Feliz Navidad! The Christmas Play.

The Christmas play was awesome! We had so much fun making costumes, painting, hanging flyers with the kids, and just being with the kids. The play was really a success, we are not positive about the number that attended but the preacher believed there was over 400 people from the community in attendence. Afterwards the members of the church fed everyone rice, chicken and tortillas. I think we have started a new Christmas tradition in Mogote.

Christmas went well for us too. We shared the day with Amber and Darwin and exchanged gifts with each other. We missed our families, it is tough being away, but being with our new added family here really made it easier. Amber cooked ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, chocolate cake, and cheese cake, I made a corn casserole, and Will made his famous magic bars all in two toaster ovens and it was amazing. All in all we had a good Christmas.

The Mogotian Nativity

The play is coming along well and soon! You can see we finished painting the background on the front wall of the church yesterday. Will finished some props of a manger and stable too.

The kids are quite excited. We had a dress rehearsal yesterday afternoon where we dressed 40 angels who managed to stay fairly clean in their white costumes, and about 20 shepherds wearing red and blue bandanas as ancient head coverings. It was mad chaos but fun.

We just have some last minute details to take care of before Saturday night but we are excited. In bible class last night Amber taught the kids three reasons that we are doing a Christmas play. They were quick to catch on and can all recite the three reasons.
1. To praise God
2. To share God with the community
3. To have fun

We pray that by doing the Christmas play we reach all of these goals :)

A land of toilet paper flushing toilets.

Things are going well here. William is no longer sick with Dengue Fever! Thanks so much for praying for him, it worked!

Baxter had graduation last Saturday so we got to visit some visiting Americans from both Park Plaza and Memorial Road. We enjoyed getting to visit with everyone and meet with all the preachers from around town. We went to Jovenes one day with the people down here for graduation. It was really good to get to be out there again playing with the smiling kids.

We had area-wide church Sunday morning at Baxter with all the members of the churches of christ in Tegucigalpa and those who were here from the States for graduation. What a neat experience to get to worship with so many people. It was amazing to sing praises in English again. I realized how much I miss that.

With Will better and free from Dengue we made the trek to Costa Rica to renew our visas which expired on Monday. We got up at 4 in the morning on Monday and drove 3 and half hours to San Pedro Sula on the north side of Honduras to catch our plane, it was cheaper to fly from there to Costa Rica than to ride a bus to Belize so we jumped on the tickets. Gotta love the cheap tickets from TACA, aka, take a chance airlines... it was actually one of the nicest planes I have been on.

Costa Rica is one of the most beautiful countries I have ever seen. It is a land covered in mountainous green rainforest with amazing trees and plants I've never seen before. We rented a car and went to the closest beach we could find called Jaco. It was great. We stayed at a hostel 50 yards from the beach. It was so good to have a few days off and be able to relax. Will wore himself out surfing and I got sunburned enough for 10 people but we loved it, and loved Costa Rica. And you can flush the toilet paper... awesome.

We rented a car and got the cheapest one they had which was called mini... Mini almost couldn't make it up and down the mountains the 50 mile trip to the beach but we managed. On one bridge we passed over we had heard that there might be alligators under so we stopped and walked across the bridge looking and were shocked at the amount and size of the animals living under the bridge. It was quite impressive to see in the wild.

The Christmas is coming so soon! We are so excited! We put a base coat of sky and sand colors on the front wall of the church building yesterday. We almost have all the costumes done, now we just need some serious rehearsing. Especially practice with being quiet and still... haha.

Amber's purse was stolen yesterday right out from under us while we were sitting and eating lunch at the mall. We were really worried since her passport was in it that she might have to go back to the states to get a new one, but thankfully she found out today that she can get a new one here in only two weeks. Phew...

Medical Clinics and Thanksgiving

It has been quite a week. A group of medical students and doctors from Viginina Tech's VCOM program came down to do medical clinics in some remote vilages this last week. We went with the groups, me as a translator and Will as the soccer gurue (He played for about 8 hours every day with the kids from the towns). It was really neat to get to know some of the students and really great to be able to be a part of something that helped so many people. Some days it was freezing cold with high force winds and sometimes it was quite warm but whatever the weather we set up a clinic in schools, churches, and open fields and saw many people who otherwise may not get to a doctor anytime soon.

