Written on Sunday (Feb 15th)

Let us (and by “us” I mean me) first explain how awesome the weather has been since the day we arrived in Guaimaca, Honduras! Almost every day has been cool and breezy. We have even, on occasion, had some rain during various parts of the day. The sky is always beautiful as clouds pass and birds fly overhead. Lauren made a comment about how the sky looks different here and in Africa when compared to the sky in southern California. I don’t know why it looks better here—it just does (Lauren assumes it’s the lack of pollution…she’s probably right). The temperature has been in the 70’s during the day and even in the 60’s at night! We have been so blessed to have such great weather during our stay. We have noticed it start to heat up a little bit and fortunately the Tennessee team has electricians so they came by the house and fixed our ceiling fan so that we have air circulation during the night. It is a lot cooler at night when we sleep now!

This week we spent preparing our classrooms for the students to arrive on Monday. We can’t believe that school is about to start, but the time will pass so much faster once school is in session. Our days will be very structured and I’ll have to figure out a schedule to sit down every week and write a blog to update all of you back in the States as to what we’re up to. It is a lot more difficult to get a classroom ready for school in Honduras than it is in the States. There are a lot of supplies that we don’t have access to here in Guaimaca that have to be created from scratch (i.e. the alphabet that goes above the board). There aren’t many supplies for the English classroom, but it all works out because we don’t know how much English the kids know anyways and the first couple of weeks will be spent gauging where we should start each class of students.

The bugs are everywhere here in Honduras. Everywhere we turn, we find another bug in our house that needs to be taken care of. We have smashed a large number of giant red ants in our bathroom over the past week. The funny thing is, they are always seen in groups of two at a time. You will never find only one wandering around the bathroom. If you see and smash one, another is somewhere near by. Stinky is still doing his best to keep Lauren and myself awake during the night. He has decided to become adventurous and hang out above our California king bed during the night and squawk his heart out at random times. I have tried to capture and dispose of him on many occasions. Lauren makes fun of me for not being able to catch him and has told me to just leave him alone. We also discovered that there are at least three (count ‘em—three) stinkys in our home as we speak. I’m always looking up at the ceiling to see if I can find them venturing out of their home. Spiders still roam the interior of our home as well and we take care of them the only way we know how—by smashing them. We had what looked to be a centipede walking on our tile floor a few nights ago, but we didn’t smash him. We simply allowed him to walk onto a piece of paper and then put him outside in his natural habitat. While we were feeding the horses at the stables one day last week, we came across a caterpillar that was walking along the brick walls that separate the horse stalls. He was a fury looking fellow that was about 3 inches long. We don’t know how or why he was crawling around in the stables, but he seemed happy.




We finally found out what a scary noise was that we have been hearing early in the morning—they are woodpeckers outside our window. We thought they were raccoons engaging in cage fights for money, but they are just tiny little red-headed woodpeckers searching for food. What an annoying little creature. I wish I could upload what they sound like, but I’m sure you can find a sound byte by doing a google search—good luck with that.

The horses are doing better than they had when we talked about them in previous blogs. They are cooperating more when we try to clean their hooves. One of the horses (either Faith or Joshua) decided that while they were in their stall eating, they would poop on the top of the wall for fun. In case you have never seen horse poop on a wall, we included a picture for your visual pleasure. As we have been grooming them, we have been checking for ticks in their “armpits”, ears, and butts. Grumpy (the scapegoat of all the other horses) had one on top of his head in his hair. It was about a 1/3 the size of a dime and was growing. Using a Kleenex, I pulled it out and took a picture of it for you all to see. I also included a picture of it after we smashed it on the ground. I had never seen so much blood after smashing such a relatively small object! That thing was part vampire or something. Yesterday, Lauren found a tick in the colt’s butt and kindly allowed me to pull it out while she kept him calm (you would have had a fit too if someone was pulling a tick out of your butt). I pulled it off and cut him in half since he wasn’t as easy to smash and was much smaller.











