A Day At Lake Yojoa School - Honduras Flooded

The following is a video we put together of an average day at Lake Yojoa Bilingual school. We are excited to see the work God is doing here and feel privileged to be apart of it. Enjoy!

Please pray for the country of Honduras. We have had so much rain that Honduras has been declared in a state of emergency.

The flooding is overwhelming. Houses are under water. Bridges are washed out. There doesn’t seem to be an end to the rain.

A major dam has become so full that water is being released into the already flooded villages.

We live at a high altitude so we haven’t experienced the same devastation from the downpours. We are thankful God has kept us safe.

It remains to be seen how Honduras will be affected in the near future as so many of the country’s crops have been destroyed. Please be in prayer.

In His Grip,
Michael, Golden, Avalon, Micah and Zachary

Honduras Highlights 9/14/08 - 10/10/08

Here is Michael teaching Bible to my second grade class. He's going story by story through the Bible with first through fourth grade.

We get up at 5:30a every morning. We arrive at the school at 7 to receive the children. School starts at 7:30 and goes until 1:40p. The school minivan is stuffed with teachers and students going to and from school. It's considered a privilege to have a car in Honduras.

When there's no more room inside, there's always the bumper. There doesn't appear to me to be seat belt laws.

Here is Micah and Zachary and one of their school friends.

Micah and Zachary are a real hit with all the girls. The little Honduran niña's love to tease, talk and play with them.

Here is Avalon with her 3rd grade class making a human pyramid. This was one of their P.E. activities.

This school has been an excellent experience for our children. They are learning how to behave in a classroom environment and they are learning that life isn't just about winning (my kids are competitive). They love to play with their Honduran friends.

One Sunday we went to one of the local churches. Today is "Día de la Biblia" or Day of the Bible. We marched around the community with the church, stopped on different street corners and had open air mini Bible studies. In this town is a whole group of Mennonite families. There are several ladies who are raising Honduran children whose parents gave them up because of the extreme poverty. These Mennonite Honduran children speak perfect English.

Here's our little Calvary Chapel Peña Blanca lead by Pastor Chris Rivera. His wife Maria works at the school with us.

Our Bible Study is quite intimate at this point. We meet on Sunday's and Wednesday's.

Here is the building of Calvary Chapel Peña Blanca under construction. The church hasn't been advertised yet because our meeting place so limited on space. The building of the church is a huge answer to prayer. God is going to huge things with this Calvary Chapel.

Calvary Chapel Peña Blanca is $5000 short in funds from being completed. Please pray with us for a miracle.

My brother, Donathan, and his wife Kim and their friends came out and visited us in September. They built us a screen door for our place to keep the mosquitoes out.

As you can see, Jayden is quite the happy camper. He just goes with the flow. As far as he's concerned there was never a cultural adjustment. Jayden has had a pretty serious diaper rash since we've been here. The climate is so humid that it never has a chance to heal. I'm faced with the reality that I may need to start potty training now if we want this diaper rash to heal.

Avalon and Blackie. Blackie is our neighbor's dog. Avalon and Blackie are best buds.

Jayden loves to be swung in the hammock. "Ahhhh, this is the life."

We are in the rainy season right now. It is a magnificent sight when a storm front moves in.

A local herd of horse takes a stroll in our backyard while our clothes are hanging out to dry. Only in Honduras!

This is the view from our back yard. The terrain in Honduras is absolutely breath-taking. I love to sit on our porch with my coffee (the local coffee is absolutely awesome) and drink in this view.

I must say, I'm falling in love with the children in my second grade class. They are all so precious. Michael and I feel privileged to have this opportunity to teach and pour into the lives of these children. Please pray that God will give us insight and wisdom on how to best teach these kids.

Neither of us has had had training in teaching English as a second language. We're kinda wingin' it. We are becoming experts at charades. Michael does an excellent job drawing his Bible stories on the board. 2 days after the last Bible class my kids are still drawing pictures of the Tower of Babel for me.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support. May God richly bless you as we serve Him together!

In His Grip,
Michael, Golden, Avalon, Micah, Zachary and Jayden

Live Like A Honduran

We had to jump through a few more hurdles at the airport but we made. Yipee!

Lake Yajoa Bilingual School started 4 days later. I’m teaching 2nd grade and Michael is teaching Bible. We’ve been given almost no instruction on how and what to teach.

The downside of that is, we were at a total loss when school first started. We had to develop our own lesson plans and strategy AND QUICK. The upside is we have the freedom to teach how we want.

Michael is teaching straight through the Bible for grades 1 through 4. How wonderful to have the freedom to teach the Bible.

I have been teaching academics all in English, which I have found to be quite a challenge since most of these kids hardly speak English. Needless to say I have been learning Spanish very quickly.

School has been a challenge for our children because they’ve never been in a classroom setting before. This has been really good for them. Half of their classes are in Spanish. They really have to pay close attention to keep up with the rest of the class.

This is our helper, Bani. She helps care for Jayden while we’re teaching.

Meanwhile, while school is in session, Calvary Chapel Peña Blanca is being built down the road completely by hand. Right now we are meeting in the home of one of the locals.

Living here hasn’t been so easy for us because we are so accustomed to the American way of life. We have no air conditioning. It’s sweltering hot and humid. Our family is covered in mosquito bites. Every bit of plumming in our place leaks. The toilet doesn’t flush. When it rains, which is pretty much everyday at 4p, our house floods. We don’t have our own car out here which makes it very difficult to get around. It’s been very difficult to find working internet. I could go on and on, but when I look around we are still living better than most of the Hondurans around us. I have to remember that we didn’t come to Honduras to live in the lap of luxury.

We feel like God wants to accomplish a tremendous work here in Honduras but we are realizing that more importantly He wants to accomplish a work in us personally.

Our biggest prayer request right now is that we would adjust to this culture. I think I’ll write a song to the tune of “Walk Like An Egyptian” and call it “Live like a Honduran.”

Tom this picture is for you.

In His Grip,
Michael, Golden, Avalon, Micah, Zachary and Jayden