Big Bridge Construction Project - still digging

Hey all - I'm just posting some more pictures of the digging at the bridge project in Las Flores. I'm behind on my bridge posting, as the work started back in early December and I first wrote about it on January 5th.

Above - digging
Below - throwing the dirt out of the trench

Soon we'll move past the digging phase, and you'll start to see the walls going up, I promise.

Gifts!

We have a guest/helper staying with us right now - I'll talk more about Katie in another post - and she brought some unusual gifts. Some of the items in her bag were things Allen specifically requested, including a few pairs of water shoes (because working in the river is taking a toll on his sneakers), and some small replacement parts for the front end loader.

The other items were things we hadn't specifically requested. They were chosen for us by Katie's mom, who reads my blog. She sent:

several pounds of butter

some bags of bulgar and barley

some boxes of potato dumpling mix and spaetzle mix

a doorknob

Do any of you read the blog carefully enough (and remember well enough) to know why Katie's creative and thoughtful mom sent these particular items?

Allen's Birthday

Yesterday Allen turned 51! He worked all day at the bridge project, as usual, but at least he came home to some special foods for dinner. These are foods he especially likes, and doesn't get to eat all that often.

He had liver (the rest of the family abstained).

He had pickled eggs and beets. Does that go with liver? I don't know, and I'm not planning to find out.

He had chocolate cake with no icing. Yes, that's right, no icing.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

More on the big bridge project

One time consuming aspect of the current bridge project has been related to the fact that there have been multiple previous bridges built in this same location in the past. In the picture above, Rupe, a member of our regular paid crew, is pounding on a big piece of concrete, which is a portion of a foundation wall from two bridges ago. Unfortunately, it is in the way of the current construction location. Also unfortunately, two days of beating on this footer (not all by Rupe - the guys took 10 minute shifts) didn't make much of a dent.

Here's a shot from a different angle, so you can see what a major obstruction this is. At this point, the attack on the old foundation has ramped up to using a chipper gun we had in our supply of tools. The goal is to undercut the boulder-sized chunk so that it can be pushed out of the way with the front end loader.

Things were going much better with the little chipper gun, but at about this time our shipping container from the US arrived . . . and on board was a used jack hammer Allen bought in Maryland (not shown in this picture)!

The jackhammer sped up this work so much, no one got a picture of it at work on the old foundation. In the picture above you can see that the big chunk of foundation has been pushed out of the way, toward the river (at the right of the picture). In this photo you can also get a good look at those deeper spots in the trench (Allen calls them "teeth"), which will add strength when the weight of the bridge on top of this wall will put pressure on the wall, trying to make it fall over sideways - something we definitely don't want to happen!

Here's a picture of the new (to us) jack hammer speeding up the work of digging the trench for the new foundation!

Living with solar power

I actually started a post on this topic a few days ago . . . and that was the day our power went out! After our power was restored, I wanted to write about the actual events of the day, not an overview post like this. Today I'm coming back to this topic: what is a regular day on solar power like?

Living with solar power is different. I wondered, for a while, if we were doing it wrong, because it takes so much more thought than living on the grid. I guess I assumed when your system was up and running correctly, the situation would be as mindless as flipping a light switch in a regular house. It's not.

In talking with others about this, I discovered that some people feel the "intentionalness" (I'm pretty sure I just made up that word) of living with solar power is a benefit. Those were more green-minded people, who worry about hurting the planet through excessive energy use. I have to admit, I'm usually too busy keeping my family from being buried in dirty laundry to worry about how much power the washing machine is using. But it is definitely true that nowadays our family knows, at most every moment of every day, how much power is coming into our system, and how much we are using. There's no question: we are not just carelessly using electricity without thinking about it.

Here's what this looks like:

When we first get up in the morning, we check our power level. How low has the charge on the batteries gone since sundown yesterday? How much sunlight is there now? The answers to these questions determine our next course of action. Because the electric coffee maker, the microwave, and the toaster are especially high energy users, we often choose not to use those at breakfast time. Allen saves previously brewed coffee and reheats a cupful in a pot on the stove, if he wants/needs a cup of coffee before we have enough power to make a fresh batch. We rarely bake a breakfast, as our oven uses electricity (for it's thermostat). Our stovetop works on gas, so we can cook breakfast with that.

As soon as the power level starts rising significantly, we plug in the chest freezer. We have enough power to run the refrigerator all night, but the freezer uses more power, and since we aren't opening and closing it as often the freezer stays cold much longer without power than the fridge does. We do want to run the freezer as many hours each day as we can, however.

Some days we only receive enough sunlight to power the fridge and the freezer (and maybe the internet and laptop) through the entire day. On those days we don't do any laundry, we wash dishes by hand, and (if necessary) we run the generator to have enough power to get us through the evening. Days like this aren't common, but when we do have this kind of heavy, cloudy weather it often lasts a few days at a time. The laundry can really pile up!

Assuming that we're not having a low-power day, the next appliance we add, once we have enough power to do so, is the washing machine. Our family needs to wash several loads of laundry every day, to keep up (construction work means lots of very dirty laundry), and we're often running the washing machine as long as the input of power allows. Most days, around 3pm or so (depending on the level of sunlight) we have to stop using the washing machine, as we want to end the day with powered-up batteries, to hold us over through the dark hours.

