Honduras || January 5th, 2015

Wow. Today was absolutely incredible. I'll probably say that every day. Just warning you.

So first, I woke up around 5 am with Meaghan and Nicole to go milk the ranch cows. I can now cross that off my bucket list. At night, the ranch hands separate the cows and their calves. Then in the wee hours of the morning all the cows are put in one pen and the calves in another next to them. One at a time the ranch hands let a calf in, then! the calf finds its mom and they follow it to the mom. It's a really interesting and efficient system. I was horribly, horribly slow at milking compared to these guys. It was just a cool experience, and it didn't hurt that the calves were insanely adorable.

After that excitement, we ate breakfast and had a morning devotional with all of the ranch staff. We sang worship songs in spanish which was really fun, especially the ones that have english equivalents. It was also just awesome to worship with other people that yes, may speak a different language, but still worship the same God. 

Then we were off! Today we drove about 10 minutes to Ocolta Numero 1. That's the village name apparently. We set up shop in this clearing with a large tent for small animal surgeries and the large animal crew set up under the trees across the clearing. Some of the villagers were already there with animals waiting for us. It was a little chaotic at first deciding who was going to do what. I jumped right in with deworming dogs and cats. And by this, I mean squirting liquid deworming medication in dogs' mouths that are not used to being handle. Now that's an experience. I successfully learned a phrase in Spanish today... "Abre la boca, por favor" or, "Open the mouth, please". The owners would hold, and we would squirt. We also had to guess the dogs' weight to dose which was super tricky since all these pups were extremely skinny. 

Here is Sylvalyn, a first year from A&M, squirtin away.

Once that began to die down, I started working with the vets doing the small animal surgery (spays and neuters). I prepped a female dog for Dr. Natalee (Beck) and then was able to assist her with the surgery! Mind you, I've seen many spays while working and shadowing in clinics, but never have I been able to scrub in! We also had decided to squeeze this one in right before lunch... never a good idea. It ended up being a fairly complicated spay (according to Dr. Nat) so that was unfortunate, but obviously still really cool! At one point, I was acting as a human retractor. So many hands in that little dog. And of course, toward the end of the surgery it started raining. We finally finished after having to make a massive incision to find the whole uterus and struggling to keep the intestines in (sorry, graphic). Dr. Nat and I were then able to eat lunch. Delicious. Again. I'm going to gain so much weight on this trip.

After lunch, a group of us went with the pastor from HOI (Honduras Outreach Inc.) to a couple different houses in the village. These families had requested a visit from us to pray over them. I was blown away by this experience. Sadly, I couldn't understand everything because of the spanish, but got most of it. I honestly don't think I can put it into words how awesome it was to just sit with these people and love them. Language and culture barriers aside, and just rest in God's love for us. Amazing.

Once we made it back to the clearing, we helped clean up, played a little soccer with the kids, and handed out hygiene bags we had made for them! They really appreciated it. We hopped in the trucks, took a selfie, and headed into town for some supply shopping.

Back at the ranch for the night we played some volleyball, hammocked, ate dinner, sat around and sang songs and jammed with the guitar, played games, had our devotional,  and now I'm sitting in bed, listening to the cows again about to go to sleep.

I cannot say enough how blessed I am to be here and to be part of a profession that allows me to utilize my passion to glorify the Lord. I'm not good at it, I make mistakes, but if I was perfect, I wouldn't need a savior.

Love you all, Dios le bendiga! (God Bless you- I learned that today too)