rats, beans, and mending relationships

So I have been here for a week and a half now and it has been so wonderful to get to return to Guatemala and to NLCH to serve the kids and missionaries and staff in any way i possibly can. I love it. Last year I hated beans and this year before I came, I prayed a lot about that and that the Lord would just enable me to eat them. I know that sounds like a silly prayer but thats how much I couldnt eat them. so since I've been here I really feel like that has changed. I mean i still dont like them but i can eat them now and they are growing on me. I love when God answers even the smallest of prayers.
One of the interesting things about this trip so far has been the little friends I have living in my ceiling. They aren't loud all the time but sometimes it sounds like someone is walking on my roof..but no that would be the rats running around in the ceiling...thankfully i havent had to see any of them yet but still quite disgusting.
I have had a few opportunities to leave the children's home with one of the house moms this year and it has been really cool. we dont live in the safest of places in the city so it makes me nervous to go walking out of the home(cars are a different story) but I got to go this little store where they can buy school supplies and it was the weirdest thing. it was just a blue building like all the others but then in the window it had a little doorbell lookin thing. no signs, nothing indicating it was a store. you just had to know. loved it. made me laugh. then another day i got to walk to the mall thats not too far from the home with the same house mom, Gledia, and some of the older boys so they could get new shoes. they didnt like the ones at the mall though, mostly too expensive, so we went back to the market(which is way closer to the home) and thats where they ended up getting their shoes. but it was a cool experience. I love getting to leave with the guatemalans. its just a completely different experience than if your with gringos.
this trip i have really wanted to build my relationships with the older girls and just be a friend to them. The Lord has really blessed me in that. I really feel like my relationships with them are starting to go a little deeper and I can see that many of them really trust me. I've been really enjoying spending lots of time with them. last year i didnt have the greatest of relationships with many of them but i really feel like thats changing. :)
In many ways this place just feels like home....more to come probably...but i'm tired right now. :)