Painting, tiling, packing, moving, baking, and blogging

Here's what we've been up to:

Packing - about a quarter of our household stuff is packed up (I'm not including large items of furniture as part of the "stuff"), and most of those boxes have been moved out to our new abode. The new abode is not yet ready to receive everything (or everyone), so family members have been taking turns doing watchman duty out there.

Rachel, Boo, and I do regular housework at home, and plan, and pack. Rachel and Boo also work on certain projects at the new house. They did lots of the wall painting, and today they are sanding and finishing our new kitchen cabinets (which Allen built earlier this week).

Allen, Russell, and Gus work out on the property most days, getting things set up for us. Their ongoing projects include: finishing the water system(digging ditches, laying pipe, filling ditches, completing the construction of the water tank), tiling the team house floor, installing kitchen cabinets, installing electrical outlets, etc. Unfortunately, Russell had a bad run-in with a wood planer this week, and has lots of stitches on two fingers of his left hand (and, of course, he's left-handed). This has kept Russell out of some of the messier construction work (he was previously heavily involved in laying floor tile in the team house and laying blocks for the water tank). He's staying busy, however, running errands, doing paperwork, and driving loads of household stuff back and forth to the new place.

Thanksgiving - Rachel and I have been trying to figure out how to squeeze an American-style Thanksgiving dinner into the schedule. We had decided to put off the dinner until after the move (we'd then have something extra-special to be thankful for), but the end of the move keeps creeping away from us, and so Thanksgiving is looking like it will merge in with Christmas, if we're not careful! Now we're discussing having a mini-Thanksgiving event this Sunday. If the elections are free and peaceful on Sunday it will certainly be a day to celebrate!

I took a couple of pictures of the interior of the bodega the other day - warning: this may be overwhelming to those of you who know that we are planning to live in this space very soon!
The bookcases you see in these photos are going to become the "walls" of our house. We have just over twenty bookcases, and we're plotting and scheming how to use them to best advantage. With our front door and front windows overlooking the rest of the house, privacy from outside is a major concern, as well as setting up privacy in the bedrooms!

Here's Boo, checking out the first of the new kitchen cabinets. I'm going to have loads of counter space in this kitchen - Allen thinks I deserve a perk like this now and again. Rachel and Boo are at the new house right now, sanding and then painting and staining the cabinets. At Rachel's request (and I agreed to it) the countertops will be a deep blue, and the rest of the cabinets will be stained to match our bookcases.

Pastor Training School Graduation Ceremony 2009

We had a great week with our Christian Motorcyclist's Association Team last week, but we sure were busy. I don't have pictures of most of the week (an oversight on our part, but hopefully some team members will send me some photos to share), but on Thursday we held the graduation ceremony for the Pastor Training School, and I do have a few pictures of that.




My part of the preparation for the ceremony was baking 30 sheet cakes. I did this on Wednesday, and I'm ready to do it again next year. It took all day, but wasn't difficult work, as we used box mixes. On Thursday morning, members of the team helped with frosting all of these cakes, and then they carried them on their laps in the Land Cruiser, to deliver them to the ceremony.


This post about the graduation ceremony would have a lot more facts and figures (beyond the number of sheet cakes) if Allen were here, but he and Russell and Alan Hayes are off working on a bridge project right now. So, watch for more info later, when he returns.

Meet Commando

We're right in the middle of a busy week hosting a team, but I couldn't resist taking a quick moment to share these pictures of the newest member of our security detail - Commando!





I'm feeling much safer already. ;-D

November, in a nut shell

Things are especially busy right now. Here's the rundown:

This coming week we will be hosting a visiting team (Saturday through Saturday).

There's a tropical storm looming off to the east. We're not too worried about it over here on the western side of Honduras, but we're keeping an eye on it anyway.

The political situation remains unstable, so we're having to keep an eye on that, as well.

After the team leaves, we will put all of our energies into moving onto our property. We expect to live out there by the end of the month - hurrah!

