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

It's Time!!

Good Morning! 

Well, it's time. In less than eight weeks our family will be living in Honduras for a bit. 

I'm closing my facebook page for the time, so for all of you re-directed traffic- here is a copy below of the letter that we posted last May.... 

With no facebook- I won't be posting links to the blog- so please sign your email up on the right hand side of this page  if you'd like to receive our updates! Your email is private- even I can't figure out how to see it!  I've promised family that without the ease of a phone call while out of country- that my updates on here will be more frequent! (We're shooting for bi-weekly when we're gone).

If you'd like to be added to a more personal email thread that will include specifics of our trip, dates, needs we might have, prayer requests, etc, please email me -  kate.spadino@gmail.com - and I'll add you to the list!

Thanks!
Kate
_______________________________________


May 3rd

Dear Friends and Family,

Nope! Our big news is not a baby announcement…

It’s “a-lot-of-babies announcement”.

There is so much to say which makes a starting place difficult so I will simply have to explain our news by pulling you on board while the train is still running.

Our family- Joe, I, and our kids are headed down to live in Honduras for three and a half months!

Our trip is a while out, we do not leave until after this fall, but it is official and we are going! We are into all the preliminary work now that’s involved. We will be volunteering with an organization in Honduras; Orphanage Emmanuel. Orphanage Emmanuel is an orphanage that has been established in Guiamaca for over twenty years and is now home to over 550 children. There are children there who are infants and all the way through teens. Orphanage Emmanuel is a place where children who do not have, or cannot live with their parents, are loved, encouraged and safe. They attend school, church, and are taught skills to be able to one day live independently as contributing members of Honduras. 

Our whole lives Joe and I have loved working with children. We believe all children are valuable and precious and deserve love, care and opportunity. For more than a year now, Joe and I have known that we needed to start investing in children outside our immediate family. We started down several avenues and to our amazement and joy this is the one that has continued to be clear. We contacted this orphanage after finding them online. We told them a little about our family and they graciously invited Joe and me to come down for a week and welcomed us into their home.

In March Joe and I traveled down to Guiamaca, Honduras. We were seeking a place that we could invest our time, energy and resources as a family to serve children. We met with the leadership; we worked in the orphanage and through much prayer realized that this would be a fit for our family. We are so excited and humbled that we would have the opportunity to go there again.

We desire to use all of our time and resources wisely, so this is a perfect complement to Joe’s job running the asphalt paving business. On the opposite side of the year, we will be able to live in Honduras, and then come home to America and our house for the paving season. We’ve talked to the schools and Joey will be able to attend the time that we are back in the states. We’ve made a three and a half month commitment with the orphanage.

In Honduras Joe will be teaching carpentry skills and additional trade skills in the older boy’s vocational program. I will most likely be working with the toddlers. We will live on campus and be assimilating our children into the mix as much as possible. They will walk along side us as we work, love, teach, play and invest in children. It will be an adventure for our family and we’re expecting both challenges and joy.

When we’re there we will have some internet access so will keep you updated. Hopefully a new and better blog page will be in the works too…. Until then we have a busy summer. Passports for three, home school curriculum, learning Spanish, working on getting our kiddos to like beans and rice, figuring out the best essential oil/shampoo combo to keep lice out of our hair, learning to limit what we need and what we use so we can live simply and give joyfully.

We’d like your luck, we’d love your prayers as we start on a journey that has captured our hearts….

: ) Kate, Joe, Joey, Guy, Elena

August

5:54 in the morning and it is still dark. The way to know that summer is ending is to feel the dark fold up on each side of the day. And soon, we know it the way the birds know it, this season will turn right over to the next. Time has settled into a pattern movement of waking, feeding, playing, loving. I’ve been saying the not-new-revelation all summer. This summer- the one where we have spent over ten nights in tents and at least thirty hours in canoes- it is going fast. 

And everybody is old now. It is the summer of no-naps, buckle yourself, hatchets in the woods and please put away your bow and arrow. Get out of the water. No really, it is time to get out of the water. Please eat up this watermelon in one sitting. Don’t forget your sister at the mailbox.           