We’ve been continuing on in doing “groundwork” lessons for groups of about 10 children at a time. They have been going pretty well for the most part although we had to do one of the lessons with no translator…I think the kids got the basic message, but it was frustrating trying to talk to people that mostly speak only Spanish.














Of course our Tennessee team is still here and they have been feeding us like kings and queens. This morning Lauren and I decided that we would get up earlier in order to make it to the team house to have breakfast while they’re still here. During the week we have been making our own breakfast after feeding the horses so we could make it to school by 8:00am. We might as well get up 20 minutes earlier in order to make it to some delicious breakfast while it lasts. The team should be here about another week and a half, so we’ll make an appearance at all three meals each day. Our neighbor “Mamoo” (whose real name is Kathy by the way) breeds and trains mules back at home and has been helping here on the farm most of the day. She is a bit of a “country gal” and it’s usually her way or the highway if you get my drift. Anyways, while we were walking home from dinner with one of the staff and her two daughters, Mamoo came up in conversation. The younger of the two daughters said, “Man, my dad said she has been driving him up the wall!” The mom couldn’t help but utter what sounded like an embarrassed and nervous laugh. We hadn’t yet had any run-ins with her, so we couldn’t really relate to what she was saying…until the next day. Lauren and I found a few minutes to take a short nap before dinner one weeknight until it was interrupted by rapping on the door. I, being the gentleman that I am, got up and answered the door while Lauren lay as a witness to what was about to transpire. Mamoo noticed that she had woken me up and apologized for the intrusion. She then asked which horse would be the best one for her to ride. I informed her that we were instructed by Tammy that no one was to ride the horses for now. Mamoo responded, “Well I’ve been walking around all day and I don’t have 25 year old feet so I’m gonna ride one. I just thought I’d come over to find out which ones were broke.” I again said, “Well Wade also told us that no one was to ride any of the horses. Some have saddle sores and one has a cut across his back and should not be ridden.” To make a long story short, she went ahead and picked out the only horse that would come to her which incidentally was also the horse that had the cut across his back! Some people just don’t care what they’re told; they’ll just do what they want, when they want.

On a happier note, that very same lady sat across from us at dinner the next night and told us that she had been watching us while Don was talking to everyone and she really thought we had great facial features. Since she is an expert in mule breeding, she has determined that we will breed very good looking children one day. That’s very comforting to know.

One of the pigs here had a litter of 10 pigs, but two of them were very sickly and had to be taken special care of. Mamoo, being the animal lover that she is, kept the two pigs at her house for the night. On our way home from dinner, we stopped in to see the babies and check on how their health was progressing. Mamoo asked Lauren if she wanted to hold them and Lauren being the pig lover that she is couldn’t resist. It was cute to see Lauren holding the tiny pig, and was even cuter to see him poo on her. Unfortunately, neither of the pigs made it through the night.




We have a fairly new male volunteer here at Emmanuel. He is from San Francisco, California and his name is Jack. He is in his early 20’s and has been traveling all over Central America for a few months now. He has very long, blonde dread-locks and looks like what most Americans would consider a “hippy”—some of you reading this may have even living during the 70’s and have lived the hippy lifestyle; we don’t judge you. He is a very happy-go-lucky guy and very pleasant to be around. He brought a little guitar that he bought from a man on a beach in Costa Rica and he lets me play it when I see it laying around (and by “letting me play it” I mean that he hasn’t stopped me yet). He said that he will stay here until he feels called to move on—what a way to travel!

Lauren and I bought a cell phone in town last week and it has already come in handy! We primarily use it to communicate with the staff here at Emmanuel who are very hard to get a hold of otherwise. We live at a very detached part of the orphanage and it is difficult to find people without walking a mile. We also have it on hand in case something “shady” goes down at the property’s edge by the horses while we’re out there. It’s nice to be able to call someone here rather than spend 30 minutes trying to find them.