So, don't be alarmed if you don't hear much from me, over the next couple of weeks. But do pray, as it's going to be a thrill-packed November for us!

Don't stand under a tree in a storm

A few months ago, one of the trees on our property was struck by lightning.

I found it interesting to see the marks left on the bark of the tree, from the lightning strike.

Here's a closer look:

Very cool, huh? Although I have to admit, I'd be enjoying this science/nature moment a bit more, if the tree hadn't been right next to the building we're about to move into!I'm gonna hold on to that bit of folk wisdom - that lightning never strikes twice (in the same place)! I sure do hope it's true!

Selling Bibles

Just over a week ago we held the final set of classes for the pastor training school for 2009. In November, the students and their families will gather for a graduation ceremony, and then the school will be closed for a few months. During the months of December, January, and February coffee beans are harvested, and many of the agricultural workers in our area make their entire yearly income working for the coffee farmers during the harvest. Since many of our pastors are also agricultural workers, they can't afford to take time away from work during the harvest, so this is when we take our annual break.

In addition to holding the training sessions to help these pastors (and future pastors) learn more about the Bible, another of our goals is to help these pastors acquire a small library of Bible reference and study materials - Bible dictionary, Bible atlas, concordance, etc. Here is how we pursue this goal.

First, we maintain a Bible bookstore in our home. We can't advertise this store widely. We sell all of the materials for less than what we pay for them. Occasionally we have had to deny a purchaser, who wanted to buy Bibles from us and resell them at a higher price to others. Although we'd like to encourage this entrepreneurial spirit, our ministry can't financially support other businesses like this!

So, our private little bookstore sells a variety of inexpensive paperback New Testaments and Bibles, plus levels of better quality Bibles, large print Bibles (very popular amongst those who read by candle or lantern light), and study Bibles, as well as the reference materials mentioned above. Many of these Bibles end up in the hands of the pastors' congregations or are used in evangelism - to date, we've distributed approximately 7500 Bibles.

Second, the pastors and church leaders who attend the training school receive credits toward purchases at the bookstore, for each school session they attend. After each set of three sessions, we haul all of the books and Bibles out to the school, and set up the bookstore there, so the pastors can use their credits (and their lempiras) to make purchases. Here are some pictures of the recent Bible sales:

Now for scenes of the building interiors

I had Rachel grab some more shots of the insides of our buildings yesterday, as the work was progressing on the tile floors (in the team house) and on the painting (in the bodega). Enjoy!

Here's Russell (well, Russell's backside, anyway), working hard on the team house. He is in charge of installing the tile floors in this building. He also put up the tile roof (you can see the roof in the picture posted yesterday). Notice the cheerful wall color - we're using the same paint on the bodega walls, but the color is more true in this picture than in some of the others.

Here's how the tile floor is shaping up! I'm loving it!

The decision to paint the interior of the bodega came late in the game. Since this building will eventually be used as a warehouse, we don't want to put much money into nice finishes, but since we'll be living here for a good long while, we also don't want it to look depressing. It was looking depressing before, with grayish, waterstained walls. Now it's getting a nice yellow facelift! (In the picture it only has a first coat, so you can't see the color very well, but check out the color in the first team house picture, for a more accurate depiction.) Painting this building, with it's very high walls, has been a huge chore, but in the end I think it will be worth the effort.

Allen had to run into town for more paint yesterday, and his workers (Rachel and Boo, in this case) had a bit of fun during his absense. Can you read their work? It says, "Coming soon - Bath Room. Rated R." The cinderblock walls are where the bathroom will be located, and there's the bathroom door, leaning against the wall. All the doors and windows, by the way, were handmade by Russell's girlfriend's father.

And finally, just for fun, I'll include a picture of the view, from yesterday. The mountains seem to be especially beautiful on rainy, overcast days.



Thanks for coming by to visit our place!

Scenes from our new home

We're getting so close to our move-in date! I've had requests for updated pictures of our property and buildings, so here are a few from this weekend.


The picture above is the bodega, where we will actually live, until we build our own residence.


