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!