Trying to keep up with the changing times!

 Many of the readers of this blog receive each new blog post by email. We have been using a service called FeedBurner for this . . . but Feedburner is closing up shop in the next few weeks!

We're working on setting up a new option for sending out our blog posts by email. Meanwhile, we'll keep posting, and you can still read our posts by visiting the blog, or by setting up an RSS reader.

If anyone is familiar with a service (other than Feedburner) which delivers blog posts by email, and can help me out with this, I'd be ever-so-grateful! 

Meanwhile, until we get the new service set up - thanks for your patience! 

Blessings to all,
Trish

Show Me That Smile, Again!

You may have noticed that the Sowers4Pastors blog received a little makeover (those of you reading this post by email might want to click over to www.sowers4pastors.blogspot.com, so you can see what we're talking about). It’s all turquoise-y and pretty. There’s also a picture of Allen, Trish, Russell, Iris, R.J., and Abby in the header that is large enough to make Trish squirm with discomfort and long for the former header of anonymous mountains in Western Honduras. The redesign is because Trish wanted to make the blog more cohesive with the soon-to-be-unveiled new website. The reason Trish was working behind-the-scenes on the blog at all was because she was adding a link to the Amazon Smile program (more on that in a minute) - and, in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie fashion, Trish found herself tying the color scheme of the blog and the website together.

Now, more on that Amazon Smile program…

On the pretty, turquoise-y blog featuring a gaggle of smiling Sowerses, you will also see a box at the top of the right-hand margin, which says, “Support Sowers4Pastors Inc.” There’s some more writing and a link to take you to a place to sign up for the Amazon Smile program. It’s easy to find because it is neither turquoise-y, nor particularly pretty. It’s orange and black, like a construction paper jack-o-lantern. But what that little box can do is BEAUTIFUL!

By signing up to participate in the Amazon Smile program, you can designate Sowers4Pastors to receive 0.5% of the price of your eligible Amazon purchases. That 0.5% does not include things like shipping costs, tax, and subscription programs. The products and prices are identical to those on the main Amazon site, so don’t worry about paying inflated fees.

The link, for those of you seeing this post by email, is
https://smile.amazon.com/ch/82-1025136

In order to benefit Sowers4Pastors, you will need to remember to enter through the designated Amazon Smile site, whenever you go shopping on Amazon. It does not work on the regular website, or on the Amazon app. If you use the regular Amazon website, or are purchasing on your phone using the app, the money won’t get to them.

If 0.5% doesn’t sound worth your time, let me remind you how far Sowers4Pastors can stretch a dollar. They have multiple feeding centers, which are not sponsorship centers. It takes a ridiculously small amount of money to keep those centers in operation. The cost to feed one child is around $2 per year. That means that when you make one $100 purchase on Amazon, you feed a child for three months! That's nothing to sneeze at!

Sign up! It’s an easy way to participate in spreading the Gospel, feeding children, training pastors, and all the other great things Sowers4Pastors does, by ordering things you were already going to purchase from Amazon. So, go ahead! Show me that smile again!

 - posted by Christi

Stay Informed

A common thread when talking to visiting team members is how they want to hold onto their enthusiasm about continuing to be involved with the Sowers4Pastors ministry, even after they go back to their daily lives. It’s easy to be excited when you’re actually in Honduras--building bridges, feeding children, handing out backpacks, etc… It can be difficult to maintain a focus on the ministry when you go home to your regular job, bills, and problems. Sometimes, even with the best of intentions, regular life gets in the way. The best way to stay excited is to stay informed!

We’ve come up with a few specific instructions to help you keep up with the ministry happenings:

1.  Read the blog! We’re faithful in blogging, usually posting two or three blog posts a week. The blog is where you will get the most in-depth information about what’s going on with Sowers4Pastors. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t read blogs. They want to be involved, but they are busy and don’t think to check a blog for recent updates. There’s an easy way to receive the blog posts by email. On the blog, there’s a place to enter your email address - it's at the very top of the right column. After you enter your email address, you will be sent a confirmation email, and… Voila! You will receive the blog posts, including all of the pictures, directly in your inbox. Even if you don’t read every one, it’s a great reminder that we’re still here!

