I love renewing our visas.

It has been a long time since we blogged... things have gotten a little busy, but things are really good. My cousin JC and his friends have been here, along with Dudley who brought Bart and Melissa Dodson whom we are happy to now call our friends. Groups have started coming and are doing some neat things.

We just got back this morning from a visa renewal to Costa Rica. Just Will and I went this time since Amber is going back to the states next month. We had so much fun and it was perfect timing to go and be able to relax. We went to Jaco beach. While we were there, Will surfed until the jumping sting rays out of the waves made him a little timid, fished, I read, swam and just enjoyed the beauty. It was a great time.

Seriously beautiful.

Will fishin.

We are back in Teguc, refreshed and ready to hit it hard for another 3 months.

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.

Flashlight Baptisms

After Sunday night church in Mogote 6 people decided to be baptized. It was already dark and it is illegal to be in the river after dark (I´m not sure why... but that is the word) so we made plans to go to the Mateo church and use their pila (a tank of water) to baptize them. We loaded up 32 people in 2 trucks and headed down the Mogote mountain towards the country of Mateo. It was a beautiful night and we arrived at the Mateo church but there was no lights. So with cell phones and one flashlight the 6 new christians were added to the family.

I am often amazed at the dedication of the people here. They could have waited, not crammed into a truck with 12 people in the bed, they didn´t have extra clothes, but they had made a decision and they were going to go through with it.

Busy Spring Break

Things have finally settled down after our Memorial Road Spring Break group has left. It was so busy, but it was so fun. We feel like our family has grown and we now count families from Mem Road as part of our extended family.

The group accomplished some really neat things while they were here. We had two carnivals, one in Mogote, and one in Izopo. In Mogote we have talking about the "Carnival of Prizes" for months now, getting the kids excited about it, and about coming to bible class. They had to come to bible class 5 times in the last 3 months to be able to attend. It was a huge success and so intricately planned with a cake walk, digging for burried treasure, throwing games, and a bounce house. It was so much fun for the kids to have something so special just for them. We all had a blast.

The group also built 10 houses, poured 32 bags of concrete in Mogote, built a pipe system in the creek at Baxter, held 2 carnivals, 2 medical clinics, and did more than I'm sure I even know about. It was such a neat group, we love them.

In Mogote the next project is a baptistry. The church is in great need of a baptistry. Right now if someone decides to get baptized they have to go down to the river rich is about a 20 minute car ride, they can't go at night, and only as many people as can fit in the truck can go to witness it. The neatest thing about this new project though is that each church member is contributing by bringing bricks to church each service. They bring as many as they can afford, usually just 2-3 bricks, but it is so neat to me that they are taking a stake in building it. It is also a sacrifice for most of them to buy bricks. I am learning more and more from the people in Mogote, they are such a blessing to me and I am honored to get to work with them.

Things are going well. We are still looking for a truck and hope we may be close to finding a good one. The people at the stadium continue to open up to us. Last night we all received bracelets from Hector which he would normally try to sell to make a little bit of money. Excercise class with the ladies at church is going really well, we now have an aerobic video in Spanish, which has made it much easier for everyone to follow, and we also have a few more pairs of tennis shoes from the group for the ladies to wear.

Special Delivery

After being here for almost 7 months we sometimes feel like we are fully adjusted to the new culture we live in and nothing really can suprise us or seems strange or different anymore, especially when there are groups here or people visiting. We are sorta like Honduras tour guides to visitors and mission brigades at times explaining the why´s and how´s of this part of the world that we have grown to love. But there are times when we are suprised and get a laugh at our ignorance of some ¨normalcies.¨

We had seen this type of delivery before and got a huge laugh. We were very dissappointed to not get a picture thinking that our chance was gone forever. Not true. While riding in the back of the truck the other day we saw another one. The guy laughed as we took his picture. I am continually amazed at the inginuety in the lack of resources. There is no way I could make this happend with 1 rope. Not to mention the balance it takes to keep this thing stable at 60 MPH while turning or going slow in the usual traffic jams here. In case you can´t see the picture because of the glare, this is a clothes washing machine.

Work in Mogote

We are back in the full swing of things trying to get everything ready for the spring break group next Friday. We are pouring the rest of the concrete slab in this next week. We have had some awesome help from some of the boys in Mogote. They range in age from 10-13 and have been a great help to us. They love working, if we are up there and they know we are going to pour concrete that day they stick around and do whatever they can to pitch in. Some of these kids come from really broken homes, but as tough as they are they still love to give and get hugs.

Pouring concrete is quite the process. We order sand, rock, rebarb, and bags of cement in the morning. They deliver it outside the door to the church. After getting the rebarb in the holes we crank up the mahcine, then start the mixing. One bucket of water, 2 of rock, 2 of sand, add the 92 lb. bag of concrete, 2 more rocks, 1.5 more sand. Then Darwin and Ariel have worked out a system to push-pull the wheelbarrow full of concrete up the 5 steps and around the side of the church and dump it wherever Will tells them, then Will smoothes it and makes it nice.

It is hard work but we really enjoy getting to do it together with people from Mogote and are excited about the kitchen!