Will with one of the babies that came to the clinic.

Translating on one of the colder days in a tent.

With all the traveling that we did out in the remote areas of Honduras, sometimes 3 hours from Teguc into the mountains Will has come down with Dengue. Dengue is basically a mosquito born flu that is fairly common here, but he may be out of commision for a while since the doctors orders are rest, rest, rest. You may say a prayer for him to get better quickly and not get too frustrated being confined to resting in the house with Ranger. We also are supposed to renew our visas by next Monday at the latest, which requires traveling, so we pray he is well before then, but if not, no worries, we'll just pay a little fine and go when he is well.


Will and I eating coconut for Thanksgiving lunch dessert.

Thanksgiving was pretty eventful here. We were at our last clinic for the week and saw over 200 people, then headed straight for a restaurant here that had made us a thanksgiving meal of the usual turkey, mashed potatoes and green beans. It was great food and it was really good to be with people but we missed family, food (the quantity and homecooked kind), and football.

We are still working hard on getting the Christmas Play ready making constumes, painting, and planning. Graduation at Baxter is this weekend so we will see some people from the states this week too.

Perro

We have a dog!! This is Ranger. He is three months old. A family in Mogote gave him to us and we love him... although we are still trying to get him to go to the bathroom in the grass instead of on the concrete garage... (there isn't much grass in Mogote so he was quite scared of it.)

This is Ranger helping me make angel wings for the Christmas play.

Things of Navidad

I am so excited about the Christmas Pageant in Mogote. Amber has written a script in Spanish, found a Christmas CD to teach the kids some songs to sing in the pageant (Christmas Carrols are not common knowledge down here) and found some costumes buried in the bodega. This week we bought some fabric to make a curtain to go acorss the front of the stage in the church, and also some angel costumes. We started to teach the kids the songs we plan on singing in bible class and showed them a costume. All 56 kids in class were super excited. I am too. It should be really fun. William is working on a manger and making some kind of support for us to hang the curtain on from the rafters. December 20 is the big day. I can´t wait.


Ice skating in Honduras? Yes.

So one night we were at the mall buying groceries at Hiper. We saw a large crowd of people gathered around watching something. We got closer and realized they had build an ice skating rink in the middle of the mall!! Now, you may ask, isn´t it warm there, and the mall is open air right? These were our question exactly but with further investigation (Will touched it) we dicovered that this was not ice that the people were skating on, it was just really slippery plastic they were skating on with ice skates. Sometimes I just smile and say, oh Honduras, I love you.

A Post from Will

It's been a while since the last post, things have been crazy around here. Not a bad crazy, but busy crazy. Last week we had 10 kids living at Amber's house. That seemed like a month; we had a blast with the kids but kinda overwelming at times. This week we had a group here from Illinois/Indiana of 5 people. They work mostly with a church in Izopa. Izopa is a little spread out village located in the beautiful mountains that give Tegucigalpa its namesake "Silver Mountains." I had never been to Izopa before this week. The people are a little more shy than in Mogote where we usually work. Though still as welcoming and seemed happy to help a few gringos. The group consisted of a farmer(Larry), an ex-farmer(Jim), a lady who brought 6 bags of stuff to give away(Nancy), a preacher(Abe), and chef(Robert). Most of what we did there was help shuffle the group from cornfield to cornfield as they did research to try to determine what was the best type of corn to plant. Rachel and Amber did most of the translating, but I got my feet wet a few times. And no fights errupted or noone did anything crazy that I asked them to... so that is a success in my book at this point in my Spanish journey. We saw 14 ft. corn which doesn't really exist in the states. Hopefully some good will come of this week's work there. And more fruits will come of their labor. Also we organized a few soccar games and of course tried to manage the mass chaos. The highlight of the week... one of the highlights was getting to camp saturday night in the open church building. If I haven't metioned it before. I'm not from the city so any chance to get outside of it is awesome for me. Every direction you look mountains, green, and blue skys. We actually saw the stars for the first time since we've been here. It was quiet and just nice. We sat around the camp fire and talked and joked and sang and made smores with our brothers and sisters only seperated by nothing. It was amazing fellowship in probably one of the most beautiful places in the world. I can't say enough about that. We also got to visit a cave that was probably 30 feet long where the preacher mines for slate. What a good week to work with new friends from the U.S. and in Honduras for one purpose. Wish we could post more pictures here, but we will soon. That's all for now.

