Saturday´s are the busiest days

Cole has become a little spoiled while we nurse him back to health.

The boys helping to make pancakes this morning.

We had a good devotional with the boys, and Santi brought his own Bible.

Cole gets fed one morsel at a time.

And kisses...

Everyone helped wash the car. Well, everyone except me. 

¨Re-ro-ro-nee!

¨Since there´s a group here Beto took Miguel and Jorge with him when he took some sisters from church to town to buy more food for the group. Santi and I stayed home and did laundry, ate pepperoni, and other household chores. 

Haircuts for the boys

When we visited the school today their teacher told us they needed haircuts. Since we have our own set, Beto did the cuts himself.

Jorge

PELONES! or BALDIES!

Miguel hated it. After this Jorge went with Beto as chofeurs for four hours to deliver handmade tamales with some sisters from church. they made at least one hundred of them to raise money for the ¨buying the property¨project. Our church property currently belongs to the mission but we´re in the process of buying it.  a lot of Members at church ordered them last Sunday.  Miguel and Santi had a really good time playing and watching movies together while waiting for them to get back.

Our dog Cole and School visit

Cole escaped and returned the other day with this big gash.  We think it´s from a machete but we have no idea why.  We´ve been putting a lot of hydrogen peroxide on it, and feeding him advil and amoxicilin. And keeping him tied up, which he hates.

Today we visited Fatima, Jorge, and Miguel at school, mainly to drop off Jorge and Miguel´s snacks.  It was so neat to see Fatima in her new uniform. yesterday she got to go for a free eye exam at the Lion´s Club and her eyes are all good...or both good, to be proper.

Enjoying their bread and jam snack. They tried jam for the first time ever at our house just a few months ago and they love it! Something so simple makes them so happy.

Miguel got a little talking to by Beto for misbehaving. When his teacher disciplined him he ran out of class.  They have never experienced proper disciplin at home, if any at all.

Valentine´s dinner

¨Cheese!¨ At one of our favorite restaurants, the only ¨sit'down¨one with a play area.  There were actually a lot of couples and families with kids having a Valentinés dinner last night.  Notice the pretty flower arrangements on each table!

enjoying the three different meats on the hot plate

 a little dark...sorry

santi looooves iced tea!

His new doggie slippers that look just like Cole!

Valentine´s and other loves

Santi took a nap until 6pm last night so here we are all awake at midnight, Santi the only one still going strong!

Santi adores his dada!

Keeping Cole company in his warm bed

Cole trying to be all GQ

Mr. Happy

Jorge, Miguel, and Fatima´s School Supplies!

Praying over women´s ministry coordinators.

Four of the women in the group

Fatima with her new school shoes and backpack. All of their supplies are in their bags with their names on every supply, down to every single colored pencil.  As a former teacher I know how valuable it can be to have the student´s name taped to every little supply, in case it falls on the floor.

Jorge with his new bag and shoes.

Miguel with his new bag and shirt.  He doesn´t need new shoes yet.  We are so excited to finally see them in school.  this has been a vision of ours for a few years.  We ask that you pray with us for this family.  Their mom and sister came with them to church this morning and we pray for consistency in that area.  Praise God!

Friday...a new drum and a party

While we were shopping for school supplies we found this and had been looking for one and couldn´t find one anywhere. Santi is very pleased.

Three of my english students.  The middle one and the girl are new students. All are cousins.  I promised them a party at the end of each month at which we watch a movie IN ENGLISH.  I bring the movie and popcorn, they bring the coke, provide cups,plates,etc. Since Monday is Valentine´s Day, we combined a V'day party with the end of the month party...making up for not having a party in January...Each brought some V'day gifts for each other, including me! I love these kids!

Stefaney...very sweet

The youngest, Sury, trying to suck the wrapping off her lolipop.

¨Miss! Take a picture of me!¨ Johnatan....the funny one of the group.

Cristian, the oldest, wanted me to take a picture of him with all of his ¨loot¨he collected.

Of course, about 2 minutes after we started the movie, the electricity went out in town. Figures! So we played games and sang songs, IN ENGLISH, outside. then I made them clean up their mess.  they didn´t like me so well after that.

School has Begun!

Santi was excited to see Miguel, left, and Jorge.  We were so sad to have missed their very first day of school. We were still in Tegucigalpa.  We went yesterday to get their list of supplies and then went shopping for backpacks, supplies, and uniforms. It was a lot of fun!  We plan on delivering it all later today.

