An update from Malinda & Newman Smith
Seems like this past month has flown by with all of the activity going on here in Honduras with Mission On The Move! We hosted two volunteer teams in June. Both teams completed big projects for the local elementary school that partners with MoM!
The team from FBC Carrollton installed playground equipment for both the primary grades and the kindergarten. This adult and youth team worked hard moving pre-built playground equipment into place on-site, digging the 4 or 6 foot holes for each section of equipment, and footing each piece in concrete. While it took the entire week, I’m not sure who had a harder time that week—the team hard at work … or the children who had to wait for it to be done.
On the Thursday that the pieces were dedicated and opened to the children, the joy on their faces and their excitement as they headed to the new playground made the entire week of hard work worthwhile. And the teenagers that worked so hard during the week and played just as hard with the children on Thursday, left for home knowing that their work would be appreciated for years to come.
The team from Springfield Oaks Church took on the task of painting the classrooms used by kindergarten students. These rooms definitely needed sprucing up and Springfield Oaks was up to the task. Bright beautiful colors awaited them in gallon cans – hot pink, bright blue, jungle green and sunshine yellow. We are in the tropics, after all! Wall prep/priming took a day, first coats took a full day and second coats/touch up/cleanup took the third day. And while most of the team was focused on this big part of the project, there was a smaller group that focused on touching up the murals on the back walls of each room. The murals were created by a local artist in the area, and both kindergarten teachers were adamant that the murals remain in place. So this smaller group took on the painstaking work of using small pints of paint to update the intricate trees that bloom in each of these rooms.
And we all know that no mission trip is complete without a bit of local color, so each team also had the chance to see some of the beauty of Honduras while they were here—visiting beautiful Lake Yojoa and enjoying the waterfalls and zip line at Parque Pulhapanzak.
With another month to go, Newman and I are so happy to partner with the teams that serve this community of children—it is a constant pleasure to watch them grow educationally and spiritually through the efforts of MoM in the community of Santa Elena. And we can’t wait to share with you what’s in store in July for Mission on the Move!