2.  The Facebook ministry page is an incredible tool for getting information to the masses. It’s also a not-so-incredible tool for getting information to the masses! The problem lies in the mysterious ways of the Facebook algorithms. Even if you’ve liked the Sowers4Pastors Facebook page, you must interact with the page by liking posts or leaving comments, if you wish to continue to see new posts. Any “likes” or comments are appreciated! Facebook is the place where you will find the most pictures about what’s going on in the ministry.

Not everyone is a Facebook user. If that’s you, you can still visit the Sowers4Pastors Facebook page. All posts on the ministry page have been set for public viewing. To visit the Sowers4Pastors Ministry Page, just click the "Join us on Facebook" button, which is the second item in the right column of this blog.

3. The Sowers4Pastors newsletter is the place to read about things the Sowers don’t necessarily want to share on the internet. In the newsletter, you will get more inside information about how to pray for the ministry, and for the Sowers family personally. The newsletter mailing list is also how we contact people to pray during urgent difficulties - such as when Trish and Ben were kidnapped, or when there are turbulent political situations. Trish has committed to writing more frequent general newsletters in the future - not just writing during emergencies - hopefully one each month.

If you do not receive the newsletter, you may be able to sign up here, on the Sowers4Pastors blog. There’s a pop-up that asks if you would like to subscribe, and you can fill that out, to be added to our mailing list. The problem is, after you’ve visited the blog a few times, the pop up stops popping up, whether you've signed up or not! In that case, you can contract Trish via email (trish at sowers4pastors dot com). Simply put “Add me to the newsletter” in the subject line. Easy peasy!

4. The BRAND NEW Sowers4Pastors Instagram account is now open for business. Get in on the ground floor, by clicking this link to follow us on Instagram!

You know the Sowerses are hard at work in Honduras. It encourages them when the people "back home" make the effort to stay informed - and it helps you know how you can be involved! It's a win-win, and hopefully, it's easier than ever now!

 - posted by Christi

Introducing our New Video Collection!

We have a new page linked at the top of the blog: VIDEOS! This summer, videographer Jenny Oetting spent a month in Honduras, filming the ministry work. Since then, she's been organizing all of that material to create this set of videos. We're so excited to share them with you . . . and we hope that you will find them useful in sharing this ministry with others! The link to the videos, in the link bar above, will make them easily accessible, when you need them.


Here's the complete video collection:
To get a picture of the entire ministry first, before gathering more details, check out the “Ministry Overview” video to hear Trish give a tour of Sowers4Pastors’ many worthwhile efforts.
Sowers4Pastors Series: Ministry Overview from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

Meet Kim and Jonathan Hall and learn how Manna 4 Lempira feeds children, provides backpacks and school supplies, and shares the Gospel message. It’s like a loaves and fishes story to see how resources are being multiplied to touch so many lives.

Sowers4Pastors Series | Manna 4 Lempira from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

Watch as Russell shows what the yearly MK Camp means to the missionary kids in Honduras. (Be sure and keep an eye out for Allen, who also grew up as a missionary kid!)
Sowers4Pastors Series: Missionary Kids Camp from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

Russell also takes you on a tour of Sowers4Pastors’ coffee farm and explains why Sowers4Pastors is growing coffee as a means of helping sustain their ministry.

Sowers4Pastors Series: Coffee Farm from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

Speaking of coffee, watch “A Cup of Coffee” to learn what you could provide by forgoing just one cup of a designer coffee drink.
Sowers4Pastors Series | A Cup Of Coffee from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

If you’re contemplating a short term mission trip through Sowers4Pastors, you won’t want to miss the “Travel” video. You will learn what to expect from the airport, lodging, food, transportation, and potential team projects. It’s like a one stop travel guide!
Sowers4Pastors Series | Travel from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

In the “Pastors Training School” video, you will see how indigenous pastors are being trained to plant churches in some of the estimated 2000 villages in Western Honduras, which do not have a Bible based church.
Sowers4Pastors Series: Pastors Training School from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

You can also see what happens when Sowers4Pastors joins forces with a short-term missions team from the U.S. and a team of local volunteers to build a pedestrian foot bridge in a week.
Sowers4Pastors Series | Bridge In A Week from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

Why bridges? Watch the “Why Bridges?” video and see what the bridge in a week projects mean to local communities.
Sowers4Pastors Series: Why Bridges? from Jenny Oetting on Vimeo.