On normal-to-very sunny days, we have very large amounts of power coming in for a limited number of hours. Best case, this might be from 8am to 2pm or so. During those hours, we can often run the fridge, freezer, computer, washing machine, dishwasher, etc, all at the same time, and we are still throwing away extra power (so as not to overcharge the system). During these hours, we're always having to be alert to use whatever appliances we need to use, while the power is available. Making sure the washing machine and dishwasher get unloaded and reloaded immediately when they finish their cycles is high priority. We also try to do any baking during these hours. We can't think we'll be able to "get to it later." The batteries just don't store that much power.

Not long after we stop running the washing machine we also turn off the freezer for the night, and we gradually start changing our mindset from "use all the power you can, while we've got it" to " conserve all the power you can, so we'll have enough for our after-dark usage."

On an average power level day, we can probably bake something (something that doesn't need too much baking time in the oven), watch a movie, run lights in both houses, and run a laptop with internet between the time we stop bringing in power from the solar panels and when we go to bed. Since we're not a family that generally stays up late, it works for us.

What I have just described is, of course, only one level of activity around the place. At the same time we are also trying to get school and ministry work done, and care for the animals and the garden, while remembering to keep track of the incoming power and matching our usage to that level.

Yes, it can get frustrating. It's like a juggling act - would my best use of power be to quickly unload and reload the dishwasher, or should I bake something . . . oh, but the sun is broiling the garden right now, and if I don't rush out there and water it right now it could be bad . . . meanwhile the child who was told to sit tight until I get back to read them their spelling words is still waiting . . .

And that gives you some idea of what it's like to live with solar power, at least in our house. I'm still kind of hoping we're doing it wrong, and it will someday be like flipping a switch.

No rice for dinner - until MAY!

Allen grew up in Southeast Asia, as his parents were missionaries. Presumably he ate a lot of rice during his childhood. When we married, he was very fond of rice, and wanted rice-based meals pretty frequently. As a family, we usually eat a good number of rice meals each week, since we like rice, and it's relatively inexpensive.

Now, however, Allen doesn't want me to cook rice. At all.

This has to do with the big bridge project in Las Flores. Allen, Russell, and our paid crew are fed a cooked lunch every work day. This is paid for by the local government, as part of the whole bridge deal. And every day, they have rice. This is not to say they aren't getting a good meal. There's a nice piece of meat, from a variety of meats. There might or might not be beans, and some sort of salad-ish side dish will generally be served. And of course, there are tortillas. It's not a meal without tortillas, and many of the men on our crew use tortillas in place of forks, as that's the generally accepted etiquette in the rural villages around here. But there is always, always rice, as the main starch of the meal.

After only a few weeks of these meals, Allen was riced-out. He doesn't want to eat rice at dinnertime, after having it so very regularly at lunch. I'm trying to comply, but I'm feeling a bit limited by the no-rice edict. I cycle through pasta, potatoes, and breads. Then I cycle through them again. And again.

I'm taking this as a bit of a challenge. We don't use yuca (casava) much, because it's not that different from potatoes, and potatoes are cheaper. Maybe I can find some interesting and unique yuca recipe? What about the wheat berries I grind for bread? Could I find a way to cook the grains for a meal - and a way that my family will like, and not just feel that it was something different? Also, how about different versions of potatoes? We boil, fry, mash and hash potatoes. I could bake them, but usually not in the evenings, when we're trying to conserve power (because baked potatoes take a long time in the oven). Or different types of breads: biscuits, rolls, dumplings, savory pie crusts, etc. What else?

Suggestions are welcome! But please, don't suggest rice - at least not until the bridge project is over in MAY!

The Kids!

Recently several of you mentioned that you have trouble keeping track of which of my kids is which. I suggested I could put something up on the sidebar, for easy reference, but that isn't going to happen any time soon. I'm in the process of making some decisions about changing our main website (not the blog, but the sowers4pastors.com website) over to a different web hosting service, and dealing with questions like: "can I keep the same address in a different location," and "can I keep the same email address if I switch locations?" There is absolutely no room in my head for figuring out how to put another item on my sidebar, so you're receiving this info in a post, instead. I already know how to post posts, you know.


Kirstin is the oldest. At 24, she no longer lives at home (and we miss her). She's in the process of training to be an EMT, and she also works part time. Kirstin lives with my parents in Florida, and I hear she's a big help to them. I imagine that's true, because Kirstin wouldn't want to be a mooch. That's just who she is. We get to see her about once a year, for about a month, when she comes down for a visit.


Russell is next. You hear about him quite a bit on the blog, since he works alongside us in the ministry. He and his wife, Iris, live in the city of Gracias, which is nice for the people who need to meet with us for one reason or another - they can go to his house, rather than coming all the way out to our property. It's also extremely helpful that Russell is fluent in Spanish, as he assists us when our less-than-perfect Spanish impedes communication (which is embarassingly often). Russell and Iris are both 22.


Iris, of course, just joined our kids last year, when she married Russell. She's become a great help to the ministry, as she deals with lots of the visits of pastors, who come to Gracias to pick up food for feeding centers and to purchase Bibles from our supply. She and Rachel cook and serve the food for the Pastor Training School, as well. Iris is continuing to work on her English, as we work on our Spanish, and we're enjoying getting to know her better as we sort of meet in the middle - Spanglish, I guess!


