Hey Everyone, This past christmas break, one of my uncles said that i should still use this blog every so often to let everyone know how i am doing now that i am back to my regular life. So this is what i am doing now... Since I have been back, I have really noticed how much more positive things and outcomes to situations have been for me. Not to say that i had a lot of problems or anything like that before I went, but only now i see things a little differently. The experience allowed me to "grow up" [View Full Entry]

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Hey Everyone, So i finally arranged some time off and went on a vacation like i had been planning the entire time. I decided not to leave the country like i had originally thought i would do, and instead went to an island that is still part of Guatemala called Monterrico. It was only a 3 hour bus ride from where i was, but the difference in weather would be the same as going from Washington state to Hawaii. Monterrico even has the nickname of little Hawaii around Guatemala. The reason i decided to stay within Guatemala is because i knew [View Full Entry]

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Hey Friends and Fam, Last time i posted my blog, i thought that my next one would be about a vacation of some sort, where i went and traveled to another country for some time off. However, i hit some road blocks and made me delay doing that for a bit. A few weeks ago i had some pretty bad stomach pains. I hoped they would just go away, partly because i was afraid to go to the doctor in a foreign country, and partly because i refused to admit i had gotten sick. But after 10 sleepless nights with this [View Full Entry]

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Hey Everyone, Just this week I passed my half way mark here. Looking back I can confidently say that i have changed, physically and mentally. Physically i am definitely thinner than i was before i came. My pants aren't fitting like they did when i came and i have been tightening the belt every so often. But in my mind it's a healthy thin and i consider myself to be in the best shape of my life. Kinda hard not to be when i am on a diet of beans and rice with snacks like bananas (which is not exactly the [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone, Not a whole lot has happened since my last entry. One of the babies has gone back to his mom, but that's about it. There are some hearing this week that will hopefully result in some of the kids going back to their families or relatives. The other night we received a 5 day old at night time, and with just our luck, we had no power that night. When he came in he had no name, so I of course volunteered my own, but apparently Brennan isn't a popular guatemalan name. Who would have thought. They instead named [View Full Entry]

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Hola Amigos, I have now been here for over 2 months, and in that time there has been no kids sent to their adoption families. I can actually only think of one baby who returned to his mom but it was very early on in my time here. The reason that many aren't leaving is because of the corruption scandals a few months that basically put everything on hold. The home is technically considered a children's home and not an orphanage, which means that kids also come here who are in things like custody battles, or their parents can't properly take [View Full Entry]

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Hey You Crazy Kids, Like I mentioned in my last blog, for the past two weeks the directors were gone. Since then, only the female director has returned and the male still has another month. I wasn't sure what it was going to be like without them, because they really have a good system going here, so I didn't know what to think once they were removed from it. It was a bit tough at first, because the directors are really the only people i talk to in english, but after a while i enjoyed really only being able to speak [View Full Entry]

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Hey Friends and Fam, I have had yet again another busy few weeks. Within the last 5 days, both the Male director, Steve and the female director, Sheryl, left for the states to handle personal business. Steve will be gone for a month and a half, and Sheryl will be gone for 2 weeks. In the meantime, i guess i am the man of the house. In the past week and a half, we have recieved two new babies. The first one to come, a baby girl named Fatima, came to us at around 2.5 months. The other one, a baby [View Full Entry]

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Hey Everyone, Sorry for the delay. Things have been pretty hectic around here and the internet has been very unreliable. Because i arrived here in the middle of July, when i got here i was thrown into the mix of the busiest time for the orphanage. It's because there are numerous mission groups who come for a week or so, and while they have been here i was more or less their day to day host. But in the last week or so there has been a break from them so i have really been getting into the daily routine that [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone, Leading up to my departure everyone i talked to kept telling me that this would be a life changing experience. It made sense, but at the same time it is hard to imagine yourself changing in such a short amount of time (the 5 1/2 months i am here). Little did i know it would happen within my first couple weeks here. Like i said in my first entry, the kids here with me really teach me a lot. A big life lesson i have already learned from them is that too often people long for the things they [View Full Entry]

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