Brianne Henry

Fast forward our trip to Friday. Tuesday through Thursday were pretty similar. All days were split between the orphanage and the construction site. Wednesday we took the girls to a water park and then Thursday we did the regular park and Pizza Hut - just like in January. Friday morning after breakfast we headed to a city called La Libertad. This is actually the city that we flew into and where the team the week before us spent a few days. La Libertad has an orphanage through the same company (if you will) as the one we go to in San Miguel. This orphanage is HUGE though. They have around 80 kids, chicken & pig farms, greenhouses, etc. They are pretty much self-sufficient. The goal of San Miguel orphanage is to become like that in the future. The best part of the La Libertad orphanage was Samuel. Samuel was in San Miguel in January. After we left, the fire marshals came through and made them send some kids elsewhere because they were over the maximum amount. Samuel was one of tho...

I can't actually remember what night we took the trip to Alegria so I think it's worthy of it's very own post! Alegria is a town up in the mountains...along the way we stopped inside a volcano (!) and then had pupusas at the very best place in the entire country. I ate 6, which is a lot. I was very hungry! The temperature in Alegria was probably 15-20 degrees cooler than in the city. When we had to leave, we all chanted, "No Joe, we won't go!" We did NOT want to head back into the humidity of the city. We pray that mission opportunities will open up in Alegria so we can stay there instead! Haha! :) It was very foggy but this is a beautiful scenic view on our way up the mountains. Okay so the Lagoon de Alegria. Whoa, I was inside a volcano! The best part was probably the fact that I needed to go pee (imagine that!). So Joe decided he would show me where the bathroom was. It ended up that the door didn't close and everyone could see me so he had t...

Looking back on the week, Monday was my favorite day. I was SO incredibly hot and sweaty at the time though, that I didn't appreciate the day for what it actually was. We started out after breakfast and headed to a school. Our teams would visit 3 schools this day. The first school was a big assembly where all students gathered in the courtyard area. We partnered with a church in town where they did a drama, we shared the Gospel, Mike shared the history & played the saxophone and Randy gave an English lesson. Outside of the school. The dark blue is a locked gate at all times. The concrete all around makes for not much airflow inside!!! The kids waiting for the assembly to start The second school was a walk up the road. Lucky for me, I got to hop in the back of Walter's truck and missed the walk to the school (darn!). The rest of the team was walking pretty slowly to the school when Milton (translator) told everyone to start walking faster. Now, Milton is the type...

Luke and I got back last night from our second trip to El Salvador. This trip was different from our last one in many ways, but both were equally fantastic. Sunday was our first day on the mission field. We spent Saturday traveling and didn't arrive to our hotel until late that evening. We started off Sunday morning with two groups going to different churches. I went with a group to a church no one had been to in the middle of nowhere (not scary at all!). We met in a mud hut with about 10 people from the village. Then the church members joined our group and we headed down the paths to talk to the people of the community. We shared Christ with a few households and spent time getting to know the locals in that area. Rachel, Me & Luke leading singing (I know...me singing?!) Outside the door of a home where we shared the Gospel Around 11am, we met up with the other group that went to a different church, ate some lunch and then headed to the military base in Usulutan. I ...

Well, I completed my very first 5K this past Saturday. Actually, according to someone's calculations it was 3.4 miles, which is .3 miles over a 5K. :) I don't know if you have ever heard of The Color Run but it was way fun. I spent approximately 3 months training for the run to only learn that it wasn't a competitive thing (not even timed!). I was a little disappointed, but it was still a great experience. At every kilometer, there was a group of people with colored powder (cornstarch actually) to spray, throw, and shoot at us as we ran by. I ran with three other lovely ladies, who will be pictured below (thanks Jesse for all the great pictures). We got to Arrowhead Stadium about 6:30am and stood in line for over an hour before the race actually started. I'm so glad we went that early...there were 15 waves of people at the starting line (supposedly 1,000 in each wave) and we were in Wave 1. It was SO crowded! When we rounded the finish line, there were still TONS of...