Eulogio and Leah in Peña Blanca

Celebrate with a Laugh

2011-11-04T15:29:00.000-06:00

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

2011-10-18T21:51:00.000-06:00

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

2011-09-27T19:01:00.000-06:00

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

2011-09-13T19:20:00.000-06:00

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

2011-08-17T13:40:00.002-06:00

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

2011-08-12T23:35:00.002-06:00

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

2011-05-24T22:24:00.006-06:00

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)

Hiking on 'the' Mountain

2011-04-06T13:12:00.011-06:00

So every Saturday our landlady goes hiking on a nearby mountain, and she always invites us to go, so on the occasions that some of us have time we go with her. A couple of weeks ago four of us went with her. We headed to "La Montaña de las Nalgas", which in English is "Butt Mountain", and from this picture you can see why it is named as such.

It is a pretty steep climb that cuts through a mix of coffee plantation and tropical forest. At one point we stopped for a bit of a breather, and Douglas decided it was a good time to make a survival video so we shot it. O here it is our survival video in which you will hear Shane practice his radio voice, I'll misspeak in Spanish, and Douglas eats some dirt. As you will see and for those of you who speak Spanish you will hear that Douglas is quite the joker. For those of you that haven't learned Spanish yet, I will see if I can make a subtitled version of the videos later.

We also happened upon some cocoa in its preprocessed fruit stage, which Douglas jokingly told us came from Cuba.

Cocoa is glorious, and should be tasted because it has a very distinct flavor nothing like chocolate, yet altogether still amazing.

As you can see the jungle can be pretty dense in some places.

This is where it pays of to have some native blood, and not be so tall, constantly getting smacked in the face by branches. After we came down the other side of the mountain we hopped on some boats which brought us back to Los Naranjos ( just up the road from Peña Blanca) The boats were typical and needed to be bailed out every 2 minutes or so, but it was a sweet ride back. Though it may have been a little more difficult for our two rowers who must have collectively only weighed about a hundred pounds.

Here are a couple videos of our boat trek. They are pretty self explanatory, we are in boats, we see an eagle, it was glorious.

New layout

2011-04-04T21:51:00.004-06:00

In response to a couple of printing problems we have recently been informed of, we have changed the layout. Hopefully this will make it easier to print. If anyone continues to have problems with tiny print or anything else, please let us know. Thanks!

When life gives you lemons...make hamburgers

2011-03-29T21:13:00.008-06:00

For the past few months we have held youth group in our house because it is a central location in town and made transportation easier for almost everyone. People could walk or find a bus to our house and we were able to bring them home afterward, when taxis and buses stopped running (which is only 6pm!).

However, recently life has given the Crespin house some lemons to deal with. One of which is our vehicle. The alternator has died beyond repair and we are in the market to replace it. This can be a big problem as the Honduran "Man" is extorting the market and charging a small fortune. Yet the more immediate problem is the lack of transportation in the evening for youth group. So rather than canceling... we made hamburgers and had a bit of a sleepover!

Keeping in touch

2011-03-25T10:58:00.004-06:00

In an effort to keep in touch with friends and family we have set up state-side phone numbers through our email. These will act like land lines (so no text messaging), but can be called from anywhere within the U.S. without incurring international rates or without having to be on a computer. So feel free to give us a call at either of these phone numbers:

(505) 933-5431

(864) 416-1750

And we can still be contacted by any of the other methods listed on the side.

**Correction: we've just received a text message... so it is possible and very cool**

To think about Love on Valentines Day

2011-02-17T14:47:00.007-06:00

This past Sunday was the day before Valentines day. So with thoughts of "love" and pink candy hearts... I taught the kids about adultery! I have been teaching the kids about the 10 commandments with each week focusing on only one commandment. So I thought it was a little ironic that "Do not commit adultery" was the one I'd have to teach right before Valentines. Yet it is something so common in Honduras that is it almost acceptable. Therefore, I couldn't simply skip it because it wasn't "age appropriate". And as I explained to the kids what adultery means, several of them already knew (and I had been worried about how to explain it appropriately for their young little minds!) We also discussed what the Bible says about marriage in Mark 10, "and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one". Being unfaithful isn't just sinful, but it is like ripping apart 2 sheets of paper that have been glued together... no one comes apart as whole and unscathed. Adultery is hurtful, but God gave us his commandments to follow to protect us from that hurt because He loves us. That is the kind of love I wanted the kids to think about on Valentines day.

"(Love) always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 1 Corinthians 13:7

(Everybody hanging out after church)

(Jorge playing with his "wind chime" craft)

mmm... Happy eating!

2011-01-17T14:04:00.001-06:00

One of the things I have missed from home is delicious baked goods. Honduras doesn't seem to know anything beyond "Tres Leches cake", which neither of us are big fans of. However, a friend in China solved the problem... bake it yourself! So he graciously passed on a recipe he uses and I have been baking yummy pastries ever since. In fact, a few of the young guys we minister to requested that I bake pastries for their birthdays instead of cake!

(coffee cake with peach halves and caramelized peach glaze)

mmm... Happy eating indeed!

Sunter!

2010-10-08T11:26:00.002-06:00

Yes indeed it is that time of year again, Sunter is here! For those of you living north, or south for that matter, of the tropics, this is what happens when winter comes along. Everything is lush and green, the parrots scream to their delight in the palm trees, the evenings bring with them thick jungle fog and tropical downpours.....and then you realize that you are freezing in your shorts and flip-flops, so you put on pants a jacket and a beanie. Your brain tries to reconcile the fact that you are looking at a tropical landscape and yet your body feels like it is in Connecticut in the fall (with the leaves changing of course, everything is still green!). Eventually you abandon trying to reconcile the two and give in to the damp, cold, yet still very green clutches of Sunter (or Wimmer as some have called it). And if you happen to be in our area of Honduras when Sunter makes its sly and subtle entrance you will quickly be made aware of its arrival by all of the parkas and woolen caps all of the Hondurans are sporting.

So all of that to say that we have had to use a blanket on the bed the last couple of days and I busted out the long sleeves and sweat pants this morning. It was a bit nippy. I think we got down into the 70's! Snap that's slightly cool, if not barely noticeably cold!

Lending a hand

2010-09-14T00:36:00.001-06:00

Our lack of recent blogs has been due to a combination of being not-so-busy and being very busy. While we were not as busy, our main computer crashed. (It contained all of our photos, videos, study guides and many other documents which we've needed) After a few weeks and help from our very computer savvy friend in the States, we are now up and running.

However this present moment finds us particularly busy. Along with our usual responsibilities, we have been lending a hand to friends at a local ministry called Salt and Light. Eulogio did the

voice-over for a video document of their annual report, which needs to be in English as well as Spanish. We have also been busy translating approximately 200 letters from children being sponsored by Americans through Salt and Light's Educational Support Program. Needless to say, we are tired and looking forward to meeting our deadlines.

We hope to be able to catch our breath next week.

VBS: Week 3

2010-07-28T08:58:00.005-06:00

"God created everything. God created you. And God has a plan for you!"

These are the themes we reiterated and introduced as we wrapped up our first children's outreach. The last story in our lesson was the "fall of man in the Garden of Eden", showing the kids why we need God's plan. We used the "Bridge to Life" to help the kids visualize God's plan of salvation for each of us. Please keep the little ones in prayer that the seeds sown will flourish and grow for Jesus!

("The Bridge to Life")

This outreach has been a big learning experience for us and God has definitely had his hand working in it. We are very excited with what we learned and what the Lord has done. We hope to continue to do similar outreaches here in Pena Blanca.

"Then little children were brought to Jesus..." -Matthew 19:13

VBS: Week 2

2010-07-21T16:46:00.020-06:00

"God Created You!" This was the message for our second week of VBS, in keeping with the theme of "Creation".