Their little heads at my kitchen counter all lined up like the peas in the pod we pick from our garden. 

If I could mark this summer with a sign in the grass it would be named The Summer of Much Conversation. Joey, now six and feeling even older, wants to know everything. Because it became clear early on that I did not know nearly as much as his expectations, he has settled to know, ‘a little bit of everything.’ We started with wishes. 

“Is a wish different than when you pray?” He would ask. Yes, it is. “What can you wish on?” Shooting stars, birthday candles, pennies in fountains, wishbones…definitely wishbones. Loads of hay (because of the poem) an eyelash… “Do wishes come true?” Maybe. You never know. If you say it out loud -your wish - definitely not. But if you don’t, then…maybe. 

 The wish conversation lasted weeks, a new question every few days. Joey, I told him in August, I am guessing on most of this you know. Wishes are tricky. No one knows for sure how they work.

  “I know.” He nodded, accepting the mystery. 

We’ve touched on heaven and death, animal souls, why people might kill each other, why we should try hard not to use the word stupid (unless something is really stupid and then it might be okay), water temperature, dew, what salamanders eat, how to get squirrels out of our attic. Guy mostly nods along, unless Joey disagrees with me and then he too is adamantly opposed, trying to impress his brother with his allegiance. Guy wonders about topics like, can we marry Mom? Does Tino (our dog) look happy or sad? How many carrots do I have to eat before I can see in the dark? Elena mostly wants to chat about feelings. Like how she feels when her brothers run ahead and leave her at the mailbox. 

Explaining the world to all three of them proves trickier than explaining wishes. The boys caught me getting all teary eyed over a pot of spaghetti at dinner and I explained carefully that I was feeling sad about Iraq, religious minorities, persecution, wars, the middle east. I worked really hard not to use the phrase ‘beheadings’ and ‘bombings’.  I felt like I had to throw up. We prayed for those that are the outcast and oppressed. Then we prayed for those that were killing. Then we talked about how Jesus loves the whole world. “Everybody?” They asked me. Was I sure? Yes. I told them. Even us.

Sometimes remembering is just as important as conversation. One day at lunch we paused to remember a friend that lost a baby to a miscarriage. It has been two years but this was the day that she remembers, so we remember too. We talked about how a life is a life no matter how short, or how small. The small children sitting here didn’t ask if I was sure. They knew this in their being to be true. 

This Summer Of Much Conversation has me sometimes silent. I tell my children this world is beautiful and then watch the news and it seems impossible. It feels like a lie.  One night I was up weighing the number of orphans in the world, disease, famine, abandonment and heartache against all the good. The scale tipped heavily and I couldn’t sleep.  All my talking at God seemed to just echo very loudly in the cave. Early in the next morning’s light, I took the list of all those that died in the Newtown School shooting.  Alone, very softly and very slowly I read each name aloud. And if there is any connection in this universe at all, may the mothers know that their children’s names are not forgotten. 

And although the light came later in time it still stayed to flood our day. And at breakfast I kissed each one of my living breathing children on their sweet pea-pod heads. We settled in to talk about whatever they might want to discuss this morning. Why does toast brown with heat? Why do bananas have a peel like a little house that we don’t eat? Their little hands and eyes and heart and minds just waiting to be imprinted.

They are beautiful and I love them so much, the scale tips back just a little. 

Questions with answers and questions with none. Always keep the conversation. Even the silent ones. 

 And in our conversations about the world I look at my children and know:  no Body makes it out of here alive. And no soul leaves without feeling the bruising of the brokenness. I don’t tell them this. They will find out soon enough. Maybe they already know. 

 What I do tell them about this life? About the life of the soul and the life on this earth and the life that they are honored to have? I point to the beauty and tell them the truth. My God, it is a miracle.

Last Day

Today is Joey’s last day of Kindergarten. Remember when I wrote that super weepy blog post at 1 a.m. the eve of his first day? I do. That was 9 months ago.