We don´t know where their sister got these uniforms but we are so glad they are starting to take ownership of themselves.  We couldn´t find any shirts in their size in stock so until next week...They are really happy to be studying even though they are both in a first grade classroom at 11 and 13 years of age.  Please pray for them and their sister Fatima that they will persevere and not give up on school.

Money Money Money....

Santi admiring his two lempiras

Dada helps him fold the bills.  When we went to Teguc he was such a trooper during our loooong wait at the embassy that we decided to buy him a toy but we got him a piggy bank instead. It is a lot of fun to save!

Some daily life stuff

Tania and Eric are two dear friends of ours. They are brother and sister. Tania is 20 and I think Eric is around 11.  they watched our house over Christmas break, kept it nice and clean, fed the chickens, ate their eggs, etc.  We have called on them a lot lately, sometimes even if we just go out for an hour or two, and sometimes at the last minute, to house sit since we´re a little more paranoid lately after the breakin.  Many times in the past month they have ended up staying for dinner and then spending the night after watching a movie.

We also recently got a dog. then one day Eric came over with his dog and she didn´t want to leave after meeting our handsome gentleman of a dog, so now we have two.  But our dog, Cole, keeps running away back to the alcohol rehab center where he came from, so now especially whenever Beto leaves to go somewhere in the car, we have to tie him up.

It is such a blessing to have Eric over to help with odd jobs with a cheerful heart, and watch movies with us. Santi especially loves that! Sorry for lack of pictures right now. I´ve been pretty bad about that lately.

To conclude I wanted to add something about the previous post. After pushing Amber´s car till she got it started, I then had to run down hill to catch up with it and jump into the passenger seat as the car was moving! that was a first!

a recap of Teguc ¨vacation¨

I already wrote in detail about the women´s retreat. But I wanted to write more about our time in ¨the big city¨.  going to Tecucigalpa, the Honduran Capitol, is like going to the States. There´s all the restaurants and fast foods one can imagine, malls, cable, movie theaters, etc. plus traffic, smog, noise, angry drivers, etc.


  Whenever we go to Teguc, we stay with my good friend and old roomate, Amber. She lives with one teenager whom whe´s raised, one 2 year old, and an intern, Courtney, who is awesome!  We had a lot of fun watching US stations on cable, using wireless internet...congrats Amber, by the way...getting to know the city by getting lost a million times, but we thank God for our own car!!! and just spending time with Amber and her family.  We got to visit her homeless ministry once and see her in action at home with some kids who are sponsored to go to a private bilingual school that do their homework at her house.

I enjoyed an álmost all girls night out¨ at a real movie theater!!! and an awesome super bowl party, LIVE!  Finally Amber and I got to go out just us two and enjoy some traditional Dunkin coffee and donuts. Well, I did anyways, Amber enjoyed her ¨traditional¨ hashbrowns and iced blended, but, whatever.
Afterwards, Amber´s car wouldn´t start so I helped to push it BY MYSELF while the Hondurans honked at us to get out of the way! Thanks for not helping this gringa to push a massive beast of a 1986? Toyota Land Cruiser. THAT´S WHY MY ARMS HURT! No seriously, I have been sore all day and couldn´t remember what I did to make them hurt! Thank goodness for blogging.


I looked in two different Dunkins for take home one pound coffee bags. Finally, on our way home in another city I bought the last two bags. mmmm...waking up to that, there´s nothing better.

on the other hand, we don´t have any running water right now. ah, Honduras.

Santi of course had a lot to love about our week there.  McDonald´s became a new normal word in his vocabulary, unfortunately, and that kid has such an amazing sense of direction. Don´t ask me where he gets it! We´d pass a Mcdonald´s and he´d call out...¨McDonald´s!...Slide! ...French Fries!...¨ Yes, we ate way more than our share of fast food. I started a new workout regime today that I like to call ¨Losing Christmas...and other holidays¨.  