(The kids are learning and remembering as they sing along with Catalina)

(Emely helps some of the younger children glue their puppets together)

("I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made..." Psalm 139:14

This verse was written in Spanish on their puppets)

(I just liked her smile)

("Pin the hands/feet on the body")

(The kids really enjoyed this game)

One of the applications of our lesson was that we should treat others well because all people are created in the image of God and each of us is considered special. So we dramatized the story of the Good Samaritan to reinforce this concept.

(Kyle, dressed as a beat up bum, laid on the steps so that the children had to step around him in order to come in for VBS. Which paralled the story they were about to learn)

(Eulogio is showing the kids how to properly rob someone... just kidding!)

(These smiling faces are really enjoying watching the story come alive!)

(Eulogio is guiding our impromptu actors as he tells the story)

(This boy looks like a puppet as our narrator guides him along!)

(But from the huge smile on his face he really enjoyed his role as our bum pleads for help and Eulogio continues to teach)

(More smiling faces!)

(and finally our Samaritan comes to show the kids how to treat others)

VBS: Week 1

2010-07-20T09:23:00.013-06:00

"God Created Everything!" This was the theme for our first VBS class and we obviously taught the creation story. We also were teaching the children that God wants us to take care of His creation (This may have been a little counter-cultural as the world seems to be their trash can).

(Naomi is in the back and Catalina on the far right. Very excited to get started!)

The morning started with about 20 children and Catalina leading worship with Eulogio playing guitar. While the songs were unfamiliar, the children really enjoyed learning all the motions that go along with it.

(After worship, Eulogio taught the lesson)

As worship and story time took place, children continued to come in. So when the story was over the class was too big to do games or crafts together and we split the children into 2 big groups that rotated between the games outside and crafts inside.

Naomi created games to reinforce the lesson while Catalina helped her by translating instructions to the children.

(Kids ran back and forth in a relay race sorting pictures of God's creation according to which day God created it)

Emily and Leah worked on crafts that also reiterated the story for the children, while Eulogio ran to get more supplies as there were more children than anticipated.

(Emely is on the far right, explaining the significance of their craft project.)

By the time we were ready to wrap things up, we had 50 children in attendance! As planned, we wrapped up with a quick review of the story (children learn well with lots of repetition and some got less repetition than others so it really worked out that we had planned to retell the story). Before the kids left they were each handed a plastic bag to put their craft project in, as well as a lollipop and an invitation to join us on Sundays with a map to Calvary Pena Blanca. Everything went so smoothly and it seemed that the children really enjoyed each part of it.

(This cute little girl was concentrating so hard that her tongue stuck out while she worked.)

VBS Outreach: The Planning

2010-07-14T10:16:00.008-06:00

Before you can begin outreach in Honduras it is really important to understand the culture and mindset of the people here. As a whole, the country of Honduras receives some of the most foreign aid in Central America. On a smaller scale, like in our specific area of Honduras, it is not much different. The people here are very accustomed to the "Gringo Handout". Being "Gringos" (foreigners) ourselves, sometimes our presence can be distracting. Knowing this, we wanted to try evangelism outreaches that aren't distracting away from what we want to give them, God's Word.

This summer we have a wonderful opportunity to try new outreach that we haven't done before, because we have the blessing of "summer interns". Not only Kyle (who is living with us and was introduced in a previous blog), but Naomi and Catalina have also come to minister alongside us during these summer months. So with the extra help here we decided to put together a children's outreach in town.

Because the Honduran school year runs from February to November we decided that we would do VBS classes on Saturdays instead of a week long event. One of our goals has been to downplay the presence of "gringos" and try to reach the children who do not go to church. To do this we made little invitations that would be passed out by Hondurans (and our resident Columbian, Catalina!). We also decided to keep VBS very simple, using our Sunday school class as a model. If we did a big "show" or had snacks and cookies, children would come for those reasons and not remember what we teach.

This has been really exciting because we learned that nobody ever does stuff specifically for the children. One Honduran told us that if there are outreach ministries they are only for adults and the children are treated as nuisances. Yet we know that our Lord does not think children are nuisances but says "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them..." (Matthew 19:14)

More news about VBS coming soon...

Royal Rats, a Bus in a River, and a Pickup Truck

2010-07-04T16:21:00.014-06:00

A few days ago we made one of our all too frequent trips to Belize to renew our Visas. Normally there isn't too much to say about these trips because we are always in a pinch regarding time and money. So it is just all lot of bus rides, a cheap hotel and then more bus rides home. Yet this recent trip had a few unusual highlights...

We chose an unfortunate day to begin our journey as it was the anniversary of last year's political coupe in Honduras. In "celebration" of that event, some bridges were taken by protesters. After a long wait in traffic our bus driver chose to take us on a detour; the scenic route along bumpy dirt roads, where we also forded a small river.

(This photo was taken from the bus while we were in the water. I think the women washing their clothes were cute)

Unfortunately this caused us to be delayed and we were in a mad rush to reach our boat on time. However God provided, and we finally made it to Belize... tired and very very hungry (not being able to take the time to stop and eat along the way). So for dinner that night we resorted to eating rat. Not just any rat, but a dish the Belizeans have dubbed "Royal Rat". (At one point in time the Queen of England ate this dish on visit to Belize.) .....ok, so technically it was called a Gibnut, and it is either the largest rodent on earth or related to a beaver.

And yes, it was delicious.

(This is what a Gibnut looks like before...)

(...and after! Stewed "Royal Rat" served with black beans and rice. We could actually see some fur still on the skin as we were eating.)

The next morning I woke up very sick. Details are obviously not needed about how sick I was. But the reason was not the Gibnut. I had forgotten, and brushed my teeth with the faucet water the night before. Needless to say, traveling home was not easy. At one point on our return home we met a man with a pick up truck heading in our direction. So we crossed the Guatemala/Honduran border in the back of a pick up truck. I find this unusual because it felt so illegal at the time. (But praise God that all our passports are stamped and our visas renewed!)

(Taken from the back of our ride. Goodbye Guatemala!)

Meet Kyle

2010-06-20T09:31:00.000-06:00

(Kyle and Rubenia August 8, 2009)

On June 9th we welcomed Kyle Flemming into our home. We met Kyle the previous summer when a short term mission team from Greer, South Carolina came to minister alongside us for a couple weeks. He will be staying with us for the duration of the summer assisting in children and youth ministries as well as preparations for other short term mission teams.

The Children's Church Building

2010-06-04T20:40:00.001-06:00

Within the past few months there have been a lot of developments in our Children's building. For many months we would have to chop grass with a machete and then creatively set up a tarp each Sunday morning to give the kids a place to learn and play without the sun baking them and the insects eating them.

(Eulogio and Gerson set up a tarp for Sunday School)

(Our make-shift roof and benches!)

Now our building is nearing completion! We have a roof and a floor. Doors and bars on the windows allow us to leave craft supplies, tables and chairs without having to bring them each week. Electricity and bathrooms have recently been installed as well (a blessing for parents!).

(Our custom tin roof)

(Poured cement floors make our "benches" less wobbly)

(This is a view from our front "worship" room looking into 4 separate classrooms)

(Locking doors and security bars on the windows)

(And electricity!!)

Praise God for His many blessings! May all the efforts that have been put into this church continue to be a blessing to the people whom we came to serve.

Amen

Beading Class

2010-05-01T09:04:00.004-06:00

Last summer one of the short term mission teams was invited to a Girl's Home to teach the girls handicrafts. One of the goals of the Director of this orphanage is to prepare the girls with skills that they can use to support themselves when they are old enough to leave, rather than living on the streets in prostitution. Unfortunately the team's schedule did not coincide with the Girl's Home. As a result, I was taught how to make beautiful jewelry with beads, needle and thread so that I would be able to teach the girls in their stead. A few ladies in Albuquerque also donated more beading supplies to this end. Here are a few pictures of a little class I gave in January. I plan on showing this to more girls in the summer after we finish teaching at the school.

