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.