Letting His Light Shine

Jonatan is a born people-pleaser. I can see Jonatan doing just about anything he puts his mind to. With the help of a good education, the sky will be the limit for this little guy.



This six-year-old is always the first of our kids to try to help with any project we are doing at the building and is quick to be upset if you tell him you don’t need his help.



All he wants to do is help others, and he does a great job with helping his little sister Rosie. He is the first one on the scene when Rosie is crying. He’s always there to tell her everything will be okay and give here a great big brother hug. I hope we can continue to help Jonatan and his great heart grow into a young man that can be an example for other children.

We can’t wait to see this little goof grow into his own person. He lives in the shadow of his older brother Arol among his family now. Unfortunately, their mother Belkis has favorites, and Jonatan isn’t one of them. Neither Arol nor Jonatan are to blame for this, and both deserve to break free of their chains and find who they are meant to become.



Jonatan’s so excited to start school that he has already begun asking me to teach him English words and phrases. He has mastered a few such as “Go,” “Stop” and Michael’s favorite “Wassup.” He loves asking me what Spanish words mean in English, even if sometimes it isn’t entirely necessary that he knows that word. One night he was…well, gassy. He then wanted to know what that word was in English.



So, if you ever get the chance to meet Jonatan, he will have no difficulty letting you know when anyone is farting at the building.

I see so much promise in Jonatan that I get excited just thinking about the possibilities a good education will give him. There are so many giving souls at our building, but not many of them are six years old. I know that Jonatan has a role to play here in the future of Honduras, and his first step to achieving all he is meant to do is a great education.



Please consider helping Jonatan break the chains of poverty with any donation you can give to this boy’s education. He needs you and this so much! If you would like to share in Jonatan’s future, see the link on the “Home” line above to see what help this boy needs.

To help or if you have questions, email me at corey@bchonduras.org or my co-director of education at michael@bchonduras.com.

About My Friends

Over these past two weeks of being home I have noticed one thing that I used to take for granted... my awesome friends. God has blessed me by putting some of the most supporting friends you could find in my life.

We will start out with someone who I've known for a long time but who has just recently become one of my best friends thanks to Honduras. I have mentioned her before in my blogs and she is even coming to Honduras with me next week! Caity Davis is an amazing person whose love for Honduras was important in bringing me to Honduras in the first place. As I have said before I am so excited for her to come down to Honduras to see the projects I am involved with first hand and to meet all the kids and teens that have touched my heart and changed my life!

Next we have my best friend since I was little. He has also been to Honduras many times but the one thing I am so thankful for is his consistency with our friendship. I know that no matter how long I am gone for that whenever I get home I can head over to Daniel Wallace's house sit on the couch and I can feel like I have never even left. Having seen him in Honduras I know more about what an awesome guy Daniel is and what all he can do when he wants to help others.

Daniel's brother Michael is next and I have to say I have learned so much from him that it is hard to even put into words. I don't have an older brother but he more than fills that role. He was the first person I knew who went to Honduras and after reading his blogs and hearing him talk about helping the people there with such passion I knew I would have to see it for myself. And then once I got to Honduras on our missions trip and was able to see the impact he had made first hand I was amazed. I actually thought he invented the high-five-fist-bump that everyone in the country does. I can't wait for him to bring a group down this summer so that I can work with him in Honduras again!

Next is a friend that I didn't even know a year ago. Steve Carter. I met Steve on our missions trip over the summer and immediately knew we would be friends. We are both loud and fun loving and we share a love for Honduras that will make sure we are friends for a very long time. His passion for Honduras is so awesome to see and hear about that I know he can barely even wait to get back to work on another adventure in Hondo.

Dan Fearer, Tim Plouse, and Mitch Grubb. Three more friends that no matter how long I might be gone I know that I can show up on their couch and not feel like I missed a beat. Not a week went by in Honduras when we were not in contact and once I got home for a visit it feels as if I had never left and friends like this make missing Honduras bearable while I am here visiting during the holidays. Another friend, Nick Andrews, I have grown even closer to in my absence. He is always excited to hear a story from my adventures, and our FIFA nights will probably continue for years to come.

Best Buy friends. Wow I never knew just how many people I use to work with that I had become such good friends with. When I went into the store to visit the other day I was there for almost two hours just talking with everyone. Every time I would look to the door to leave I would see another person that I missed and needed to talk to again. I was so blessed with a good steady job at the BBY and a great understanding, supportive boss in Mark Blankenship to be so supportive in my decision to get up an move in a blink of an eye. Without such a great work support staff I could have never moved to Honduras so easily.

Interamerican School. I absolutely love my school. I love my job, my kids, and also the awesome teachers I work with who I have become great friends with. They help me with just about everything and I could not have made it through my first teaching experience without their help and support! I miss them all so much and I can't wait to get back to work next month!

David Logue, Amber Foster, Michael Lemmons, and Courtney Matthews. Our Breaking Chains team. I never expected to fall in love with a ministry at first sight but that is exactly what happened. Not only did I get coworkers out of this deal but I now have friends for life. I feel like I have known our team my entire life and that I can tell them anything. You can't buy friends like these and I am so thankful God provided me with such an amazing group of friends in Honduras to rival my friends back at home!

Caity, Michael, and all of my Breaking Chains friends have blogs that you can read by clicking on the corresponding link on the right hand side of the page!

