Welcome to La Coroza, Yoro, Honduras. A small village with little to nothing in tangible form, but the biggest hearts around. Humanity and Hope has brought in clean water for them, jobs, an education opportunity, and are currently working on providing bathrooms to every household too. I included a photo in this post of what they currently have, which is a little make-shift shack with a concrete hole in the ground. Click here to donate, as many of the donations are currently going towards this bathroom project.
La Coroza truly stole my heart and I cannot wait to go back to hug and laugh with all of them. I want to share my two favorite moments from this village though... which are the moment we arrived and the moment we left.
Our arrival: Our truck pulled up into the village early morning, so the kids were in school. It was the cutest thing to see all of their faces piled up at the door of their classroom peaking out as our truck pulled up, and it literally looked like ants in their pants, they were jumping up and down and couldn't contain their excitement (granted, many of us they hadn't even met before). When we got out of the truck, and made our physical appearance known to them, it was all they could do to not run over each other while sprinting full force and jumping all over us. The joy that these kids had just merely seeing us, I will never forget. One of my favorite images from the whole trip is one I got of the kids piling all over Riley (founder and President of H&H) and squeezing him like they were never going to let go. It was so sweet. Our arrival was definitely a moment to behold and the pure joy in their hearts truly made my own heart overflow.
Our departure: My other favorite moment was the last morning before we headed to the airport. Just Jaclyn, Ally, and I rode into La Coroza one last time with Darwin to bring donuts and orange juice to the men working in the fields. With the beautiful sunrise, and the gratitude that the men had for us bringing them some breakfast, it was the perfect ending to an amazing trip.
The eye clinic was also a huge success in La Coroza. They managed to get everyone in the villages' eyes checked the first day, so opened up the clinic to surrounding villages on the 2nd day. I'm pretty sure a whole village piled into the back of 1 truck... you'll see in the photos. They were all smiles though and you could tell they were so thankful to have this opportunity to literally, SEE.
Other than the eye clinic, we also spent our time digging a trench in the plantain field, well... helping at least ;) The village men found it very entertaining how NOT labor-intensive our American men are, as they did more singing than digging. We also helped dig the holes in the ground for the new bathrooms. I came around the corner one time to see how they were doing with the digging of the hole at one particular home, to find a 5 year old with a machete chopping up coconuts for his friends to eat. I took plenty of pictures of that... because it's not every day you see a 5 year old so coordinated and comfortable with a machete!
We also ended our last evening in La Coroza with a church service. It's really neat that a local pastor and worship team come out every Thursday to this small village, donate their time, and bring the word of God straight to their little village. A few of us climbed the water tower during the worship service, and it was really a wonderful moment to have that aerial view of the village, and see that the whole village was empty and quiet except for at the worship service... all were worshiping.
All of these moments I will hold in my heart forever. However, I am excited to go back again and again and bring more hope, inspire more faith, witness more miracles, and grow in the H&H Family. I am starting off the photos with a photo of our H&H team. It's crazy to see God works in small ways of simply just bringing a solid group together. Each one of us truly had our own unique skill-set to bring to the table, and we couldn't stop talking all week about how much of a dream team we were.... not to brag haha... it's just really cool to see God's hand in placing each one us on this particular trip at this specific time. I love each and every one of you and thank you for laying out your hearts and giving up your time to not only inspire the villages we serve, but to inspire me. Until next trip! ;)
Also, I encourage all of you who are reading this to do something. Come on a trip, donate, share our story. As Riley recently said, "Everyone was created on purpose, and for a purpose. No one is an accident." So why invest any less than our best? Find out more by clicking here.
And give them a follow on instagram to keep up with what we are doing down there!
