Trip Beginning

Well, we are officially on our way and on the first leg of our journey! Yesterday evening we arrived safely in Colorado. Our dog Tino is checking out my parent’s place (and cat) with great interest and we know he’ll love the mountains and Grammie and Poppey while we are gone.  We are so happy to be here to celebrate the holidays here before we fly out.

 Our bags are completely packed for Honduras, two backpacks and a suitcase for all five of us for three months. That took quite a bit of brain power. Several times over the past two weeks and the packing process, Joe has walked into different rooms only to find me sprawled on the ground crying that, “my mind is about to explode.”    Again, details are not my strong suit. But the feat is DONE. Our packing list started out large, and of course kept getting pared down more and more as we remembered more essential items and crossed off gear that only could serve one purpose.  During this time many of our belongings were stacked up on the dining room table, our bedroom, the kitchen counter, as I gathered and counted and looked at my list.  I asked Joe to get his clothes together. A FEW MINUTES later he hands me a pile of about 8 pieces. I made him add another shirt. One week later I was done gathering my clothes, and we added our piles to everything else and zipped up the bags.

These past weeks have been filled to the brim with blessings for our family! Our amazon wish list was bought out by two friends in one fell swoop! So we wrote another one, and then that too was bought out immediately.  And still more friends have bought additional cards to amazon for us. Friends have gifted us with a ‘going away party’ and we got to see many of you and share a bit about where we were going.  Friends have shown up with gift cards and financial gifts to send to the sponsorship program. Many of you have written emails, notes, texts and have called to give encouragement. You have offered to watch kiddos, clean my house, help cross off my to do list… We’ve received handmade gifts to take with us, Christmas presents for our children made in advance, and offers to drop everything to help us anyway we need. For all of this and more – we say thank you. It is impossible to love fully without being fully loved yourself and as we gather our family and our bags to leave the midwest, we know we are loved.  When we count our blessings, (we actually name them out loud with our children), we name all of you that have stood by us in these ways. Thank you.

We have been to Honduras, we are thrilled to go back. We have seen children whom we cannot wait to go and sit with and show and say,  you are valuable. You deserve time, attention, resources, investment. God loves you where you are, as you are.  Many of you, friends, have not been to Honduras, and yet you share this joy and excitement with us. Many of you share this because you believe as we do, that the love of God changes lives. When someone knows they are loved, and really believes it, their life is transformed.  And our lives are transformed too.

Please pray for our family as we travel, as we sleep in new places, and ride in new planes, eat new food and learn and a new language. Please pray for our children, that as they take in all this new information that their minds remain alert and their hearts remain soft. Pray that Joe and I will walk wisely, gently, and surely in all ways before us.

As always, please continue to pray for all the children in the world who may not know unconditional love. If all the children in the world seem too many, then please pray for just one. Here are some names of children who could use your prayers: Jésus, Alma, Paula, Omar, Kiki, Blest, Dibora, Yeabsera, Temesgen.

Thank you friends,

We’ll continue to keep you updated here on this blog, feel free to shoot me an email too!! Kate.spadino@gmail.com

Love to all-

Kate and Joe

Joey, Guy, Elena