This is the cute little 2-bedroom team house. I'll put up some interior pictures tomorrow. This building has been painted (on the inside) and some of the floor tile is installed. The bathrooms have a long way to go, though.


Here's the water tank. It is not yet completed - but it's about seven feet tall now. The tank sits on a hill above the flat spot where the buildings are located. This will give us greater water pressure.



Looking down from the hill with the water tank, you can see how the two buildings are situated. The building on the left is the team house, and you can just barely see the bodega off to the right. Between the two buildings is a foundation, which will eventually be another small residence, for housing interns who stay for a few months at a time.

We still have a ton of work to do, like dragging in topsoil and doing lots of landscaping - but the buildings are almost habitable!

I don't need to write my own post, about the bridge projects

Since Allen and Russell neglected to bring me pictures of the recent bridge construction work, I thought I was going to have to write a post describing, without any photos, things I have not actually seen for myself.

Although that might have made for an interesting creative writing assignment, I'm spared the task, because Alan Hayes took pictures and wrote about the work on his family's blog.

Hurrah! I'm off the hook on this one. Head over here for all the news - it's a fun read.

My Apologies

I am sorry - I didn't mean to alarm anyone with my long absense. Here are my excuses:

I was sick, with lots of coughing and wheezing nastiness.

Then, Allen and I took a trip to San Pedro Sula. I was still recuperating, but we thought perhaps a couple of days in an air conditioned hotel room might perk me up a bit. One goal of the trip was to pick out ceramic tile flooring for the team house. We chose this:



The picture above is from the samples at the tile store. Allen and Russell are installing the tile in the team house this week, so hopefully I'll have some pictures of the actual tile floor soon.

We also needed to purchase some lumber, to use in building some rough storage shelves. We wanted pressure treated lumber, and couldn't get that closer to home, so we loaded up the Land Cruiser and trailer to maximum capacity, and hauled it home all the way from San Pedro. (There were hundreds of pounds of ceramic tile and cement inside the vehicle, plus various groceries, dog food, two new tires, . . .)



Four looooong hours up and down the mountains. Part of the time it was raining. The lumber kept trying to slide off the back of the trailer. Oh, and our headlights developed a short, and we had to drive with the special forward flood lights on - except of course when we faced oncoming traffic. Then we were in the dark. Fun times.

While we were in San Pedro, the computer at home started having difficulties. Now we have that fixed, and I think I'm back in business!

Thanks for missing me!

Bridge Projects This Week

Once again, the menfolk have had to set aside the work of getting the property ready for our move, because certain work on bridge projects demanded their attention. This week they spent about 4 days on bridge-related work, and they neglected to bring me any pictures!

So, in order to have something visual to share on the blog, I took a picture of what Russell looks like, at the end of a day working on a bridge project:



Hopefully I'll have some actual pictures of the bridge project to share soon!

The situation here in Gracias

Prior to the re-entry of Zelaya into the country, Honduras had returned to a peaceful country. In spite of the economic sanctions and visa restrictions placed upon the country, things had settled back into a state of normalcy around here. Now, that's all gone, as we enter a new phase of the political crisis.

Since Monday evening, we have had a nationwide curfew (with the exception of the Bay Islands, which had their curfew lifted sometime on Tuesday). Officially, that means that no one has been able to legally leave their home at any time since then. At this time, the curfew is scheduled to end at 6pm today, but it would be no surprise if it is extended for at least another night.

In the cities, where rioting is taking place, I hear that the curfews are being enforced fairly strictly. On the TV news, they are showing empty city streets (makes for some less-than-riveting television, but I prefer the shots of empty streets to the shots of rioters and police clashing violently).

Here in Gracias, during the daylight hours, the curfews have not been strictly enforced. There was a great deal of traffic on the road in front of our house, which is a major road bypassing the city, up until dark yesterday. Two of my daughters walked into town in the afternoon, to see if they could do some shopping. They said that most (but not all) of the stores were closed, and the city was creepy-quiet. They saw police in town, but the police were not enforcing the curfew. Allen and Russell traveled out to our property, and worked on the construction all day yesterday.

