Yes, we're still around plugging away at life here in Honduras. We are enjoying many good moments but the occasional difficulty does come our way.

One particularly difficult incident passed our way last week on Thursday. An unfortunate accident involving one of the boys here at La Finca stopped all our hearts for awhile. Thank God his angels were with us (particularlywith Javier) and the situation, though very scary as it unfolded, didn't turn out as ugly as it could have. From our human perspective it is unimaginable that he could have escaped with the relatively light injuries he incurred. God was faithful in our moment of need. This pic shows Javier recovering in bed. His mother is with him. Join us in prayer for his continued recovery.

On to other things. Recently we did a day trip to the town of Guaimaca. Our hope was to make contact with Mennonites that supposedly lived in the area. We had an interesting drive out to an area of Honduras that was new to us. After a good bit of driving around the area looking for clues as to where Mennonites might be, we spotted the name Smucker on a sign and figured there might be a connection. The place we stopped at consisted of a restraunt, ice cream and souvenir shop, and a lawn furniture business run by members of the same family. Turns out they are pretty much the sole remaining family that was associated with the Mennonite colony. We enjoyed chatting with them and hearing some of their story.



The Kennel family also paid us another visit staying overnight this time! We always enjoy their company. The plan was to do an outdoor doggie roast but dry and windy conditions forced us indoors. Wasn't quite the same doing it in the fireplace. Oh well, maybe the next time.











We usually invite the older kids over for a meal when they are celebrating a birthday. Recently Danilo and Mirna celebrated their birthdays on the same day.











Zack and Harlan replacing the all important screens on our house.




More pictures on the ongoing construction next time!

Oh Yeah...

Ok, I wrote the blog last night (when I should have been sleeping :), reread it this morning and realized I had forgotten a couple of things!

On Thursday, we took a group of about 20 of the youth/young adults to an event at Encuentro campground in the late afternoon. A group of "gringo" youth from a Christian high school in Texas come every year. They are led by Jenny, a former missionary kid whose parents still live and work at the campground part of the year. The group comes do crafts and play with the Finca kids. They also partner with students from Jenny's former bilingual school in Teguc, Los Pinares,to go to the local public high school here in Valle. The Pinares' students translate for the "gringo" youth. This year the team decided to try and plan a party in order to bring all the groups together in an informal way to play games, have pizza and then a message about Christ. The Texas group invited the youth from the local high school, which includes the Finca youth, and the students from Pinares. They planned on about 50-75 people and ended up with more than 150! That meant needing to try and get more pizza from somewhere, but it also meant that many more people heard the message of Christ! First everyone played soccer, volleyball, games and races. Later, a "gringo" girl and a Pinares girl each gave their testimony and Samuel, the director of the school here at the Finca, preached a message. It was a good evening of interaction between different groups of Honduran youth and gringos.

Also, just in case anyone thinks I'm unnecessarily cruel or fanatical about sweets, we did let the older boys have dessert with their reward dinner! We had some of the cupcakes we made for Ali's birthday and ice cream. I also gave them a peanut butter concoction that everyone loved, asked when I was going to make it again and asked what it was called. I had to admit that it was an accident because I ruined some peanut butter icing that I tried to make. Now they started asking me for some some more "accident"!! We also had popcorn later and watched the movie Facing the Giants.

See ya next time!!

PS. I love to read any comments that anyone would like to leave. Hint, hint :)

Fun and Food

As I sit here getting ready to blog, I smell the almonds I am roasting (and need to remember to keep stirring) and am reminded that most of this blog will revolve around food and/or meals. It does feel that life, no matter where we are, seems to do the same. I pray that, more importantly, our lives actually revolve around the Bread of Life and the Living Water!

Thank you, by the way, to all who have sent us gifts of food and many other things in packages and with visitors. We appreciate every single thing and pray we may be able to bless you with something that you need or want someday. :)

After the team from our church, Metzler's, left on Tuesday, we tried to get used to the void they left and also catch up on our sleep. :) Then Saturday started the food theme. The oldest girls' Bible study class, which Angelica attends (and I help translate for her), received their reward dinner for completing the requirements of the class. Granted it was fairly simple. They just needed to attend all the classes and know the first five Bible memory verses. However, there were still around ten girls who didn't meet the requirements even though all are capable. Please pray that they will feel motivated to try harder this next time around.