Rachel is our middle child. She just turned 20, and we don't know what we'd do without her around the house! She's great at organizing, cleaning, cooking (for 5 people or 50, she doesn't care), baking, and coming up with creative solutions and then actually making the needed items to implement her solution. My house would look really different (NOT better) if Rachel weren't still living here. She is in a serious relationship, so I don't know exactly how much longer we'll have her at home, though. Rachel's ready to be a wife - she has major domestic skills!


Christopher is almost 18 - man that sounds strange to me! Seems like only yesterday he was 8! He's working on finishing up his high school studies (history is his favorite subject), and he plans to head to college in the states after that, although he may have to work a while first, to have money for this. He and Kirstin hope to share an apartment when he moves north. Chris is also known, completely interchangeably, as 'Gus.' When David was a baby, his version of 'Chris' sounded like 'Gus', and the name just stuck. I'm sure I say Chris sometimes, and Gus sometimes, on the blog. Just what you needed, an extra name to keep track of! Gus is a ferocious worker, and very responsible. He doesn't love to work, like his father does, but he wants to dig in, get it done, and get back to the things he enjoys. He likes reading, watching movies, and playing XBox. Chris is a bit of an enigma. He'll be seriously discussing history, theology, and philosophy one minute, and the next minute he's shooting dart guns or engaging in swordplay with his little brother.


(Boo's our regular photographer, and I'm having trouble finding a recent picture of her, other than this tricky shot she took of her own shadow. I'll keep looking.)

(Ahhh, here's a picture a recent visiting team member took. It seems to be the best recent photo of Boo we have. I need to make sure the camera gets into someone else's hands some of the time.)

Bethany (aka 'Boo') is now 15 - another amazing thing for me to try to grasp! She's scary-pretty, and she doesn't know it, which is quite endearing. She's a super worker, too, and has almost single-handedly kept our small garden going the past few months. Like her sister Kirstin (those two share the same birthday, by the way), Bethany is a worrier and a planner. It's hard for me, as the ultimate non-worrier, to really "get" my worrier kids. Sometimes I want to say, "Just don't think about that," because that's what I'd do in the same circumstance. The worriers can't do that, however. Boo is thinking of a career in medical missions.


Somehow, everyone seems to be able to remember which child is David. By the way, David has decided to change his name from the name he was given at birth to a name which is more clearly part of our family. He now goes by Ben (which happens to be my father's name, and also my brother's name). He chose that name because he knew that if I'd had another birth child, I would have given it a name starting with a "B", because we have a sort-of naming pattern. Kirstin goes with Christopher (think phonics), Russell goes with Rachel, and now Ben goes with Bethany.

And now I'm sure you won't have any trouble remembering which kid is which in my future posts. Or, you could bookmark this post and refer back to it when you forget - just don't go looking for this info on the sidebar, 'cause that's just not going to happen!

Yikes! Where'd the power go?

There's an upside to having off-grid power at your house. Very frequently the power goes out in Gracias, and we still have power up here at our house. We don't have to wait around in the dark for the power company to repair their system.

There's a downside to having off-grid power at your house. When the power goes out, you're the one who has to make the repairs.

Today our power went out. There wasn't any warning, just one minute there was power, the next minute there wasn't.

Christopher and I didn't know what to do. We really needed Allen. Unfortunately, Allen was out working on the bridge project, and he'd left his phone in his vehicle. Russell had his phone on him, but the speaker on his phone had gone out, so he couldn't hear us trying to call him.

Rachel was spending the day in town. We called her, and since we couldn't reach Allen by phone, she jumped onto a bus, and headed out to the bridge project, which is about 20 minutes from town. Before she got there, Chris tried sending Russell a text message, and Russell got that. I have no idea how he realized there was a text message, when he didn't know he had a phone call, but at least we were able to contact them! (We called Rachel, and she got off the bus and headed back to town, without a word of complaint or anything - what a trooper!)

Over the phone, Allen coached Chris through the process of disconnecting our inverter from the positive charge, and reconnecting it . . . and like a miracle, we had power again! I guess it was like re-booting the computer.

Later in the afternoon the power stopped for a moment, and started right back up again. Based on this, we figured the end was probably near for this piece of equipment.

Last year we had a nearby lightning strike which damaged this inverter. Although it still worked, we knew it was damaged because after the strike the internal fan ran constantly, rather than coming on and off as needed. We've had a spare inverter stored for just such a situation as this. If we didn't keep a spare on hand, non-working equipment could mean doing without power for a long time, until we can get new parts to us down here.

So, when he got home tonight, after an especially long day at the bridge project, Allen switched out inverters - by flashlight, because of course there's no power when the inverter is disconnected - with the help of Chris and Boo.

And that's what happened today.

Any chance you'd answer a question for me?

I know I haven't been very interactive on my blog. I'm not especially good at interactive - I guess that's why I'm pretty much a FaceBook dropout.

But . . . I've been wondering about something, and I was hoping a bunch of you would comment on this post, and answer my question. I'm wondering why you're visiting and reading my blog. I figure, if I knew the answer to this, I could do a better job of writing more on the topics that you are interested in reading.