Monday we got up early and drove the hour to the embassy, which should´ve only taken half an hour, but you know, traffic!  Then we waited in the embassy until past noon. Santi was so good though the whole time we went to the local Ämerican Store¨ called Mas X Menos, or ¨More for Less¨, and we were going to buy him a play drum, which they didn´t sell, so we bought him a piggy bank instead, and he loooooves putting coins in there! ¨more money!¨he came and said to me today. uh oh. Look, Santi, I´m glad you like to save, but MAMA CARRIES NO CASH!.  He loved playing on any and all play areas in the fast food restaurants we went to, riding the escalators, elevators, and coin operated moving toys, like horses and motorcycles. I also got to buy him some new shoes, slippers,and a Winnie the Pooh video.

The embassy visit went well and they will call us back for an interview within two to four weeks. Please keep us in your prayers!

The Women's Retreat`

Well We've been in Tegucigalpa now almost a week and it's been...HOT!  We walk around without sweaters at night and people like one of our waitresses think we're cold, but not compared to La Esperanza!
We've had a great time.  Today we went to the US Embassy to turn in all of Beto's papers for his US Residency.  it took us about an hour to get there this morning instead of 30 minutes because of traffic but we made it on time, found a free place to park! And then waited about an hour. We went to the window and submitted our papers and then went to pay, where we had to wait almost another hour but we saw a gringo friend who was renewing his passport so we passed the time quickly by catching up.  the hours for Citizen services is only about two hours int he morning which is when they decided to schedule a meeting. go figure! So we paid and then waited another hour for the paperwork to come back down from being reviewed in the Consular office. We will get a call within the month to go back and have an interview. First stage done!

this past Friday I Laura had the wonderful opportunity to go to a women's retreat. My ex roomate in Teguc Amber had gone to one in October that was hosted by a women's ministry in Ohio called Women of Purpose. I didn't get to go but Amber just raaaaaaaaaved about it so I had to go this time. The US women didn't come but some missionaries here in Teguc hosted it and it was awesome. The theme was basically "Seasons". Each missionary is either bone dry, on fire, or somewhere in between. We're in the desert or the harvest.  All in all we all have the same struggles and basic experiences. I feel so alone sometimes in the mountains and feel like our struggles are exclusive to our lives, but they're not! It was so good to find unity.  there were about 80 women and many of us were so surprised at how many missionary women there are just in Teguc alone and we all knew of many women who couldn't even come! God is doing amazing works here in Honduras!

We were encouraged by two teaching videos of Angela Thomas mainly teaching about how Jesus is the only One who can fill us, and all we have to do is place ourselves under His stream of living water and we will overflow, but we don't stay filled after one trip to the source! We must keep returning and returning because of the demands of everyday life: family, ministry, etc.  We all have a need to have a "secret life": giving in secret, fasting in secret, and praying/communing with Jesus in secret.  It's such a strong teaching from Jesus in Matthew 6, His sermon on the mount, that we can't ignore it: the spiritual disciplines. but how does a mother/missionary/wife/teacher, etc? have any time daily for a secret life with Jesus? Even if we have to go lay down in our closet for five minutes and the kids still find us, we gotta do it! We are much nicer people that our kids like to be around and even if they do interrupt us they are left with that mental image in their minds of their mother communing with Jesus.

I know I left feeling refreshed, renewed, rejuvenated, etc. and I praise God for the women who planned, and for the Holy Spirit for ministering to us through each other, through prayer, praise,and worship.

the last day of the retreat was spent at worship stations.  One was a circle of pillows for prayer, another was a large bucket of water to "wash" ourselves of all the pressures, stress, expectations,etc. we have as missionaries, and another was a place to write a letter to God and come face to face, literally, with the Truth about who we are in Christ. There were two large mirrors leaning up against the wall next to each other. One was covered with written names of who we are in Jesus: Loved, Daughter, Chosen, Worthy, Graced, etc. and the other mirror was blank, but we filled it with the lies Satan tells about about who we are, and there was a definate theme throughout, showing us that we arent' the only ones struggling with the lies that Satan throws at us.  Finally we finished with the leaders washing all of our feet, as Jesus did for His disciples, as a symbol of how we are loved by God.

What a powerful weekend and I hope that this blog at least gives a good glimpse of what happened. It's impossible to fully show what was experienced and felt and learnt.

Hanging out in Tegucigalpa

Playing with Peanut Butter Playdough made by Amber

Santi's new haircut. Finally!

picture catch up

Santi hangin out at an outdoor "mall".

Amber "dressing a wound" at the homeless ministry.

Santi and Rosy playing in the window sill.

Beto talking to some men who came for dinner.