Lauren and I spent our first Valentine’s Day together! Last year we didn’t have the chance to see each other so it was awesome spending it hanging out. The first part of the day wasn’t the most romantic of times. We went to the stables to teach “groundwork” lessons at 9, 10, and 11 o’clock to three different groups of kids. The last group didn’t show up and since it was grooming day and the horses were in, we decided to groom them early rather than late. We shoveled some poop, pulled a tick, swept some hay and got all sweaty—none of which sound very romantic. I spent the afternoon in town looking for two white polo shirts to wear as a “profesor” in the school while Lauren cleaned the house and worked on e-mails. We ate dinner at the team house where they strung pretty red lights and had balloons hanging from the trees in the courtyard. They put chocolate candy on the tables and had other decorations strewn about. It was a good night—together at last.

I have so much more to tell since school started this week, but it will be in a later blog. I have been swamped and have not had much time to sit down and write, although I’m trying to make the time. Stay tuned for more stories about our life here in Honduras.

The Boys of Summer Are Almost Gone

The past week has flown by for Lauren and I—although today (Saturday) has seemed to go by at a record slow pace. I took ill last night at the very end of our day and spent the rest of the evening and into this morning feeling gross. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure it will pass, but its’ just a horrible way to spend your Saturday in another country. I’m still not sure what it was that did me in since Lauren and I both had the same diet throughout the day. I suppose women simply possess an anti-sick gene that men do not.

We have still been getting up every day at 6am to feed the horses, clean up, feed ourselves and then walk to the school. This entire week we have been walking past the “small boys” playing in the park area by the school. The children rotate between various areas at the orphanage throughout the week so that everyone has an equal share of time at each location. This particular group of boys still calls me “El Transportador” because they are referring to the actor (Jason something-or-other) that acted in the “Transporter” movies over the past few years—they think I look like him. I happen to think it’s kinda funny.

One of the boys—Armando Samuel—has taken a particular interest to my wife and I since we have gotten here. He is probably about 8 and comes across as one of those “tough” kids, but is really a softie. I was taking a picture with Pedro (the boy on the right), but Armando ran over and literally jumped into the picture and it turned out perfectly so I couldn’t delete it. He was off his feet when the picture actually taken which is why I think is so cool. A few minutes later, three of the boys decided to try and push me over, but as it turned out I was able to hang Armando by his feet while the other boys tickled him.

When we finally make our way over to the school after hanging out with the kids for a little bit, we sit around and wait for someone to show up. We’re told to be there at 8, but there usually isn’t anyone there until about 8:20-8:30. One day we decided to just lay down under the Honduran and Danish flag while we waited. I think Lauren took a pretty good picture, so I thought I would share it with you. When someone does show up we have been spending the better part of the day in meetings (my favorite way to spend my time) discussing how to be an effective teacher in the classroom (i.e. discipline, decorating, etc). It’s funny because Lauren and I are sitting there with a group of teachers listening to Robert talk, but it’s completely in Spanish so we are using our handy-dandy Spanish-English dictionary to look up words we don’t know. We are probably catching about ¼ of what is being said, but I think its one of the better ways to really learn Spanish. Lauren spends almost all of her time at the school around people that don’t speak English. At least when I’m there after the meetings, I’m working with Felipe who is going to be teaching English with me so you know that he speaks English. Lauren has been working with the special ed teacher who doesn’t speak a lick of English and who might be a new teacher that has never taught special ed. I think Lauren has been encountering more obstacles than I have during this trip, but hopefully her Spanish improves as a result. She has definitely improved on her artistic abilities! She drew all of the signs and painted most of them for the entire elementary school and high school! She finished and the wood shop varnished them for us. Don't they look wonderful?

