Yamaranguila Adventures (Part 2)

I decided to continue the story of Yamaranguila. Even though we only lived there for three months, it was a crucial moment for our family. We realized that being a missionary family was not going to be easy. We realized how far we really were from home. I mean we obviously knew we were far away but this was the time we realized that everything we knew was gone. We had a taste of what it was like to be outside our comfort zone. We no longer had things that we used to never have to think about. We still sometimes have things like that but now we’re somewhat used to it.

This was what our house looked like.
There is the family and the guard of the complex plus one of the orphan girls.

When we moved we were shocked first by where we were going to live. We saw we were living on a complex and so we had our house and several other buildings and a chain-link fence surrounding the entire complex. The house we moved into was United States looking but it wasn’t the same. In the States we were used to wooden houses or ones that had sheet-rock; our house was made of cement. We had no dishwasher, which wasn’t too odd as our grandparents didn’t have a dishwasher, but it meant us kids had to wash dishes. It was more of the house wasn’t right for our family, it was odd. One of the weirdest things was that missions teams would walk through the back door without knocking because it used to be the place where they ate. We would sit down for dinner and suddenly the door would open and a man would start to come in, think better of it, apologize, and then leave.

Us sisters were the only real playmates we had.

Right next door to our house was the orphanage which had two little girls and a family of four living there. The house looked very much like ours, it just had more rooms. The family was very nice, but we didn’t speak any Spanish so we couldn’t really play with them. The family’s oldest was fifteen (I think) and the younger one was ten (I think), the two orphan girls were five and four (I think, I say this because it was a long time ago and I’m not 100% positive). We would go over to their house sometimes and I remember watching one of the Rocky movies in Spanish but I didn’t understand anything. We couldn’t really play with toys as they didn’t have very many and we were told not to let them into our house so they didn’t steal our toys. I know that sounds awful to be judgmental about a people and assume they’d steal but we were warned not to let people into our house unless we fully trusted them. We did end up having the older girls in to play once we knew them more. It was hard to play with them since we didn’t speak the same language and so we didn’t form a strong connection with the family.

On the complex we had a church in the center and when teams came down they would have a dental clinic in the church. My family would be helping the dentists out, we would pass them tools or help keep the people’s mouths open, or run errands. While there was a team down a little bubble in my mouth appeared. We showed it to the dentists and they told me it was a swollen glad and In order for it not to come back they would need to cut it open and stitch it up. I did not want stitches in my mouth but my dad told me I had to. I sat down in the chair and closed my eyes, imagining playing with my best friend again, as they stitched the glad up. It was odd having stitches in my mouth and I didn’t like it. While I was eating later that evening, one of the stitches came undone and I freaked out thinking I ruined it. I went to the dentists and they said that when it was time the stitches would come out, no need to worry. Phew! I was very thankful that a team was there when I had that happen to my mouth because I wouldn’t have been able to fix it if they weren’t there.

My chipped tooth!

Also in that church we’d have a service either on Saturday or Sunday, I don’t remember well, but we’d have people from the village come to hear the sermon. My family took on the task of leading worship, with my mom playing keyboard and my dad on guitar, and I think I sang with them or me and my sister did. One time after the service, I was playing with the microphone and my mom told me to stop touching it. I didn’t listen to her and I pulled the microphone out of the stand straight into my mouth. I slammed it hard against my teeth and I remember moving the microphone away from my mouth and tasting pieces of something, I thought it was the microphone itself. I look down and I see something white on the microphone and in my hand. I freaked out as my tongue felt at my tooth, or what was left of it. I ran into my house and looked into the mirror. I had chipped my tooth! It was not a baby tooth that would fall out soon either; it was a fully grown tooth, no replacing that one. I remember looking into the mirror and telling myself that I looked like a monster. I now realize that only a tiny bit of my tooth was chipped, but then, it looked like half of it was gone! I cried for a very long time and I was ashamed to tell my parents, especially my mom. I eventually did tell them and they didn’t freak out like I thought they would. There happened to be a lady dentist there that lives in Honduras and she offered to fix my tooth, the next time we went to the capitol, for free. We were very grateful for this!

I got my tooth fixed; I’m not sure if it was still in those three months or after we moved to Zambrano. Nothing else happened in Yamaranguila that was too crazy or shocking. The rest of my stories occurred in other areas of Honduras. We lived in Yamaranguila for such a small amount of time and it was quite a long time ago so I can’t remember too much of what happened. I remember certain events, but mainly I remember certain feelings. Even though we don’t have very many fond memories of living in Yamaranguila, we don’t regret living there. Yamaranguila, thankfully, did not ruin the rest of our outlook on Honduras. We just took it as another stepping stone for the missionary life we had ahead of us!

Goodbye, until next time!