Beto's sermon and Happy new Year!

Because our pastor was visiting family for the holidays, Beto was asked to preach. He preached a wonderful sermon(if I do say so myself) on King David from Samuel and the Psalms. It was a good teaching sermon that God used to touch lives. Praise Him!

As I'm writing this on New Year's Eve, we are about to go to our church's celebration, held in the Alcohol Rehab Center. We are expecting lot's of snacks (a pregnant woman's DREAM!) AND a time of committments to the Lord for the New Year and time for testimonies. I'll let youknow how it goes. I'm really looking forward to it.
As I write I can hear lot's of firecrackers going off outside, which happens a lot anyways, but more than usual today. The tradition here is to make a big scarecrow and then burn it at midnight, symbolizing the "old father time" passing. If i can get a picture, i will post it!

This past week was especially difficult for us. On Monday I felt really attacked, from the mometn I woke up I felt depressed, which is highly unusual for me, and to top it off it was our anniversary! I mean, I wasn't depressed because of that but what a day to be attacked by the Enemy! All day I was down and stressed becuase of our business not going as well lately. Sometimes we make $5 and with that we have to pay our help, buy more ingredients to make more product,and buy food, which is becmonig more of a commodity lately. I mean we eat but not carelessly like we used to be able to. Later that night we watched our wedding video (thanks Joey Heida!) and that lifted my spirits a lot. It was so great to see many of you and hear your well wishes for us.
The rest of the week went better. One friend from church (the one who's family I went Christmas shopping with in Teguc.) offered us a space in front of his business (which is right in the center of town) and we will start selling there too this Friday. When we have hard times and think God isn't helping, He really is with us and always comes through. Hard times are part of life but they are not the whole.
Praise God for His Son Jesus and we pray you all have a wonderful New Year!
Blessings and lOve
from laura nd beto

Christmas and the business

there's beto with his new manly power tools (grunt grunt) he got for Christmas. he's building himself a work table. there I am, only 2.5 more months to go! And with the special box sent from my parents, most of which (chocolate) is all gone already! And we just got it two days ago!

Also are pictures of our business...we called it "Romaine's Bakery" and Beto finished (nearly) the "galera" wehre people sit and enjoy their food and coffee. And our poor dogs who have to be fenced in all day. For a week we are also watching our pastor's dog named Spike who is already fighting like a brother, especially with rebellious Fabio. Poor Mateo doesn't know what to do with the two immature ones!

Praise God for helping the business to grow.
Happy New Year!

merry Christmas!

hey everyone! Merry Christmas to you all!Here in Honduras they celebrate today, the 24th but Beto and I are also celebrating tomorrow so we kind of get 2! Tonight in church there will be a tamale (what else?) dinner and tomorrow i'm surprising beto with dunkin donuts for breakfast, but i'm picking them up now at the internet cafe.we don't have an actual dunkin donuts but the internet people bring them from teguc. Very exciiting!

Our business is still goin although we'd appreciate your prayers for more customers! Beto nearly finished the kiosk and it looks great, with table and chairs. we hope business picks up in Jan. and Feb. People here don't eat sweeets for Christmas, only tamales, so they were spending their money on that.

Our former employee Lilian,well, is former now. She failed to show up so we hired another who is only 12 but very good! and she stays all day. we have had some mishaps with her, like making TAnG with tap water, and me drinking it becuase i didn't find out till the next day! but i'm stillalive and didn't have any stomach problems. guess i'm more used to dangerous food and water now.

the little girl I tutor in english is a riot! she is very funny and repeats nearly evertything i say which is why she learns so fast. she's very intelligent. she reminds me of Laura heida, in all the good ways. chipper, funny, latina, pretty, intellligent, hyper,,,i know those two would get along very well.

well, this is a random blog and not much to say except Merry Christmas and hope yours is very nice.
Much love
p.s. we don't know if our baby is a boy or not, that was just a generic "he" like used in the Bible, people. calm down. but we'll let you know as soon as we know!

