Some more pics and Videos

Here is the new puppy Rocky. Jude and Lucy love him. We will feel better about him when he quits barking at our door in the middle of the night.


Jude is learning to swim. Here is a video from today in the pool... without waterwings.


Lucy blowing kisses to you all.

State of the unit

So, we sit in a posh seaside villa soaking in the internet through three computers and an I-pod (obviously we needed a break from the vogue 'ideal' no?). It's been over a month since I have had access to a reliable internet connection for an reasonable amount of time and it seems that this trend may continue. I hope to be calling several of you this weekend, so to eliminate any small talk on my end and get to the important stuff (like me hearing about your family) I'll just say - “read the blog.”
The family unit is well. I'd say an A.

Jarod
His homemade chocolate is becoming a community favorite – and a continual point of discussion among us all. He will be starting in soon on coffee roasting ideas, which should also be highly entertaining. He has been building stuff, fixing stuff, hauling stuff, planting stuff, and reminding me it is a good idea to sit down every once and awhile and enjoy the quite of our home. Reminding me to go for walks and take pictures... just because it is enjoyable. Because where we live is amazing. Besides finding great joy in the natural world around him and the many things to learn on a daily basis, he is building a few friendships and enjoying his Bible Study with our friend David. He is dreaming about 'what to do next' and tonight we learned he needs to look for a job based on a (ROWE – you can look it up). Or I guess maybe he wants to move to Wisconsin to make cheese – or Canada to tap maple trees – to Oregon to audit classes – or Kansas to fix wind generators... but only if he can ride his motorcycle. So yeah – he's the same. And here is his favorite mushroom shot - these come up over night and vanish by mid day. We are pretty sure it is poisonous.




Jude
We all agree he is doing well. Weird but well. He is a strange little guy with questions about, “why are family is white,” and repeating words like 'horchata' again and again – just for the fun of it. He still asks almost daily about when we will go back to Kansas or when he will see grandpa or play at Izaac's house, but even more frequently he asks when his friends are coming over or when we are going to the river to swim. He is learning to read and loves working on school with me and going to school to teach English. He is joy and he is trial – he is the reason that I have been spending my few free seconds reading a parenting book.



Lucy
She is walking on her own now, a bit. Talking on her own now, a bit – in both languages. She is dirty. She loves shoes and food. She has weak lungs and a bad attitude – and she is the town of Urraco's mascot. The children love her – the moms love her. We love her... but this parenting book is coming in really handy... and I am telling you that whoever she becomes... she was born that way.




I am continually amused at my daily miscommunications – with my bumpy road as teacher, neighbor and friend. I am enjoying myself deeply... frustrated often, missing the comfort of easy old friendships and learning lessons by the second. I am super pumped that by the next blog I may have put books into the hands of every child in our village and set up library story hours to flood their little brains with my horrible Spanish and the wonder of a little library!

Lest Thou Think Us Vogue

I sat today, giving myself a self-righteous pat on the back for knowing exactly which family each of the food items on my plate came from. What wonderful people we have become.

As our increasingly “Last Child in the Woods,” locavor, yogurt-making family moves out of the mainstream and into the 'vogue ideal' of 'sustainability – I thought this would be a good time to remind myself and let you all in on a few secrets.

We burn our garbage. ALL OF IT. Polluting the world, and specifically the air, right outside of our children's window, with toxic plastic fumes.
I sometimes considering 'going somewhere' just to have an excuse to get away from hand washing cloth diapers.
And yesterday, in a moment of weakness, at a hardware store while Jarod was making keys I spent over $15 on fertilizers and pest control for the garden. I am depressed and dejected at growing things in this climate and am tired of only being able to grow things that are “carne de perro.” I want spinach. After 200 mangos - I want a carrot. This 'local eating' – preindustrial lifestyle is hard.

