Back to Building Bridges!

The big bridge project, in Las Flores, is progressing again!

I've stepped away from blogging for a bit, but I'm back with big news! The bridge project was at a standstill, because of problems between the government and the available crane companies, in negotiating a contract for the lifting of the bridge beams.

This part of the work requires two big cranes to move about down in the riverbed, and so it must be done when the water level is low - but the negotiation standoff took up most of the dry season. Just now, as the rainy season is gearing up, the cranes are in the river. This makes things trickier, but -you know Allen!- we're making it work anyway! We've spent some time praying for dry weather this past week - which isn't our usual prayer this time of year. When storm clouds gather in sight of our property I have the job of calling Allen and warning him of impending rain. The bridge location is down in a valley with limited views, but up on our mountain I can see the storms coming from almost all directions, so I'm the lookout!

Boo took many pictures of the cranes lifting the beams up onto the bridge supports. I'll post a few of those below. There have been so many problems, delays, breakdowns, weather issues, etc, that this work is going slowly, but the beams ARE GOING UP!

Because of the limitations of the cranes, the beam had to be set into one slot, then the cranes had to be moved, then the beam was moved into its final location.

This photo was taken  on Sunday, when the first beam was in it's final position. There are a total of 12 beams, and we expect/hope that 8 of those will be in place by the end of today (Wednesday).

Allen and Russell have made good use of the time they weren't building this bridge . . . they've been working on building our home, so that eventually we can live in a house instead of a warehouse. I should post pictures of that progress soon . . . but for now, watch for more progress on the big bridge!!!!!

The BucketBoy Grows . . .

Our son Ben was dubbed "The BucketBoy" because of the following photos from his preschool days:

We tried another bucket on for size when he was five, to create an updated version:

Recently, I received a request for some more current BucketBoy photos, now that he's eleven. Here they are for your viewing pleasure, uninterrupted by commentary. I think the BucketBoy's goofy personality shows through without needing any help from me!

Grinding beef, using boy-power!

We recently butchered our bull. In preparation for processing our home-grown meat, we had purchased a small but (supposedly) good quality electric meat grinder. Sadly, the third time we used it, grinding the meat from the bull into hamburger, the machine broke. So, Allen looked around in Gracias, and found a manual meat grinder in one of the hardware stores, for around $40.

Today we pulled out a large bag of the meat that we'd intended to grind (meat that we hadn't been able to grind, because of our broken machine), and had Josiah and Ben put it through the manual grinder. Because this meat was previously frozen, it has to be cooked before it can be frozen again. We're seasoning this meat to use in tacos. It will be nice to have some "convenience food" in the freezer for future use!

Today we ground, seasoned, and cooked about 15 pounds of meat for tacos. We're thinking of other things to cook in bulk when we do future batches of grinding - perhaps sausage, or meatballs! Yum!

Meanwhile, Allen, Bethany and Gus are cutting strips of beef to use as jerky. Jerky is totally a treat for us, and we're looking forward to having it around the house . . . for a week or so, LOL. Then it will all be eaten! 

Pastor Gifts are Heading OUT!

This has been a big week for the creation and distribution of pastor gifts. Iris came over and helped me on four different days, and we put together a total of 68 personalized pastor boxes on those days! We generally expect to make enough boxes for between 200 and 250 pastors and their families each year, so this is a nice encouraging chunk of the total number. I've been discouraged about ever getting this project done this year, but this has energized me.

The donations we received this year included many copies of several Christian books (in Spanish). These we give in quantity to each pastor, to share with his congregation and neighbors. The total gift given to each pastor, including these books, involves several boxes.

Wednesday we scheduled as a distribution day, and we sorted and loaded over 80 gifts (plus the books to go with them) and sent them off to their destinations!

I'm so glad to see this progress, and I'm really looking forward to having my house back!!!!

So much to tell . . .

 

Life hasn't stood still while I've been too busy to blog - in fact, it has been pretty eventful around here. I'll try to get caught up, starting by sharing this new addition to our family.

We have a new Great Dane puppy! I've had a lifelong love of gigantic dogs (I have my parents to thank for this, as they bought our family a St. Bernard when I was a child), and when the chance came to purchase a Great Dane from a local litter, we jumped at the opportunity! This dog is officially Allen's birthday present to me, and I think it's the best present ever!

Buddy (as we call the pup, while we await naming inspiration) is about 6 weeks old. In Honduras, puppies are sold at a younger age than in the US, and this litter of pups wasn't going to be around if we waited until the puppies were older. So, we're giving him a bit of extra care and attention (read: spoiling him), since he's really a teensy baby.

All of our adult dogs think Buddy is a nuisance, but Ginger, our 4 month old Labrador, thinks the puppy is a new friend/toy. We have to watch them when they play, because of the difference in their sizes, but Buddy isn't intimidated. He's just thrilled to have a playmate.

We're having such fun with our new baby. Buddy hates to be alone, he grumbles in his sleep and when his belly is really full, and he has now grown enough that he can get up and down off the couch by himself (using the footstool to help). Oops - that letting him on the couch thing might have been a bad idea! Don't worry, though, when he gets a little bit bigger we'll train him to stay off the couch. We have to . . . either that, or purchase an additional couch. Once he's grown, he'd need the whole couch to himself!

For now, the baby gets to sleep on the couch, and I love seeing him snuggled up to our long-suffering cat, Splotch.

Easing my way back into blogging . . . here's a picture

(As always, click on the photo to see a sharper image.)

Have you ever lost an entire month?

I feel like I just did!

In mid-January, it worked out for Russell's wife, Iris, to come and help me put together pastor gifts every work day. It had to do with Russell coming out to our place to work on weekdays, so she had a ride, and then also with her having some free time just then. So, I put aside everything else, and worked with Iris. I neglected the homeschooling, the housework, the blog, emails - everything. I knew in the long run, the tradeoff would be worth it, because when the pastor gifts are completed and distributed I get my house back.

The period of time in which Iris was available to help was three weeks. We worked steadily through the first two weeks, but that's when I got sick. I was too sick to do anything for about a week and a half, and I've been recuperating for another week and a half.

Now, I'm ready to face the world again . . . but aaarrgghh - what a mess I have to face! I've basically not handled the regular duties of daily life for FIVE WEEKS! It's gonna be a long, hard road back. I've almost got things back to a barely-livable level on the housework. I was actually able to do a bunch of schoolwork with Ben (which involved me reading aloud to him while sitting on the couch) during the latter part of my recuperation, so we're feeling okay about that. I have so many unanswered emails to handle! And, of course, I need to get out and take pictures for the blog, so you can see what's going on with the ministry and such and not just hear about my inability to get things done!

However - I've just arranged to have Iris come out several days this week, to help me with the pastor gifts again. We get so much more done when we work together than when I try to do this job on my own. I'm just not as young as I used to be, plus having someone come specifically for this job helps keep me focused and motivated.  This is a good thing, but you know it means that other things are going to fall through the cracks - or remain in the cracks, as the case may be, LOL.

On top of all of that, I'm pretty sure I still need to take it a little bit easy, as I'm not quite all the way back from being so sick. Yes, the kids are helping, but I'm trying to keep them from doing so much of my work that they fall behind on schoolwork, and of course Rachel is a bit distracted with her wedding plans. We're muddling through, and I'm sure there's a light at the end of the (very very very long) tunnel! Prayers would be appreciated!