Thanks to

Keli Lucero, Betty Gamboa, Dawn Doty, Lorraine Crespin and Denise Hamilton

for helping to bless these girls with this ministry.

(Photos from Anita Trotter)

Update: Denis

2010-04-24T13:36:00.002-06:00

Just found out from our neighbor that he saw (and fed) Denis the other day. So he has made it safely back to this area! I'm so relieved as I was really worried that he would get sucked into the homeless/drug addict life of San Pedro Sula. Though I do not know where he currently is living. (We were sadly not at home at the time when he came by) His family situation is very messy and he was kicked out of the house when he was maybe 7 or 8 years old. So far in his young life, I know that he has lived in orphanages, the street, park, under bridges, a soup kitchen, and occasionally with relatives. He has problems with stealing and I am sure other stuff that I don't know about. So prayers are still needed for him. But we praise God that he is no longer lost! Thank you all for your prayers!

Denis

2010-04-06T20:45:00.010-06:00

This is Denis.

(Denis and me going to get pizza after church)

You may or may not have been introduced to this little boy in our updates, but we have gotten to know him over the past year or so. At first he was a little boy living on the streets here in Pena Blanca.

(Rubenia approx. age 9 and Denis approx. 12)

His blondish hair and handicapped sister (Rubenia) made them stand out in our little town. They went from living on the streets to living in the local clinic/"orphanage". When they got kicked out for stealing, we helped them get back in. Eventually they weren't allowed to return to this orphanage. They bounced between homes and living on the street, but never failed to visit us for a peanut butter sandwich and even to come to church.

(Denis and Rubenia on the left doing crafts in Sunday School)

Eventually and with help, we were able to find places to take the kids in (though Rubenia went to a girls home and Denis went to a boys home). Denis ran away from orphanage #2. Again he bounced around from homes to living on the street. He may have even worked in the coffee fields a little bit. In time Denis came to us for help getting into an orphanage again. We were very excited because he was making the decision for himself. The first place still wouldn't allow him to return, though we did find another orphanage that would take him in. Yesterday we attempted to visit Denis only to discover that he has run away from orphanage #3. Please keep Denis in your prayers! We do not currently know where he is or how to find him. He needs the Lord's protection right now. And definitely needs to know that his Heavenly Father loves him.

Spanglish

2010-03-23T20:14:00.003-06:00

So teaching English can have some entertaining moments and I just came across one the other day while grading some papers. Take a look at it and see if you can figure out what the student is trying to say.

My house has only one bathroom, and in my bathroom I has a bed, in my bed is a sheets. I have a lam and in my bathroom has one gavetero.

I am pretty sure they meant in my bedroom and also just decided to throw a misspelled Spanish word into the mix.

However this has inspired me to begin thinking in a new direction for interior design and I am thinking of putting a futon in my bathroom. I also think I might have to look into getting a gavatero.

Along the same lines a while back there was quite a bit of confusion in my class over "french fries". I explained to them that it was a weird name that said nothing about the fact that they are potatoes, but apparently that they are indeed French potatoes. I then spent like 5 minutes trying to explain that I had no idea how the French got mixed up in the whole ordeal but that nonetheless this was the name and they needed to learn it. So they promptly learned that "french fries" means "papas fritas" (lit. fried potatoes). The next days homework coincidently brought a much needed respite from the ordinary drudgery that is grading homework. I had several papers explaining that some of the students favorite foods were indeed french fries, along with "french chicken", and "french beans" (though to be technical this should have been re-frenched beans, since this was the type of beans the student was referring to). Despite my 10 minute or so lecture on french fries, everyone apparently went home thinking "french" means "fried"

Well thats all for now, if something else crosses my desk I'll pass it on. However I must go since Leah is cooking some Philipino food and I am off to eat some french rice.

The Widow-Maker

2010-03-15T21:52:00.006-06:00

So this is what Chris affectionately calls the widow-maker, it is a hot water shower head, and they are very very common here. Nobody has hot water heaters because it is just too expensive to be heating a whole tank of water. Everyone here has inline water heaters (we have them in the states also but nobody seems to use them unless they are smart and want to save a ton of money on their electric or gas bill), or in the case of a shower, an inline water heater in the form of a shower head. No big deal right? Well I don't think so but I do have to admit that it does look sketchy when you have a bunch of wires in the shower, or as is often the case an electrical outlet. At least in our house I covered the wires with like 500 layers of electrical tape, sometimes you visit a hotel or house and you can see bits of exposed wire. it is also kind of scary when you read the instructions and it says that children , the elderly, and the handicapped should not use one alone. I have often wondered if I should be using one since I often act like a child, and sometimes my body aches like I'm 80. Either way it has been nicer on the rainy days to not have to take a cold shower

Stitched

2010-03-12T22:32:00.002-06:00

Your imaginations have all been saved by the good graces of our good friend Mark Starr, and even though he is 8,312 miles away from us in Yantai China, he has been so kind and able as to send me a stitched together photo of our front dining/living/kitchen room. Thank you Mark

Our House

2010-03-10T13:37:00.014-06:00

Ok now that we have an internet connection at our house we can finally post some pics of our house now that we are in town. Here is the view from the street. We are lucky enough to be able to have a carport in order to park in off of the street.

However as this next picture shows the car just barely fits.
If I don't park all the way to the right side of the carport the car blocks the front door. (the door that you can see on the left goes into the kitchen but we don't use it)

Ok this is is view of the front room(s) I took these panning from left to right

And lastly here is a picture of the center hallway off which are our bedroom and bathroom (on the left)the other bedroom and office (on the right) and all the way at the back the other bathroom and the backyard.

Ok I realize that these are not great photos of the house but I am over it because I never claimed to be a great photographer. However if I can get to it I might stitch the 3 photos together to make a panorama of the front room. (If I get time which I probably wont so indulge your creative side and stitch it together mentally)

¡Adios Pila!

2010-02-23T20:00:00.007-06:00

Yes we are finally posting a little snippet and it is about our new baby! And it has a turbodrum! Yes we got a washing machine. We ( by we I mean mostly Leah ) were washing our clothes in a pila. Here is a picture of our pila, it is basically a big cement cistern with a washboard on one side. Leah was having to spend at least 8 hours a week doing laundry and even then we were always behind. It just takes super long to wash everything by hand, even when you wear everything until it can stand on its own. Since we are now considerably busier with teaching the bible classes at the bilingual school, we had to do something. So we got a new washer baby and put it in the spare shower that we were previously using for storage. I had to do a little getto rigging to get it to work in the shower but it wasn't too bad. It has been a wonderful blessing. We are still busy but it is the better kind of busy - preparing for bible classes and church ministry rather than scrubbing dirty socks.

New Year's Resolutions

2010-01-08T02:14:00.001-06:00

Normally I am too apathetic to have a New Year's Resolution. But here it is...

Update our blog on a regular basis.

Please feel free to send us angry emails or comments when we fail to do this. Oh and currently...

In route to Honduras, 1:30am, cold, tired, and very uncomfortable as we await our next flight at 2:10 am in the Denver airport.

Honduran Political Crisis

2009-09-23T12:24:00.003-06:00

Well the president is back in town. So now we have two here in Hondruas. Mel Zelaya who was given the boot several months ago in a military coup, is currently in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. The current government has surrounded the building with police and the military and apparently cut off utilities to it. There have been some clashes between the police and Zelaya supporters and a couple of news sources are saying that an older man was killed in one such confrontation. All of this has meant that we have had a curfew during the day. This is different than before when we only had curfew during night hours. Luckily today they have suspended the curfew until 4pm. Here at the Lake everything has been calm, and because we don´t have enough police to patrol our little town people have been out and about even though there has been curfew. Please pray for Honduras that things would not get worse now that Mel is back in town.