So, there you have it – we are garbage burning, fertilizer using – cruddy gardeners, energy sucking polluters living on the edge of virgin rain forests, that will in all likely-hood be gone before my kids enter school. Because; here is the secret: The people cutting down the rain forests are not evil monsters who just don't care about humanity. They are people just like you and I. People trying to “make a buck,” “support a family,” or “get ahead.” The people who are still hunting and eating endangered species are my neighbors. And they are just hungry. The world is in the condition it is, because it is full of human beings, like you and like I who can not – no matter the effort put forth – no matter what the new great 'vogue' idea to help our children and save the world is – meet the ideal. The ideal of, “Loving God above all else and our neighbor as ourself.” We can only succeed in getting 'good enough' to become self-righteous in our effort and looking down upon others. We cannot save the world by just 'living simply' – by going back to some made up ideal lifestyle that never has exsited. And this is good news. It takes all the pressure off. Not the pressure to do good. But the pressure of perfection. Because the perfection has already come. The world's salvation is already guaranteed. We are then free to live in grace. Toward ourselves and others. Doing the best we can, motivated by love and gratitude.

We had the joy of being joined by a 'crazy canadian hippy volunteer' for a month this summer, who was continually striving to live with the least footprint upon this planet. She challenged us and laughed with us. She lived as consistently as she could, striving for perfection in herself but being ever gracious with failings and open to conversation. She was an inspiration, but mostly because she never looked to herself as the savior or as having arrived. So here is to you Bethany – may the fuel in your plane to arrive safely at home keep you humbled. :) And here is to you, our granola eating friends in Portland – may you continue to buy food at the local farmer's market – always knowing that it is an act of love – to a world beyond your repair – but never beyond His. Here is to you Olga who still grinds your home grown corn every morning, wash your laundry by hand every afternoon, walk the hill every evening for church, and puts your ever so pregnant body to bed every night. And, here is to me – and all the garbage I burn, until we all find a better way...

Don't look to men for help;
Their greatest leaders fail;
For every man must die.

His breathing stops, life ends,
And in a moment
all he planned for himself is ended.

But happy is the man
Who has the God of Jacob as His helper,
whose hope is in the Lord his God -
the God who made both earth
and heaven, the seas and everything in them.

He is the God who keeps every promise,
and gives justice
to the poor and oppressed,
and food to the hungry.

Psalm 146:3-7
Living Bible



We have green beans that grow this long and yummy... okra too, and cucumbers - at times. That giant thing behind him is a mazapan... a giant fruit you can fry like a potato. Actually - you'd be surprised what fruits you can fry in animal fat :)


Although I may be ready for a change in diet - Lucy will never tire of the mangos - and alas I will never tire of changing her lovely runny diapers. They work better than prunes.

in spite of us - B+

Every few years God likes to take what I think I know about living and shake it up until I am left reeling with uncertainty and oddly teachable. This week had been one such time for me, as we more fully emerge ourselves into the lives of our neighbors.
Daily, after classes at the local public school I feel like the pied piper, wondering our dirt road with rarely fewer than a dozen children. Some on bikes, some barefoot – some chattering continually and others quizzically quiet. Some times we spot a Toucan, a snake or even a panther on the half mile walk to our gate. At times we practice Spanish for Jude and I or English for them, and lately I have been asking them a lot of personal questions.
You see, we just received word that the paper work is moving along, Jason and Sarah have their first host mom picked out, within the month we should finish the next house, and orphans could be arriving before the November rains. Which is SO exciting, considering that is the drive behind this ministry, but as a I look around my kitchen every afternoon at children reading, playing, dressed in spiderman costumes or asking for help with their lego project or moderation of their UNO game, I am saddened by the fact that this time of 'free-for-all' must come to an end. We must put hours and order in place and I must say, “go home” to the neighborhood children who have cooped our home.
From the hints that they had left me, I know that I am not sending them to a happy place – a place of luxury like our home – but I wanted to see for ourselves. So last Wednesday, with Edwin as our guide and a bag of oranges for his 60 lb grandmother who is dying of stomach cancer, Jude and Lucy and I head to “the end of the road” - “arriba” in the mountains, where most of our little guests live. In the 3 hour journey we were received into numerous homes, my kids were given bananas and hugs, and we all had plenty of laughs. I met some mothers, but mostly grandmothers and aunts of the students, who were dutifully washing clothes or drying beans along the road. The only evidence of men were the bags of beans they had lugged from their fields or the scattered beer bottles and hammocks swinging quietly in the corner. And I came home with a heavy heart, to my home of luxury – my home with a smiling husband and well fed children.
And I I wondered, how do we live here? With them? But so unlike them? I just want to throw a whole bunch of money at them and make all the pain go away. But it won't. Money brings no answers here. We are trying to provide some work and to teach some skills. Give some education. Start a Bible study. Small things... anything. But we don't know what we are doing- we just long for God to work in spite of us - for Him to redeem our errors and shower them with healing love. We want to touch the children of the community. We are about to ask a hard thing of them. That they welcome 40 some orphans into their close knit community of survival.
The children who will live within these walls will be the kings of Urraco... the 'spoiled' orphans. If not for the refrigerator and the washing machine, for the books and the games, beds, sheets, for the window screens and pantry full of food, and simply because they will walk into a home of hope, cared for by adults whose lives and faith permeate their little bodies and souls with the knowledge that who they are REALLY MATTERS. And that is a luxury that my children will never live without, and that is what will make us more different than our neighbors than any possession.