So, are you here because you're a personal friend or family member, and you want to know what's going on with the family? Are you mostly interested in our ministry work? Or are you more interested in the "homesteading" topics? Could you be visiting because of a specific desire to read about Honduras? Perhaps you like reading about all of these, and prefer a mixture of all or some of the above?

If I was good at the technical side of things, I'd post this as a poll - but I'm not, so I won't. You're stuck using the comment section, instead. I hope you will comment, and help me out with this.

Thanks a bunch!

Las Flores - Our biggest bridge project ever!

The menfolk recently started in on a new bridge construction project. At 250' across, and a solid concrete bridge (not a hanging cable bridge), this is a huge undertaking. The goal was to complete the construction of this bridge during the dry season (which will end around the first half of May) for obvious reasons, but setbacks and delays have occurred, so that it looks like we may not meet this goal - but it won't be for lack of trying!

As with all of the bridge projects, the first step (after all of the planning and engineering) is to dig down and pour concrete footers and a strong wall on each bank. This bridge will also have two supporting piers out in the middle of the river - something new for our crew.

Today I'm posting pictures of the digging on the first bank.






The bottom of this trench won't be flat. The men dug some sections 5 feet deeper than the rest. The deeper sections, filled with concrete, will be like teeth, helping to hold the wall in place. You can see the beginnings of the teeth in the last two photos.

Every morning, before beginning the days digging, the men had to bail water out, as the trench filled up overnight.

2 years living on our land: A Retrospective

As a family, we've now lived on the property we own outside of Gracias Lempira for two years. My first night actually sleeping here was Christmas Eve, 2009, although some family members moved into our new buildings earlier, for security reasons. I thought it might be fun - and maybe even a good motivational moment for me - to look back and see what we've accomplished out here on the property in the past two years.

Keep in mind that we're not farmers, or exactly homesteaders. Allen is still a full-time missionary, and I'm mostly just a housewife and homeschooling mom with moderately severe asthma (which slows me down considerably in most every activity that doesn't involve sitting on the couch). Lots of what has been accomplished outdoors has happened with the help of a small crew of local guys who work for us pretty regularly. When Allen has a bridge project, the crew goes with him and works on that, and when he isn't working on a bridge, they do a variety of jobs here on our land.

So, with all that in mind, I compiled this list.

Inside our two buildings:

First on the list is the successful installation of a solar power system. The path to solar power hasn't been without bumps and setbacks, but at this time things are running pretty smoothly. We regularly run our lights, computers, washing machine, refrigerator, chest freezer, and dishwasher . . . but not all at the same time! Allen and the kids also installed a solar water heating system, with a gas hot water heater for backup.

Allen installed a door in our bathroom (though it still doesn't have a doorknob). If this doesn't seem list-worthy to you, it probably means you haven't ever spent time undressed in a room with a curtain doing the job of a door - trust me, bathroom doors are a major achievement of civilized living.

Outdoors:

We've repaired the fence all the way around the property - which was necessary, as the cows kept finding ways to get out! We've also fenced in two garden areas, and several acres of pasture, for when we don't want the cows to have the run of the entire property. With the cows a bit more contained, I'm hoping we can make some progress on adding landscaping plants around the buildings.

At the top of the property some of the grading of the land has been done - though there's lots more of this to do - and an area of grassy lawn has been established in front of both buildings. Since we started with very little dirt - mostly just lots of small rocks - on the ground around our buildings, the lawn work required spreading huge quantities of soil and manure, and then getting the grass to sprout and grow well during the dry season, so we wouldn't lose all the new soil to erosion. This was quite a big job!

Plants:

We continue to slowly and gradually increase our vegetable gardening skills. Boo is our most reliable gardener, and I'm so grateful for her very responsible attitude, especially when I get sidelined by sickness. We've been moderately successful with green peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, beets, green beans, radishes and kohlrabi. Apparently we aren't advanced enough to grow tomatoes.

We're also working on getting some fruits growing around here. We have wild craboo trees, but most of our family isn't fond of craboo. Russell and David get to enjoy all of that! We've now planted several mango and guava trees, and we've started some tangerine plants from seeds. Eventually you should have to drive through a grove of fruit trees to get up to our house. I also have two berry bushes started. I'll keep them in pots for a while, and hopefully establish a berry patch later this year. Friends have offered to bring us some banana trees to plant, but we've been so swamped recently we haven't had time for that yet. Soon, though, we should be growing bananas.

Russell planted a small field of cane grass for us, which is intended to help feed the cows during the dry season, when most of the regular grass dries up and dies. If I understand correctly, after this grass grows tall, you cut it down partway, and it grows back up again, so it doesn't have to be replanted in the future.

Animals:

Our collection of cattle now includes 1 bull, 2 cows, and a just barely 1 yr old heifer. We recently acquired our first little pig.

Our dogs have given birth to thirty puppies (3 litters, from different dogs) this year. Some pups have been kept, but most are sold. Our current batch of puppies - Rottweilers - are especially adorable, and should be leaving for new homes in the next few weeks.

Our attempts to keep poultry have recently been failures, mostly because our own dogs see poultry as prey. In order to keep any poultry in the future, we'll need to construct some amazingly secure coops. So far, we haven't felt that this was the best use of our time and funds.



