My New Friends

This is my (Ellen's) first time to post on our blog!  I have many things I would like to write about, but I will focus on PEOPLE this time.

Our move to Honduras has been a huge change for us, especially for me as I dearly miss my family and friends.  We are still in transition, but making friends helps us feel more connected.  I want to tell about some of the people the Lord has allowed us to cross paths with.

Our new neighbors have welcomed us by bringing us a variety of food gifts: bananas, papaya, mangoes, homemade cheese (requesón) and a same of a fish torte.

One afternoon while Matt and I were taking a walk, we stopped at the fence of a couple who were out in their yard.  As soon as the lady saw us, she eagerly came over to meet us.  She said that her husband had come home one day and told her that some "gringos" had moved into the town.  She repeated over and over that she was so glad to finally see us and to meet us.  She invited us to return to their house whenever we wanted.

One of our neighbors is taking English in high school, so she came over one afternoon with a classmate to get some clarification on some English words since they were having an exam the next day.  We had a fun time together and they both did well on their exam!

Last week we went to a neighboring town to see the fuel efficient stove project that began two weeks ago.  The man in the blue t-shirt is overseeing this project and was eager to show us the new stoves since he knows of our interest in helping people improve their health.

These new stoves will reduce the amount of smoke that is put out by the burning wood, which in turn fills their lungs. It also uses a fraction of the wood, thereby reducing the need to buy or collect wood which is costly and time consuming to collect.

Our friend Carolina and her daughter Maya were with us as we walked through the town.  Maya was an automatic switch that made people smile!  She was wearing my hat for some of the time.

While we were walking through this town, we saw a soccer match just beginning and recognized one of the players!  It was then that we realized it was our town's team that was the visiting team!  And the last boy in the line was our first friend that we made in Humuya back in February!  Unfortunately we didn't have time to stay and cheer our team on to victory.

One Sunday at Arturo's church, I took a few moments to play with two little girls who are cousins.  They loved having their picture taken!  After our "photo session" they wanted me to come into their Sunday School room and be their teacher!

Then today we went to San Pedro de Tutule.  They are having a festival in the town all this week.  We met up with our friend Alma who is a school teacher there.  We had a lovely time walking around the town and listening to the traditional music and seeing all the many people who gathered.  We even got to meet Alma's mother and learned that her mother is a Lenca Indian!  That is one of the people groups that we would like to work with.

We also got to meet the mayor of Tutule.  He invited us back to his town to help in whatever way we can.  What an encouragement for us as we keep trying to meet leaders in the community!

We truly believe what the Bible says in Ephesians 2:10 -  "For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  GOD has prepared good works for us - - we need to keep walking as we discover them.  And all of our looking involves meeting all kinds of wonderful people!  Thank you, Lord!

We have a New Bed!

They say that it's important to get a good night sleep!  I'm sure a good bed goes a long way to making that possible.

Our New Bed - we are really excited!!

We have been using an air mattress which has been good, but it keeps us pretty close to the ground which makes for a pretty long "spring out of bed" in the morning (not to mention in the middle of the night).  There’s also all the creepy crawlers who live down at ground level and like visitors - even when the visitors don't like them.  So, we were in the market for a new bed.

This is the air mattress being deflated for removal!

We actually wanted a platform bed so that we could have some storage space underneath for plastic boxes with our clothes.  We only found one platform bed for sale, it was rather high off the floor, had a huge black lacquer headboard, and was almost $500 for just the frame (or platform). 

We opted to buy a mattress, some wood, stain and polyurethane, and make our own!

We had a couple building parameters:

The height of the headboard was limited to 36” by the window.

The plastic boxes are 10.5” and so the space underneath should be about 11.5”.

We wanted a pretty normal height for the bed which should be about 24” to 26”.

We didn’t have a lot of money for this so we planned on no more than $100.

I made the design myself... well, actually there were vestiges of ideas from the waterbed we had early in our marriage.  I was a little concerned about strength but it has turned out to be rock solid!

We are very happy with the final outcome and the total expenditure for the platform frame was actually under $85!