After a soccer game in the rain with some of our regulars we gathered for this photo. (Left to right)


The boy in the green is Ever. I think this is his only shirt. He has a little sister Lucy's age and is most amused by the luxury of new white cloth diapers, as his sister is pinned in any old rag. Because seriously, isn't a diaper kind of the bottom of the barrel of jobs for a piece of cloth. After it has lived a long and useful life – then let it catch the poop.

The boy in Orange is Alan. He is most confused by the concept of, “Ok, Jude needs to come in now and take a bath and eat dinner. Namely, because he has never taken a bath in his life and I believe as his grandma gets more ill dinner is becoming more infrequent as well. I buy my beans from him - for the going rate of 75 cents for 3 lbs. What a cash crop.

The girl in white is Salie. Bright and quite, she can sit for hours and read. They came from the city a few years ago and she likes it better here. Her mother makes cheese and I bought some cuttings of her Hibiscus plants last week.
The boy in blue is Edwin, Alan's little brother, and sometimes I find him watching the mashing machine spin (It has a clear top.) The first time he ate lunch with us I noticed that he probably had never sat at a table with a plate of fork before in his life. I am paying him to make sling shots to bring home to our friends.

Beverly is in my lap. She is Jude's age and is in love with my refrigerator. She pets it and calls it beautiful. Her mother wants to buy one. Which, since she is Sadie's little sister... I am wondering about her mom's cheese now.


The white kid is Jude. The best loved 4 year old in the world... with a million friends who let him play soccer... even if it is just because he is the only kid with a soccer ball. And as he informs me, the only one of his friends who has to brush his teeth.

The girl behind me in yellow is Iris. She is a 16 year old sixth grader who I have started to train to clean my house. She has never left Urraco and yesterday I taught her how to flush a toilet for the first time in his life. “Now how did you make the water go away?”


Darwin is in the white wife beater. Thirteen and the older brother of Allan and Edwin. Doesn't come to school often because he is working with his grandpa. Abandoned by his parents, sleeps outside of his grandparents home in a hammock made of a big rice sack. He gets thinner every day, not enough food to grow as fast as he is, but somehow he manged to dye his hair black last week. He has dreams of selling cars some day... and weekly brings me plants for the garden – yesterday it was wild ginger.

Below him is Franklin. He is a bit slow and I can't understand his spanish, spoken through a perpetual smile. He plays for hours with Lucy's little music box the her grandparents gave her for her birthday. He will probably steal it soon... and we will all cry for different reasons.

Shirtless Kendi is a little lier. Who I love with all of my heart. He is AMAZING with my kids. Holding Lucy while teaching Jude Spanish. The apple of Jude's eye. He is 'wealthier' than most of the kids as he is raised by his aunt while his mother works in Spain. He knows what he wants and he knows how to get it. He is bright. He is charming. He needs Jesus more than the million things he asks for each week. And I need him to teach me everything about being Honduran.


Our friend David has agreed to do a weekly Bible Study with Jarod to teach him all we need to know about campesino theology.