Cribs Honduras

I tried to upload the video but I guess we made it too long, so we'll have to edit it and try again later. We absolutley love the house. This week we have been busy getting essential things like shower curtains, trash cans and a fridge, and also working on getting our alarm not to go off every 30 minutes or so (the owner forgot the code so we would just turn the breaker off, but then we didn't have electricity...) haha. We had it fixed and got a new code so hopefully our neighbors will forgive the extremely loud wake up calls.

Yesterday we met our neighbor across the street who was having a garage sale (I found a great deal on a toaster oven). She was an American from Arkansas who has been here for nine years and has started a school for the deaf, and has adopted a couple of Honduran kids. She seems like a really neat lady. Small world, cool neighbor.

So this is a fun story. We took Ariel, Darwin, and Fernando to watch the Honduras national team play Jamaica in soccer at a local restaurant. It is quite a lively place to watch a soccer game. When Honduras scores everyone jumps around and sings the same song and cheers, it is really fun, even if you don't like soccer. At the table next to us a girl asked me in perfect English if I played soccer (I was wearing an OC soccer shirt). That is how I met my new friend Ruth. We got to talking and she has played with a college in Boston. After the game was over I asked her if she ever played soccer here in a league or anything (it is not very common to meet a girl who plays competitive soccer here). She said that she did and we exchanged numbers. I didn't think I would ever here from her again, but to my suprise she invited me to come play with her team. So I did yesterday. I was really nervous, I mean I had just met this girl at a restuarnt and I didn't know anything about this team. I had so much fun, we played against some boys in a gym at the Catholic University and I loved it. The girls were really nice. They asked me to come back and play every Saturday. It has been more than a year since I have played, or done much physcial activity, so today I can barely walk I am so sore, but a good sore, a familiar sore. Soccer is something I love and something I can do to meet people and get involved outside of church work. I am pumped.

I wish it would have been ants in my pants...

I am such a girl when it comes to cochroaches. I know this may come as a suprise to some of you who know me well, since all my life I have acted tough, but cucaraches are my enemy. I hate them. They make me scream like a girl. I know they don´t bite or anything but they terrify me. Experts say the best way to get over a fear is face it straight on... so living in Honduras I get to do that quite regularly.

But, I still wish it would have been ants in my pants. I can´t prove it, and I really hope it isn´t true but I´m pretty sure there was one in my pants. I had just laid down on the bed to read and I felt something kind of wet feeling on my calf so I lifted up my jeans to see what it was. I didn´t see anything so I laid back down to read. That´s when I felt the nasty creature crawling on my foot, swatted it off, screamed for my brave husband to come save me, and ran into the living room shaking.

Needless to say it was a little difficult to get back in the bed I had been attacked in but after making Will check it multiple times I was able to go to sleep. Haha!

Other happenings...

Xiomara had her baby boy! He weighed 8 pounds. He doesn´t have a name yet, which is fairly normal in latin american culture not to name a baby sometimes for a month or so. We got to go to the hospital the day he was born, the 15th, and visit her and Henry her husband. Xiomara is a neat lady that goes to church in Mogote who I have known since the first time I came here.

We are signing a contract today to move into our new rent house at 2¨00. I am so excited. Today we are going to go look for the essentials, a bed, a fridge, and a shower curtain.

Life is getting back to routine now. Yesterday we worked in Mogote finishing up the wall, the benches, and just doing little stuff around the church. We watched Honduras play Jamaica from a restaurant here with Darwin, Ariel, and Fernando. It was a really exciting environment to watch soccer in with the entire restaruant cheering and screaming.

