What a Week.

Last Wednesday night after church we invited some kids to come spend the night at our house. We ended up with 13 kids, it was a blast. We had most the of the family of the 12, and some neighbors. One boy named Carlos Alberto came over for the first time, and I'm glad he did, his father was shot working as a police officer a couple months ago and is now pretty much incapacitated, living as a vegetable in their house, so I'm glad he got to get away from his harsh reality for a night. We took the kids to KFC (they love this statue of colonel Sanders, they all call him Grandpa, Marla is kissing him in this picture), then on to our house and watched a movie. During the middle of the night some boys came in asking for a drink. I went in to give them some water when one of them asked for the drink that was in a bottle... I knew we didn't have anything in a bottle, but he (William) insisted that he and Carlos already had had some... I asked him to show it to me with a sinking gut feeling. He took me into the kitchen and showed me the bottle of cleaner we keep in a water bottle! After a little bit of panic of not knowing what to do, I called Amber who called the hospital and found out we just needed to give them antacid pills, that the brand of cleaner we use is not that corrosive... We have a little ways to go kid-proofing our house, I guess.

The pila, baptistry, is going well. The bricks are about half way up. We have gotten to know Darwin's uncle Hector pretty well, a preacher at another church in Mogote, who has been a great help.

Friday we got a suprise visit from Mark Thurman. The three of us decided to go to a national park fairly close called La Tigra on Saturday. We had a great time hiking to a waterfull 120 high, and being in the peaceful, quiet rain forest away from the hoking horns and constant noise of the city. The road up there is really neat, with fields of calalilies, strawberries and blackberries, people selling fruit on the streets, and kids selling boquets of flowers for 50 cents. We really enjoyed ourselves.

While we were at La Tigra we heard that the boys had been in a car accident but didn't realize how serious it could have been. Blessedly everyone is OK. But after the park we headed to the hospital to pick up those who had come to town in an ambulance while Amber brought back the rest of the crew who had been in the car. We are so happy everyone is OK, just a few bumps and bruises, it really is a miracle after seeing pictures of the truck. Poor Shakira the truck who rolled 5 times, RIP.

Wheels!

It is official. We officially have wheels. We love the truck and it is so nice to be independent. It is a '92 Toyota pick-up, 4 door, 4x4, diesel (which doesn't exist in the states). We are so blessed to be able to use this truck!

Since we now have an extra vehicle we decided to put the extra room to use. After church Sunday night we invited the teenagers to come home with us so that we could take them to a water park the next day. We had so much fun. We loaded up our two trucks with 12 of us in all, ate at Pizza Hut, hung out at our house, then the boys stayed with us and girls stayed with Amber. We headed out the next morning and made it to the water park, Aquasplash. It was a great park with slides, a wave pool, and everything. We had fun with all the teens and got to know them a little better. After the water park we took them with us to feed people down by the stadium Monday night and finally took them all back to Mogote. It was a great day.

This week is Semana Santa, Holy Week. The whole country takes a break this week. Even the Honduran Wal-Mart shuts down. Families go on vacation and visit relatives. It is similar to our Christmas Holiday. The only drawback for us during this Holy Week is that there are police stops on many roads throughout the city. They are similar to what we might have during the 4th of July. It is usually no big deal and not uncommon to get stopped by the police here for random checks, but this week you can barely drive 2 miles between stops. Most of the time police are very difficult and encourage "greasing" the wheels of justice. And often it is the only way to start the proccess of sanity and justice moving foward again. I am still learning that sometimes things are just done differently and there are different expectataions in foreign places. But such is life to people living in Honduras. You do what you have to do to survive.

On Tuesday we poured the foundation and laid one layer of bricks of the baptistry with the help of Darwin and Ariel's uncle Hector. We hit a small roadblock today because the water trucks that usually fill our barrel of water to make concrete were on their semana santa break, but we hope to finish soon and put it to use.

Last night we had another book club meeting with other local missionaries here. It was so good to be able to fellowship and laugh with each other. We realized that we all live within walking distance of each others houses, and all have a connection to Oklahoma! Small world.