Please pray for us as we learn... that we may only be teaching the things of Christ along the way. Also, please pray that Jason and Sarah would have wisdom in how and when to open and run the library/ community center.

Vacation (A)

Well we just concluded a vacation that included Grandparents, wild alligators, sunburns, and cousins swimming, sleeping, and playing “peter pan” for hours on end. You know it was good one. We spent 4 days in FL to renew our visas and now it is back to Urraco for approximately 4 months.
Dru left us, we have no groups coming for six weeks, soon Lindsey and Nate will leave and the rainy season will start. We haven no idea what these months will hold. Although we already miss Dru, there is something refreshing about being just the 4 of us again – a sense calm has overcome us, and as we prepare for these lonely months, the amount of time we will have to spend as a family is very exciting! So, for all of you that I didn't have a chance to call while in the realm of communications, know that it wasn't for lack of trying ... and we look forward to hearing about your lives through email. SERIOUSLY.

Awhile A+ (crazy huh?)

We've been married 8 years today. That is a while longer than I can believe, and more has happened than I could have ever imagined. Which makes me think that the next – however long we have - are going to go just as fast and unpredictably. I am kinda giving up making plans for life but I have some thoughts.

I think we'll spend the next few years preparing to raise two teenagers. Then we'll struggle through about 8 years of that. Then maybe we'll retire from the only lifelong career it looks like we may have... or be grandparents, which after wearing both of our parents out on family vacations this month, doesn't sound too relaxing.





We'll do a bit of travel.. we will scream at each other through all city driving, but each time we get quicker to forgive. We might take a little tourist hiatus from archaeological sights for a few years – because although changing diapers on the Mayan ruins was amusing – it just isn't that convenient.





Maybe we'll go back to Hays, or China to live – or maybe we'll stay forever in Urraco. There will be nice people there and things to learn – and there will be each other – so I'm all good.

We'll mock each other, be continually surprised by our differences, and be sharpened into the people God wants us to be by each other. We'll stay on the same page. It's not easy, but I have figured out that as long as I put my thoughts and feelings on an electrical gadget somehow, he knows about me and if I watch carefully I can guess his next steps. (So Jarod if you are reading this on your I-pod – it's been another good year – I love you.)

Beautiful people the world over

I'm a slow learner - but I'm getting this figured out. Three months before we left Portland, five years ago, I figured out that I was leaving the best people in the world – to fulfill our dream of world travel. And I did – I left the best friends anyone could ask for. But we met amazing people in Europe. The best – the most hospitable, generous hearts anyone could ever cross paths with. Then last year, 3 months before we left Hays – after 3 years of being home – I realized that I was leaving the most amazing friends and church family any family had ever had. I realized that my son would never replace the friends he had shared his first years of life with. And now, as we leave Urraco for ten days and my house floods with people to say good bye, give hugs, wish us well and a quick return; as I am overwhelmed by chores hurried betweens children's chatter and adolescent soccer games – I realize that the world is full of beautiful people. In every corner, up every river, wherever it may be - the world holds billions of souls holding the image of God and the potential for friendships that transform the soul. We have found a home in Urraco because we have found people to share it with. And as I look at the calender to our expected end of "the Honduras experiment" in December – the only thing that makes the thought of another “leaving” bearable is the thought that we will always be 'home' – if we will open our hearts. So beautiful people, faithful to read this and love us... meet your neighbors.


One beautiful person will be leaving us soon... and perhaps a hammock will be empty in the evenings – or perhaps his friends will continue to fill our evenings with laughter.



Three of the 7 boys who visit our house almost daily – looking for work, or someone to swim with, play UNO, or simply get a few hugs, laughs and stare at the different ways of doing things.



The ladies from my Thursday afternoon Bible Study... mostly missionaries from down the mountain – some of which have already left after a summer term... some of whom will leave me shortly.


The director of our public school who has continued to open the doors to students in spite of threats from the union and a lack of support from almost anyone and everyone in power. But the students keep coming so she keeps giving classes.



David and Olga... a blog unto themselves.



A group of students from the public school.... so many stories – so much joy.


Dru with some of his teenage friends... they taught him how to work, how to play soccer, how to say – who knows what in Spanish... and they taught us all to laugh.