One of the staff members (Kim) went to Tegucigalpa to do some grocery shopping so she asked us if there was anything that we wanted/needed while she was there. We instantly came up with cheese, milk, and chicken. She bought us a 2 lb. block of cheddar, a gallon of 3% milk and a 14 pack of boneless/skinless chicken breasts and all to the tune of 433 limps ($22.92). We can’t buy cheddar cheese anywhere in the local town. Instead all we can buy is cheese made in town and it is white, crumbly and very salty. Milk is also harder to come by and more expensive. Meats in town are “at your own risk” so we choose not to risk. We made chicken fajitas that very same afternoon for lunch…tortillas, chicken, bell peppers, and onions! They were soooo delicious—one of my favorite meals of the trip thus far. That night for dinner we put some cheddar cheese in our bean burritos and they too were mighty tasty!

The power was down here for about 10 hours last week which means that we needed to open our refrigerator and freezer as little as possible so our food would hopefully not go bad. When the power finally came back on at 4pm we noticed that the refrigerator was not getting very cold after a few hours. I turned up the temp in hopes to get our food cold. The next day I noticed that the water in our make-shift pitcher was semi frozen, so I turned town the temperature. A few days later Lauren and I wanted to use some eggs to make an egg burrito for breakfast so we pulled out three eggs, but after cracking them open, they were a little more stiff than usual. As you can see in the picture, it took a little work to turn these frozen eggs into the scrambled form they needed to be in.

Lauren, being the sweet and lovely girl that she is, brought some candles (compliments of Gail) to make our home more homey. American Airlines, being the airline that it is, broke one of our big, glass Gold Canyon candles rendering it useless…until recently. We have had our eye out for something to put the candle in to make it usable, and this week we realized that we could use our Hunts pasta sauce can to place the candle in. The candle was about 1-inch larger in diameter than the can, but since wax is so pliable, we were able to push it down into the can causing the excess wax to sever off like skin under a doctor’s scalpel. We chose to use the candle to light our spaghetti dinner that very same night.

The orphanage receives new children fairly regularly and one of the most recent children came down with chicken pox. To keep her from getting the rest of the children sick, they have quarantined her in the medical clinic 24-7. Naturally, someone needs to stay with her every hour of every day, including the evening. Lauren and I have stayed with her for 4 hours on a couple of occasions while some of the other volunteers have a break to do other things. Lauren isn’t sure if she has had chicken pox, so to discover the truth about the matter, she e-mailed a family member. They (and by they I mean Marianne), for one reason or another, has yet to respond and it has been five days. Lauren doesn’t appear to have chicken pox yet, but she will be staying with Roxanna (the girl with chicken pox) for a while after lunch today. We’re both hoping that she stays pox free, but if she doesn’t then I’ll take care of her here at our humble abode.

We’re still feeding the horses 7 days a week (6 with feed and hay, 1 with hay only—don’t worry Tammy, we’re following your instructions) and grooming them 3 days a week. On Tuesday we noticed that one of the horses had a cut on the top of his back that was about 3 inches long. This particular horse is bullied by all the horses in the pasture (except for the little colt). We are guessing that he was pushed into the barbed wire fence by one of the other horses creating the cut across his back. We (and by we I mean Lauren) have been putting medicine on it twice a day per instructions from Wade (the agriculture staff member here) and it appears to be getting better. During grooming days, Faith (the momma horse) has been extremely difficult when we (and by we I mean me) try to clean the poo from her rear hooves. She will pick up her feet and move around so that I can’t get to them. We consulted with Tammy via e-mail and she explained to us how to deal with the problem. Lauren stays at the front of the horse to correct her whenever she throws a fit during hoof cleaning. Thursday she was a bit of a pain, but Saturday was the day that she really had a tantrum. She went as far as to kick her foot at me and almost stomp of my foot. She eventually corrected her behavior, but it took some diligence on our part. No one wants to have their foot smashed by a horse, so it’s easy to simply quit and try another day. Unfortunately, if we allowed Faith to get away with her behavior, it would only encourage it in the future.

