Departure 5:30 AM 6/30/12 (AHH) It’s Time

Hey Guys!

Just writing a brief entry for this evening. I am finally all packed and mostly ready to go. Today, everything finally sunk in. It is time to take a leap of faith, get on a plane and fly a little over 2,100 miles to land in a foreign country with 6 strangers ((who seem awesome by the way)) all while having limited knowledge of the national language. If that’s not intimidating, I don’t know what is. But at the same time I am excited to go and I feel ready to face the challenges and the triumphs that will come my way this year. I am so looking forward to spending the next six weeks studying spanish in Copan Ruinas and soaking in the culture. In August we will arrive at the Hogar to finally begin out ministry. It’s an exciting and daunting moment for me.

As always, I cannot express how thankful I am to all of those who have been so supportive in the last few months, your encouragement, well wishes, donations and prayers have really helped push me to do this, thank you for your support.

God Bless and wish me luck in traveling tomorrow! 🙂  

T-Minus 9 Days

There is quite the heat wave sweeping over the Northeast this week. Today in Boston it’s supposed to reach a balmy 99 and yesterday got as high as 101 degrees. Woof, I didn’t think it would get this hot before I landed in Honduras! With all this heat, I’ve been trying to think of what I should and shouldn’t bring with me for the next year. And am wondering how I can consolidate and only bring what is necessary. Trying to pack my life into a few suitcases is quite the challenge for the time being. What if it gets cold? How cold can it get? How much medicine should I bring? How many shoes will I actually need? With just 9 days to go making these decisions are becoming a priority.

Coming to the realization that in 9 days I will officially be living in another country for a year has also smacked me in the face. Up until now it was  always “yeah, I’m going to Honduras” or “I’ll be spending 14 months there, no big deal” but now it is getting very real and beyond packing I’m just trying to mentally prepare myself for departure. I’ve reread all the packets Amigos has sent to us and have begun the process of saying my goodbyes. Getting ready to go is proving to be slightly harder than I thought, but on the flip-side I’m very excited to be going on this adventure. Something that continually gets me excited to be going rather than apprehensive is the response I have been receiving from St.A’s student who visited the Hogar on Winter Break, they have reassured me time and again that this will be an experience to change my life and that there is magic to be found within the staff and children at the orphanage. So as I make my final preparations I am empowered with the thought of a life changing experience and plan to go with the flow. 

Here’s to making the most of my time left in the states and preparing to live simply for the next year 🙂 

Fundraising Update _______________________________________________________________________________________

Yesterday I got an updated balance for fundraising and am pleased to say that I am now within 200 dollars of reaching my $4,100 goal. I am so thankful to all those who have donated. Not only have family and friends sent in checks and well wishes but complete strangers have done the same. These acts of kindness make me see that I have more support than I previously thought. 

Fundraising Update!!

Hello Everyone!

Today I got my grand total on how much I have fundraised in the past month. I am happy to say I am 80% of the way to my goal of $4,000, coming in with $3,215. I am so grateful to all who have donated so far and to those of you who plan to donate. I am extremely lucky to have this much support from a multitude of people.

I wanted to extend a HUGE thank you to the St.Thomas More parishioners in Dover, NH and especially to Fr. Andy for allowing me to fundraise at his parish. As a parish you donated $1,800. I could not be so close to the final count without your kindness and encouragement last weekend.

I wanted to extend another big thank you to my sister, Caitlin Ryan, she got her company to match her donation which helped me bring in an additional 600 dollars. Thank you for being so supportive and encouraging 🙂 I will do my best to make you proud and calm your nerves while in Honduras (come visit meeee.)

And of course, I need to extend a thank you to everyone who has donated big or small already, every contribution has helped!

Now that the bulk of my fundraising is done, I’m now starting to think about what I need to bring. It’s hard figuring out what you need and what you can do without for the year. I don’t want to overpack but I don’t want to under pack either. Hopefully everything works out 🙂 either way I’m sure my parents could send things if I packed too little.

Shots tomorrow! Yellow Fever and Rabies wooop, wish me luck!!!

Here’s a little video that my friend Carly found on YouTube for any Goyte lovers, I thought it was pretty sweet (post below.) I promise to be more interesting wen I get to Honduras