We had a major decision to make with Amber and it looks as though we will be staying here in Teguc. However, this decision gave us a jump start to start a big project, the tech school. Also with Amber´s help I´d like to get a church soccer league going soon too.

It was so nice and encouraging to have Jessica and Jon here, family is a great thing that never goes away. It is so fun to show Honduras to people because it really is impossible to put into words. You just have to see it. So come visit.

Things are good in Honduras.

Familia.

It's been way fun having Jessica and Jon here. We have gotten to work in Mogote with them the past few days. Will and Jon have been building some more benches for the church building with lots of kids helping.

Jessica brought her supplies to be able to give manicures to some of the women. She is a mobile manicurist which is impressive. It's really neat to be able to sit houses and chat with the ladies and to see Jessica using her gifts to serve people. The women really loved it. The woman in this picture is 89 years old and have never painted her nails. She was pretty giddy about the whole thing, it was really cute.

Amber, Will and I have some really big decisions coming up about the work we are going to be involved in and possibly starting some big projects so if you could keep that in your prayers we would greatly appreciate it. Please pray for wisdom and guidance from God to go where he wants us and do what he wants us to do.


Mogote kids.

I can´t believe it´s been 4 weeks!

Wow, so since Amber has gotten here we have gotten quite busy. We have been looking for house and a car, which is so much easier with someone who speaks fluent Spanish and knows the area. We have looked at a couple of rent houses, one in the Miraflores colonia was really nice but didn’t have hot water and was a little far. The other house was in the Miramontes colonia but a little out of our price range and wasn’t as nice, so we are still looking.

For now we are staying at Amber’s house. It’s been fun being with everyone all the time, cooking together, and getting to know the boys even better.

Jessica and Jon are coming tomorrow! I am so excited. It will be so fun. I love showing people this place and the people I love. It will be so refreshing too, to be with family again. I am pumped.

Amber!!

Amber is here! And with her Amber brings knowledge, an extensive knowledge of Honduras and how things work. For example Amber knew that last night was half price movie night, $1.25 a ticket, she knew where we could get some awesome Honduran Chinese food, then, the best thing of all, Amber knew where we could find the sweet nectar of life, Dr. Pepper!

It had been three weeks and one day since the sugary mix had touched my lips and it was a beautiful moment in my life to reunite with the beloved.

It really has been great to have Amber back. She is so helpful and encouraging to us. We can´t wait to make some big plans together.

Things I did not expect to find in Honduras:

Things I did not expect to find in Honduras: 80s soft rock from the US is really popular, there is Wal-Mart, and mullets are cool.

One of the things that we have learned in our HIM classes was that we should try to fit in with the culture and “be all things to all men”. So we listen to Michael Jackson, shop at Wal-Mart, and Will let Darwin give him a hair cut…

I can say no more, you only need to see it. In this example a picture is well worth a thousand words :). My husband is a good sport.

Yes, wow.

Where can you wash you car, do laundry, take a bath, and swim?

Where can you wash you car, do laundry, take a bath, and swim? The river in Mateo of course! We found out at Friday night church that we were the surprise “sponsors” of a youth group swimming trip at the river in Mateo. We went up to Mogote and picked up a few of the teenagers. Jairo, the preacher, also took a truckload full of people.

Then we headed out to Mateo, through the countryside, past the military base, past a little league baseball game, past a cattle ranch, past a chicken farm, and down a little dirt road to the river. When we got there there were women washing clothes, a man washing his truck, and kids swimming in the water. We started with jumping into the river off a ledge (don’t worry Will made sure it was deep enough) and then played some chicken fighting, and volleyball. We really had fun and it was a cool way to get to know some more of the teenagers and people in the Mogote church. We would like to see if this might become a weekly event while there is water in the river.

Rabbits, Gecko’s, and Bananas. (A few stories from two Gringos)

Hello from Honduras. This is my first post and I’m a little nervous, but do to intense pressure from my wife and sister and mom I am more nervous about not posting than anything dumb I Might say. It feels like we’ve been here for a long time and some things are starting to seem normal which experts say is good. But there are a few things that are just going to take a little more time. Since we moved into Amber’s house every night every couple of hours I would hear the neighbors working late into the night banging a hammer, after about the 3^rd night I commented to Rachel and said, “those guys are some hard workers, working late into the night till 9 or 10 every night.” She said, “Will… don’t you know what that is, that is a Honduran bird!” So the issue was settled and for the next few evenings we marveled at the interesting, “hammer bird”. As we were about to go to bed two nights ago I noticed something on the kitchen wall moving real fast. Getting focus I was glad it wasn’t a snake, but realized it was a gecko. We decided it was good and ate bugs so we left it alone. The next morning, talking to Darwin, he told us that it was the gecko making the hammer sounding noise. Definitely not a normal thing in Bristow, Oklahoma, but it is slowly becoming more normal to appreciate the service a wild pet gecko can bring.

On the next issue we included a picture. The fruit here is awesome-different colors and shapes. There are some things in the store that we don’t even recognize. But we think the miniature bananas are our new favorite. They taste a lot like a normal one but not quite as strong and are a much better snack size and for some reason are just fun to look at.

Finally, I would like to finish with a story about two young boys about 8 or 9 years old. After working on the church for most of the day we went to the local dirt soccer field behind the church to watch some soccer. As we sat there two boys came up and started talking. They made their way into our laps and were just kind of talking when in mid-sentence the boy in my lap said, hey and made me stop talking. He made me open my mouth and looked at my teeth then talked to his buddy. The boys were clearly examining our teeth pretty intensely. I said, “Yes, I have a bad tooth on the bottom.” But that isn’t what they noticed. The scrutiny of Rachel’s teeth was getting intense by this time. Finally, the boys hollered something I didn’t understand and both fell to the ground laughing. Rachel explained to me that they had said, “THEY LOOK LIKE RABITTS, THEIR TEETH ARE HUGE!” Rachel and I laughed for 5 minutes and still laugh talking about that story. Honduran teeth are a little small than Rachel’s and I’s… as you might have guessed. In all these differences we encounter it is clear to see that God has a great sense of humor and we are continually blessed to be working in Honduras.

Pictionary in Spanish

Thursday September, 18, 2008

We worked on the wall in Mogote again today and after a little rainstorm, and some kids playing and showering in the gutter runoff from the church, it was Darwin’s idea to bring some kids with us. So we brought three kids home to Amber’s house just to hang out till we went back for church. They were some kids from the family that has twelve kids, two bothers, Alan-9, Selvin-8, and William-6 who is their nephew, all put on their shoes and climbed in the back of the truck with us.

We had some macaroni and cheese for lunch, played some games, and watched Bob Esponja (Sponge Bob) on TV. Will showed them his Rosetta Stone Spanish language learning program and they loved figuring out which picture went with the words on the screen. Then we played some Pictionary Junior in Spanish, that was pretty interesting and usually ended in just making up your own picture and letting everyone guess what you were drawing despite what the card said, which was still fun. Then after a little mishap with getting locked out of our room without a key, (Will was able to pick the lock thankfully! ( I knew I married a man with skills, but I didn’t know he had this one up his sleeve!)) we walked to the mall for some ice cream cones and let the kids go crazy in the play place in the food court. It was cool to see them playing and waving to us every 3 or 4 minutes while Will and I sat and watched and waved back smiling.

We headed back up to Mogote for Wednesday night church. The lesson was from a young man in the church that spoke from 1 Peter 4, a chapter on living for God. He talked about people in our lives that we looked up to so much we wanted to imitate, and then how we should be imitators of Jesus so that others are able to see him in us, which sometimes includes being ridiculed or questioned for not joining in with the world’s evil desires. It was a great lesson and always interesting to hear the bible from another culture’s perspective and listening to the things that they have to deal with here as Christians.

Pollolandia

Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Yesterday was independence day in Honduras so we didn’t go to work up in Mogote because we were advised that most of the roads would be closed. Darwin and Ariel were in the parade that went from the mall multiplaza all the way to the stadium that we watched on TV.