Time to Reflect

I've been home for almost two weeks now. It has been great to spend time with family, friends, and time by myself to just relax and reflect on what has happened over the past five months. I made a decision to change my life because I felt myself getting pulled towards Honduras. I went to Honduras to be a teacher but within a few weeks I was head over heels in love with Breaking Chains homeless ministry and it wasn't long before I started working with them. I love the ministry I work for, we have an amazing team in place with people from all over the states working together to help those who have trouble helping themselves.

I knew when I came home I would miss the kids but I didn't know exactly what that meant. It is seemingly impossible to put into words the feeling I get when I think about Honduras, it is a mixture of not only missing them but the feeling I get that I need to be there.

I get the obvious question of "how long are you staying there?" every few hours from friends and family and my answer is always the same... I am going to take it year by year but I'll know when it is time for me to step away. That time could be next November or 20 years from now I just don't know. I love it that way though, I love working on His time and not my own. God has blessed me with not one but two jobs that I miss with all of my heart and two jobs that I can not wait to go back too. I find it tough to explain my current situation to everyone because these two worlds don't seem connected. It seems like a night and day difference. It is that reason that I am excited for one of my friends, Caity Davis, to come down and see what I do first hand. I sometimes get looks along the line of "you must be crazy" to work so much, so far away, to not even draw even every month. But, I respond the same way when I get those looks, I can't imagine being anyway else right now in my life, and until I can feel right about being somewhere else Honduras will be my home because it is certainly the current location of my heart.

School Starts Early

This last Monday we started our first adventure into bilingual education. Arol is 9 years old but is just now learning how to read and write. He is always excited to have lessons with Michael and I but a few nights a week was not getting him to the level that he needs to be at. That being said I was able to get him enrolled in Nashville School, a sister school to my own school, and have him start in 1st Grade there to catch up in time for him to be in 2nd Grade this coming February. Nervous doesn't begin to describe how Arol felt the days leading up to his first day. His anxiety reached a level of acting out that we hadn't seen in him before and finally he told us that he wasn't going to go. Michael and I marched up to his family's room the night before his first day and were determined to here him say "I am going to school tomorrow." Since my Spanish is well mostly nonexistent, Michael did most all the talking. After lots of "We love you" and "You can do it" like phrases he finally agreed to go on one condition, I go with him. So the next morning we headed to school and he went nervously into his classroom, Michael and Amber left after shedding a few tears and I sat for 7 hours praying that all was going well in the classroom. Come lunch time he ran out of the classroom to sit next to me and I told him he should go play with his new friends, not me. He did not want to do that. But then as if we were in a Disney movie his new classmates were calling his name and he went running to play with them. The rest of the day went great and so did the rest of his first week. I was so relieved to see the new kids accepting Arol, stepping into a new school, a new language, and children who live in an entirely different world than he does was not easy. We know this will be a difficult road for Arol but we pray we are making the right decision about his future. Please keep him and the other kids at Breaking Chains in your prayers as they embark on this new and challenging journey.

"Hakuna Matata"

My Spanish gets a little better everyday... and when I say a little better I really mean just a little. But I am slowly learning how to have actual conversations with the kids here and that means sweet little moments are becoming more and more abundant. Last week we took a few of the teens around the corner to a Pulperia to buy some ice cream and I brought Jonatan with me and he convinced me to buy him one as well. When we got back I told him we should sit outside to eat it since the other kids at the building did not get any ice cream. So as we sat there we started talking about our favorite things. Food, music, movies, that kind of stuff. When I asked him what his favorite movie was he responded with "HAKUNA MATATA" as loud as he could say it. He finished my explaining to me that he means the movie with the lion I took him to see, followed by his own rendition of the song. I wish everyone could have witnessed an ice cream covered Jonatan singing Hankuna Matata it was seriously one of the cutest things I have ever witnessed. As my Spanish gets better I can't wait for more awesome moments with my kids down here!

A Visit from the States

This past Friday we had a group from the States come visit our Breaking Chains building! When I told the kids that we had some "gringos" coming they got extremely excited. The little ones understand that means they have an extra 15 people to climb all over and play with for the night. When the team arrived I was standing outside with Jonatan and when he saw them get off the bus he grabbed my hand and pulled me towards them so he could meet all these new people. The group was awesome and gave the kids at the building an evening full of laughter and fun! It was also refreshing to me to see all these people come in and witness exactly what I have fallen in love with here in Tegucigalpa. I sometimes lose focus and get caught up in the routine that is my life down here. It was good to look back and see all that we have accomplished over the past four months and great to see how excited people were for all the plans we have for the future of our ministry! I can't wait to show other people the great stuff we are doing here and all the awesome plans God has for our ministry in the upcoming year!

Jesus Banquet

Last Wednesday I had the privilege to be a part of an event called the Jesus Banquet. The Jesus Banquet is an annual event put on every December to feed the people living in the communities around the city dump here in Tegucigalpa. The goal is to give these families a nice meal and an opportunity to sit down and enjoy it as well. A local restaurant called Carnitas did all the cooking and it was delicious. David, Mark, and I picked up the workers at 6 am so that they could start cooking early to hopefully start serving lunch at a reasonable time. The people were lined up and ready to eat and luckily everything went as planned and our estimate is over 1200 people were served that day. One thing that still gets me is the amount of children that live in these communities. It seems every family has 5 or 6 kids and it always seems to break my heart to see the condition they are in. However the bright side of having all the kids around was it gave me an excuse to go play with them all day! It was a really awesome experience and I hope to be here next year to help with it again.