 - posted by Christi

Brother, Can You Spare Some Time?

Do you ever feel like you have information overload? Unless you’re living off the grid and happen to be reading this because a visitor with wifi dropped in to see you at your isolated cabin in the woods, you probably do.

We all have a lot of things vying for our time and attention. We live in an age of 24-hour newsfeeds, which may be great if you’re an insomniac with a desire for information and an obsession with the upcoming elections and the Kardashians. For the rest of us, it can be overwhelming. But, here’s the deal: Sowers4Pastors would like just a smidgen of your time each week.

Choir, I Feel a Sermon Coming On!  

I understand that the very fact you are reading this (You are reading this aren’t you? Hello? Is this thing on?) means I am preaching to the choir. But there are some things that need to be said. You can spread the word to those backsliders who didn’t make it to this blogpost!

Allen and Trish are super nice people. They’re so nice they’re probably never going to tell you what they need most from you. As a non-Sowers who has no delusions of niceness, I feel I can tell you THEY NEED YOUR PRAYERS! And they need you to sacrifice about ten minutes each week to read this handy-dandy blog and check the Sowers4pastors’ Facebook page so you will know how best to pray for them. That’s it.

They want you to know this isn’t about trying to raise support (although this not-so-nice non-Sowers will tell you your support would be more than welcome). This is strictly about finding out what is going on with their ministry. Without knowing what’s going on, how can you pray effectively?

We’re In Touch, So You Be In Touch

See how confusing it is when Trish selects
a photo that doesn't match the text? LOL

Do you remember back to the days when we didn’t have 24-hour news channels? At my house, that meant we could tune into about five television channels and got the bulk of our news from one of the three major networks. I was a weird child with a thirst for knowledge and, by the time I was a 4th grader, my favorite TV shows were “60 Minutes” and “20/20”. Each week, I’d tune in to “20/20” and hear Hugh Downs say, “We’re in touch, so you be in touch.” Ah, Hugh, that was good advice!

When it comes to missions, some people are called to go, and the rest of us are called to support those who are called to go--spiritually and financially. Trish, Allen, and Russell are putting forth a lot of effort to keep you informed.  Even when a post has been written by a not-so-nice non-Sowers, Trish spends hours finding the right photos to accompany the text. And Allen and Russell take time out of their busy schedules to chat with me on the phone. They sacrifice their time because it’s important to them to keep information out there for you.

If you haven’t already done so, you can sign up to follow the Sowers4Pastors blog, as well as their Facebook page. You can also request an email notification whenever a new item has been posted on the blog - just submit your email address in the box at the top of the right column.That way, you will be notified whenever there is a new post. Don’t miss out on opportunities to support this worthwhile ministry.

And remember… We’re in touch, so you be in touch!

- posted by Christi

Did you know?

Did you know that you can search my blog by category? I mentioned that to someone the other day, and they had never noticed before . . . so I figured I should mention it here.

Scroll down the right margin . . . past the fundraising thermometer, past the "Facebook" button, keep going past the archive and my profile information . . . and there you will find the list of "Labels."

Almost all of my posts have been given at least one label. I even have a label named "I've got no category for this!"

You can look for posts on a specific topic, by clicking on the corresponding label. For instance, if you're interested in finding out more about our Bridge Construction Projects, there's a label for that. Want to know what everyday life has been like for us, over the course of the almost 10 years I've been blogging? There are 215 (!) posts in that category! There are only 4 posts labeled "Things I Never Saw in the Suburbs" . . . a testament to how seldom I remember to carry a camera with me, more than anything else.

There are currently 62 categories - I just counted! Why not check it out and see what you can find that you haven't seen before? Maybe you'd enjoy our photos of the amazing Lempira Day parade (in the "holidays" category). Or perhaps you'd be interested in our adventures in butchering? in installing and using solar power? our time living on the island of Guanaja? my 141 posts about plants and bugs?

Have fun! I hope this helps you navigate the blog in the future!

Here's what a "missionary vacation" looks like!

Dining al fresco, in Copan Ruinas with my sweetie

Allen and I are on a short vacation . . . which means that we've physically removed ourselves from the ministry for a few days, so that we can rest and refresh. It also invariably means that we take some time to step back and look at the ministry from a fresh perspective.