The dinner was a "plato tipico." All of you who have
been here to visit should know what I'm talking about. Some of you appreciate it more than others! Michele grilled a lot of marinated beef and we also had rice, refried beans, chismol, cheese and tortillas. We also had a flan/jello/ fruit/whipped cream concoction for dessert as well as some chocolate brownies that Angelica made. Everyone also enjoyed the freshly popped popcorn a la Dwain during the movie, Facing the Giants.














Sunday sometimes means inviting some of the kids for lunch. Since Danilo and Concho were still hanging around after their Sunday school class with Harlan, I put them to work helping with lunch and we also invited Alba and Maria Ilda.














Monday, the 9th, was Karla Patricia's birthday and Angelica decided to make cookies for her and Alonso, whose birthday was the 11th.








Ali's 10th birthday was on Friday, March 13th, and she started by opening some presents sent from home. Ali knows that Nana will buy her Oreos if her mom won't! :)

Later Ali was off to Tegucigalpa with dad to be able to pick out a special gift (she picked books :) and then lunch at Chili's. Later after church and dinner we celebrated by making soft pretzels with Alonso, Michele and family as well as Andrea, Patricia, Rodrigo (who also had a birthday the 13th) and Ali's friend, Norma. Angelica had also made cupcakes for the occasion.





Happy

Birthday!!

















Saturday evening was the older boys' turn to have their reward dinner for Bible study class. Harlan is their teacher so dinner was at our house and prepared by us (meaning me :) We had hotdogs and sausages roasted/burnt over a fire, all the necessary hotdog fixins, mac n cheese, three bean (or in this case, two :) casserole, red beet eggs, and (of course) plenty of raw veggies!




























On Sunday, we were invited to our friends, Guillermo and Luz, for lunch to celebrate his birthday which was on Saturday, as well! We always enjoy spending time with them and Zack loved being able to play with their dog, Bobby. They both seem to have an unending fount of energy! We then attended C.C.I.'s evening English service before heading back out to Valle. I always love times of corporate praise and worship, whether in English or Spanish.

Today we were off to Teguc to pick up Dwain and Audrey at the airport after a quick five day trip home for Dwain's brother's wedding. So that means back to school for Angelica, Ali and Zack tomorrow!

Just one more picture. This is one of my favorite and one of the more humorous views out my kitchen window.

Visitors from Home

Yes, we're a little behind "schedule" with our blogging. We've just said good-bye to the work group from our home church in PA. It was very encouraging as usual to have them here and a bit difficult to get on with things after they left.

We had good times of fellowship as the group shared in our lives here these past few days. We ate most of our meals together giving Janelle a nice break from meal prep. The team included Aaron and Louise Weaver, Scott, Jodi, Joshua and Kira Garman, David and Lisa Buch, and Sarah Burkholder. Angelica, Ali, and Zack really enjoyed having some visitors their size to play with. The group helped with the construction projects, painted and lent a hand or two to the gardening project.


Our extended family here at La Finca really appreciated our visitors as well. It's great to see how these kids come alive when there are extra souls around to provide some loving interaction.

We thank God the team from home was able to come. Hope to see more of you here sometime!


Some photos from our Sunday afternoon hike up into the mountains.

"Not another picture mom!"
"It's about time somebody takes a picture of me!"




Zack and Edwardo posing in front of an old mine storage chamber. This mountain once contained some of the richest mines in Latin America
















This beautiful waterfall was the goal of our hike.















Concho, Josh and I admiring bananas harvested behind our house. This time we got 'um before the 'posum did!

If only we can get our banana grove to produce like this.

Baking, Shopping and a Birthday

Well, today was quite a full day. We started out by going into Teguc to do the grocery shopping for the team coming from our church. Nine people will arrive around noon on Wednesday. Pray for their safety and a problem free trip! The eight other gringos here will be joining in their meals, plus they are hosting a meal for all the live-in workers here at the Finca, so that translated into a truck load of food! :) We left around 8am as usual and I thought we might be back around 11am. Well, we finally got back around 1:30-ish.