Sooo, that's my list. I've been thinking about this, and working on it, off and on all day. I meant to ask Allen and the kids for their input, but they're all in bed now, and I want to go ahead and post this. There's a pretty good chance I'll be adding some additional items to this list tomorrow, after they've had a chance to add their thoughts.

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

Gus adds:

Installed the satellite internet (how could I have neglected to mention this???)
Built the raised beds in the vegetable garden
Installed a permanent water line down to the lower (farther away) garden
Built a storage loft above the bathroom
Built a new water storage tank for the neighbor with whom we share a water system (although this didn't improve our property, it did improve our water supply)
Installed a sink in the bathroom
Put in the stone walkway in front of the bodega

test

Breathing is seriously under-appreciated

I'm climbing back up out of the pit now, but did I ever go dooooowwwwwn with some serious asthma problems the past few days!

It all started, as is so often the case, with my catching a headcold. It wasn't even an especially bad cold, just a runny nose and that woozy feeling of impending sickness. That was Monday night. I'm so glad it was after Christmas!

The following morning my lungs were just full of wet junk. I was coughing and wheezing like crazy. This is my normal reaction to headcolds, which is why I tend to take them very seriously. But I didn't even have time to react to this one - I just went right straight down to not breathing.

I won't give too many more details, as I think that reading about someone else being sick is rather boring, but suffice it to say that there were moments when I wasn't sure this wouldn't be the asthma event that finished me off. There were moments when my response to that possibility was more relief than concern. It was really bad - possibly the worst attack I've ever had.

If your breathing is easy and clear right now, take a moment to be grateful for that. Really.

I'm blessed to have the necessary equipment and medicine to give myself nebulizer treatments in my home. As it was, I needed about seven treatments over the course of about seven hours to get things back under control. I'm still recuperating from the strain on my body (especially the muscles in my chest) that happens during an event like this.

Allen happened to be away from home during most of this. He'd had to make a trip to the city of San Pedro Sula. When I told him about these events (he's required to listen to the details of my sickness, whether it's boring or not), he thought it might make a good blog post. Because, you see, if I'd been born a Honduran in the mountains of Lempira, I'd likely not be alive anymore.

Now, truth be told, if I'd been an average citizen of Lempira, I'd almost certainly have died long before now. I've not been an especially healthy person throughout my life. I had a serious case of pneumonia at the age of 13 (which was pretty much the onset of my lifetime struggle with asthma), my experiences giving birth 5 times involved some potentially life-ending complications, and I've been rescued from asthma attacks (through medical intervention) many many many times. I have a serious asthma attack requiring the use of the nebulizer about once every couple of years. Any one of these events would likely have been the end of my earthly existence, without some fairly extensive medical help.

In Lempira, quite often the most basic medical care is out of reach - sometimes because of the expense, sometimes because of the physical impossibility of getting from a remote village to a location where some level of medical care is available, sometimes because the clinics which are available often don't have the supplies, equipment, and trained personnel to be of much use. People die regularly from readily treatable medical problems.

Allen and I are not trained to help with medical problems, but we do host medical teams as often as we get the chance, help distribute medicines to rural clinics when they become available to us, and our completed bridges often mean that people in remote village have access to the rest of the world during rainy season, when previously they were cut off from all medical care during that part of the year. So, we're doing what we can. Thanks again to those of you who help us remain here and do what we do.

And thanks to those who pray for us personally. Now take a deep breath and appreciate it.

Want to read the entire newsletter?

My friend Jane (who has visited here in the past, and is making plans to come again this year - YEA!) just asked, in the comments on a recent post, how to go about getting a copy of our entire newsletter. It occurred to me that, after reading the bits I've posted here over the past week, perhaps others might like to receive this and future newsletters. As you can see from the snippets, I do try to include different information in the newsletters than what you would normally read in the blog.

Some of you may have been receiving the newsletter in the past, and no longer do so. This is often caused by a change of email address, or it might be an error on my part.

So, if you don't receive the newsletter, and would like to, or aren't sure if you are on the list to get it, here's what you can do . . . write to me at trish @ sowers4pastors.com (just leave out the spaces around the @) and tell me you'd like to be on the list.

Thanks for your interest in this ministry!

Bridge Building: How we manage the costs

This is the last of the newsletter fragments I'll be posting. I don't know if you've enjoyed reading them, but it has been nice for me to have some quick and easy postings already written, as I'm pretty swamped with work right now. We've been organizing the items from the shipment and creating gifts for the pastors with whom we work, and this is a huge task. This final bit from the newsletter is about how we handle our bridge construction projects, with an eye toward being as efficient as possible with funding.

We also attempt to use funds as efficiently as possible in our bridge construction projects. We save money by acquiring donated gently-used cables and free design and engineering advice from contacts in the US. We utilize volunteer labor from the communities served by the bridges, and oversee the projects ourselves (thereby avoiding the cost of supervisors and the opportunities for overpriced contracts to be accepted and bribes to be paid). We estimate that our bridges cost about 10 – 20% of the cost of the same bridge built by Honduran government agencies and contractors. The material costs are mostly paid by the local government, which also oversees the scheduling of volunteers, maintains a secure on-site bodega for storing materials and equipment, and provides meals (and sometimes housing) for Allen, Russell, and our small paid crew.