Health Update

2009-09-05T16:23:00.002-06:00

Well we have made a few more trips to two specialists in San Pedro, and I am happy to say that we are doing better. I am no longer having problems keeping food inside of me, and the tests that I took in San Pedro all came back negative except for one and the doctor has me on some medicine to take care of that. Unfortunately I am still on a restricted diet until I have fully recovered, I don´t think I will be regained my lost 5 pounds anytime soon. Leah´s asthma is doing a lot better also. Last time we visited the pnumologist he said it sounded like Leah had 200 cats in her lungs. He prescribed some medicine at that time and on our second visit Leah´s cat population was down to about only 5. So Leah is currently on different medication to get all of those cats out of there. She has been sleeping through the night with no issues, praise God ( she was previously waking up every night with asthma attacks). Praise God we are doing better now, thank you for your prayers and support.

Doctor's Visits

2009-08-24T18:04:00.004-06:00

It has been forever since we put a post up here, and a ton has happened however we still don't have interenet and I don't have the opportunity to catch up on everything but here is whats going on right now. Leah and I are both headed to the doctor's tomorrow to get checked out. Leah is going to get checked out for her asthma because it has gotten worse since we got here. And I am headed to a gastroenterologist to get checked out because I have been having a lot of problems with my stomach ( I lost 5 lbs those of you who now me know I don't have a lot weight to spare). Please pray for us that we can get everything figuered out with our health. Ok thats all for now. Hopefully we will be able to update a little more soon.

Mas Terremotos!

2009-06-08T20:29:00.002-06:00

That's right we had another earthquake. This one was no where nearly as strong as the last one. It was also off the northern coast of Honduras but was only a 5.7. It happened about 11:30 last night. I happened to still be awake, and I was getting up to go the bathroom. As I was doing this I heard a weird rumbling noise, and it sounded like it was moving towards the house, the effect was something like when you hear tress moving in the distance due to the wind, and the sound grows closer and closer as that particular breeze reaches you. In fact I thought that perhaps that was what I was hearing, though I was thinking that it had to be a very strong wind (which is abnormal for where we live) because was very loud and more like a rumble rather than rustling trees. As I was listening to the noise and getting out of bed I suddenly felt dizzy as I stood up. I figured that perhaps I had gotten up to quickly, however I then began to hear things rattling in the house and I could see that our clothes were swinging on their hangers.

Praise God though there was no damage from this earthquake, or at least nothing major that I have heard of or seen in the newspapers. However do please continue to pray for Honduras as those who were affected by the big earthquake are still in bad conditions as help has been slow coming and the government does not have the resources to help the victims either. We are currently trying to get in communication with a woman that we know that lives in the Port of Cortes (it was hit hard by the earthquake) in order to see if there is anyway that we can help her or others that were affected. - Eulogio

USA vs. Honduras

2009-06-06T21:16:00.003-06:00

Tonight was a big night here in Honduras. As most of you probably know soccer is king here in Latin America (and actually most of the world outside of the US and maybe Canada), and tonight was an importanat game in the tournament leading up to the World Cup. It was also a tense night for us here since that game was between the United States and Honduras. We went and watched the game in the same place that we have been watching all the games - the hotel restaurant on a big screen- and tonight it was packed! It was standing room only, with a tiny herd of Americans standing in the corner trying not to look conspicuous. At the beginning of the game it looked like the U.S. might be in for another repeat of the Costa Rica game (where we lost fairly badly) because Honduras scored a goal in the first 10 minutes. However the U.S. came back to win amidst oooooo's aahhhhh's and shouts of "penalty" - the passion runs high for games. So after quitetly celebrating in my heart, and then telling a couple of Honduran friends to stop crying, we made our exit. And though the majority of Americans in the U.S. probably have no idea that we won, let alone that we have a soccer team, it was a good night - though in secret.

Oh yeah I almost forgot, shortly after returning home we were punished for winning, and our electricty "went out" ; )

Earthquake Follow-Up

2009-06-02T19:01:00.008-06:00

So a little damage report from our earthquake. Nothing! Praise God there was no significant damage in our area. Aside from a few large buildings and one bridge that fell in northern Honduras there was no great damage here. In fact the special edition of a newspaper here ran the same headline as you can see above - "Dios Nos Pretegio" "God Protected Us". In addition the sunday school buliding which has been plagued with falling trees, and flooding knocking over the walls, had absolutely no damage. This was amazing considering some of the support columns and beams were not yet in place. Even the main building had some cracks in it. And since we have not had any more set backs on the construction and since the Lord has provided more funds to continue the construction it is beginning to look more like a building and less like a shell. Here are a few pics that I took today.

2 am wakeup call?

2009-05-28T07:35:00.003-06:00

We have just had quite the past few weeks, and then now at 2:30 this morning Leah and I were just about shaken out of bed by an earthquake. Yup thats right an earthquake. A 7.1 quake hit off the northern coast of Honduras. We are about 3.5 hours from the coast and maybe about 5 hours from the place nearest the epicenter, but we still got a good shaking. Eventhe capital got a good shaking and the y are further than we are. There are reports of roads being cracked and whatnot but nothing to serious, a bridge also collapsed near San Pedro Sula. Here is a link to a news story about it. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30976505/. I'll post more once I venture out of the house and see what has happenned here in Pena Blanca. I also have to go to San Pedro Sula today pray that the several bridges I have to go across are safe. Well more good times from Honduras.

Feeling Better

2009-05-27T20:08:00.004-06:00

Thank you all for your prayers while I was sick. I am feeling much better today. Yesterday I went to the doctor's office and they gave me some stronger meds, than I previously was taking, and though they made me fairly tired today, they seem to be doing the trick. Not sure exactly what it was that I had, the symptoms matched several things, but since I was feeling better I didn't go through the blood tests needed to check for some of the nastier ones. Several Hondurans told me that my symptoms matched one of the milder forms of Dengue Fever, I also did a fair amount of research on the internet and it seemed very likely - hence the post a couple of days ago. However whatever it was I am feeling much much better. Unfortunately our car is not, as I went to a meeting this morning with the church contractor my brake system went nuts and I can still stop but it is very difficult. So now I need to take it to the doctor tomorrow. I realize that has nothing to do with my health but I figuered I would throw it in there just for fun. Once again thanks to everyone for their prayers, they worked (or perhaps I should say He worked)! I feel much better. - Eulogio

And the Jungle continues to ravage us...

2009-05-24T16:50:00.003-06:00

This past week Eulogio has been very sick. We initially thought it was a bad cold or flu, but other symptoms suggest that he may have contracted Dengue Fever. Like Malaria, it is passed through mosquitos. Thankfully we had some Amoxicillin available and we have a couple of Nurses visiting from Albuquerque who have been very helpful. But please keep him in prayer!

Day of the Family

2009-05-17T08:18:00.003-06:00

This weekend we had a big celebration for "Day of the Family". All of the family members of our students (at the bilingual school, not the university) were invited to come to school on Saturday; where we proceeded to have class presentations, food, games and prizes for everyone. It was a really big affair. And if you have any idea of how big latino families are, you will know that there were A LOT of people attending! So that meant a lot of work for us teachers! After school on friday we spent almost 5 hours decorating for the event! Besides all the time we spent preparing our little students to sing and dance for their families, the teachers were also responsible for serving the families. So we had a lot of work! Hopefully everyone enjoyed themselves. Unfortunately I have no pictures of anything since I was rather to busy to take my camera out.

How far would you walk?