Zack and I were planning on going to a birthday party for one of his friends which was supposed to start at 2. Thank goodness we are in Honduras and that actually means 2:30-ish! :) We quickly unloaded all the groceries, helped Andrea organize some of it (the team will be staying with her in the "missionary house"), and got ready to go to the party. I really thank God for the convenience of cell phones. From Teguc I was able to call and ask Karla Patricia to help my kids get lunch, then call Lilian to take care of them (and wrap the birthday gift:) after she was done working and Patricia had to go to school.

Zack and I caught a ride with Angel who was taking some of the Finca kids to the party. I put Angelica, Ali, Lilian, and Jaquelin in charge of making dinner. The recipe was in English and between my girls' limited Spanish and Lilian's limited English and cell phone calls to me at the party, they made a great Beef Nacho Casserole for dinner!
Unfortunately, I didn't remember to take the camera to the birthday party so no pictures.

Yesterday, Sunday, we had some friends over for lunch. Guillermo and Luz Cerrito and two of their children joined us for lasagna along with Concho, Danilo and Andrea. We met the Cerritos at the Finca's sixth grade graduation this past year and went to their house for Sunday lunch a couple of months ago.
Guillermo works for a forage grass seed
distribution company and knows quite a
bit about agriculture so Harlan, Dwain,
Concho, Danilo, and Guillermo had a lot
to talk about! :)

All three of the Cerrito children attend a bilingual school and can understand/speak English. Daniel is 14 and got to spend the afternoon with Zack listening to the many and varied stories and thoughts that fill a 5 year old's head! :)














It was a beautiful day to look around the Finca and sit in the sun!














Ali spent part of the afternoon looking for bugs with Alicia, one of the Finca girls. It seems one of the colegio (highschool) girls needed to find and identify 17 insects!















This past week was fairly busy, as well. We, Audrey, Angelica,
Ali and I, thought it would be nice to have some good
homemade baked items on hand for the team when they come. So on Friday they baked brownies and chocolate chip cookies and on Saturday we baked banana breads and miniature pumpkin and chocolate whoopie pies with cream cheese icing. We also baked enough whoopie pies for the Finca kids and workers. It was two long days of baking, but we know it was worth it! :)

Harlan and Dwain are keeping very busy with the agriculture project. This week they installed the water tank and are working on the irrigation lines that will be used for watering the crops during the dry season that will soon arrive.















Harlan even got to play with fire in order to heat the tubing so it would slide over the fittings on the tank! :)














I'm sure that everybody's weeks are full and sometimes it may feel like we do not have the time to do the things we want to do or the things that we know are important. I believe that if we seek God first and ask him what he wants us to do and then make sure we are doing his will and not others' (even though what they may ask us to do are good things), then we will find that we have done what we wanted and the things that we know are important! Now I just need to live it! :) May God bless you as you follow his will wherever you are.

Time Marches On (towards March)

Yes I know that title is lame but it's all I could think of.

Hey everybody. Another week of life at La Finca. A rainy day, some cloudy days, some sunny days. Today happens to be a very beautiful day. I should be out working but it's kind of nice to stay in the shade for a bit after lunch. The rainy day was an unpleasant reminder that there are roofs waiting to be fixed around here.

What have we been up to too? Hmmmm.....Maybe I'll work backwards from yesterday. Probably the highlight of my week. I took another fairly long hike up into the mountains surrounding Valle de Angeles. I forgot to take the camera along so there are no pictures. Ali and a group of 12 kids went with me. This time up a different side of Valle. We headed up towards La Tigra National Park into an area where mines and mining related activities once took place. Interesting scenery on the way up. We passed a barren waste land where according to a local landowner the mining companies used chemicals to extract precious metals from the ore mined out of the mountain. Farther up we hiked along a stream up through a small gorge. Very pretty except the water is contaminated with some cloudy grayish white substance. Farther up the mountain the stream clears up. The scenery got better too as we continued on. Our hike finally ended at an impressive waterfall. Nature there seems a little larger than life with huge boulders, over sized plants and massive trees, some of which have fallen across the gorge. The hiking was a bit tricky. It involved crawling up and over some things and a lot of jumping from rock to rock. The kids did well. Some were a little leary of certain parts but all in all it was good for them. I do enjoy my trips into the mountans although my knees complain a lot!

Among other things last week I worked at getting a dedicated water supply set up to irrigate our gardening projects. I hope to more or less finish that this week. I also spent some time helping Dwain advance said gardening projects. Large ants know here as "sompopos" have been carrying off sizable portions of our young plants. We are searching and researching ways to control them but in the meantime it is a bit frustrating. Enough so that we've temporarily resorted to pouring gas down their holes.