So, now you know a bit more about a few of our ongoing ministries. We did mention in our letter (a part I didn't post on the blog) that we are having to look carefully at all of the different ministry works we do, because funding is down, and we might have to choose some things to discontinue. Of course we are praying that God will allow the funding to come in so that we can continue all of the current ministries, but we're also praying for wisdom and discernment for dealing with more limited funding than we've had in the past. Thanks for praying with us!

Cost vs Benefits: Running a Pastor Training School

Here's another snippet from our recent newsletter:

Our pastor training school is one of the most expensive programs we run. The students pay nothing to attend. Most of our students find it a challenge just to give up their work income for these few days once a month, and to pay for their transportation to the school. We provide housing, food, and any necessary school materials. A group of pastors from the churches in the city of Gracias (the more wealthy churches, which have paid pastors with seminary training) handle the curriculum planning and the teaching rotation on a voluntary basis. Currently we rent a facility for a few days each month, where we run the school. Our long term plan has been to use our own property for the school campus, but so far we haven’t had the funding to construct the buildings for this. Our daughter Rachel and daughter-in-law Iris do all of the cooking for the school, in Russell and Iris’ tiny kitchen. Russell handles the transportation of people and food back and forth from Gracias to the campus, and he also maintains the registration paperwork. We keep expenses as low as we can, and we feel that this program is simply worth the expense, as the trained pastors spread out into ever more remote locations and multiply our efforts as they teach their existing congregations and reach out into new communities.

More churches, fewer dollars

Again today, I'm posting a portion of my recent newsletter. This part concerns funding the construction of church buildings. Now let me say right up front, I recognize that a building is not a necessity for a church. Lots of churches all over the world meet in homes, or even outdoors. However, the desire for a church building is very high among the new churches here - and new churches are springing up all over the place.

From the newsletter:

The construction of church buildings is another ministry area where we strive to make dollars go further. While a building is not essential – many of the churches we work with meet in homes – the lack of a building is sometimes a detriment to church growth. Most homes in our area are extremely small and dark, and holding meetings outside isn’t a viable option during most of the rainy season.

If a congregation desires to construct a building, we are available to help. Allen will meet with the pastor and congregation members and discuss construction details with them. While we do receive some funds for church construction, generally this isn’t a large amount of money, and we receive requests for construction help from many churches each year, so part of what Allen does is to advise the church members on how to build their buildings in the most economical way, making use of local materials and skills. Over the years we’ve learned a few tricks which can help make an adobe building much stronger and longer-lasting than the traditional construction methods, so Allen passes this information along to the congregations.

Once the new building has a foundation and walls, using mostly labor donated by the church members and locally acquired free building materials (sand, rocks, gravel, dirt for adobe bricks, hand hewn lumber), we use our limited funds to help buy roofing materials, which generally are not locally made. With walls, a roof, and a dirt floor – but no doors or windows – a congregation can begin to use the building immediately, while the process of completing the structure can take place over time, as funds allow.

Using this method, we’ve helped approximately 15 congregations construct buildings this year alone and more than 70 since we moved to this part of Honduras six years ago. Our cost for one of these projects is typically about $800, for a church which will hold 200 or more people.

Next up: The cost of running a pastor training school

Newsletter Tidbits

Do people actually read all the way through a missionary's prayer/newsletter? I've often wondered if people enjoy our letters, slog through them from a sense of duty, ignore them altogether, or what. Allen and I are concerned that our current letter is a more difficult read than usual. In this letter, we desire to communicate to our supporters how we try to use donated funds as efficiently as we can. This is super important to us, and we believe it is of great interest to our donors - but that doesn't necessarily translate into an interesting letter.

I've decided to post some parts of the letter on the blog, in a series of posts. If you don't receive our letter, this will fill you in a bit as to how we handle some of our ministry work. If you do receive the letter I apologize for the duplication.

After a preliminary greeting, here's the first part of the letter:

2011 has been a difficult year for many, and we have seen this reflected on the mission field. More and more often, we are seeing missionaries having to leave the field due to lack of funding. Although we continue to trust God to provide, sometimes He chooses to allow times of hardship. Often the times of hardship are also opportunities for great spiritual growth. In Honduras, hardship has been a way of life since long before we came to live here, and the spread of the life-changing Good News and the work of church planting in the poverty-stricken mountains of western Honduras has continued to advance at an amazing pace, even reaching into the most remote villages of the Lenca Indian people. As long as God allows, we hope to continue to live here and help with this work.

During hard financial times, everyone learns the importance of stretching a dollar. Our family has made the frugal and efficient use of funds, in our home and ministry, a high priority. In this letter, we want to highlight some of the ways we try to make the best use of every donated dollar. This is important to us, and we know that it’s important to you, too.

One of the ways we’ve found to use money most efficiently is to recognize what we do best, and to allow – and empower – the Honduran Christians to do what they can do better than we can. For instance, running a feeding center is something that we are able to do, but your average Honduran pastor can do it better. He can more easily teach and mentor the people of his community. He can muster the resources of his local church for volunteers to help in finding a suitable location, setting things up, cooking and cleaning up, getting the word out to the poor of his village, etc. He can present a Bible lesson which is relevant to the lives of the people in that place, using language that is accessible to them. He can maintain a day-to-day relationship with the families involved in the feeding program. What a typical pastor in our area lacks is not the desire to serve others in this way, but the financial resources to purchase the necessary food. That, of course, is where our part comes in. By partnering with donors in the US, and dealing with the hassles and expense of paperwork, international communications, accountability back to the donors, etc., we can import a container of highly nourishing food, and oversee the distribution of this food to a network of pastors who then run over a hundred feeding programs in widely scattered locations throughout a large part of western Honduras.