2009-04-29T12:11:00.006-06:00

An aerial view of what the mountains in this area can be like. We have some with even more rapid elevatin changes

I have recently been teaching some guitar classes at a worship conference that is in the area . I am there three times a week for two hours. Not that big of a deal for me I spend maybe a few hours a week preparing the lessons for the classes and then the two hours actually teaching the classes. I drive there because I can't carry two guitars on my bicycle, and so it takes me about seven minutes to get there. Not a huge effort or sacrifice on my part. Not so for one of my students, as I recently found out, he walks every day for an hour to get to Pena Blanca. Now the conference has been going on for three weeks now and there is something every weekday and every weeknight. The days usually consist of workshops and instrument lessons, and the nights are teachings. This kid in my class has been there every day and every night. Which means that not only does he walk an hour in the mornings but he walks an hour at night in the dark through the jungle up the mountain behind Pena Blanca in order to get to his village San BuenaVentura. To say the least I was impressed byt this kids committment, and it made me think: Have I ever wanted to do something to such a large degree that I would walk two hours a day to do it? Not only does this kid walk to Pena Blanca but he also comes to the guitar classes even though he will have to share a guitar with several other students. When was the last time I did something eventhough I didn't have every resource necessary? I am not ripping every one who drives to work ( I very often drive to work here), I was just rather impressed, as were others, this story has a happy ending. Some of the people who organized this conference are giving this young man a guitar.

The Chaffing is back!

2009-04-20T13:51:00.004-06:00

The chaffing is back and boy do I LOVE IT! Life here in Honduras had thus far been fairly "tranquilo" as they say here - calm tranquil and somewhat slow-paced. I had classes in the mornings at the University, and then I would come home and things around the house like sweeping and dishes and what not, and church related work was still few and far between and slow going. It was nice but boy was I going crazy. As many of you know Leah and I moved here immediately after I graduated from UNM, the last year and a half of which was madness for me. Every semester I had full loads of upper level classes (350 and higher, including a couple of 500 level courses), meaning I had loads of homework. The majority of this homework was for the political science portion of my degree (as I had already completed the majority of my Russian Studies requirements), and just like the world of politics the world of political science is chock full of long-windedness. So much so tht I once wrote a 54 page paper, that's like a small book or something! Anyways it was riduculous. I used to have to schedule myself down to the minute in order to get everything done in a day/night tht I needed to finish. In conjuction with my discoveries of coffee and Yerba Mate (an odd yet strong South American tea) mixes that could keep me alert for hours, I had the art of rapid quality paper writing down perfectly, such that I was able to finish out my degree with high marks. It was crazy yet I somehow loved the business. Moving here and switching to the siesta - mañana mentality from the result driven mentality of the university was a bit difficult. Well though it is not anything like UNM, things have gotten busier here, in fact so much so that I have had to start scheduling my days. For example I currently meeting with two young men from the area who want to learn English, I want to tell them about Christ, so we have English lessons once a week. I am also teaching six one-hour guitar classes this week with a group called Musicians for Missions. All of this on top of exams and an extra weekend class at the university. These are just a few of the things that are going on. In addition to this the church has really picked up some steam in many areas and Chris and I are busy with these as well. It has been rather nice to have the busyness back again. In fact it has been so much so this past and coming week (did I mention my parents also were just here for about a week - no offense mom/dad you just came when it was busy:) that my old friend has returned. Many of you probably have a similar friend - you know that painful bump on the back of your neck that only goes away with more coffee. man it chaffes to be busy. But man do I love it!

Wanted: Rocket Scientist

2009-03-29T20:31:00.005-06:00

Recently the Wall Street Journal published the following article:

Rocket Scientists Shoot Down Mosquitoes with Lasers

In light of that information I am posting the following advertisement:

Wanted: Rocket Scientist
Location: Honduras, Pena Blanca, specifically the area around my house
Job Description: Eradicating the Mosquito population and I suppose Malaria and Dengue Fever as well
Requirements: A laser gun and the knowledge to effectively use one
Pay: Negotiable in terms of baked goods (In other words it is a volunteer position for the good of mankind. However you will be fed well.)

Please apply soon as I am being eaten alive as I type.

Recent trip to Belize

2009-03-24T20:29:00.007-06:00

Ok so as most of you know we made another trip to Belize this past weekend. Now a bunch of stuff happenned so we have decided to blog about it in chunks rather than just posting a huge story about our trip, that even we wouldn't want to read due to its length. So we will be throwing up a couple different posts about the trip (and hopefully some pictures too). I can guarantee you that these post will not be in order because I am about to tell you about something cool that happened to me (eulogio)that occurred somewhere in the middle of our trip (though in my defense still towards the beginning).

Ok enough of my qualifying and rambling, on to the story.

While in line at the border between Guatemala and Belize, on the Guatemalan side (you go through checks on both sides no matter whether you are coming or going), the most bizarre thing happened to me. It was of such a grand proportion that it gave meaning to 5 years of my life which up to this point had seemed all but a lost cause. Ok so I am exaggerating but as you will see it was still sweet. As we waited for our passports to be processed for our exit from Guatemala/entry into Belize. A strange yet familiar sound fell upon my ears. I was instantaneously both confused yet excited, my brain said, "Whats this?" while my heart said, "Yipee!". What had alighted upon my ears was Russian. In the line next to us, at the counter, was a man calling in Russian to another man at the back of the immigration building. Gathering myself from the initial shock of hearing such a foreign (it is not everyday you hear Russian in Central America) yet familiar sound, I leaned over to Chris and said, "Check it out these guys are speaking Russian". Chris, who instantly seizes every opportunity to speak German - which is surprisingly quite often here, began prodding me to go and talk to them. Not being as feisty as Chris I held back but did begin to listen. After listening for just a second I realized that they were having trouble understanding the immigration forms that they needed to fill out, and the man at the corner was asking the man in the back how to translate a certain word. Upon hearing this I decided to pounce and throw my very very rusty Russian skills into action. Just as the second man was making his way up to us at the counter, I dug into the recesses of my mind and out popped, <<вам надо помощь?>> "Do you need help?" to which the first man seemed to be very startled and let out a "OO HO" probably didn't expect someone to pop up behind him in Guatemala asking Russian questions. Anyways promptly following his exclamation he asked me a couple of questions concerning what he was to fill out, I basically only confirmed what he already suspected were the necessary answers. After he finished filling out the forms, we had a brief conversation about where I was from, the men seemed confused when I told them the U.S. but after explaining that I had studied Russian at the University of New Mexico and that I had briefly lived in Ukraine over the course of two summers, I think it made sense to them why a brown guy from the U.S. in Guatemala was speaking in Russian with them. After I stumbled over every word (and accidentally interjected a couple of Spanish words for good measure) the first guy looked over at the rest of our group and said, "good, very good speak". After this we chatted a bit more and it turned out that they weren't Russian but were Belorussian and were from Minsk. That was about the extent of our conversation since we had to move on to the Belizean border, and they were off to catch a bus into Guatemala.

So there you have it the first instance of me using the Russian portion of my degree in the real world, and it happens in an immigration line in Guatemala.

Fallen trees

2009-02-08T17:19:00.006-06:00

So first off, our apologies for not blogging in a while but we have been without electricity lately, let alone internet. So in the long duration that it has been since one of us last posted something, quite a few things have piled up that are blog worthy. First off for the past 3 days or so we have been having some pretty fierce weather - tons of rain and tons of wind. Unfortunately this leads to several different things happening here in Honduras. First of all, say good bye to consistent electricity, and hello to random electrical fires (this stems from really old wires shorting out with all of the wind and rain and then randomly frying transformers and starting the jungle on fire). Secondly it means that everybody here freaks out with the cold and starts wearing parkas, there was a news report here concerning the "extreme cold in San Pedro Sula" it was 66 that day. And lastly it means that the jungle goes through a bit of reorganization via tons of mud sliding all over the place and trees going down like they were boxing for Don King. I thought that trees had roots that were at least as deep as the trees are tall. But apparently not in the rainforest. They always fall down here by the roots and when you look at them you see that they have these tiny little roots for a tree that might be 40 or 50 feet tall.
We have been experiencing all of the above and in fact had a tree fall on the children's church portion of the church construction. It didn't do a huge deal of damage but it did knock down a portion of the wall. Interestingly this is the same wall that was knocked over last year by rain run-off. Anyways here are some pics of the tree and knocked over portion of the wall.