We have a new team from Tennessee (among other states around the country) visiting here for the next three weeks. The team has invited all of the volunteers and staff to breakfast, lunch, and dinner during their entire stay. So far we have had a dinner and breakfast and it has been fantastic! They have had 7 courses in each meal, including fresh fruit, cinnamon rolls, banana bread, chicken, etc. They have had fruit punch, lemonade and sweet tea to drink which has been a pleasant change to our usual diet. Dr. Don is heading up the team and it is composed of people of various professions from different areas. Don is a dentist and is also the man responsible for packing and sending the packages that people in the States send to volunteers such as Lauren and I. Lauren and I talked to him this morning and he informed us that the next shipment wouldn’t leave Tennessee until March 13th and wouldn’t arrive at the orphanage until the beginning of April. We know that some of you (and by some of you I mean my mom and aunt) have already sent us packages and we anxiously await their arrival. But for those of you that have expressed an interest in sending us a package and have yet to send it, thank you for the thought, but by the time it gets here we will be about ready to come home. We were pretty bummed about the news on the care packages, but that’s the way the ball bounces. If you’re thinking, “Well I can send a package directly to the orphanage instead of to Tennessee first!” I regret to inform you that it is VERY expensive and takes about 2 months to get to here. Thank you all for your support though!

When Lauren and I were here with Sandals Church in August, we were leaving church on our last Sunday here and after seeing a white arch Lauren jokingly told Sandy (our team leader), “I could get married here!” Sandy took it from there and got the discussion started amongst the team about Lauren and I getting married while we were at the orphanage. We had a daily team meeting at night and that was the topic of discussion for at least half an hour. Lauren and I decided that if it was God’s will for us to get married then we would move forward. We saw the arch on our way out of church today so we had Felipe take a picture of us to show all of you what we were almost married under last August. We know at least a small group of you are glad that we got married in a country where you were able to attend. We should have pictures of the wedding sometime around the end of February and we’ll be sure to post some of them on our blog so that you can see them as well.

Daily Life

Things at Emmanuel have pretty much been working like clockwork for us over the course of the past week. We wake up at 6:15am in order to bring the horses into the stables, feed them, take them back out to pasture, make our own breakfast, and then head over to the school to begin working at 8am. I have been doing different jobs just about every day. One day I was fixing toilets, another day I was putting memory cards into CPUs, another day I was painting signs for the classrooms, another day I was updating a list of which students are in what grade, and still another day I was writing the student’s daily schedule that will be implemented once school starts. Lauren has been working diligently on stenciling and painting the signs that hang above every room in the school to note its use (i.e. 1st grade, 2nd grade, boy’s bathroom, administration, etc). The funny thing about the signs is that although one of the staff members wrote out the Spanish list of signs that Lauren is stenciling, some of the words are misspelled. The lady that wrote the list is from Denmark so it’s understandable why they aren’t perfect. She speaks Danish, English, and Spanish fluently so she’s bound to make a mistake here and there.

Wednesday night was used to teach a separate boy’s and girl’s bible study using the horses along with scripture. The boys seemed to enjoy it, but not all of the boys were allowed to come—only the older boys were there along with some of the staff. The children are usually in the church on Wednesday nights for church, but the staff decided that they would use Chris and Tammy to teach a lesson before they left to go home to Tennessee. Their website, www.tnhorsevacation.com should talk about everything they do and you can even go there and learn how to ride horses if you want!