This get-away is going to be over abruptly, and probably quite soon, as we're expecting a call any day or any minute, saying that our shipping container full of donations has been released by the port and is on the way to our house. When we get that news, we'll be packing up and heading home (we're just 2.5 hours away from home, and the driving time from the port, for the tractor trailer with the container, is around 16 hours, plus the time the driver spends sleeping overnight sometime along the way).

This is definitely a working vacation, as Allen has spent several hours today on phone calls, and we've passed a few hours hosting a discussion, with some online friends, about how to improve our communications and what we can do to encourage people who are intrigued or interested by our posts, to actually take the next step to becoming partners with us. I'm mostly talking about financial partnership here - because so much of what our ministry does, including feeding children, building churches, training pastors, Gifts for Gracias, etc., requires money, to make it happen!

One of the things that has been bothering us recently is that we're not making it easy enough for people to donate. There are some aspects of this which are not in our control, but one thing to which I am committing myself, is the creation of a complete - and as brief as possible - blog post about each of our ministry projects which depends on donations. Hopefully this will be something that people can check, when they are interested in donating, and have all the info they need in one place . . . and it will also give people a package of information that they can easily share with others.

My grilled chicken.  I'm a bad food blogger - I took
a bite (several, actually) before I took a photo!

So, though I am on "vacation" now, I am starting to work on a series of posts, each of which will cover one aspect of our ministry, hopefully in enough detail for donors. Now, these posts will, quite probably, leave some questions in your mind - because I can't explain every detail and still keep it brief. Feel free to ask those questions in the comments, as that way the answers to the questions will be available to others who visit the page! That will be helpful to everyone!

As is common in Honduras, our hotel features a central
courtyard garden. My favorite aspect of this garden is that,
instead of a fountain in the center, there's the WiFi router,
on a pole, cleverly camouflaged with greenery.
I'm a BIG fan of a strong WiFi signal.  

See it? 

I'll start off with quick pages about how to get involved, financially, with our general feeding center program, as well as with our child sponsorship program (which is amazingly efficient in the use of the funds, because EVERYONE involved is a volunteer).

Watch for those blog posts coming soon . . . but not right away.

I AM on vacation, you know.  

Re-Connected!

In spite of various obstacles, we have now re-entered the twenty-first century with an internet connection right in our home!!!!!

This is not a fabulous or fast connection, but it is sufficient for our basic communication needs for personal and ministry use. We're not streaming anything - certainly not movies - but we can watch the cute short videos people link on Facebook . . . once in a while . . .

Hopefully I'll be back to blogging now. Thanks for your patience!

See something new?

Every year, Allen updates our ministry overview information. Yesterday I created a new tab at the top of the blog, so that this information will be easily available to everyone. If you're interested in seeing what we're up to, in the big picture, then take a look!

Sowers' Ministry in a Moment

Making up the gift boxes for the pastors is taking up a huge amount of my time right now. This is, of course, on top of all of the regular chores . . . and so blogging has fallen by the wayside. I'm going to try to do better, but my posts will likely be short and to-the-point for another few weeks.

Right now, Rachel is working on updating our communications with our supporters. By the way, you're a supporter if you do any of the following: intentionally pay attention to what's going on down here, pray for us, tell others about our ministry, and donate money or things to keep the ministry going! We've been doing the blog, of course, and also sending out a very simple newsletter - no pictures, nothing hi-tech - and we felt the need to change things up a bit.

So, every so often, Rachel is going to put together a short email . . . we're calling it "Ministry in a Moment" . . . with a few photos and a short update on what is happening in one aspect of our ministry. Here's a preview picture of the current, under-construction, email:

There's more info at the bottom of the actual email . . . all of the "how to donate" stuff. I just didn't show a picture of it. If you'd like to receive the "Ministry in a Moment" emails, and you aren't currently on our mailing list, please send me a message in the comments with your email address, and I'll add you to the list. I won't publish your comment (so your email address won't be available online to the world), I'll just read it, add you to the list, and erase the comment. If you prefer, you can send me the info in an email: trish at sowers4pastors.com.

I look forward to hearing from you!

"Watch your background!"

Whenever we post pictures to the blog, I always like to crop out the unattractive parts of the photos. It seems like there's always something to crop out . . . dirty dishes on the kitchen counter, raggedy underwear on the clothesline, a dog happily smeared with manure, . . . you get the idea.

Then there are the more permanent eyesores - I try to keep those out of the photos, as well. There's the shipping container we use to store tools and construction supplies. I'm glad we have the container - otherwise all of that stuff would be in our bodega/house with us - but the container itself is still fairly hideous, and it's the first thing you see when you come up onto our property. There's the pigpen, made of panels for pouring concrete. It's not attractive to look at, or to smell. At least I don't have to crop smells out of my photos! Large portions of our bodega/house are used for storage, and these areas are ugly, but I just choose not to look at those places. It works for me.

When I send Boo to take a specific photo for the blog, I'm always telling her, "Remember to watch your background!" By that I mean that she should keep the random ugly stuff out of the photo. We all ignore it so much that it's easy to forget what it looks like to others! I'll continue to try to crop out the ugliness from my photos but I thought, for the sake of honesty, I should share some of the less attractive things occasionally.

This morning I had Boo read what I've written thus far, and then I sent her out to document the current level of ugliness. Here we go:

Nice, huh? Reminds me of some hillbilly hangouts I've seen . . .

A view of the shipping container, from the other end. Delightful! I have to tell you, too, that Russell just recently tidied up this area, as the stuff had spread, as stuff will do.

The pigpen - bringing joy to ALL of your senses. LOL

Now, while the photos of miscellaneous piles of construction materials and big holes in the ground aren't attractive, they aren't UGLY to me . . . they are indications that my house is being built! So, although Boo took some pictures of them, and I'm posting them to show what things look like around here just now, I want you to know that they are kind of beautiful to me. LOL

Up to about 7' tall or so, our current house/bodega mostly looks like a house. But, since we don't have interior walls, and are using bookcases to divide the space into rooms, you can see right over the 7' of "house" to see, along the exterior walls, the part of the building that is obviously "bodega." This is the part I pretend not to see, most of the time.

And that's all I'm going to say about the ugliness. I mostly just ignore it, and look at the view whenever possible:

Ahhhhhhh - that's better!

I'm a Facebook flunkout . . . but . . .

I signed up for Facebook a few years ago, but I just couldn't get the hang of it. I was heavily involved in an internet homeschooling forum anyway, and I just didn't have the time to get up and going on another online social outlet.

But Facebook is everywhere, and people keep asking us if we have a Facebook page for our ministry. Today, I'm proud to announce that we (okay, really just Rachel - oh, also Kendall. Thanks for the online help Kendall) set up a Sowers4pastors Facebook page! Taa daah!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sowers4Pastors/460968363934043

Now keep your expectations low here - we just got started on this, and we're learning as we go. But, if you would "Like" our page, that would certainly encourage us as we work to make it a more interesting and useful place for you to visit. "Liking" the page will also give you notifications of updates as we post them - if you are a Facebook user. If you don't use Facebook, you should still be able to read our page, you just can't be interactive with it, and you can't "Like" it - which sounds kinda sad, doncha think?

Oh, and we've been sooo busy the past few days - we butchered two hogs on Monday, and Rachel rendered lard (much more successfully than I did after the first butchering) - and actually produced more than five gallons of lard!!!!! Today I'm working on paperwork for requesting another batch of motorcycles for pastors, while Rachel has been working on the new Facebook page . . . oh and she and I are both sick with a cold/flu mess that just won't go away. That's all for now!

Do you "Like" us? Well, do ya? LOL

Blogging about blogging

Recently Blogger, the host of this blog, redid some of the behind-the-scenes workings of their site. As a result of these changes, some new statistics are now available to me (or at least, now I know they're there). One of the pieces of information currently available is how many people have viewed each post I've created.

Now, I might be a bit discouraged by this info, if I didn't realize that the stats aren't counting when people come to the main page (www.sowers4pastors.blogspot.com) rather than opening up one specific post by clicking on the title of that post. I know this because, in some instances, the statistics reveal that no one read a certain post, but several people commented on it! It seems that many of my regular readers open the main page, and read the most current posts there (which is perfectly fine - I'm not complaining here), so most of the people who read my posts are not being counted using this system. All that to say, while this count could be discouraging, I'm not taking it that way.