You can view the movie of us setting up the bed!! (It's only 3 min 20 sec)

Semana Santa and Carpets in the Streets

A tradition in Honduras for Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is the alfombras en las calles, or the carpets in the streets.

So, we headed off Friday morning, 4-6-12, with our friends to 'El Centro' (downtown) to see the colored streets!

Here's Ellen with Chad and Nikki standing behind her.

Our first stop was to watch a procession in the streets depicting Christ's journey to the cross.  Amazingly, the streets of Tegucigalpa were all but vacant this morning.  Even so, there were police present at either end of the procession and blocking off the street - very nice.

The people that were gathered were very intent on the procession and very solemn.

They just acted out the part of stripping Jesus of his robes and beating him.

"Cristo es la Resurrección y la Vida" which is: Christ is the Resurrection and the Life!

The people use colored sawdust to created amazing designs.

Some are just incredibly colorful patterns and others are actually pictures depicting scenes from the Easter story.

Some of the pictures were being made freehand as this one was.  They first draw out the picture on the asphalt in chalk and then fill in with sawdust.  Here a woman is working on the beard of a man's face.

This is the same picture from another angle.  You can see how nicely the faces have been made!

Other pictures and patterns use large stencils made by cutting out cardboard.

Here is a huge stencil made by taping several sheets together.  The image that's being made is a picture of Moses standing before the separated waters of the Red Sea.

Occasionally I would talk with the people creating the designs and once I was actually invited to help!

These folks had already been working through the night on multiple designs and everything has to be completely finished by 11:00 am Saturday.

This video shows the design creation in process!

The alfombras bring lots of tourists and so, just like in the States, there are vendors selling snack stuff.  She's is selling a variety of chips... like fried plantain.

He's selling gum and other candies.  We bought some 'chicklets'.  All the gum is 'chicklet' but the gum we purchased was trident.  They were sold in tiny little boxes, with four little pieces, all for 15 limpera for two boxes (about 75 cents).

There are several people stationed around with water tanks to spray the sawdust to keep it in place.  Notice there's also a police officer to his left.  There were plenty of police in the streets to deter would be thieves and trouble makers.

This was a huge picture and very well done, though it doesn't quite show up as well in the photo.

Great last supper scene!

My favorite!  Jesus is The Good Shepherd!  All who trust Jesus for salvation are the sheep of His flock!

"I am the good shepherd. 

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."

John 10:11

Semana Santa at the Rio

This is Semana Santa, or Holy Week, and it is both a huge religious celebration and vacation time.

The big positive is that this is an easy time to talk about Jesus, His death and resurrection, and what that means personally.

The big negative is that for many this is a big time of drinking.  So much so that everyone says to limit driving, drive only during the day and the morning is best, and in no way drive at night.  The man in front of Ellen at the grocery store was buying 28 cases of beer.  Maybe he's having 200 friends and relatives over and it's really not that big of a deal.  Then again, maybe he's having over a few...

We went to the river with Pastor Arturo's church on Tuesday.  They were having a picnic and baptism and would be staying most the day, but we said that we could only stay part of the day and would leave early. When we met up with the group at a central square in a nearby town there were ten people needing a ride!  We took them and realized that the Lord had plans for us to stay the whole day!

We went to a place where people go to dig out sand for construction by a river and sometimes in the river.  Because of that, the last bit of driving was rather tricky and felt more like an X games 4x4 course rather than a road... not that it really was a road!

There was a short hike from where we parked to the edge of the river.  This really had the feeling of going to the beach in the states - sand, prickers, flies, and really, really, hot!

There were about 20 kids of various ages, and about 10 toddlers.  We had several moms with us but Pastor Arturo and I were the only men.

No sooner had we set our bags down, the kids raced for the water, and the swimming commenced!!

The folks we were with don't have extra income for swimsuits so we all just swam in our clothes.  Which is still every bit as wet and fun as swimming in swimsuits!

Some of the folks went off to try their luck fishing.  They didn't have poles but rather used circular nets with small weights along the edge.

Pastor Arturo has a lot of experience and skill in this type of fishing and you can see him here making an expert throw.

