Celebrate with a Laugh

Today was Eulogio's last day teaching English class at INTEAH high school (though he is still committed for a couple more weeks to give recuperation to those students that failed... a mandatory part of the Honduran educational system) 

Being a teacher can be a difficult and thankless job. It certainly isn't for everyone. While my husband is a very talented and a good teacher, he never really liked it. In fact his favorite part of teaching was "making kids cry" (for example giving failing grades where they are deserved). So if you know him pretty well that comment makes a lot of sense. If you don't know us that well... don't worry he isn't intentionally mean to children and most kids actually like him. But I bring this all up because I stumbled upon a very funny video about kids crying and I thought I'd share it with you in celebration of Eulogio's last day of teaching. 

What Bees and Beavers Do

Well ... bees and beavers are probably as busy as we are, but if you are reading this blog I would assume you aren't really interested in discovering what they are busy doing or else you would be reading Wikipedia or some other website. Unfortunately, you must also realize that we don't blog that often and therefore you cannot discover how very much like bees and beavers the Crespins actually have been. So to ease my guilt (and because I like making lists) I am going to actually post a new blog to summarize what we've been so busy about...

• Teaching (English, Sunday School, Youth Group)
• Grading papers
• Yelling at students
• Creating Children's Ministry Curriculum
• Cutting out a lot of felt (600+ pieces)!
• Celebrating Independence day
• Marching in a Parade
• Babysitting
• Youth group field trips
• Writing several rough draft blogs/newsletters
• Staring at rough drafts and forgetting what to say
• Renewing our Visas in Guatemala
• Romping around an old Castle 
• Not eating a Gibnut
• Fixing our car
• Taking care of a sick dog with worms :(
• Counseling couples
• Music Lessons
• Studying the Bible
• Studying Spanish
• Translating stuff
• Dealing with computer problems
• etc... (because every good list should end in etc.)

A sample of the felt characters that Leah has been cutting out since July

Angel David holding the Honduran flag for one of the many parades on Independence Day

Eulogio and his fellow teachers walking in their school's parade

Eulogio's method of babysitting and still getting work done!

Gibnuts that we saw in Guatemala but were not allowed to eat

Bot Fly larva that was living in our dogs skin! She had over a dozen :(

Alabanzas del Rey

Recently Eulogio has been charged with putting a worship band together for the church. There are several people interested in being a part of this ministry and Eulogio spent about a month teaching the group about the purpose of worship in the church. Now our days are filling up with drum practices, guitar lessons and singing lessons. We are looking forward to the day when everyone is ready to start playing and practicing as a group instead of individual lessons, but even more so, we look forward to when the group can begin leading worship at the church.  

It is a joy to be able to worship our King with our brothers and sisters as one body, but due to the bilingual aspect of our church many people were not familiar with the songs. After several months our church now has bilingual hymn books. It was awesome to be able to hear our little congregation singing praises God.

(Special thanks goes to Maria Lucero, Nikki Chavez, and Kathryn Cowan for helping Leah finish this project)

Sing to the LORD, for he has done wonderful things. Make known his praise around the world.

Isaiah 12:5

Happy Day of the Child

This past weekend was a Honduran holiday called "Dia del Niño", which is a lot like Mother's day or Father's day. Schools usually have parties or some other special way of celebrating and families usually try to celebrate at home. For the past 3 years the kids at church would ask us if we were going to do something special for this day, but being unfamiliar with Honduran holidays we would never know about it until it was too late. Well this year was an exception. 

Rather than having a normal service where the children are separated in Sunday school, we had everyone together as one big family. The adults had to be a bit silly with children's songs that had us jumping up and down. We shared a Bible story using the feltboard, ate lunch and had a piñata. 

As we were planning we got really excited about being able to share God's message about how He values and cares for even these little children. Our hope was that the children understood that God loves them and died to save them, and also that the adults would understand the importance of being Godly examples and maybe even be motivated to help in children's ministry. 

Nacho Night Videos

Apparently I did not upload the videos correctly on the previous post. So here they are again:

"A very unpolite way to eat"- Natalie

It is hard to see, but all the "fish" are covered in sugar! It was super funny

Nacho Night

Tonight was our first Youth group meeting in the church building! We have been praying for God to provide extra transportation so that we can use the building more (and not continually have everyone in our house). God has been so faithful to provide for us! We also just finished over a year and a half study through the book of John, so we took a break to celebrate and have some fun. Pastor Chris volunteered to provide nachos and we met for worship, food and games! We even had several first time visitors!

"Spoons" - always a crowd pleaser!

We provided donuts for dessert, but made them work for it! Here are some photos and video of our "Fisher's of Men". Apparently donuts are great bait for people fishing and it was hilarious watching the sugary mess they made!

A Contrast between Old and New

This past weekend has been eventful for us, as we were part of a celebration of new life and a struggle near death.

Quite the contrast, eh?

Well let's start with our praise report. Sunday afternoon our church body headed to the river for baptisms! We had 10 people including a few kids getting dunked by Pastor Chris, Eulogio and Oscar. Then of course we celebrated with a barbecue, more swimming and volleyball.

Here are a few pictures from the baptism

Yet while we were celebrating the burial of our old sinful lives and the new life that Christ freely gives us... there was, and is someone struggling in their old life.

Again, we are asking for prayer for Denis. The last time we asked special prayer for him was when we discovered he had run away from the orphanage where we had taken him (his 3rd orphanage) and we didn't know where he was.

He has since moved back to El Dorado (the mountain village where he is from) and was living as he pleased, occasionally finding work picking coffee. This weekend we discovered that he was sleeping on the streets in Peña when someone cut his neck open with a beer bottle. By God's grace Denis is still alive and he did not bleed to death. Eulogio and another Pastor worked with him to get medical attention (he was fighting the doctors), and all weekend many different believers in the area have been trying to help him physically and spiritually. None of his family will take him in because he has stolen from them. Even the police had a warning to find him before someone else did.

Yet, however obvious it is to us that Denis may be on a short road to hell... he still has not responded to the gospel. Please pray that his heart is still reachable, for the weakening of any strongholds in his life and that the Holy Spirit would open his eyes to the Truth

(Denis had fallen asleep on the floor from exhaustion, but you can see the large bandage covering his neck)