There. Now you probably know more than you knew before about how we run feeding centers. The picture at the top of this post is a pastor picking up food for his center. Below are photos of a feeding center in action - first a Bible lesson, then a meal.




Next post: how to build more churches with fewer dollars.

What December is Like . . .

Oh, yes, I'm keeping busy.




The year-end newsletter is mostly written. I originally started the letter with a certain theme, but Allen chimed in with some thoughts which, while they were good ideas to write about, really didn't fit well with the letter I'd started. I tried to merge the two parts and ended up with a messy conglomeration of writing that just wasn't working. I woke up early this morning (sometime around 3am) and started in on it again, finally admitting to myself that what was needed was to scrap what I'd already written and begin afresh.

Once I'd made that decision, the letter practically wrote itself, over the following three hours. I had enough completed for Allen to read through before he left for work at the bridge site at 7am. Hopefully I can achieve "final draft" status by tonight, send the letter out tomorrow morning, and check that task off my list.




Regarding the container, we've started in on the opening of boxes and sorting of stuff which is preliminary to the creation of pastor gifts. This is fun work in small quantities, or when a group of friends all come over to help, but it can be a bit daunting as we start in on a whole new huge pile of boxes and bags. We're wading in with vigor, nonetheless.




We also have to fit the celebration of Christmas and two birthdays in during the next two weeks. It's a busy time for us.




So, what's with the flowers, you're asking? Well, it's hard to find interesting pictures about writing newsletters or unpacking boxes. It happens that the beginning of dry season (now) is when all the wild flowers and miscellaneous bushes and shrubs start to bloom, so I thought I'd just randomly add some of those pictures to this post. The wildflowers are definitely a part of what December here is like. Enjoy!

Any Day Now is . . . TODAY!

Yes, the container from Maryland is here! Well, not at the house yet. Much of the contents of this container is items for a huge bridge construction project, and so the family is unloading those items at the construction site.

The rest should be arriving here at the house before too long.

Thanks to everyone who participated in making this container of donations possible!!!

Music to my ears . . . er . . . eyes!

I started off with the title "Music to my ears," but then I realized that the event I was planning to relate was not audible. It seemed wrong, then, to call it "music."

Anyway, not long ago we had some guests at our house who were impressed with our large collection of books. They had just arrived, and the whole family was in the room at the time, as we were greeting them. One guest stated, "You sure do have a lot of books here - who's the bookworm?"

In response, every child in the room raised their hand.

Yes, I'm extremely pleased about my tribe of self-described bookworms! It was a major goal of mine, when I started homeschooling, that my kids would learn to read proficiently, and that they would love to read.

Checking off that box now. LOL.

A Pig and a Puppy - Finally I have those pictures!

The weather has not been ideal for the collection of solar energy recently. This, among other things, has delayed the promised pictures of our new little piggy. But, finally, here she is:

Tentatively named "Miss Mouse," she's a rather shy creature. At the moment she lives in a blockaded portion of the back porch of the team house. Here she is, shyly hiding (as much as she can) in a corner of her enclosure:

You can't really tell her size in these pics, but she's a bit less than 2' long. She can sure make a lot of noise for her size, though!

Now, for puppy pictures! Pepper gave us 10 Rottweiler pups - six boys and four girls. They all look alike, so Boo just took pictures of one puppy.







See Bunny watching over the situation with worried eyes? Bunny's part hound, so she always looks a bit sad and worried. In addition to a mother dog, these pups have two auntie dogs keeping all harm from them.

Here's Auntie Bubbles, sticking her nose into the picture taking business. Bubbles really wishes these were her pups. I believe if she could, she'd take them away from Pepper and keep them for herself.

Thanks for waiting so patiently for these pictures. It's a bit sunnier today, so hopefully this patch of particularly overcast weather is almost behind us. But, December and January are the worst months of the year for sunshine, so we'll be keeping our expectations low for a bit.

Lots of Life around here!

Hey all! The skies have been especially overcast yesterday and today, so I wasn't able to use the computer to get the piggy pics (and also pics of our Rottweiler puppies) off the camera yesterday. I did write the following, but didn't post it, figuring I'd put it up when I had the photos to go with it.

The power level is a bit better today, but this morning Allen took the camera to work with him, and the pictures are still in the camera. So, I'm going to go ahead and post what I wrote yesterday, and I'll put up the pictures when that becomes possible!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Our new little piggy arrived last night. She's pretty scared and not very nice to deal with at the moment - hopefully that will change when she gets used to her new home. Allen is talking about getting a few more pigs, so we'll be needing to construct some significant housing. I'm not sure when or how that will happen, as Allen and Russell are crazy busy with the current bridge project - but with one pig already on site, I guess pig housing will have to be a priority.

In other news, our female Rottweiler, Pepper, just produced ten puppies late last week. This time we were able to keep our lab mix away from Pepper during her heat, so all of these pups are Rotties. We already have homes lined up for a few of them. For now, Pepper and pups live on the floor at the foot of my bed, but they'll need an enclosure soon. It's amazing how quickly puppies become mobile!