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to see which were the most-viewed individual posts of my five years of blogging. I know, from watching my stats, that many people come to my blog after seeing one of our pictures on Google Images, so I figured that would factor in to the results, and it certainly has, based on these results.

Here they are, the top ten most viewed blog posts from my blog:

#10. Doing Chores in Lempira (385 views)

#9. Gringo Holiday in Honduras (401 views)

#8. Show Off Your Smarts re: Honduran Food (406 views)

#7. Happy Lempira Day! (431 views)

#6. Feel Free to ignore this post (461 views - rather ironic, don't you think?)

#5. Another Poinsettia Post (526 views)

#4. Pila Etiquette (664 views - mine is one of the few websites on the internet where you can find out what a "pila" is, apparently.)

#3. Yes, the container arrived . . . yes, we're working on unpacking everything . . . yes, I neglected to tell you! (727 views - why on earth do so many people click on the image of the container truck in this post? I'm clueless on this.)

#2. Orphans in Santa Rosa de Copan (1461 views - this post used to have a couple of photos which were linked from another blog, and those links no longer work, so the photos don't show up)

#1. More Lempira Day Photos: Indias Bonitas (1542 views)

Sorry I've been AWOB

You know AWOB, right? Away without blogging? Anyway, sorry about that. Everything is fine here, I've just had a spell of feeling uninspired. I think that's allowed every once-in-a-while, when one has been blogging along for years, right?

To give some quick updates:

It hasn't been raining much the last couple of weeks, so progress is still being made on the big bridge construction project.

We had a litter of eight labrador mix puppies. They are just starting to walk around a bit, so we'll be setting up their outside cage pretty soon.

The only gardening happening right now is Boo's celery. She's growing celery in a container on her porch, and that seems to be going well, though we haven't tried eating any of it yet.

This week is the monthly session of the pastor training school. The school now runs mostly independently, as the administration and teaching are handled by Hondurans. We still supply the funding (for food, rent, and teaching materials), cook the meals, and provide transportation back and forth from the city of Gracias out to the campus (although we currently pay someone to do this driving, so our menfolk can remain on the bridge site). Rachel and Iris cook all of the meals, and the only reason they are cooking (instead of hiring out the cooking) is that Rachel is able to budget so as to keep the food costs lower than when we had hired cooks, while still providing larger portions. So, for now, with funds so tight, we handle the cooking.

A sister of Rachel's boyfriend Brandy is having her 15th birthday this weekend, and Rachel was asked to bake and decorate the cake for this big event (for those who aren't familiar with Latin American customs, a girl's 15th birthday is a big deal, sort of like the Sweet Sixteen birthday in the US). This is the first opportunity Rachel has had to display the cake decorating skills she learned from my sister Pam, when the two of them worked together on Russell and Iris' wedding cake. Pam thoughtfully sent Rachel some cake decorating tools last year, so Rachel will be starting in on the birthday cake as soon as the cooking for the pastor school is completed at lunch today.

That's it for now.

Ohhhh, a new toy for me!

I just discovered Picmonkey.com! It's a free online photo editing site. I took the picture I used for the top of this blog, and I played with it and created this:




I think Boo and I are going to have some fun with this site!

Would you tell me what you see?

At the top of my blog is the title: Sowers4Pastors.

When I revamped the blog, I chose a font for the title. That font shows up on my laptop, but a different font appears when I view the blog on our desktop computer.

One font is a rather elegant cursive, the other is more like a typewriter font, but with a cartoonish look, and the letters aren't lined up, so they look a bit messy.

The cartoonish one is the one I chose (somehow that's more "me" than elegant handwriting), but now that I'm seeing a different font on each computer, I'm sort of wondering what everyone else is seeing at the top of the blog.

Thanks for your info - I appreciate it!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Johanna helpfully sent me a screen shot of what the title is supposed to look like:



From your comments, it appears that most of you are seeing the correct font - so that's great news! Thanks so much for your help with this!

Ohhh, a quick note about "Ask Trish a Question Day"

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in "Ask Trish a Question Day!" It was fun for me, but it did take up a good bit of time. In fact, I received questions from two people that I didn't have time to answer. So, I'll try to get to those sometime in the next few days, and I'll give them their own post, so that the answers aren't buried in a days-old post.

Thanks again!

It's "Ask Trish a Question Day" - plus a bridge project prayer request

First the prayer request - oddly enough, we're having cold, cloudy, rainy weather smack dab in the middle of the dry season. This would be difficult enough if Allen were working on a regular construction project involving pouring and drying cement - but this week he's actually trying to keep a trench in the middle of the river pumped out, so that he can pour a wall in that spot to support the middle of the bridge.

They've already dug out the trench, and have been pumping water out to get things dry . . . and last night the river rose a foot!

I really don't even know what to pray for on this one. Allen needs a couple of hot dry days, with low water levels in the river. I hate to ask for that, since rain at this time of year is, in every other way, a huge blessing.

So, I guess this is one of those times to pray for God's will - whatever that might be in this case - and that He will be glorified, whatever the outcome of the situation might be. Hmmm, sounds like a good prayer for every day!


And now - for the first, semi-occasional, possibly never-to-be-repeated "Ask Trish a Question Day!"

Go ahead and ask in the comments section. If I think your question is in bad taste, or too personal, or I'm too embarrassed to answer, then I won't put your question up. How's that for being in control? However, in other cases I will post the question here in the post, and answer it for the world to see.

Hopefully this will be fun on a cold, drizzly day when I can't take any pictures to post.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our first question, from AB (who I happen to know lives in Canada):

Q: So what are you doing on a cold, drizzly day? Does the weather make your usual chores much more challenging? Do the kids love to play in the rain?

A: Well, only Ben is at home with me today, and he's snuggled up in a blanket, reading a "Boxcar Children" mystery. The temps are all the way down in the 60's, so we're much too chilled to think that playing in the rain is a good activity! I know you understand how relative temperatures are from your time in the arctic, when a day above freezing was a warm day! We're the same in reverse. This is hot chocolate and soup weather for us!

Now, one nice thing is that the rain is making our chores easier. I don't have to water the garden, which would normally be a daily (or even several times/day) activity this time of year, and the cows are feasting on wet new grass, so they aren't bawling at the kitchen door for the supplemental food we would normally supply them when the weather is too dry for the grass growth to stay ahead of their appetites.

Thanks for starting us off with a question, AB!

The next question is from Anonymous:

Q: My question is How many kids do you have? I read your blog occasionally, and i see a new kid almost every time.

A: LOL! I don't have quite that many kids! When they were little, I used to tell people that it seemed like more kids than it was, because they were always moving around so much. Anyway, there are six kids, plus a daughter-in-law. Five are birth kids, all born in the US, then there's the youngest, who is Honduran by birth. He's not officially adopted, but he's lived with us since he was a year old, so he's a member of the family in every way but genetically and legally.

I actually wrote a post about the kids a short time ago, to help with this confusing question - and it is confusing, because, on top of everything else, several of the kids use more than one name! Here's the link, which I hope will clear things up for you!

Thanks for the question!

Anne Dye asks:

Q: My question is 3 parts- 1- What were you before you became a missionary. 2- Did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine you would be where you are, doing what you are doing now? 3- Can you imagine doing anything else now?

A: 1. I was mostly a housewife and homeschooling mom just before becoming a missionary, as my kids were 4, 6, 8, 11 and 13, but in my pre-kid days I was a professional harpist and a piano teacher. Bet you wouldn't have guessed that one, huh?

2. I actually did think some about being a missionary as a child, and when I met my husband (in college) one of the things I really liked about him was that he grew up on the mission field (in southeast Asia) and that he was thinking about being a missionary. Turns out we were married for about 16 years before we actually started to work on the field. It was good, because I had dangerous pregnancies, and it was best that I didn't try to have babies in a third world country! I really didn't like living in the suburbs though - too tame and boring. In many ways, I've felt like I was born to be a missionary!

3. Well . . . I have a very good imagination . . . (LOL) but seriously, we really do love our lives here, and I'm sure not wishing I lived in the suburbs again! I do sometimes imagine (fantasize) about a life with just a little bit more solitude in it.

Thanks for asking!

Here's another anonymous question:

Q: On the last question, it said you taught piano and were a pro. harpist. How long did YOU take piano lessons and how long did you teach before going to the mission field?

A: I started studying harp when I was ten, and continued through college. I started piano a bit younger. I taught piano for about 12 years. I forgot to mention, in my earlier answer, that I also directed handbell choirs for several churches, for about 5 years. There isn't much money in that, however, and after I had my second child I had to give that up, as it was more of a hobby than a job.

Thanks for participating in "Ask Trish a Question Day!"

Cindy in California - you asked an excellent question, but I'm afraid I can't answer it publicly, for fear of hurting some relationships. I'd be happy to discuss this by email, if you'd like.


icklepay asked:

Q: Hi Trish! I notice you have excellent English skills. Do you plan to write a book one day? Do you speak other languages? Harpist? Really? That is awesome!

A: Thanks icklepay! I have often thought about possibly writing a book. I've always loved both reading and writing. Before coming to Honduras, I found it hard to imagine that I would have anything to say that would be interesting enough to write about. I guess I can't use that excuse anymore, huh?

Regarding languages, I've never had much success with other languages. I studied German in high school and college, but never gained real fluency. My Spanish isn't great, but I blame that on my age. I was 39 when we moved to Honduras, but we were living on Guanaja, an English-speaking island off the north coast. I didn't start learning Spanish until a few years after that, when we decided to move to the mainland of Honduras. My brain's kind of old for language learning . . . but hopefully the struggle is keeping me young, or something.

Gracias and danke schön!

Karen wrote:

Q: I always have aspired to living abroad someday, maybe after retirement. When I watch House Hunters on HGTV you see so many Americans moving abroad. I wonder about the quality of health care now that we have Faith and she has special medical needs. How are the hospitals in that region. It's funny that the best research on optic nerve regeneration is out of China and bionic vision will probably come put of Australia. Don't necessarily think of US medicine as the best anymore.

A: There is great variety in the quality of healthcare here. The available care is very poor in rural areas, and the government health care is best avoided anywhere in the country, if you value your health. In the big cities there are some good private hospitals, and some good doctors, and most testing services are available inexpensively. You will not find any cutting-edge health care in Honduras, and if I needed major surgery or life saving treatment (fighting cancer comes to mind) I would definitely not want to handle that in Honduras. Having said all of that, as long as you only need standard health care services, you could do very well here, and very inexpensively, compared to the US. I have missionary friends who are staying here for their retirement. The wife recently had successful surgery on her eyes (Lasik, I think it's called?), and it was an easy out-of-pocket expense on a missionary budget.

Laurie said:

Q. Nice snazzy website now. Very trendy, Trish. My question is about the Rotweillers pups? How many puppies are there now? Where are they if not with you?

A. Thanks for the compliments on the website! My kids would laugh and laugh to know that anyone thought anything I did was "trendy." If it really is trendy, then it was totally an accident. LOL.

Regarding the puppies - we sell them. Rottweiler puppies are in high demand up here. We don't exactly make money on this endeavor, but it helps pay for the cost of dog food for the adult dogs which are our security force. Currently we have 2 adult male dogs and 5 adult female dogs which are permanent fixtures in the family. We also have an adolescent male (an unfortunate lab/rottweiler mix) who is unwell, and he's living with us until he's all better, then we'll probably give him away. He's sweet, but we really have our hands full with the two adult males we have. Oh, we also have a litter of three labs, about a month old. They're so sweet, and we know we're going to keep at least one of them, but even sensible Allen is saying "Oh maybe we should just keep them all!" That tune will change once they're big enough to poop everywhere and destroy things. LOL

Notice anything different?

I played around with the blog a bit last night. I'm not done yet, but I'm mostly liking the changes. One bad thing is that I had a little trick for posting bigger photos, and it won't work anymore. Previously, I would cut a photo into two parts, each at the size limit for the blog, and then I'd place them with edges touching, so it came out looking like one large photo.

This new blog style I'm using places a bit of a border around each photo, and so my little trick comes out looking like this:



That's a bummer, but one I'll put up with, unless I can figure out a way around it.

So, what do you think about the changes?

Things that make you go "Hmmmmmm"

Russell has one of our cameras at his house, and the other camera needs new batteries. Since I can't take any pictures right now, I decided to go through our old pictures, and see if I could find something interesting to post on the blog today.

I came across this . . .

and I have to ask myself, "Why did someone take a picture of one of Allen's shoes?"

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm?