slow Internet update from Honduras

The school building, the Gnosis Institute

Hello friends,
Internet access is scarce. I'm hoping to write once a week? Pictures will be infrequent as the Internet speed is slow. I'd like to say we are joyful and focused on the Lord, serving where the needs are and not complaining. But we are too fleshly and we are still adjusting to the heat. When it is bearable to us northerners, we are content and focused, but after a morning of dripping and wiping our moods deteriorate into crankiness and frustration. I'm hoping a few more days will increase our endurance. Last night our house was 90 degrees, but the high was only 91. We pray there is no 100 degree days during our stay!
For the last two days I have been grateful for morning cloud cover

Teaching in the classroom. All Honduran school kids wear uniforms. And while we wouldn't think the uniforms are expensive, some kids never go to school because they can't afford a uniform. 

Pam , the girls and I spend our mornings teaching the 16 older kids ( ages 3-6) English class. Five of the kids in the class are from the village of El Cacao. Jeannie is busy preparing for a large group of high school kids who arrive tonight. They will do service and outreach projects here like paint the protective walls of the orphanage and the school (across the dirt road from each other) and beautify the village center with fresh paint and flowers. Jeannie turned the class over to us on our second day. We aren't qualified or fabulous at controlling the kids(especially the village kids who don't know any English), but I am grateful for a regular responsibility. When I feel inadequate I remind myself that lessons Pam and I teach are better than nothing. Most Honduran public schools are bare bones and close frequently due to teacher strikes. I can't blame the teachers, as of May they hadn't been paid since February (the school here, who has government paid Spanish teachers is grateful to their two teachers who keep working despite lack of pay). The government here rarely pays their teachers the promised salaries or anything at all for that matter. Books and paper to write on are rare. The school days, for all grades is only half a day. School is only required until age 12. Kids at the Gnosis Institute of learning (the school where we teach) are getting almost six hours of school a day, half of it in English. Thanks to donations from American friends, their school resembles a preschool in America with daily crafts, books to read (not as many, but still, books), paper and pencils and markers, even glitter. It is Jeanie's hope that more people will sponsor students so they can give this education to more of the village kids. Kids attending this school will be a benefit to this country I think.

Tom and Chris work out at the property trying to construct the protective cement wall required to keep the property safe. They work Honduran style which means stated delivery times are just vague possibilities, there is much standing around, but excessive sweating all the same. I think the process and the slow progress are frustrating, but character building.

Upon arrival in Las Ceiba, we meant Papa and a 3-month old puppy. He is a Doberman and his friskiness and love for chewing and nipping scare the girls a bit. Hadley named the puppy Copper, for the color of his underside and he travels back and forth with us from the house where we stay to the orphanage and school. While the girls are smitten but slightly distant from the puppy and I am tolerating a smelly dog, it is nice to have a guard at the house who barks, even if he always barks at the neighbor's cows.

While Honduras and the food are familiar, the trip is nothing like last year. We are about ten minutes by car from where Del and Jeannie live and five minutes from Casa Cielo. We spend much time waiting to be transported from place to place. We have our own Tia, or local woman that we pay who cooks and cleans for us. It feels snobby to let someone else perform these duties for us, but lovely too. Honduras has an unemployment rate over 60% so I know this woman needs the work. She works hard, is an excellent cook and washes all of our clothes by hand in a special sink on the side porch. Our whites are gleaming in a way I have never achieved as a laundress!

The house where we stay is on a highway. 

The house where we stay is spacious and pleasant. It has big windows (good for breeze, bad for sun baking). It sits on a busy highway so the car noise and the constant barking of the big mutt and tiny Chihuahua next door are new noises to learn to ignore. I admired the stars and the sleeping cows and bull of the neighbor last night for an hour while waiting for the neighbor dogs to cease their 3 am barking. The shower is frigid and takes some getting used to…previously I could not imagine a shower in this heat to ever be too cold! The girls have learned to bear the cold water and finally shower happily.

Our bedroom, which we share with the girls is larger than our bedroom at home. 

We miss the ocean breezes from last year though we have plans to take all the kids to the beach on Saturday. We miss the fellowship during meals and evenings with Del and Jeannie. Some days we don't see our friends at all, just the kids. God's purpose for us this time is different.

The palm covered mountains across the street are obscured by low cloud cover that has released water in buckets on us. The tin roof makes the rain pelt and those are the rain drops are the size of raisins. It is beautiful and so cooling! Sweet reprieve.

Forgive me if I make too many comparisons to last year. We are still adjusting to the changes and learning to serve in new ways. The girls are doing awesome (though you could pray for the hives that Kassy gets most nights).

Friday is Gym day at the school, which Tom reluctantly teaches (he does a great job). The building is the background is the orphanage. As the photographer, I am standing on the hill right by the school building. Many days the wondering herd of cows that belongs to some neighbor are in the little soccer field! Watch wear you step kids! 

Love, Laura