Teguc shopping

Well I got to go toTeguc again thispast weekend and it was wonderful. Hot, but that´s good. It was nice to be on only paved roads again. The trip there was looooong becuase they are working on the road all the way there, and of course evryone in Honduras wanted to be on it at the same time. I went with a family from church. Beto had already been asked to lead praise team on Sunday by the guy who´s family I went with, so he couldn´t go, but it was better becuase I was shopping for him. Amber so graciously took me around and of course after going to like 6 stores looking for his tool we ended up back wehre we started, just as the stores were starting to get packed. I thoroughly enjoyed a very large roast beef sandwich from Quiznos, which was the highlight of my time there(sorry Amber.) We had a run in with a very , literally crazy old man who thought parking his car in the middle of the driveway of the Sears parking lot was oK, since he drives a mercedes. Amber was trying to get out and he comes out of the bank and starts yelling at her that he´s going to hit her car. Oh, and even though Amber speaks perfect spanish, he insulted her by yelling at her only in English, like she didn´t know anything. Well we weren´t going to his his car but if that´s his fear he should´nt have parked it in the middle of the way of everything! So he moves his car but parks parrrallel taking up 3 spaces and as amber is bakcing out he´s honking at her incessantely. we both rolled up our windows to avoid any more shouting matches. aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh.....i think he may have worked for Hitler at one time.
We got all the shopping done and we were both pooped! But it was a lot of fun to buy American candy and see the malls decorated so prettily.

Merry Christmaseveryone!

It´s the most wonderful time of the year!

The dogs we let inside some at night, not to sleep all night, but when we watch a movie they fallasleep on the floor. We have to keep them locked up now all day in a small space since we leave the gate open for the business and don´t want them to go out into the street with the other gross street dogs. So we feel guilty and try to pamper them at night.

Last Friday was Lucia´s birthday. She works at the business inthe mornings and said no one in her family had ever done anything for her bday becuase her older sister is the favorite. I made her a cake and we surprised her,but after using nearly awhole box of matches trying to light the candle outside, we finally tookit inside.

Yesterday, Sunday, our Georgia missionary friend Rhonda invited us over for Christmas dinner, we even had ham and turkey! I think the baby nearly felt suffocated from all the food I ate. He hasn´t moved as much since lunch yesterday becuase there´s not alot of room for him now! She has a really beautiful house close toours and we had a fun, full afternoon. Pray for her husband, Tomas, who is getting treatment in theStates until March, perhaps. That he can come back here soon!

P.S. Notice my shirt, Beverly?

Educatodos Graduation

Yes! Finally, he is done! He is so relieved and so am I. It was a lot of work this year but here is his graduating class. We are both glad he will have more time to work at home on the business, and relax.

The business and Beto´s bday...33!

I am so happy that Beto has more time now to work at home! He has bought tons of wood and cement and has started building the little galera to put tables and chairs, make a menu, and make the business a little more formal. In the future we are thinking of putting smoothies and other snack foods, like Baleadas, a sort of quesadilla with refried beans, white cheese and sour cream. Anywho,

we also celebrated his birthday the 7th! It was a lot of fun and we put him on the ¨Hot Seat¨and all his friends told him what they appreciated about him. It was really special. He only put 7 candles on his cake becuase it represents perfection. It was symbolic.
oh and the last picture, there are the boys anxiously awaiting to see what present he will open next!

our onions

Thanks mom for the seeds! These are what Beto planted and we enjoyed inour omelet this morning! the best.

Thanksgiving, Honduran style

We invited all our gringo friends, and some latinos becuase we like them too, for Thanksgiving at our house Sat. the 29th. We had chicken instead of turkey, but we all closed our eyes and pretended and it tasted just the same. Besides, you know what they say about other meats...."tastes like chicken". The same is true for turkey! Everyone pitched in and we even had stuffing and apple pie! There's Brian doing the honors and then there's me,cutting the pie. Doesn't look like I need to be eating any more pie!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Graduations

The picture of Beto with the boy in the red shirt is at the first graduation. The school year here is from February to November. We were asked to attend this graduation by Bob and Kathy who left for the states at the last minute to visit their brand new first grandbaby! They left their gifts for us to take and represent them. The other pictures are for a second graduation where we were asked to be "Padrinos", kind of like sponsors, for a girl at our church, Fernanda, who graduated from Sixth Grade. (Amy, this is Freddy's family). Unfortunately Laura came down with a bad case of conjunctivitis the night before and couldn't go. I had been looking forward to it for so long, but there was no way I could attend. Beto did a great job of representing.

The doggies, again

Fabio loves watching movies with daddy. the boys, chillin...

