An Unfinished House

The other morning I walked out onto my porch around 8:00, coffee cup in hand expecting to be greeted by relative silence and inactivity in my neck of the neighborhood and as I panned out across the landscape I was pleasantly pleased to see Duke teaching his younger cousin how to take shots on goal. This may not seem terribly significant, it doesn't now as I write this but at the time I was just struck dumb with pure feelings of pride and love for Duke. He could have been spending his vacation week as I might have done, asleep or with friends and instead chose to wake up early and help Jose learn the sport that is life here in Los Laureles. I'm excited for the man I see him becoming; a compassionate, honest and respectful leader amongst his peers. I'm excited to see his growing faith and thirst for a meaningful walk with Jesus. I'm excited to see how his qualities, his faith, how is life in general is impacting the kids around him. When I think back and remember the pos...

I was reviewing my latest cache of photos just now and realized that I have at least 5 posts in the hopper - which is like blogger Christmas for me. Before posting anything though I would be remiss if I did not mention that both Edwin (Tolo) and myself celebrated our birthdays this past Friday, April 22. This is the third year in a row now that we've celebrated together and we always try to do something a little extra special. As our birthday also happens to fall on Earth Day we decided to mark the occasion this year by burning a hunk of styrofoam. H.B. to us!

So those of you out there that aren't on mind-altering substances may remember that way back in March Cousin and Boyfriend came to visit, oops... ...I mean Boyfriend and Cousin. I've never quite had visitors like these two - supposedly they came to see me but they spent 90% of their time hanging out with Girlfriend (that's her in the background)...I was a tad jealous. They came though with a mission, they were sent by EMM (my mission agency) to film and photograph my life and work here in Los Laureles - the idea being that the media they came up with might be used in the future for promotional activities. All that to say, Cousin emailed me the other day with a link to a rough draft of the video they put together...it almost brought me to tears - man I hate feelings, that's two days in a row now. I loved it, wouldn't change a thing other than my incessant stuttering and commend them for their quality, professional work. I asked permission to post this even though it...

The other day I was reading back over Konrad's last blog entry and I found myself wanting to cry...I hate feelings. More than that I think it ought to be required reading for just about anyone wanting to do short-term mission/service work; the wisdom and insight that shines through in that post is brilliant and poigniant. Man I miss that kid. It got me to thinking though - I can sit down and write all day about the goings-on here in Los Laureles, my observations, my feelings and hopes; but to read another's perspective on this place is like shinning a light into dark corners that I didn't know existed. I may know Laureles, I may live here but I don't know everything and everyone; the way one child interacts with me may be totally different from how he/she interacts with another. I discovered that when Konrad was here, there were certain children, Duke in particular but others as well, that just opened up with him in a way that they couldn't with me, they loved him ...

her name is brandy and she's very thorough in her work. i like that.

This past week (and I'm not making this up), a strange man in a turck pulled into the community asked for me and delivered 45 sacks of used clothing to the building we use. He made me sign on the dotted line and off he went. I had no idea who he was or where he was from and I was more than a little daunted by the amount of clothing I was now charged with giving away. After a good cry I remembered something - the YES Team! They can do my work for me. This past week then we spent our afternoons opening sacks, sorting the clothing and overseeing mass giveaways. It's been a real treat especially with these mild, Sahara temperatures we've been experiencing. the clothing was so great that they were hanging from the windows in wild anticipation to give perspective that's a pile 3 tables long and two tables wide and we were only about a 1/3 way through the project did i mention they were hanging from the windows all of this clothing meant less space for our thursday bible ...

I mentioned last month in a post about my cousin that while she was here I had to attend to a child in the hospital for almost a week. It hadn't occurred to me to write more in-depth about that situation because it didn't strike me as terribly note-worthy but given the recent turn of events I think I shall and will also add that this is a solicitation for prayer for our dear light-skinned friend we call Chele. One Wednesday late last month as I was frantically scouring the community looking for signatures, photos, and permission slips for our soccer teams, a group of breathless children came running up to me to report that Kevin, also known as Chele for his light skin, the goalie of our U-14 soccer team had fallen off his bike on the dirt road and landed in broken glass and that he had broken his knee. To the medical laymen of this great nation the "knee" and sometimes the "foot" consists of everything below the hip and the word "broke" could mean...

this past friday we loaded up 20 kids from our u-12 soccer team along with one of their coaches and 5 gringo handlers onto a bus that headed out to the public university. this is becoming routine for us, these university visits but we like them. we like the diversion, the change of scenery, the feel of true learning in the ambience, the chance to play soccer on real grass. the first thing we learned is that someone did not in fact paint this tree various colors. although about half of our kids were convinced otherwise. we also learned that hondurans generally assume that any dog that looks like this is hell-bent on slaying you at the first sign you might have let your guard drop. seriously, i've never seen a nation of people so weak-kneed at the sight of a puppy. i try to tell them she's friendly and loves to play but they act as though i too am part of the ploy to lure them to their dog-mauled deaths and avoid both of us as though we were typhoid mary's. the girls opte...

Darwin turned 4 today. We couldn't find any birthday candles so we rounded up some 'Our Lady of Fatima' funeral/vigil candles and plopped one down in the center. he was thrilled

The YES Team (Youth Evangelism Service) has been here for almost 2 weeks now and this is what my front porch looks like as a result. They just attract little children like magnets. I'm constantly shooing them away with my broom and they just come swarming back, eyes all-a-goggle, wanting to be near the newest Gringos in Los Laureles. The YES'ers have plugged right in and while their Spanish isn't the best/almost non-existant they don't lack for zeal or desire to share Jesus love with the kids; that comes shinning through. More than that they've been an encouragement to me to refocus my energies and reach out to a younger group of kids that I don't normally interact with much. As the weeks go by I'll be sharing more of the Team's adventures but for now be in prayer for us all - working with a team is a lot different that working solo or simply with a sidekick. Pray for my front porch and dusty floors as well...my OCD is kicking into overdrive. so the te...

Forget the Black Bumper, Horning Mennonites... We've been invaded by full-blown Horse & Buggy, Wenger Mennonites. They've already started sending they're plain forms of transportation by ship down from Lancaster County. Mateo is confused. Chele is unfased.