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!

Family

We are so blessed to have such great families. It was so good to be able to go back to the states and be with our families again. Even though we live in a foreign country and so much has changed in our lives in the last six months family is the one thing that has stayed constant, and it always will be constant. Family never goes away and that is so comforting. We love you guys!





We are back in Honduras and back in the swing of things, riding in the back of the truck, grocery shopping, and playing with crazy Ranger. We have church tonight and I can´t wait to see all the kids and church members again. It is about to get busy getting the foundation ready in the kitchen for the spring break group to put up the walls, but we love it.

Connections.

We have some visitors here from the states so we set out to work since we have some good help. We have still been working on the kitchen and this week we got to pour the first 1/5 of the foundation. We mixed 10 loads of concrete in the mixer and got it done. It is coming right along. We also got a donation from the Life church group that works in the same area that we do for our kitchen. They donated a commercial fridge and sink that they weren't using that were originally at a Denny's somewhere. We are pumped to have such nice things to start out with.

Yesterday we held a clinic in a town about 2 hours away called Campamento. Two doctors doing their residencies at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital have been here and did the clinic at a daycare for the kids there. The kids were really cute. Most of them were from very poor families and the daycare run by a christian organization gives the parents an opportunity to work, and the kids an opportunity to be cared for and have two meals a day. It was a neat program to see. The director, Bob Wilkenson, just happened to have been the first preacher at 29th and Yale in Tulsa and knew our HIM directors from working in Germany with them. Small world. Neat connections.

Last night in bible class we set a "record" with 39 in my class and 40 in Amber's class. Teaching has been going well, and its fun to get cute kisses from the kids after class is over.

It looks like we'll be coming to the States Feb. 10-19ish. We are really excited to see everyone.

I just thought I'd throw a picture of Ranger on here. We like him, he's getting to be big and fun.

Man, a lot has happened since we last blogged. We have been having trouble getting the internet to work so sorry it has been so long. Last week I had the opportunity to help translate at a medical clinic in Guajire. It was a neat experience and we got to meet a lot of people. One lady stands out in my mind, we held the clinic in her house. She was an older lady that has 9 kids, three of which became wheelchair bound about the age of 10. The three kids still live with her and she cares for them all very lovingly. They have trouble speaking and cannot feed themselves. This would be hard to handle in the states, but this lady lives up in a small mountain village, I can only imagine... These beautiful flowers were in her backyard, it seemed to me a stark contrast of beauty against a background of hardship.


Last Monday we went to the only natural lake in Honduras called Yojoa. We wanted to thank/reward some of the boys that had been working really hard helping us pour the footings for the kitchen at the church so we brought Darwin, Ariel, and Benjamin home with us after church on Sunday night. The boys stayed up late playing Nintendo soccer, then we all got up early and loaded up with blankets and pillows in the bed and headed north for the three hour trip to the lake. The day was filled with adventures starting out. We asked some local where we could rent a boat and we ended up at a families house who gave us some oars and pointed down a muddy trail. It ended up being a crazy muddy cow trail that was barely passible and when we arrived there was no way we could all fit in the boat which was trapped in a weedy mess, and no where for anyone to sit. So we decided we would try somewhere else.

We drove back up the road and found a "resort" that would let us use their dock and fish. The boys got adventurous and waded out to flooded dock to do some fishin. No fish were caught at the dock but everyone seemed to have fun. For lunch we went to a local restaurant that overlooked the lake. We told the lady that we wanted to eat there and she guided us to a deep freezer where we picked out the fish we wanted to eat. Then she threw the whole fish into the deep fryer. It was good fish, although I'm not sure I will ever be able to eat a fish like the Honduran boys we were with who ate the whole thing, including the eyes...

At the restaurant we were able to find another boat to rent and the boys set out. The boat road pretty low in the water but it didn't tip and they boys had a blast. No fish caught all day but it didn't matter, we all had fun at the beautiful lake Yojoa.

This week we managed to pour the last of the footings at the church. Will estimates that we poured a yard and half of concrete which comes out to about 2 tons. It was some pretty hard work, but we had good help and got it done.