The Days of Their Lives

Recently, Trish received word from some of you loyal blog readers about how much you would like to hear more about the day-to-day happenings in their lives. I couldn’t agree more. My online friendship with Trish spans quite a few years and I’m always eager to hear about things like a cow walking into her kitchen or the health of their pet kinkajou. That’s the sort of thing that doesn’t normally come up in conversations with my other friends. Because of your requests, we will make more of an effort to tell about the small details of missionary life, as well as the major projects.

Downtime?

On Wednesday, I was able to chat with Russell and Allen in tandem. Russell had just picked up Allen from the airport following his North American trip and father and son were on their way home from San Pedro Sula. This is normally a 3 - 4 hour trip each way, but this week the return trip actually took 6 hours, because of construction. Of course, Allen was planning a little downtime before getting back to his crazy schedule in the mountains of Western Honduras. Well, by “a little downtime” I actually mean Allen was planning on sleeping that night and being back at work the next day.

Schedule-Palooza

Allen, Trish, and Russell are planning to have a sit-down meeting this weekend to discuss their upcoming schedule priorities. Coffee harvesting season is over and Russell has more time to work on other things (the work crew guys will continue to work in the fields for about half their time, as they start the new coffee plants for next year, and do regular chores to care for the existing plants). During this season, the Sowers can catch up on other ministry activities. One of the things they will all be doing is preparing to distribute the supplies that recently arrived on the container. Russell plans on getting to the Gifts for Gracias part of the container today, as the matter of fact. Allen also brought back letters from Kim Hall with Manna 4 Lempira. The letters, along with a box of small solar-powered lanterns which came down in the container as special gifts from child sponsors, will be delivered over the course of the next three weekends, as Russell runs them around to the various villages with child sponsorship programs in those locations.

Move Over, Bob Vila!

Since Russell never seems to tire of lending a helping hand, he is spending a week of time, spread out a bit, helping to build a wall and put on a patio roof for another missionary family in the area (the wall is for security, and the roof is so they'll have a place to dry clothes during rainy times). At the time we spoke, he was two days into the project.

This week he's making a quick, one-day trip to take a gigantic, piled-high truckload of items to his sister, Rachel, in the capital city of Tegucigalpa. These are things which came down in the shipping container for her personally and for her ministry, including lots of MK camp supplies, as well as soon-to-be-needed new-baby items.

Russell will also be building an incinerator on the Sowers’ property sometime soon. Since they don’t live in town, they process their own garbage and burn all burnable materials. The new incinerator will be a major step up from the metal trashcans they’ve always used. I wanted to know what a homemade incinerator would look like and Russell described a large brick box with a fireplace in the front, with a removable grill. The garbage will be put down the chimney, and a fire will be burning in the fireplace.

Weekend Plans

On Saturday, Russell and Iris will attend the wedding of Iris’s cousin. In fact, Russell and Iris will have the seats of honor at the wedding. In Spanish, this honor translates as being the godparents of the wedding! Russell and Iris were selected because they are a family couple the bride and groom look up to and want to emulate. Their marriage serves as an example of what a marriage should look like. RJ will be a part of the wedding procession. And Abby will be along for the ride.

Trish has a trip planned to visit Ben at his school on Sunday. While it’s not as big an undertaking as her recent trip to Guatemala, the trip will still take about three hours each way. The trip will include three buses and a taxi in each direction. Time with Ben will be worth it, though.

An Eye on the Future

A new bridge project is coming up soon. This one will be a large cable vehicle bridge and will require about six weeks worth of work. The timing is one of the things they will discuss as they plan their schedules.

In case you're wondering, there have been no recent cows in the kitchen and the kinkajou is doing well. We'll keep you posted on any late breaking developments, though. Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of their lives!

- posted by Christi