If the internet keeps up tonight I will post more, including the car shopping story that I promised in our update yet have thus far failed to deliver. - Eulogio

A Divinely Orchestrated Day

2009-01-11T21:50:00.003-06:00

So this post is a little past due but it is something that really struck me as being sweet so I have been reminding myself to put it up here when I got the chance, and finally I have remembered and have the time. This is a sweet instance of the Lord's hand in the everyday and somewhat mundane, for His glory.

So about two weeks ago Golden Preciado's parents were here for Christmas, they were here for several days and on one of those days Even (Golden's dad), Michael, Leah and I were to drive to San Pedro Sula we were set to leave Pena Blanca at about 9am. Michael and Even were planning on going to the hardware store earlier in the day to buy some supplies to put up some shelves in the Preciado house. Well apparently upon getting to the hardware store they started chatting with the owners daughter in law (they don't speak Spanish and she speaks English) and Even started talking about how he wanted a machete. And she started showing them some machetes, the typical plain metal type that everyone uses here for everything. From blazing jungle trails and defending against attacking jaguars (and muggers for that matter) to shaving and cutting fruit to eat. Anyways then Even noticed tha fancy ornamental ones that they sell with Honduras and the flag and some other pictures engraved on it. Well the more he talked up how cool they were, eventually the owner told him that he would give Him one, on one condition: Michael and Even had to go visit the kids at the orphanage. (The owner is a Christian and has donated building materials and tools to us on the same premise) So I receive a call from Michael saying that they were going to go visit the kids and sing some Christmas and children's worship songs with them. I told him that was cool and that we would just meet him there and hang out with the kids, and then we could all go to San Pedro from there.

So Leah and I hop in Chris' truck and headed off to the orphanage. As soon as we pulled in we saw Sister Maria there and she had a huge smile and was waving emphatically at us. I got out of the car and she immediately came up to me and said Eulogio I was just wanting to call you because I need help but I didn't have your number in my phone. She then began to tell me about how the cow that she had bought for milk for the kids had stopped producing, and how the owners of the orphanage had agreed to sell her two new baby cows for really cheap. (My Spanish is still kinda weak and so I didn't quite follow how two baby cows was a resolution to the other cow having stopped producing milk, but somehow it was because she kept saying that.) She told me that she needed help getting the baby cows to EL Tigre, the town where she lives and has her childcare ministry. She knew that Chris had let us borrow the truck and wanted to take them there in the truck bed. However since she did not have my phone number she was planning on walking all the way back to El Tigre with the cows, a walk that would have taken her a couple hours. Of course we gladly helped her transport the cows.

It was sweet to see how the Lord worked out or being at the orphanage at the same time. I didn't know that she needed help, but the Lord did, and He used a shiny machete and a guy from Missouri (Golden's dad) to accomplish the cow transport. Plus the kids were ministered to (they loved the Christmas Carols and surprisingly knew several of the English ones already). Sister Maria and I chatted it up a bit about how good the Lord is in providing the things that we need, through means that we would never think up.

And yes we did eventually get to San Pedro and that was sweet to. The Lord is good! And He is good fun! (Hauling the baby cows was pretty sweet. - Eulogio

Silver Boxes in Manila Envelopes

2008-12-29T15:13:00.004-06:00

Years ago, in a high school sunday school class, I heard a story about Silver Boxes. The silver boxes were not simply boxes but presents; and special presents at that, since they were wrapped in silver. My memory fails me, in that I cannot repeat the story here. However, what I gleaned from the story was how our words and actions can be like silver boxes and that they may edify others like in 1 Thessalonians 5:11 "Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do." (I remember that particular class being where I learned the word edify.)

Well about a week before Thanksgiving we were very fortunate to receive a package in the mail. (Our first!) A very loving person sent us some bars of fancy dark chocolate, sunflower seeds and jerky! (some of our favorite snacks) I was so excited! We saved most of the goodies to enjoy for Christmas. But I just had to blog about what a tremendous blessing it was to receive that package. I hope everyone enjoyed all the giving and sharing that typically happens in the holidays. But mostly thank God for His son, and that through Him we are saved and adopted into His family!

P.S. I heard a Monkey

2008-12-27T14:46:00.002-06:00

I forgot to say in the mile long post below that when we were in Guatemala we got to hear a wild monkey. It was pretty sweet. We were at a gas station and when we got out we could hear this bizarre screaming noise coming from the Jungle across the road from us. Roberto (our Honduran friend who drove) told us that it was a monkey. Which me led us into a conversation concerning monkeys during which I learned that I have been living in the presence of monkeys if only I would look! Apparently there used to be monkeys where we are currently living but for some reason they moved away, but there are still apparently monkeys on the opposite side of the lake. So all of this lead me to the conclusion that I need to go monkey hunting! Not to kill one but just to see one. Don't ask me why but I think that it would totally be sweet to see a monkey in the wild. I will keep you all posted of any progress on the monkey front. - Eulogio

Trip to Belize

2008-12-26T14:38:00.009-06:00

As most of you probably know, we had to make a last minute trip to Belize this past week. We were not planning it, and did not know about it until the day before. We knew that our visa extensions were about to run out, yet we were not planning on leaving the country. The director of the school at which Leah teaches was taking care of our visa situation. So we thought that either there was going to be another extension of some sort, or a perhaps the fine would be taken care of for us (the latter is something which the director has done for teachers in the past). But alas the day before the trip we got a phone call saying that the Preciado family was going to Belize to take care of their visas and if the date worked for us we were to go along as well. Roberto the director's husband was to take us there and back. Since we didn't have anything going on, and we needed to renew our visas, and it was going to be awesome, we said yes, and thus woke up the following morning at 4am in order to be on the road at 5. So we set out early in the morning expecting a 5-6 hour trip there and back. As you can see on the map the southern border of Belize is not that far from the north western corner of Honduras. In fact it only took us 4-5 hours to get to the southern edge of Belize. And in fact it had only been maybe 3 hours when we saw this
However the problem lay in the fact that the only border immigration office between Belize and Guatemala is much further north, and the road to get there does not go straight north. As you can see from the line that I drew, it goes significantly west before it turns east to Belize. This makes for a much longer trip than we had originally anticipated. I was cool with this because it made for getting to see more of Guatemala, as well as an overnight stay. It got even cooler when we turned onto the 20 or so mile road to the border. It was great as you can see from the picture it was dirt, and it was dry, which meant that it was very dusty, which meant that all of the plants lining the road were covered in white dust. We may not have had snow but we had something like a white Christmas. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to show you of this because they just wouldn't come out well, with the amount of light that we had at this point in the journey. But here is a picture of the road setting out towards Belice.

So around nightfall after the 20 miles on this road we finally saw English for the first time in several months. (For those who don't know Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the primary language, though everyone speaks Spanish as well) I know this isn't the best picture but we didn't get into Belize until it was dark so I had to take this from Guatemala.

