songs and the participation in the messages, and it was great to see the hear the kids being so involved and eager to listen to the message. 
  

Finally, here are some things God showed me during my stay. God has shown me clearly my gift of communicating with children, whether they be six years old or my own age. He has shown me how I can use this gift for ministry and outreach. I saw in the trip to the slums how the children were so eager to give, really convicting me to not just give but to do so with a joyful and happy heart, knowing I can be content in what God has given me. Finally I saw the power of Christ, through his peace and love. Even though all these kids had hurt and been literally dumped off on the doorstep by their own parents and families, many of the older children, now saved, told me of their joy and happiness. They were so at peace with what Christ had done for them and His plan for them, it was such a vibrant example that there is nothing more powerful in this world than Christ's redeeming grace.

Once again thank you all for your support. Please continue to pray for me as I continue to follow God's path for my life. I also plan on continuing on working with one seventeen project this summer through their local summer ministry, and hopefully another missions trip. If you would like to learn more about the orphanage please visit this link, Sandy Bay Children's Home Website.
Love in Christ,
Andrew Lee

Volleyball

Volleyball seems to run in our genes. After Matt played volleyball last year, guess who made her team?

At first, Emery was worried that she wouldn't make the team. Then she was worried that she wouldn't make the A team (vs. the B team). Then guess who winds up starting?

Emery is surprisingly super competitive so I guess it makes sense that she ended up doing well.

Since it was her first year, I had to keep reminding her that she's still learning how to play the game when she was frustrated that she wasn't doing better. But I think she ended learning a lot and improving a lot too. Great job Emz!

Happy Reformation Day!

No, the boys and girl don't celebrate it. Thankfully, they at least recognize it though. For them, the 31st is all about the candy...and the costume.

Emery always has ideas. It's fun to see her creativity at work. She started her costume about 6 weeks BEFORE Halloween.

It involved lots of cardboard, pink paper and glue. Lots of glue. Do you know what it is?

Barbie of course! As usual, pretty amazing. Great job Emz!

And she looked absolutely hilarious walking around in her pink box with 2 skinny legs sticking out!

Fabulous Friends

One of the highlights of our trip was seeing old friends. One of the benefits of having lived almost everywhere in the US is that God has blessed us with friends in Christ at just about every place.

Thanks to the Hughes for not only hosting us in Kentucky but also for the many years of incredible preaching, teaching, counsel and modeling of the Christian life. We learned so much from you in our early parenting years. Andrew was just a month or so old when we first came to sit under Jack's preaching. Crazy how time flies.

And thanks to the Bradleys for hosting us in Ohio! It was so great to meet Bennett for the first time! What a blessing it was to see how the Lord is continuing His work in you both after the years apart. It was truly gratifying to me and very healing too as your pastor to see how God used our brief time together in Albuquerque to bring such a deep and life long friendship in Christ.

Our summer vacation was a blast. And it only took me 4 months to finish blogging about it!

Toronto

The last stop on our trip was in Toronto. This was our first trip as a family outside the US. As we like to do in big cities that we've never been to before, we jumped on a big bus tour.

Strangely, Toronto didn't have much history. Several fires in the last century had burned down pretty much everything historical. So there were some random things like this car in the building!

And this building made with gold on the outside. I forgot to take a picture of it earlier but it's in between the other two buildings. It was just the windows that were gold plated.

And of course, we saw the hockey hall of fame. We're not hockey fans at all so we just drove by.

We took a little boat tour as well. And I must admit the view from the water was quite nice. Andrew thought so too.

We had grand designs to visit the St. Lawrence Market. It's the biggest or one of the biggest public markets in the world. We were excited!

But it was closed! So bummed!

We did some research about original Toronto foods. Did you know that about half of the people from Toronto are immigrants? It's grown so much in recent years as well. So when we looked up foods to eat in Toronto, we got lots of Pho and Thai foods. But we did find this butter tart as an original Toronto food. Emz wasn't that impressed though.

This picture just about sums up our trip to Toronto. Somehow it just didn't jive with us. We got doused by a couple of big thunderstorms. We were underwhelmed by the lack of history and the food that we did eat. In fairness, the boys and girl don't really enjoy any city. And this one seemed to not have much of any feel or character to it. It seemed so stale. I wanted to like it, but I couldn't. Oh well. We can't love every place. But it was a good experience to see some place different. We even had Korean food here that was very different too.

Niagara Falls

I must say, Niagara Falls was AWESOME!

We first viewed it at night. It was all lit up with colors. Above is the Horseshoe falls. There was also a fireworks show. Fabulous.

Here are Emz and Matt at the American Falls. Not as great a view here on the US side, but man we were close. It was SCARY to be so high and so close, at least for a scaredy cat like me.

It wasn't just me who was scared. The next day we came back and saw the Falls in their daytime glory.

But the best thing of all was the Maid of the Mist. Here we are in our ponchos, pre-boat ride. We're ready!

Here come the Falls...

Nothing captures what it's like to get right up in the middle of the Horseshoe Falls. Nothing.

It was absolutely amazing. Every sense was being overwhelmed. All I could see were walls of water surrounding me. All I could hear was the thunderous roar of the 681,000 gallons of water pouring over the falls every second. The boat was shaking and the mist was soaking us with water. I could smell the water and taste the water. It really was a fully absorbed experience of the greatness of God. It was scary to be so close to so much power. God is truly magnificent.

Considering that we had just gone to the Ark and thought about how God sent the Flood to judge the earth, Niagara Falls brought a whole new insight into the terror and power of the flood waters filling the earth.

We survived!

The ponchos sure came in handy.

I was so impressed with Niagara Falls that I feel that every Christian should go and go on the Maid of the Mist. Preferably, you should go to the Ark first. But this has truly expanded my view of God and my amazement of His splendor!

Pro Football Hall of Fame

In our travels, we just happened to be going right next to Canton, OH. Since Sandy kept bugging me about going to visit this place, I finally gave in. :)

Actually, I thought - why don't we make a quick stop and check out the Football HOF? After all, I have at least 2 future NFL linebacker prospects...

At least, I got to let out some steam after driving all day.

Emery is the spitting image of an NFL lineman. Haha! Just about her whole body fit (with plenty of room to spare) into the mold of the legs of a lineman!

We also got to admire some bling. This was my favorite Superbowl of all time. Go Raiders!

I wouldn't exactly call this the most inspiring place on earth.

But it was fun.