Bunny, our lab mix, is currently in heat, so she and Kody (the other lab mix) are making plans for the next batch of puppies. The male Rottweiler, Commando, would like to take part in this process, but so far we've been able to avoid that. Commando is a pathetic, whiny mess right now, and we'll all be glad when Bunny's heat is over and things can go back to "normal" around here . . . at least until she (hopefully) has her pups in nine weeks.

I'm glad to report that all three of our females seem to love puppies. The two which don't have puppies just now (Bunny and Bubbles) keep looking covetously at Pepper's babies, and even occasionally babysit when Pepper takes a break, using that opportunity to get in a few surreptitious licks. In spite of all this puppy love, the moms have been great about letting us handle their babies - although with Bubbles, we couldn't let anyone but family members into the house for about a month, for fear she'd attack them to keep them from her pups.



That's all for now. Pictures to follow before too long, I hope!

A Backlog of Photos

Wildflowers from our hillside, arranged in the kitchen by Rachel

We recently hosted a medical team, and they worked in the hospital you can see in this photo. The shot was taken from a scenic overlook in the town of Gualcince.

Here's the view from the same location, looking off over a mist-filled valley

These are neighbors and good friends of ours, who live in the community of Catulaca.

Just a photo I like of a typical house in our part of the country

Rachel's funny-looking puppy, Pebbles. Pebbles was solid black for several months, and then she started growing in white hairs, ending up with this white/black combo. She doesn't really have bright blue eyes; I think that's the puppy version of a red-eye photo.

Mail Call!

We don't receive much mail - maybe one or two items a year. If you wanted to send a letter through the postal service directly to us here in Honduras (we don't recommend sending packages this way), you'd just write our name, the name of our nearest city (Gracias Lempira), and the country name on the envelope . Hopefully the letter would arrive in the Gracias post office. After that, the letter would sit in the post office until some friend of ours picked it up and brought it to us. Since we rarely get mail, we don't go checking in at the post office very often (or ever, really).

Recently we received information packets for voting by mail in the next US election. These packets were mailed to Gracias, and then brought to us by the young men who regularly do farm work for us on our property. So you see, the system really does (occasionally) work. Actually, Allen didn't receive a packet, and he's registered to vote as well, so we're not talking about a 100% success rate.

Another way people sometimes get mail to us is by sending it to the Missionary Ventures main office in Orlando Florida. We have a mailbox there, and when anyone from the office visits us they'll bring us our mail, or when we visit Orlando we can pick it up.

Allen recently returned from a trip to the states, and he brought some mail back with him. We were delighted to receive some Christmas cards and letters from friends - in fact, several years worth!

Henry Z, we laughed through three years of your witty Christmas letters at one sitting (2008-2010)!

B family, formerly of Costa Rica, it was so kind of you to send us a housewarming gift along with your Christmas card in 2009! I'm guessing your little guy is quite a bit bigger now.





I can't wait to see what people are sending us this Christmas . . . but I guess I'll just have to.

Sowers Family News Alert:

Tonight Allen is bringing home our first pig!

Pictures tomorrow (assuming internet, weather, computers, etc cooperate).

You heard it here first.

Our busy time of year

We're expecting the arrival of our container shipment "any day now." In case you haven't learned this from following the reports of our container shipments in other years, "any day now" means we really don't know when the container will arrive, but we need to be ready for the arrival at very short notice. In anticipation of bringing all the donations into our bodega/house, we did a major cleaning a few weeks ago. Since then, we put up the Christmas tree and a few other decorations, as extraneous activities like putting up decorations come to a halt when the work related to the container shipment begins. Of course, daily life takes it's toll, and piles of current stuff have encroached into the area which needs to be cleared out to receive all the new stuff. This work has to be high priority, since the container is due to arrive "any day now."

It's also time (and past time) for me to write up and send out a newsletter. I've decreased the frequency of our newsletters in recent years, since so much information is available on a more timely basis here on the blog (and with pictures), but I do try to make sure that letters go out a few times a year, and especially to put one out at the end of the year, to sum things up for those who faithfully support our ministry with prayers and donations. It has become harder to write the letters, because I know most people who read the letters also visit the blog, and I want to think of things for the letter which haven't already been covered here - and since I blab so much here, finding un-blabbed info can be difficult.

I also need to update our main website, which has been woefully neglected lately. This however, is a really big task, and I believe it will be even bigger than usual this time. The program I've been using for years now to maintain the website has officially entered obsolescence, and I'm going to have to learn to do this work a new way. Sigh. I suppose I should say that having to stay abreast of new technology keeps me young, but in reality it just makes me feel old and tired. I'm pretty sure the website update will have to wait until after the holidays.

Additionally, this is our best time to grow vegetables in the garden. Our weather is much less extreme from November through March, and we really need not to waste these productive months - but finding the time for planting, weeding and other garden chores is hard right now.

Soooo, I guess I'd better get back to work!

A "Cooking in Honduras" Question for you to guess

Let's see who knows or can guess:

When cooking spaghetti Honduran style, how do you judge when the spaghetti noodles are done?

We learned this bit of spaghetti cooking trivia from Russell's wife, Iris, who is a guaranteed authentic Honduran cook. Have fun guessing!