September Update

I have a hard time believing that it is starting to feel like Fall in the states. As I communicate with my family, they tell me about the cooler days, and I am certain that I will soon see pictures of beautiful trees with red, yellow, and orange leaves. Here, the days continue to be very hot and humid. We are entering into the rainy season which currently means frequent evening thunder storms that leaving us with no electricity, but chillier mornings.  

I wrote last month about Josué and Manuel’s integrity and hard work they displayed during their exam week at school. We are SO thrilled to share with you this month that BOTH boys are on Honor Roll. To celebrate, we brought them home their favorite kind of chips and introduced them to Coke Floats. They are both worth celebrating, and we are so proud of them!

September is a month of celebrations in Honduras. One holiday celebrated here that we don’t have in the states is El Día del Niño or Children’s Day. We celebrated this day with the children at the Home of Blessing. We all went to a large park about half an hour from Peña Blanca and celebrated with games, a Bible teaching, piñatas, gifts, and tres leches cake. A lot of time and effort went into making it a special day for about 75 children, and despite the challenges we faced that day, it was definitely worth it!

The Home of Blessing health classes continued this month with teaching on respiratory illness and care of newborns. The moms had a good laugh as they watched me squat on a stool and cover my head with a sheet with a pot at my feet in order to teach about breathing hot water vapors to help loosen mucous. An opportunity also opened up for me to teach health classes to 1^st through 8^th graders at the bilingual school associated with our church. It was a lot of fun to play games and do an art project that will hopefully remind the students about how germs are spread, preventing cavities, etc. The following week one of the teachers had to go back to the states for a week for her grandmother’s funeral, and I actually got to teach 6^th grade Math, Science, and Language Arts for 5 days. This was a special time for me to be out of the house, and Thomas and Marvin had a lot of quality time together too. Marvin has been great at including Thomas in projects, and I have no doubt Thomas will be a talented, hard worker just like Marvin.  

Marvin, Thomas, and I were extremely blessed this month with the opportunity to go to a missionary conference in Siguatepeque. We had our own room at the conference center and didn’t do any cooking or cleaning for about 48 hours. A team from the states came down to provide childcare so that the adults could participate in worship, listen to the speaker, and pray with each other. It was such an amazing time to hear God’s word (in English) and fellowship with others who are facing similar challenges and joys as they serve the Lord in various ways throughout Honduras.

The Bible Study and Sewing Class with some girls from Eternal Family Project have continued this month, but will likely come to a close as my due date nears (November 8^th, just 5 weeks from today!). It has been such a privilege to get to invest in these girls’ lives and get to spend time with them each week. Marvin’s trips to support a home church on Tuesdays with our Pastor will likely also cease for a time since there is no way to get in touch with him for about 4 hours while he is in the mountains. We live an hour and a half from the hospital where I hope to deliver in San Pedro Sula. Please pray for our family and especially for the delivery and health of our baby girl as we await her arrival. Although, we face many circumstances that drive us to be fearful about what is to come, as we look back over the last 9 months of living in Honduras and our almost 6 years of marriage, we are confident in one thing- GOD IS FAITHFUL! So we are choosing NOT to live in fear but to celebrate each new day with FAITH!

“Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.  Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” -Hebrews 10:22-25