After walking into Belize, and then immediately walking out, and getting reprimanded for it, we went in search of a hotel in this small Gautemalan border town. It was already dark and not a good idea to get back on the road to look for a hotel elsewhere. So the hotel we found was actually quite nice mostly because it was the fanciest one in town, and the only one that took credit cards,and consequently making it our choice since we had not brought enough cash since we had not anticipated a night's stay. It had good food and large clean rooms. In fact the room that we stayed in had two beds, and since we currently sleep on a bed smaller than we did in the states, we took advantage of the situation and each slept in the gloriously spaciousness of our own bed. I know like 50 people just now started furiously clicking the comment button, so that they could harass me with things like, "you are married, you are supposed to share a bed" "What on earth is wrong with your marriage?". Well before you go on to comment let me say that nothing is wrong with our marriage, sometimes a person just needs a little leg room. And plus it was a mutual decision between Leah and I, we apparently both like a little wiggle room. Who knew? Well I guess everyday in a marriage can be a learning experience. So before I ramble on any more about the sweet eccentricity that is my marriage here is a picture of some of the scenery heading out of Guatemala. Leah and I both enjoyed it because it was very open with large valleys and meadows, it was nice to have something different from the constant dense forest around Lake Yojoa.. So that was basically our trip to Belize in a nutshell. For those who didn't get the fuller version, below is a copy of the email I sent out after our return. I know I am lazy for not retelling it, but well...I'm lazy and hungry so I am going to go start dinner for Leah and I. Toodles - Eulogio

p.s. What Eulogio failed to mention in both the above blog and the attached email below: Let me just start with God is awesome! Now, ever since we first moved here in August I (Leah) have been dealing with lots of illness. It has been a constant roller coaster of stomach sickness and as a result I have not been able to travel into San Pedro (an hour and a half drive from our little town) without being sick. So when we first got the call saying we would be driving all day to Belize and back, I was scared. Would I be able to go that far without being sick? There would be 9 of us traveling in a crowded van all day and it was likely that the children would be sick as well. Yeah...I was definitely nervous and praying that God would help in this situation. So the next morning we set out with my stomach full of Dramamine and my purse full of Immodium and a bottle of Pepto. After a few hours on the road we discover that our all in one day trip was not possible and that our journey would still be (unknown) more hours on the road. But God is so good! Nobody got really sick on the road, and though no one was prepared for an overnight stay He provided a place to buy diapers for the Preciado baby and a hotel that accepted credit cards! God is just awesome! There are a million things that could have made the trip terrible and unsafe, but God provided for us in our need. That is just awesome.

The Email:
Thank You all for the prayers and emails concerning our recent trip to Belize. We made it back safely without any problem. Our only hang up was that we got a flat tire in Guatemala, but praise God we were able to get it repaired out in the middle of nowhere in a tiny little town (we had a spare, but we needed to get the original fixed because we had to drive a long way out in the middle of nowhere in Guatemala, so to be stuck out there with no spare would have been a pretty sticky situation). So now for a little bit of background as to the reason for the trip. Honduras does not require U.S. citizens to have a visa to enter the country but when we do enter we are only allowed to stay in the country for 90 days before we then become illegal here in Honduras. This means that when you leave the country there is a fine at border control. This fine doubles every month that you stay in Honduras over the original 90 days. we have been here longer than that, but we were able to obtain a 30 day extension. This extension however was to run out this coming week. We were waiting on another possible extension but it didn't come through, so we had to make a run out of the country. Now the problem with leaving the country is, that we have to go at least two countries away. Honduras has a treaty with all of its neighbors that allows people to travel between them without needing a passport, this means that going to Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala is the same as staying in Honduras, because our passports don't actually get stamped as having left the country. This all means that the next closest country is Belize. Now Belize is not that far from Honduras, it is about a 5 hour drive from Pena Blanca, only about 3 hours from the Honduran border, but what none of us knew, and what nobody told us until we were already in Guatemala, is that there is only two immigration points of entry into Belize. The first requires taking a boat from Guatemala (this is not a large passenger ship, think more large rowboat with a motor) the problem with this was that it was a very stormy day when we set out for Belize and we were traveling with another missionary family who has several small kids, thus this was not a very safe idea for the kids in such a boat on such seas. The second immigration point unfortunately is in the northern portion of the Belize-Guatemala border. So a 5 hour tour turned into a 12hour tour requiring a nights stay. We stayed in Guatemala because it was much more cheap (pries in Belize are similar to those in a US resort town) and also the closest city to the border crossing was in Guatemala, and also our Honduran guide/driver/friend said he knew Guatemala better than Belize. So we walked into Belize turned around and walked out (I was reprimanded by the immigration officer for abusing Belize, and also received a small lecture about Honduras needing to take care of us better). So all that said and done we know have 90 more days to stay in Honduras (praise God because at first the Guatemalan border officer only wanted to give us 30 days). Thank You all for the prayers, we definitely felt them as the Lord paved the way and made our entire trip both smooth as well as super productive (90 days is the longest a border officer can give a person, though they do have the power to give less). We will be posting some pictures from our impromptu adventure on our blog as well as a little more in depth explanation of the nitty gritty details of our trip. Once again thank you all for the prayers, and responses to our email. You are all a blessing to us here. - Eulogio and Leah

We Have a New Member of Our Family!

2008-12-04T13:03:00.033-06:00

Yes you did read that correctly we have a new member of our family, in fact we have 3. Edward, Jacqueline, and Queja. Edward obviously is the rooster, and the other two the egg factories. If it wasn't clear from the beginning we have chickens. A sister in Christ here who runs a soup kitchen type deal for kids during the day while their parents are at work. (They don't go to school, so they are left to fend for themselves, they are in elementary school and so they end up not eating anything) Anyways she has chickens in order to gather the eggs to feed the kids. While we were there last helping her I mentioned that I wanted some chickens and asked where a good place to buy them was. She then proceeded to round up two hens and a rooster for us, and refused to let me pay her for them. She said that the Lord had blessed her with many spring chickens, so she was able to bless us. The Lord and Hermana Maria are both sweet.

Since their arrival the chickens have stinkin nuts. The rooster took a while to figure out what time the sun rose, so there were a couple of 4am wake up calls before he got it figured out. One of the hens kept disappearing into the jungle for hours at end. We suspect she went and laid an egg out there because I didn't keep her locked up long enough the first couple of days. Anyway one of them eventually did lay our first edible egg. So their usefulness is starting to outweigh their more annoying features.

Here are some pictures of them.The first is a picture of their little shelter that Chris the girls and I rigged up, they sleep in there every night after roaming the jungle for little snippets to eat The rooster is pretty ugly but kinda scrappy so it makes up for it. he two hens are different breeds, as is the rooster, but you can tell the difference because one has a pinecone looking comb and the other a normal looking one, and really short legs. The first hen picture here is the pinecone one aka Jacqueline. The next one is the short legged one - Queja (spanish for complaint).
And here is a picture of our firstfruits of the chickens. We are not sure who laid this bad boy, I just poked my head in to lock them up for the night (we have to keep the many predators that live around here out) and voila there it was in the nesting box and nobody was sitting on it.

So there you have it the new additions to our families, some jungle chickens.

P.S. I (Eulogio) did not name the chickens, I do not name my food, nor the things from whence my food comes. The two Leahs named the chickens.

