Chiminike (Chee-mee-nee-kay)

On Saturday morning at 7 am, 21 excited little faces climbed aboard a big yellow school bus and found their seats in anxious anticapation of the day's events. After a 3 1/2 hour drive on the crooked, pothole laden roads of Honduras, the big yellow school bus arrived safely in the capital city. As it came to a stop in front of a purple, magnificent, magical structure, nervous chatter could be heard through out the bus. The 21 ecstatic little faces came bounding off of the big yellow school bus and were permitted entrance into a world of discovery, imagination and fun.

Chiminike is the name of the children's museum in Tegucigalpa and a dream come true to any child. Last Saturday it happened to serve as a dream come true to the 21 children from the Mission Lazarus Refuge. In Chiminike there is a water room, a human body room, a house of equalibrium, a giant rope structure in the shape of a molecule of a grain of sand, an energy room, and a city room. The kids went shopping in a supermarket, made a broadcast on TV, shot plastic balls out of a plastic ball cannon, learned about gravity, played king of the hill on the rope sand molecule structure, climbed through an esophagus, stomach, and intestines, tickled a giant nose until it sneezed, went fishing, laid on a bed of nails, generated electricty and did the 'masa dance.' In short they had a blast!

To top it all off, after hours of fun at Chiminike we took the kids to McDonald's and filled them up on hamburgers and french fries! Completely tuckered out and now with full bellies the 21 content little faces laid down and slept as we journed back in the big yellow school bus to our oasis in the mountains.

The best part of the trip you ask? Though the kids might claim it was playing at Chiminike or getting to eat fast food... for me it was when they awoke from their slumber and started singing worship songs as we wound through the green mountainous roads to the children's home. There is nothing sweeter than hearing kids praise the Lord!