5 mo.

well, there i am in all my 5 months of pregnant glory. we still don´t know the sex of the baby. it is moving a lot and that feels so cool, well, like gas, but better!

the business

I don´t remember if I´ve written much about this but our business is going well. we started it out of pure necesity to pay the rent and God really blessed us with many clients. we decided to keep it going becuase we have alot of requests. I sell different muffins and cookies which can not be found in any other bakery, more or less so that is an advantage for us, like chocolate muffins, carrot muffins and chocolate chip cookies, although the way people like them here i would never make that way for me, but i gotta give the people what they want!

One sister Raquel from church loaned us her canopy for the two weeks it was sunny and then last sunday when we got home from church we found it broken on the ground from the wind. Beto is has hired some young boys from church that pass our house on the way home from school. they work occasionally. beto is making a little kiosk like structure to put the business more inside the yard, it´ll be more formal. we are hoping to expand to sell more snack foods, Honduran style, and hopefully hire another helper to be there to sell when i cannot.

Notice our puppy, the poor spoiled thing hardly has any hair so there he is inside next to the space heater and his food dish. What a life!

Fabio y su cafe

Just so you know, we do say it ¨Faaaaabio¨like the old famous model. That´s the Romance´-Language way!

He loves his coffee (my coffee) with milk and a tad of sugar. I was sitting on the couch and got up to check on dinner when Beto heard the ¨slurp slurp slurp¨ and went to see what it was. We actually refilled the cup so we could take the picture! We are teaching him such bad habits.

Bob and Kathy

I´ve known I´ve mentioned them but they have blessed us so much and I was going to write so much about them, I will dedicate this to them. They have been here in HOnduras for about 18 years and are really amazing people. To help us in our new pizza-baked goods business, Kathy took me shopping and told me to load up the cart with whatever we needed! It has really helped a lot! We have sugar for the next two months, I´m sure!
Last WEdnesday they invited about 10 couples over to their house with their kids for a social night of fun and eating. We played the ice breaker where everybody has the name of someone famous, real, fiction, dead or alive, ontheir back and they have to ask ÿes¨or ¨no¨questions to figure out who ¨they are¨.
After wards we took äll men¨and äll women¨pictures. We even compared bellies, even though I was the only pregnant woman there!
Please be in prayer for Bob and Kathy if you will. I know they will greatly appreciate it!

Women´s Ministry

Every Wednesday we have prayer and last Wed. was my turn! It was a great turnout and just right. One more person and they would have had to sit on the floor. It was a great time of sharing and praying and afterward of fellowshiping together. I thank God for these great women of faith and please pray with us that the ministry continues to grow and mature.

GOD IS GOOD!

First of all, Mateo and Fabio are Spanish names too. Italian is a close cousin.

The Lord is GOOD! We saw so clearly Him working in our lives yesterday. We were both exhausted. We got back from our trip Friday and all day Saturday were working at home doing chores and grocery shopping. So Sunday we were very tired but had invited Lilian, Miguel{s older sister, over for lunch. She had wanted to talk to us and we had not seen her in so long. She is 20 and has two girls, 5 and 3. She took them along with her sister Milagros, 10, to live with her in another house, because she has a job! Praise God. Miguel went to live with his younger sister Rosario at their aunts house. The mother is still drinking a lot and is mentally ill, being very violent and threatening her childrens lives at times. Only her boyfriend and two sons live with her. One son is also drinking a lot at only 14 years old, and the other Jorge works on a delivery truck, which teaches him many inappropriate adult things at such a young age of 11. The mother did not want to lose her children but she did not want to give up drinking either.

Lilian works in the mornings while Milagros, 10, takes care of the two youngest toddlers.

This is getting longer than expected but all important info. We are now working with others in the church on getting all of the kids into school when the year starts in February. Please pray with us about that.

After they left and we gave them a lot of our food, we took a nap. I got up to bake about 80 baked goods to sell the next day and was doing that when two friends from church came over unexpectedly. Our [sound man[ and his girlfriend. He had jsut taken care of our house and dogs for one week while we were traveling. I was not too excited at the surprise becuase I was so busy, but then Kayla offered to help me and I took her up on her offer! She saved me about 2 hours of time by peeling and cutting about 20 carrots and helping with the bread. They invited us for Chinese food too which was good becuase I do not know when I would have cooked, or what!

So we saw how after blessing others, God really blessed us. Our friends surely came as angels, I am convinced. It is so encouraging how God always takes care of us.

Today the baked good sales went really well. That is a good source of income and ministry and we would appreciate your prayers for that as well.

our doggies

Mateo is a good big brother. They like to play and he keeps little Fabio warm at night.