Our horse training friends from next door left on Thursday morning so Lauren and I have taken over feeding and caring for the horses every day We feed them in the morning and in the late afternoon and groom them on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I think we’re going to start teaching “groundwork” classes with the horses in a week or two. The classes would also fall on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday since we’re going to be grooming them on those days already. We’ll be killing two horses with one stone, so-to-speak. When Chris and Tammy were here, they were working with a 6-year-old named Jessica who had a traumatic childhood before arriving at the orphanage. She never speaks, but through working with her and the horses together, they’ve gotten her to say 6 words! Now that they’re gone, Lauren and I are trying to spend some time with her when we can. I had her help me paint the signs for the school the day that they left because we knew that she would be more sad than usual. She didn’t seem like she was completely thrilled with hanging out with us, but she seemed happier with us than she did when we picked her up from the toddler house. She’s in the toddler house because she is mentally and physically developmentally delayed. She looks like she could be about 3 years old. It’s hard to believe that a child can look even sadder than she does in the picture we took together, but when Lauren took her back she said that she had very sad look on her face.

We’ve been taking opportunities to hang out with the volunteers here when time permits. We had a game-night at our casa last night and ten people came over! I’m not sure if that sounds like a lot of people, but that is the extent of Emmanuel’s volunteer staff. We have four chairs, a couch, loveseat, and an individual sofa chair so a couple people sat on the tile floor. Corey, one of the new short-term volunteers, gave us a bag of popcorn a few days ago and asked if we could pop it for our formal game night celebration. It passed around the circle about 5 times and people were taking a handful every time—it was like the 5 loaves and 2 fish that Jesus multiplied in the bible (refer to Matthew 14:13). Katie and Kaylee brought over some coffee grounds so that everyone could have some coffee. I know what you’re thinking, “Wait, I thought your coffee pot was your makeshift water pitcher” (refer to earlier blog). Don’t fret, we are now using our depleted gallon milk jug as a water pitcher and our coffee pot has resumed its former position as the coffee brewing specialist. Since we had a large group of people here and not many coffee mugs, we had to use our liquid measuring cup as a coffee mug. We did everything we could to be hospitable hosts.

Today during church, Lauren and I were brought in front of everyone so that we could be formally introduced and prayed over. We are constantly asked by the staff to stay for at least 5 years if not forever. I think if we stayed here any longer than the 3 months we are planning to, a couple of people back in the States would be a little upset. Rachel, for one, would probably fly down here and take Lauren by force and leave me here to fend for myself.

After church we ate lunch at the tienda on the orphanage property. Lauren had a chimichanga and I had a plantano (basically a banana) with ground beef, cabbage, potatoes, Honduran cheese, and hot sauce. The reason I bought such an interesting item off their menu was because I wanted a more authentic Honduran lunch. It was different…I don’t know that I would buy it again, but I’m glad I tried it. I had some of Lauren’s chimichanga and it was delicious! They each cost 20 limparias—the equivalent of $1.05. We enjoyed lunch with John, Corey, Katie and Kaylee outside on the patio. Lauren and I were facing the orphanage with the road to our backs. We had a view of a fence and the hills between us and the staff houses.

After lunch Lauren, John and I decided to walk into town to see if we could buy some ice cream from the Eskimo store. The pueblo outside the gates is called Guaimaca and is a very simple town. First, we stopped by the super Mercado to buy a few more things and get some cash back (since we found out they accept Visa!). The store doesn’t sell a wide variety of things, but like many stores in town, they sell machetes. They are used for just about everything you could think of. In fact, I used one this week to help butcher a pig at the orphanage. Sanitation doesn’t seem to be as big of a concern in Honduras as it is in the U.S. If Guaimaca were to have a health inspector pay them a visit, they would probably receive an “F” rating. The ice cream store is in the middle of town next to the bank and town square. We decided to only buy and share an ice cream sandwich which had French vanilla instead of plain vanilla in the middle. I, for one, thought it was delicious!




Just a couple of pictures I particularly liked from this week were these ones:






One is Lauren sitting by the fountain in front of the church while she checked her e-mail on our laptop and the other one was the sunset while Chris was giving a bible study to the boys of the orphanage the night before him and his family left.

Thanks for reading! Let us know you care—leave a comment! We really enjoy reading the comments we receive because it makes us feel like we’re close to you all!

And to update you on our “nerts” playing…I have won a few games now! My skills are being refined the longer we’re here.