Today we went back to work in Mogote to keep working on the wall. There are five boys, along with Darwin, that have been helping us everyday ranging in ages from 7-12 named, Josue, Ariel, Joel, Cristian, and Wilson. Today when we left for lunch we took them with us to Pollolandia (chicken land) at the bottom of the mountain. I used to think that I knew how to clean my plate, but these boys made me feel wasteful, they didn’t leave anything, not ketchup packets (those were dessert), a couple didn’t even leave bones.

These boys at lunch made me want to be more like Paul who “learned to content whatever the circumstances.” I have a lot of room to grow in this area of being content in every situation. I have seen that Hondurans don’t complain about much of anything and I could learn a lot from them.

Kids Day at Mogote Church!

El día de los niños.
We celebrated children’s day at church last night. We go to church at 4:00pm on Sundays which is awesome for me since I am still not a morning person... The church members had planned some fun stuff for the kids at church and kids in the community to do. After the church service with quite a few visitors the festivities began. They separated the kids into groups by age and the first activity was a piñata Honduras style, then into a classroom for some bracelets, stuffed animals, and bible class songs, then some home made donuts and juice. It is hard to explain how crazy it was and how fun it was. All I know to compare it too is VBS on steroids then multiplied by 10. It was awesome and some more people got introduced to the church by it.

God in the little things and We´re not so good at the metric system.

Making a volcanoe of conrete to start on the wall.

The church ladies making donuts in the class room.

Kids Day at Mogote church.


Fixing the tire.

We went to start a construction in Mogote today. We’ll be attempting to finish the classroom walls all the way up to the ceiling so it will be less noisy during bible class. Luckily Darwin didn’t have school today so he could help us round up materials. We went to the ferreteria (hardware store) and on the first load picked up 50 cement blocks and 4 bags of cemento. We drove up the mountain and dropped off our supplies at the church building. We returned to the ferreteria to buy some sand to mix with the cemento to make the mortar.

Oh the metric system… so we ordered a meter of sand, not really knowing what that meant exactly, backed up Shakira (Amber’s Ford Ranger truck) to the sand pile and they started shoveling it in, and shoveling, and shoveling… So a meter of sand was a little more that we had planned, Shakira’s bed was overflowing with wet sand. We headed back up the mountain with Darwin driving and about half way up Shakira didn’t want to keep going. (Let me try to explain the road up to Mogote… It is like rock climbing in a car. I’m still impressed that cars still work after going up this road.) So we rolled back down the bumpy road to get a head start.

At this point I was praying that we would make it to the church. It would have been a mess to try and unload sand in the middle of the road, on a huge hill, with no shovels. We tried again and with horn blowing, and dogs and chickens scurrying out of the way, we made it up the worst part. The water truck was in the road at this point blocking our way so we got out to check on Shakira. One back tire had a huge bubble on it. Another prayer, “God, just let us get to the church.”

We made it around the water truck up another rough patch and made our way back around to the church. Relief! We had made it! We parked, went to get our shovels from inside and we hear a POP! Shhhhhhhh. (that’s the sound of air rushing J) I was so glad that God got us up to the church before that tire blew. I’m starting to see God in the little things. I’m not sure I would have ever asked God to just help get me somewhere in a car before Honduras, but I really think He is there all the time and He wants to be a part of the little things in our lives.
Raquel.

HONDURAS!

We are in Honduras now! I will try to get some pictures up soon. Things are going well, we are getting settled in, finally found where I had packed everything. We are learning our way around the culture for example, where things are in the grocery store, like the juevos (eggs) are on the non-refridgerated aisle 3 with the flour... :)

Church in Mogote (Nueva España) was good last night. Jairo, the preacher, was sick. Darwin (one of Amber´s boys) led singing, then we went with him to the children´s class. It was so cool to see how much he has grown up in the last couple years. The kids in the class really seemed to like him and respect him, it was encouraging for us to see.

My new name here in Honduras is Raquel, I think it is pretty cool anyway, and easier for people to say. We are still working on a name for Will. Maybe we´ll bring back Trey from when he was little. We´ll see what sticks.

We´ll try to keep this updated as much as we find time to be on the internet.

We are excited to be here. Thanks for all your prayers.

One year. Wow.

Going to Honduras in August, thought we'd try this out.