Team from Albuquerque

2008-11-20T18:44:00.013-06:00

Well I know it has been a long time since we last put anything up here ( many of you have reminded me of this) but we have been very busy as of late. So sit down and prepare yourself for a fairly hearty and probably long update. Well since it has been so long since we did update, and since my (Eulogio) memory is so horrible, I'll start with the most recent and thus the most clear thing in my mind to have happened, and then hopefully as that jogs my memory I will be able to fill in all of the other gaps that we have left gapping wide over the past several weeks. So first of all we had a team here for a little over a week at the beginning of this month. The team was here from Albuquerque with the primary intention of helping out with the building construction. This was the first team for both Leah and I since our moving down here, and it turned out to be quite the blessing and laden with little miracles. First of all the team came down here at exactly the same time that we had stopped construction on both buildings because we had run out of funds. So we were able to continue construction on the children's church building. This was wonderful since the children's church building was at a rather precarious stage of its construction. The walls were fairly high but the floors had not been filled with dirt, and this means that the walls could have fallen in on themselves given enough rain (something that already happened about a month ago). The team was able to move a ton of dirt in to fill the floors (the amount of dirt alone that they moved would have taken us weeks to move by ourselves), but not only that, since they were starting work at like 6 every day, and not quitting till dinner time, they were also able to continue building up the walls to a height that now all of the walls can be tied together with corner columns – meaning save for a hurricane they should not fall in any more. The team also built up a diversion/retaining wall to help with our rushing water issue. It was a tremendous blessing to have all of these guys here helping out with such pressing construction matters, at such a perfect time. But I can't imagine that we should have expected any less from the Lord bringing things together in such a perfect manner. In addition to this the Lord was also very good to us and the team in that they were even able to work. Up until their arrival, we had been sending messages to them telling them to bring jackets and rain gear, in preparation for our “winter” weather. We had been having fairly cold days here with almost nonstop rain. However from the day that we picked up the team in San Pedro to the day that we dropped them off, it only sprinkled once for about 10 minutes one evening. The entire time that the team was here we had warm clear sunny days, something that we hadn't had for weeks. Every day here for the past month has been cloudy almost without exception. The team had told us that they had been praying for good weather for their trip, and the Lord delivered. Thank God for answered prayer! It is however unfortunate that they had to leave because the exact day they left we went right back to our winter. We have had one sunny day since they left and the rest have been quite cold and very rainy. In fact yesterday it rained all day and night and now we are right back to the same old level of mud that we were at before the team came and dried it all up. Ok I realize now that this is getting long so I am gonna cut the other stuff off for another posting and or update. But lastly I must say that amidst all of those little miracles that the Lord did there was also one more, my dad came with them! He actually left The United States! To most of you that doesn't mean a lot, but in a nut shell my dad is not a big traveller for whatever reason. He even said when he got here that it was a mini miracle that he came because it is against his normal inclinations. Anyways that all said The Lord was incredibly good to us and to the team, I know that we were not only blessed but they were as well. And so were the people of Pena Blanca - not only did they help with the building but were able to go out and minister to several very poor families in the area sharing with them the Love of Christ through food clothes and most important of all prayer and the gospel.

Ernesto and Ted lay some block
A little worship and fellowship at the Cowan Cabana
Leah does some dirty work

A group shot of both our Gringo team and the Catracho building crew

Mud and More Mud!

2008-10-30T13:40:00.006-06:00

I had previously mentioned in a brief update as to the extent to which it had become very muddy here, and unfortunately it has gotten much worse since I last spoke of it. In fact we have been having trouble getting in and out even with four wheel drive. The ruts in the road have become quite deep and much, much muddier. And unfortunately to go along with all of the wet that we have been having, we have been cold. I know what you are thinking, "Cold, what is wrong with this boy? Doesn't he know that he lives in Honduras?". Yes believe you me, I am aware of where I live, and yet it is still cold. In fact I am wearing a sweater right now, and my fingers are quite chilly as I type this. It is bizarre indeed since it feels as though it should be winter but looks as though it is the middle of tropical summer. Anyway back to the mud....I thought I would post some pics of our driveway. I took these about a week ago, so they don't show how bad it is now. Just imagine way more mud, and deeper ruts. In fact one set of ruts was so deep that I had to go dig out the space between them with a pickaxe because the truck was rubbing and threatening to high center. (Before you truck nuts out there jump on me and say it is all about tire placement, just put your wheels up on the high spot. I have to stop you and say it is not possible because the road is hedged on the sides with coffee plants and trees which don't give enough room to do this. Its ruts or nothing.) So here is a set of pictures of Chris and I driving from the main road to our house.

All this mud has been why I haven't been able to ride the bike to the University, it just isn't possible. It is also why our buying a vehicle here has been hard, we need 4x4, they are in high demand here, and thus prices are high. Oh well "asi es" (Spanish version of Cest la vie)

By popular demand

2008-10-13T08:54:00.007-06:00

I said I would do it and alas I shall. I am posting a pic of my sweet ride, the Bacini of hope, glory, and cheap Chinese manufacturing. Leah took this this morning just before we all left for work, as you can see I am still partaking of and enjoying my morning cup of coffee. In the other picture you can see the fenders I made out of pepsi bottles.(I was mocked by a couple of locals for making these, though they said it was a good idea they thought that it was very funny. Sadly though the Bacini is becoming less wondrous, because well it rains here all the time, and riding in the rain is not bad, but when it is a rainforest downpour, it can be a bit tricky. Mix in with that the lack of pavement here, and then you get grips of mud. And though the Bacini is glorious it doesn't have four wheel drive, though I am looking into hooking up a turbo. And there have also been some recent security/safety issues with me and the bike, whereby I needed to get a ride rather than ride my bike. But under the right circumstances and during the summer, non-rainy season, I think once again the Bacini shall reveal her full glory.

Some Real Info

2008-10-05T12:56:00.003-06:00

I will admit that the last blog was kinda odd, in that we told you that we were having problems with the internet and uploading pictures to the internet, and then we turned around put up some pictures with that notice. The reason for this is that it just so happened that at the moment I was posting that message the internet got really fast (it often fluctuates up and down like most everything else here, electricity, water pressure, etc...)and I decided to seize the moment and throw up some pictures even though we had just finished saying that we couldn't. Anyways now that that has been said, Here are some more pictures (the internet is being very cooperative as of late). As many of you know I am teaching English in a University here in Pena Blanca, I am there for one hour a day Monday - Thursday and my class ranges from about 10-25 students depending on what I can only assume are their moods in the morning or the weather (many of my students come in from surrounding towns and when it is raining hard they usually do not come - Hondurans don't like to go out in the rain and also the mud can make it impossible to get into and out of many small towns). This is a picture taken on just such a day, as you can see by the small amount of students. Things are going well with my students, I am finally learning all of their names, and they are getting into the swing of how I run my classroom. I think that some students were anticipating that I would run it at a Latin tempo (read: very relaxed and somewhat unorganized), and now they have found that I expect them to be ready for class EVERYday as well as studying on their own, since we only have class 4 hours a week. Many of them have caught on and are progressing very quickly with their English. Well it looks like the internet is beginning to ebb the other direction so I will have to cut it off here, perhaps more if the internet speed swings back.....

2008-10-02T13:24:00.002-06:00

The first photo is of the view from the hill behind where we are living, the second is of Leah with our class.

Internet

2008-10-02T13:17:00.000-06:00

Well seeing as we have been in Honduras a month and have yet to post a blog, I feel that the first entry should be to explain why it has taken so long. In a nutshell, we have quite limited access to the internet. The house in which we are currently living is only a stone's throw away from Chris and Maria Rivera (the couple who started the church we came to help with) and while they have wireless internet either the signal is too weak to receive at our house or our computer, being older, is not strong enough to receive the signal. Now if we sit outside of the Rivera's we can connect to the internet, but there are 2 problems with this. One, mosquitoes. Enough said about that. Two, because the computer is older the battery does not last long enough to respond to emails or post blogs, you have to be sitting next to a plug in order to work for en extended period of time. The internet is also quite slow, so that when we do connect it takes a long time to upload pictures, or even for our email to load. There is also the problem that it only works when it isn't raining, which is rare here during this time of year. As you see that we have finally posted a blog, we have some rather makeshift solutions in place in order to accomplish this task. We are praying for a better solution so that we can also post pictures and update more frequently. We really want to post pictures and blog more often so that you can see and in some way be a part of what is going on here in Honduras, so please bear with us as we try to make this happen.