Nine months! That’s how long it takes to grow a baby from non-existent to 7lbs 8 oz. Apparently that’s also how long it takes to grow a little kindergartener into a first grader.  I feel like standing up and making an  speech to everything and everyone who helped pull us through. Thank you to the best teacher that we will remember forever!  Thank you to the kindest bus driver! Thank you to the wood playground and the cows that were always there in the field across the street. Thank you snow days and sun days and Fridays and Mondays. Thank you for this kindergarten year!

Joey can now read, he can make awesome fart- like noises pressing his mouth to his arm, (thank you school bus), he can tie shoes, he can survive in a forced social session and navigate a lunch line. He can name letters, and rhyme, tell time, and tell if someone’s lying. He has experienced kindness and friendship. Also pushing and being left out. And the feeling of bringing the best ball to school to play wall-ball with at recess. 

Spelling. Addition. Subtraction. Library skills and life skills. Music, phy-ed, art, writing center, reading center. At five years old we sent him off to learn and grow. To experience, to hold independence in his hands. A well- rounded approach. Well- rounded just makes one roll faster. And faster. And all months blur at the edges. 

And Joey as sure as you know your sight words – know this: when this beautiful world is spinning - you can lay down for a bit. Right in the grass in our front yard. Your home is always the center. Watch the clouds. (Clouds. C-L-O-U-D-S). There is always time for summer. 

News

Dear Friends and Family,

Nope! Our big news is not a baby announcement…

It’s “a-lot-of-babies announcement”.

There is so much to say which makes a starting place difficult so I will simply have to explain our news by pulling you on board while the train is still running.

Our family- Joe, I, and our kids are headed down to live in Honduras for three and a half months!

Our trip is a while out, we do not leave until after this fall, but it is official and we are going! We are into all the preliminary work now that’s involved. We will be volunteering with an organization in Honduras; Orphanage Emmanuel. Orphanage Emmanuel is an orphanage that has been established in Guiamaca for over twenty years and is now home to over 550 children. There are children there who are infants and all the way through teens. Orphanage Emmanuel is a place where children who do not have, or cannot live with their parents, are loved, encouraged and safe. They attend school, church, and are taught skills to be able to one day live independently as contributing members of Honduras. 

Our whole lives Joe and I have loved working with children. We believe all children are valuable and precious and deserve love, care and opportunity. For more than a year now, Joe and I have known that we needed to start investing in children outside our immediate family. We started down several avenues and to our amazement and joy this is the one that has continued to be clear. We contacted this orphanage after finding them online. We told them a little about our family and they graciously invited Joe and me to come down for a week and welcomed us into their home.

In March Joe and I traveled down to Guiamaca, Honduras. We were seeking a place that we could invest our time, energy and resources as a family to serve children. We met with the leadership; we worked in the orphanage and through much prayer realized that this would be a fit for our family. We are so excited and humbled that we would have the opportunity to go there again.

We desire to use all of our time and resources wisely, so this is a perfect complement to Joe’s job running the asphalt paving business. On the opposite side of the year, we will be able to live in Honduras, and then come home to America and our house for the paving season. We’ve talked to the schools and Joey will be able to attend the time that we are back in the states. We’ve made a three and a half month commitment with the orphanage.

In Honduras Joe will be teaching carpentry skills and additional trade skills in the older boy’s vocational program. I will most likely be working with the toddlers. We will live on campus and be assimilating our children into the mix as much as possible. They will walk along side us as we work, love, teach, play and invest in children. It will be an adventure for our family and we’re expecting both challenges and joy.

When we’re there we will have some internet access so will keep you updated. Hopefully a new and better blog page will be in the works too…. Until then we have a busy summer. Passports for three, home school curriculum, learning Spanish, working on getting our kiddos to like beans and rice, figuring out the best essential oil/shampoo combo to keep lice out of our hair, learning to limit what we need and what we use so we can live simply and give joyfully.

We’d like your luck, we’d love your prayers as we start on a journey that has captured our hearts….

: ) Kate, Joe, Joey, Guy, Elena