Saturday we celebrated Valentine's Day at our
house with the Kennel family and Dwain and Audrey. We had a nice little fondue dinner together. All kinds of good things to dip into chocolate, cheese, or barbeque fondue. A nice time of "gringo" fellowship.




Angel, Concho, Danilo and a group of other older boys are working on the future computer lab. Everything seems to be moving along quite well with that. Basically it just involves re-doing the roof structure with steel using a design that allows for more natural light. Very similar to what they did with the library.

Last week was the first week of school here at La Finca. Although we've lost some good work help we're glad to see the youngest kids all occupied with classes in the morning. This gives us a time of relative peace and quiet. We pray they will all do their best and learn as much as they can this year. Middle school and high school classes will start this week at the public school. Danilo, Concho, and Miriam will be taking classes at the public university in Teguz.

Photos of the week past:

Some future bull riders! From left to right: Javier, Cristofer, Brayan and Zack












Zack trying out his alternative to sledding down the hill behind our house.







Trust God gives all of you the grace to keep "marching on"!

Farm stuff and fish?!

Hey y'all, it's me again. I know, I know, it should be Harlan, but he's busy :) and you'll just have to put up with me! This week's been pretty good, not too busy, but it's been c-o-l-d!! I know you think that it's much colder where you Northamericans are, but it's been getting down to 46 degrees or so at night and very windy. This translates to waking up to about 56 degrees inside my house and wind coming in through all windows and cracks and no heat to turn on. The upside is that it also means no mosquitos right now!! :)

This past Thursday we decided to go visit Agafam. Agafam is an agricultural fair type event held in Tegucigalpa. We, our family, Dwain, Audrey, and Andrea, left right after Audrey and the kids finished school. The animals there were mainly horses and cows from different farms and ranches around Honduras. They also had some chickens, rabbits (who were digging under the fence and getting in the chicken pen) and some ponies for rides.
The fair also had the usual rides, games, food stands, and other stands selling sweets, jewelry, clothing, cowboy apparal, etc. Zack is at least one more step closer to being a cowboy, although it's Ali who has been wearing the hat lately. :)

We had decided to eat lunch there and my lunch was, well... interesting. I decided that I wanted fish and asked it I could have it grilled instead of the usual fried. The guy said he could steam it for me, but it would take about 15 minutes. Well, 30-40 minutes later :) I received my whole
steamed fish. By this time I wasn't hungry (since I had been picking off of everyone else's plates:) and it didn't help that Zack kept playing with the fish and opening and closing it's mouth! It didn't stop me from eating it, but I did give most of it to a couple of boys who came asking for money or food. If you're really interested, Dwain took a picture of the fish before I ate it!

We did our weekly grocery shopping before heading back to Valle. Harlan dropped the women off at the grocery store before heading to a hardware store, Do It Center. Just a note... I called to let them know we were finishing grocery shopping and they were still shopping at the hardware store. That should put a stop to complaints of how long it takes to do the grocery shopping. :)

We've been having a lot of fun learning new things we can make from scratch. Audrey introduced us to homemade pizza crust, soft pretzels, granola cereal and granola bars. We also make our own peanut butter and hummus. Some of the things we hope to try are bagels, bread, yogurt cheese, etc. Angelica has also baked us some yummy whole wheat brownies and has plans to try some other desserts.

This afternoon, Saturday, we all kind of went our different ways. Angelica went with Andrea and a bunch of the Finca girls to go play volleyball and soccer with youth from a couple other local churches. Ali, Harlan, Dwain and Audrey took a group of the Finca boys to the top of the mountain on the east side of Valle.















The picture above/right is looking down at the Finca. Our house is to the far right.
























Flowers make anyone feel pretty :)




Zack and I stayed at the Finca while Zack and his sidekick, Brayan, went exploring, climbing trees, hunting rats under our house and throwing pinecones at them. :) I hung out for a little with Lilian, Jaquelin and the "babies" behind our house and then actually started some scrapbooking, which I've been wanting to start since we got here. It was great to have a little down time and relax.

Tomorrow, may you find a day of rest as you seek God and worship him with others!!!