The catch wasn't big... both in numbers and size, but they did fry up nicely!  If you look closely you'll see little crab legs sticking up in the front of the pan right behind the handle!!  These are like little mud crabs.  I got to taste one (shell and all) and it tasted... crabby.  Well, what was I expecting?!

When the fish are this size they just fry up the whole body and you eat it, head, tail, and all!  Yummy!  I think Arturo wants more!!

We also enjoyed the watermelon that's currently in season!  Super sweet and sometimes super silly too!

After lunch, Arturo had a word to share followed by prayer.

This was followed by a children's lesson given by Ellen and Arturo's wife, Griselda.

They used an object lesson given to Ellen by a woman from our home church in MD.  There were 16 colored plastic eggs (symbolizing new life), and in each was something to symbolize a part of the passion of Christ.

There were things like little silver coins to represent the 30 pieces of silver Judas received to betray Jesus, and a little horse shoe nail to represent the spikes put in Jesus' hands and feet, and a tiny little sign that read "Este es el Rey de los Judios" (This is the King of the Jews), and many others.  The children really seemed to love this lesson.  They were excited to be picked to come up and open an egg, and equally excited to talk about what it meant.  PTL!!!

There were also four baptisms.  Here an older woman who has just recently accepted Christ is being baptized.

Three children were also baptized including Arturo's youngest son!  Arturo's son is in the blue shirt.

We had a blast and were blessed!!  It was so much fun that we could almost forget... forget the material poverty around us and the ugly stain of sin that seems to touch every person.

Ellen is holding a beautiful little baby boy and his mother was also there enjoying the day with us.  She is 15 years old and the baby was fathered by her mother's 70 year old uncle.   The father of the baby takes no responsibility for the child and shows no remorse over what he's done.

Another young lady of 18 at the picnic had a three month old baby girl with her.  She had left her family to live with a man, but he beat her daily, and so she finally left him and returned to her family...  already pregnant.

Of course, there's the regular drinking that plagues the nation and at a peak during the celebration of Holy Week.  These are all symptoms that reflect the heart condition here.

The answer is not simply 'education' as some say or meeting material needs, but rather the need is for new life!  A change in heart and spirit.  A realization that in our own strength we are helpless to overcome and change ourselves, but that Christ has already lived the perfect life for us, that He came and died that we might live and live abundantly!

"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I (Jesus) have come that they may have life, 

and that they may have it more abundantly." 

John 10:10

The Little Yellow House

As many of you are aware, we have been on a search for a rental house for a period of several months.  

Then, when we stopped trying, when we weren't looking, when we didn't have time to look... God provided a house!

The woman sitting next to me on the plane coming back to Honduras said she had a brother living in the town of La Paz where we looking to find a house. Her brother actually ended up living about 15 minutes outside of La Paz in a little town called Humuya.

A few days later, when we were in the middle of our first ever little short term team from the states, she invited us out to her brother's house. Her brother knew someone, who knew someone, who had a house for rent.

The little yellow house sits on the outskirts a little town!

So, off we went with this woman's brother's friend in our truck and he took us to a beautiful brand new house that was available to rent!! Praise the LORD who provides!!

The house was originally white on the outside and unpainted on the inside.

Both the living room and the kitchen have arches into them.

They said that they would paint the inside and that it would all be white... which was fine with us.

Moca and olive green are the colors of our master bedroom.

Obviously, there was a change of plans and the house ended up with a little more color!  Every room has a combination of two colors; yellow, orange, moca and olive green.

Steps on the back of the house are not quite finished

As we were expecting a white house all the color was a bit shocking at first, but it has really grown on us!

There's a yard!  Not typical in Honduras.

The house has actually in construction for eight years and we've found a couple things that aren't quite right. Like we can't use the kitchen sink yet because it drains into the cabinets an on to the floor. And, the fun we've had with carpenter ants seemingly exploding from some of the doors! But, these are all little things that can be fixed and they haven't taken away our joy in what the Lord has provided!!

We see lots of burros, horses and ox carts passing our house!

One of my favorite verses is Psalm 127:1,

"Unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers labor in vain..."

I would change it for this situation to be:

'Unless the Lord provides the house, the house hunters seek in vain!'

Blessed be the Lord!