Background on Our Adventure

Dear Family & Friends – Allen & I are volunteering at Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos (NPH) in Honduras for over a year. This blog is set up to keep you informed of our activities and welfare so you can explore with us the adventures that await.

As a background, we became aware of the NPH orphanage (www.nph.org) through St Louise Catholic Church which was our parish when we lived in Bellevue, Washington. Our pastor, Father Tom Belleque, brought his love of this wonderful organization to our parish many years ago. At first we became sponsors to a child in Haiti. Later we had an opportunity to visit the NPH orphanage in Miacatlan, Mexico during a retreat with fellow parishioners. This was the first NPH established (in 1955) and we were impressed with the safe and loving environment of the over 400 children housed and cared for in a converted sugar plantation. After the retreat, we became more involved in NPH, attending local fundraising auctions and providing housing for NPH staff coming to Seattle for leadership training. We learned that NPH has spread to include 9 locations (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua Bolivia, Peru, Haiti, and Dominican Republic).

Somewhere along the way we became interested in taking a more active role in supporting NPH by becoming in-country volunteers. As healthy and active retirees, we believe that this is the ideal time to “Give a year, gain a lifetime of love”.  Applications were due by January 1 or July 1 for starting dates of July 1 and January 1 respectively. We submitted our application by January 1, 2023, were interviewed by the US Volunteer Coordinator in January, and in March were offered assignments in both Honduras and Dominican Republic. After much deliberation, we chose the Honduran assignments with the role of Maintenance Assistant for Allen and Sponsorship Assistant for me. We were also notified (as expected) that we would need to enroll ourselves in Immersion Spanish before our starting date.

We have received a lot of love and support from family and friends and are almost ready to go. We leave Saturday, May 27, on a red-eye flight to the San Pedro Sula airport in Honduras. The Guacamaya Spanish Immersion school has arranged transportation from the airport to a host family in Copan Ruinas where we will live for 5 weeks as we learn to communicate in Spanish (God willing! 😊). From there we will travel to Tegucigalpa (the capital of Honduras) and be picked up by staff from NPH Honduras (www.nph.org/honduras) to begin our 13 month Volunteer assignment at the Santa Fe Ranch “El Rancho” site about 36 kilometers outside of Tegucigalpa.

We are greatly looking forward to this adventure and hope to keep you all informed via this blog on a weekly basis.