All of the international airports in Honduras have been closed until further notice. Tomorrow (Thursday) was to have been the opening day of the annual Honduras Missionary Conference in Siguatepeque. We don't get to go to this event every year, but we were planning to attend this year, and the kids were excited to have the opportunity to see their gringo friends (most of these friends they only see twice a year or so). Sadly, the event has been cancelled. Additionally, there is a major conference held in Honduras every year, in Copan, for people and groups who do humanitarian work in Honduras, and I assume this will also not take place, because of the closed airports.

We actually have a guest this week (she came to help with the conference, but flew in early to have some extra visiting time). With the conference canceled, she'll be staying here in Gracias all week, and we are hoping that the airports will re-open before this weekend, when her return trip is scheduled. She is the only guest in the hotel where she is staying. The hotel staff has mostly been sent home, since they are also under curfew, and without guests the staff is not really needed. We (along with the Hayes family) have been sneaking her back and forth from the hotel to our houses, so she isn't just stuck sitting there alone all day. Honestly, so far we really haven't had to be sneaky about going out during daylight hours, in spite of the curfew, but "sneaking out" just sounds more interesting. Since the hotel restaurant is closed and the staff is all gone, the hotel owner told our friend to help herself to the hotel kitchen. It's an odd but memorable visit to Honduras!

We spend our days trying to go about our regular activities, but I find myself keeping the TV on for news most of the time, and checking the internet regularly for information. We would dearly love to see this political mess resolved, soon and peacefully, but we're well aware of the potential for significant danger in the situation, so we are staying alert and informed. So far, there have been no interruptions to power, telephone, or television here. Faith's cable internet was out for awhile, but we don't know if that was related to the political situation, or just one of those outages that happen periodically.

Once again, it would seem that the US news is not reporting on what is taking place in Honduras. Please pray with us, now that you know that prayers are needed!

Zelaya Returns

If you are at all interested in Honduras, you've probably already heard the news - that ousted president Mel Zelaya has apparently returned to Honduras, and is reported to be holed up in the Brazilian Embassy in the capital city of Tegucigalpa.

This came as a big surprise, as things have been pretty quiet lately, and there hadn't even been any rumors recently of Mel's return.

We are all fine up here in Gracias, and we're just waiting to see what happens next. My greatest concern, for the moment, is that the supporters of the ousted president, who have gathered around the embassy, will engage in fighting with the police or military, and that this will result in injuries and deaths. Please pray with us for a peaceful outcome! Thanks so much.

What's on the Loom?

I haven't written anything about Rachel's weaving in quite a long time. She hasn't had much time for this hobby in recent months, but she has completed a few small projects, and has been learning about different ways to use her loom to accomplish different types of fabric.

Her first few projects were very simple, as she learned to set up the loom, start and finish projects, keep the edges straight, and just get a rhythm going.

In her two most recent projects, she has entered new territory.

This small mat may not look like much from a distance . . .



. . . but up close you can see how intricately it is woven into a textured pattern. (You can click on the picture for a closer look.) Rachel had a blanket woven like this, and she figured out how to reproduce the pattern with her loom. This is the first thing she has created in anything but a simple over/under pattern.



Her current project is her first plaid.



Fun hobby, huh? Both Bethany and I are itching for a turn at the loom, but Rachel's been hogging it for herself so far. ;-D

What we did today

Allen and Alan were out working on a bridge project today. Russell, leading a crew of workers, poured a cement floor in the water tank on our property. The walls of the tank (in brick) are up to about 3' tall so far, and they will need to get up to somewhere around 9 or 10'.

I did school with the kids, and housework, as usual. Oh, I also made a quick trip to the bank this afternoon. Anytime a trip to the bank is completed quickly, it's worth mentioning!

SWAMPED!

Yes, we are busy. Of course, the regular ministry work continues, as we close in on the date we've set to move into our new home. Then, we have the extra work related to the reconstruction of houses destroyed in the earthquake. Our part in that work is almost completed, as the money we received to help was specifically for foundations and wall construction. On top of that, a number of the bridge construction projects, which have been in the planning stages forever, have moved into the actual construction phase. We oversee much of the construction on these bridges, but those which are being built to allow vehicle traffic require extra attention. Both Allen and Alan (and frequently Russell) have been spending many days out working on these sites - and these sites aren't close to home, either! I would post some pictures, but I see Faith has already put some up on her site, so I'll just send you over there to look.

I finally have the previously promised pictures showing the progress on the buildings out on our property. Much of the most recent work is hidden, as they installed the water lines. But in these pictures, you can see the newly installed windows, doors, and window security bars.



Above is the interior of one of the two large rooms in the team house. This building still needs tile flooring, a clay tile roof (which is mostly for looks - it is basically watertight now), and lots of bathroom work. Below is the front of this building.



The next picture is the exterior of the bodega/warehouse. I'm especially impressed with this building, as I think it really does appear to be a normal-sized house, from the front.

Inside, of course, you can see the high, warehouse ceilings, and the big loading door.


Lots will be changing this month, including the completion of the roof on the bodega - but we will definitely be living a roughing-it lifestyle, as we get moved onto location.

Gifts for Gracias - I'm WAAAAAY behind schedule here!

Most of you know about our annual Christmas project, when we distribute Christmas gifts to Pastors and their families, as well as to special needs kids and orphans. If you don't already know about this, here is the Gifts for Gracias page on our website, where you can get all the information about how to participate in this project.

Usually, I try to get this information out in July, or August at the latest, so I am really behind this year! We are already expecting this to be a difficult year for collecting donations, because of the economic conditions. Last year we had a hard time filling our container, and had to delay departure several times so as to avoid shipping a partially-filled container - and the Christmas gift deliveries to people in Honduras were not completed until March! We are hoping to do better this year, and boy-oh-boy do we need your help!

Here's the big plan, for transporting the gifts to Honduras this year:

Gifts and donated used clothing will be collected in two locations - in Walkersville Maryland and in Sarasota Florida. In mid-November Allen is planning to fly up to Florida, and rent a large truck. He will pick up the gifts in Florida, and head north. In North Carolina, Morningstar Ministries has agreed to contribute gifts from their annual gift-making project, so he will collect those, and head to Maryland. The gifts from Florida and North Carolina will be added to those collected in Maryland, and the shipping container should (hopefully!) be filled before the end of November, and be on its way to Honduras.

I'll be blunt. Last year, we didn't have enough gifts. We were especially lacking in family gifts, which are specifically the items which represent a gift to a pastor and his wife. We had to open the gifts we received, and spread out the contents to more people. We had enough children's gifts, thanks to the very generous donation from MorningStar Ministries of 1100 childrens gift boxes. If it had not been for their help, we would not have had enough children's gifts, either. We also received a much smaller amount of used clothing than normal, and the quality of the clothing was significantly poorer than we've ever seen before. People are, I assume, not replacing their clothing as quickly, and are reselling rather than donating much of their better unneeded clothing.

We can't expect people to do more than they can do - so we are hoping, instead, to get the word out to more people and more churches, so that we can still bless the poor rural pastors, the orphans, and the special needs families here in Lempira.

Can you help? Can you create a gift, or help spread the word about this project? Can you donate some good used clothing, jackets, blankets, etc? Thanks so much, for however you can participate!

WATER!

We are getting closer and closer to moving onto our property - but as a family, we all agreed that we couldn't move out there until we had water at the house site. We have a river on the property, but it's at the bottom, and the buildings are at the top, for the view. No one wants to haul water half a mile, uphill!

So, the menfolk have been working to install water lines from a nearby source (about a mile away), to our property. The lines are now installed - hurrah! - and the system is receiving improvements (building a tank, installing valves, etc), but basically the water is in!

To make you feel more a part of the process, here are some pictures of the work: