Katie and Matt De Kam

Hydraulic Ram Pump

2011-11-27T11:18:00.014-06:00

In September I was able to take a leave of absence from work and spend a month working with Walter, the new agriculture and environment program coordinator. It felt very good to be back in Honduras! I got to see a lot of old friends, and the looks on peoples faces when I showed up on their doorsteps was priceless. I think many people thought they would never see me again.
Anyway, during this trip we tried out an interesting pump design that uses the flow of water to pump water up a hill.

It is called a hydraulic ram pump. The design I used is from Clemson University. http://www.clemson.edu/irrig/equip/ram.htm
So, thank you Clemson. I assume since you posted this design info on the internet that it was fair game for me to use.
I did update the design a bit (basically stripped it down of anything not totally necessary to make it cheaper and lighter). One was built and tested here in Minneapolis which I brought with me in an extra suitcase. We built another one in Honduras. The components turned out to be cheaper in Honduras which was a nice surprise. Who knows about the quality, only time will tell.

The basic concept of the pump is to capture a large flow of water going down a decline, convert some of it's momentum into pressure, and use this pressure to pump a smaller portion of the original water up hill to the destination.

Here is a video of it installed in a field of one of the promoters in the community of Nueva Palestina, Patuca.

Here is Omar and his little girl showing the resulting flow of water up the hill in the plot where the group is growing plantains.

I did make up a little training manual in Spanish much of which is just the Clemson material translated.

You can also access the document by clicking here.

I also need to Thank Engineer 775 on Youtube for the video ram pump lessons (1,2, and 3).
Some of the design changes are taken from him as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y_WWxWdn5A

Pila Project Update

2011-10-17T20:24:00.005-06:00

By Matt:

It has been almost a full year since our last post on this blog. A lot has changed. We now live and work in Minneapolis, but we still keep in touch with our Honduran friends, and we had the chance to go back recently. Katie and I took a week off in late August to go visit our friends in Honduras.
Here is an update on the water storage tank project that many of you helped support. In 2011, during the dry season the community members in El Guanabano along with the support of Diaconia Nacional built the "Pilas".

Here are two of my favorite people in the world: Toribio Reyes and his wife Genoveva. Toribio likes to joke around and is very animated. He also knows about a million hilarious honduran "sayings" which are really hard to translate. Genoveva is a very sweet honduran mom. They thanked us over and over for helping out with the Pila. They are very proud of it, and of the new house they have built. I was there when the old house fell over because the wood had rotted out. That was a bad time for them, but now it is nice to see them getting ahead.

Here is Maria with here pila. It was raining on this day, and part of the project included gutters so that rain water could be easily gathered and stored.
That brings up one of the difficulties the project has encountered. The water project that previously served this community has come to a halt because the electricity bill for the electric pumps that move the water is too high for the community to pay. That, combined with the fact that even when the system was functioning a lot of people didn't get water regularly made people not very motivated to pay the monthly bill (everyone got charged a base price regardless of usage). The price isn't very high, but most of these people make around $5 per day working in the fields as hired hands. It is hard to make ends meet with that kind of income, especially if you have a bunch of kids in school.
To solve this problem these folks have decided to dig a well closer to their group of homes so that they can have a nearby source of water that is dependable. They plan to dig the well in the dry season of 2012. It will be dug by hand by the community members. Diaconia will provide materials, and technical assistance of an experienced builder who knows how to dig wells in this way.

Sadly, in the time we have been gone another house has fallen over due to rain and rotting wood. Noel's house fell over when nobody was home, thankfully nobody was hurt. He is working on a new one, slowly. Walter, the environment program coordinator with Diaconia is working to organize a community work day where everyone pitches in to help put up a new house for Noel, his wife Claudia and there little boy.

Here is a picture of a bean called Alacin (a type of cowpea) that we promoted in this community. It is producing well and is edible as green beans and also as dried beans. It is also used as a cover crop for helping maintain soil fertility.

Here is a local mother preparing some of the beans to be eaten.

To date they have built 7 pilas. A little money is left over, which will be used to build the well this spring. The funding has focused on a sub-community of El Guanabano called El Encinal where the need is greatest. It was decided to meet this need first, including building the well, before spreading out with more pilas because the other houses are lower down, and have more access to good water. The full amount of funding for the project has not been met yet, but I believe it was around 3/4 of the way there as of August.
I did some checking, and any other funds that are given to CRWRC for this water project will be used in this community, even if the amount raised exceeds the original budget.
Thanks for all who helped support this effort and have helped our friends have better access to water. They thank God for this blessing.
We will keep you updated as we hear more about the project.
Also, I was able to go back to Honduras for a month this past Septepmber, so I will be blogging little bits of that from time to time.

-Matt DK

Water Tanks for El Guanabano

2010-10-19T13:02:00.007-06:00

Many people have been asking us if there is a way to keep supporting the work that we were doing in Honduras. At this point we are asking our supporters to stop donating to the "Matt and Katie DeKam" account. We encourage you to continue supporting the ongoing work of CRWRC by giving to their general fund. Or if you want to make a difference in the lives of our dear friends in el Guanabano you can send your donations to CRWRC and write "Water Storage Honduras-505848" on the check or donation card.

Just before we left this water tank project was approved.
Here is a powerpoint that will explain the project a little more:

Every little bit counts, so please consider helping bring clean water to these families.

Insured!

2010-09-27T13:23:00.004-06:00

By Katie

About 10 minutes ago we got a call from our insurance agent with the good news: Matt got accepted for insurance! Thank you for everyone who was praying for that specific need. Once again God opened the door just in time, his time.

Matt is hoping to start chemotherapy this week sometime. He'll have two strong doses with three weeks of recovery after each dose. We had spent a lot of the last week looking around and settled on an oncology clinic about a half hour from where we're living. The social worker, financial counselor and doctor there have really gone to bat for our case, so it was a great choice.

In the mean time I am hoping to substitute teach, although I still haven't gotten a call to work. Today I'm applying to another school district. Matt's still putting in a lot of time on reports and things that still need to be wrapped up from Honduras and I've been translating some of those things when he's done.

We're looking forward to getting rolling on the treatments and now that we are both insured, that will be a little easier on the mind. Thank you to everyone for your prayers and encouragement.

Back in Minnesota

2010-09-15T08:56:00.001-06:00

By Katie

After a whirlwind series of goodbyes in Honduras, we boarded the plane last Thursday and arrived in Minnesota. We spent the weekend with our families who all drove up to see us and bring us our fall and winter clothes. We're getting things all set up now and still working on wrapping up unfinished business in Honduras too.

Matt will have his first doctor appointment with an oncologist on Friday, so we're really looking forward to that. We had the clinic translate all his medical documents from Honduras and do another pathology report, so those will be ready by the first appointment. We still haven't gotten a confirmation that Matt has insurance, so if you're looking for something specific to pray for, that would be what we need most.

Matt's been feeling ok, but still gets pretty tired sometimes. There's a lot to adjust to right now, and on top of recovering from the surgery, that seems pretty normal. Another prayer request is our transition and patience in the face of a lot of uncertainty. But, we have seen how God has brought us this far, and we know that as long as we continue to trust in Him and pray for His help and guidance, He will be faithful to complete what he started.

Thank you to everyone for all of your support. Thanks to those of you who have emailed us to show us that you are there with us (and sorry I haven't been great about responding). We have never been lonely on this difficult road thanks to all of you.

Here's proof that we're in Minnesota, in case you didn't believe us. Fall really is beautiful here!

Adios, Honduras. Hello, Minneapolis.

2010-09-01T20:45:00.005-06:00

By Katie

Prior to our appointment with the doctors yesterday, we had prayed that God would clearly show us what to do. He did just that. There were a few cancer cells that had spread outside of the original tumor and into the lymph system, rendering observation here in Honduras a non-option, and a diagnosis that was just a little more serious. We had made a little series of "if this happens, then we'll do this" statements, all which ended up pointing us home. We had been working on "if we come home" plans, and today so many of them fell into place, that it was obvious that God opened the doors wide open for us to return. (This includes insurance! Our policy we have here doesn't cover us in the US, but it looks like an insurance agent we have been working with has found us a plan that will likely accept Matt). In the US Matt can get the care that he really needs and we'll be supported by a bigger network of friends and family.

So, in the next seven days, we'll go back to say goodbye to our friends in Olancho. We'll try to do our best to share with them what they have meant to us. We'll pack up our entire house into two suitcases each and figure out what to do with what remains. Now we can focus on closure here, or closure as best we can with such short notice and such a long to-do list left of unfinished projects here in Honduras. But God will be with us, and we'll need him this week and as we return to life in Minnesota. I'm not really sure what to think about it all.

We'll arrive in Minneapolis/St. Paul on Thursday, September 9 and go to live with Matt's sister Megan and her husband Shaun. We don't have jobs, but those will come soon, we hope. Pray for us and the big transition ahead! Thank you. A big thanks too to EVERYONE who helped us make the preparations to come home. This has not been a lonely experience with so many people helping out. More of that to come, I'm sure :)

Stage 1!

2010-08-31T07:28:00.002-06:00

By Katie

Yesterday we talked to the pathologist who studied Matt's tumor. She told us that the cancer was only in stage 1 and very likely did not spread to any other part of his body. She said he has an excellent prognosis. Praise the Lord!

Today we'll meet with the doctors who operated on Matt. They'll give us their advice for a treatment plan. Also, yesterday I got three emails from people saying that there are three oncologists from the States who are all willing to look at Matt's pathology report and CT scan and give their opinions too. We're going to take them all up on it.

Matt's been doing better and better after the surgery, but certainly not 100% yet. That will take a while.

Please continue to pray for us. We will have a big decision to make in the next few days about when, where, how and whether to do treatments. Also, we've been holding up pretty well, but the stress of all this is certainly something we are contending with. Pray that God's hand is strong to hold us up and guide us. We can certainly feel God's presence and thank you for your prayers so far.

Update

2010-08-23T19:13:00.004-06:00

By Katie

Matt had his surgery today as planned and it turned out well and almost exactly as the doctors had predicted it would. They removed the tumor, which had grown a little bit since Thursday, but had not spread to any other part of his body, so it was a relatively simple surgery. The pathologist determined that the tumor was malignant, and the type of cancer was seminoma. On Monday we'll have another appointment with the oncologist to find out the extended results of the biopsy. From there we'll know whether chemo or radiation will be best. Chemo or radiation won't start for another two to three weeks, so that buys us some time to figure out where to do the treatments and if they happen in the States, how to find a solution for our insurance because our insurance doesn't work in the US.

We've been holding up quite well, thanks to your prayers. God is certainly using the people who are here in Honduras to care for us. I had a little crowd of folks to sit with during the surgery and we've had some nice distractions over the last few days too with going out to the movies with friends and eating good meals together. The phone has been ringing off the hook with folks we work with here, church people and folks from the communities.

Thank you so much for your prayers for the surgery. Now we begin the road to recovery and treatments, and we'll still need your prayers. God is good!

Answers to Prayer

2010-08-23T06:11:00.002-06:00

By Matt

We know a lot of people in the U.S., Canada, and Honduras are praying for us right now. We have already seen answers to those prayers. On saturday God provided us with some very experienced and trustworthy doctors.
Last night Katie and I read from the Bible and a daily devotional that we follow. The verse was Isaiah 43:1-7,

"But now, this is what the LORD says-
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the LORD, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
Cush and Seba in your stead.
Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give men in exchange for you,
and people in exchange for your life.
Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
I will bring your children from the east
and gather you from the west.
I will say to the north, 'Give them up!'
and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.'
Bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the ends of the earth-
everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made."

As I read these words I felt that God was in the room saying these things directly to me, to us. Tears streamed down our faces as we were comforted by God's presence in a very tangible way. Thank you for praying for us. We trust that God will take care of us and bring us through this.

Medical Update

2010-08-22T18:23:00.002-06:00

By Katie

It's been quite a different few days for us. Last Wednesday we traveled to Tegucigalpa to start a series of doctors appointments and tests for Matt. After a battery of tests and shopping for just the right doctor, Matt is scheduled to have a testicular tumor removed tomorrow (Monday) at 2pm. During the surgery we'll find out whether or not it is cancer, and what kind of cancer it is if the tumor is malignant. Matt's CT scan and blood tests point to a positive prognosis, so we are hoping that with just the removal of the tumor the problem will be solved. Chemotherapy or radiation are likely, however.

We've been staying with friends in Tegucigalpa, Leanne and Caspar Geisterfer of CRWRC and CR World Missions. Caspar recently went to the same hospital for back surgery, so it's been very valuable to have them to help guide us through this foreign medical system. In the end we settled on a pair of experienced doctors that we trust and are very willing to teach us what we need to know. Doctors from the Luke Society Clinic near Catacamas set us up with these doctors and we have a lot of trust in them. We've been getting a ton of help from the doctors at the Luke Society Clinic too. It's been quite a web of folks here to help us! Praise the Lord for all of these wonderful people!

Thanks so much for your prayers in this. Already we've seen how he's been working through the situations we've been presented with. God provides all that we need, and he's doing that. Keep up your prayers that all goes well and that Matt is healed.

Lots of Gardens

2010-08-08T14:22:00.004-06:00

By Matt

In June we distributed seed and fencing material to the groups we have in the seven communities where we work. We also had trained the community facilitators in how to plant the seeds and on some natural pesticide recipes that they could use. The idea is to get people into the habit of growing food in their own yard. Gardens are actually quite uncommon here in these communities. It seems to me that it is because it is hard to buy very small amounts of seed, and becuse everyone's chickens are out roaming around. I experienced this the first time I tried to grow a garden in my back yard. I don't have chickens, but my neighbors do, and they would come and scratch in my garden until almost everything was dead. So, I put up a small fence of chicken wire about 2feet tall. It works well.
At first the people in the communities didn't believe that the chickens would stay out of such a short fence, but now they have the experince too that it actually does work. Here are some women in a village called El Encinal, where the soil is very rocky and infertile. We taught them to bring in rich soil from degraded cow manure and plant in small trenches. We are really impressed with the care they have given to their gardens.

Sheep on the other hand are another story! In the village of El Coyolar there are some naughty sheep that like to leap and eat cabbage, radishes, cucumbers, and peppers. The gardens look really good, in fact we have already been given salad in the community! This is amazing because I have NEVER never been given salad in any of these places. Here is Dulce showing off her veggies.

People rarely eat salad in Honduras, especially in the countryside where there is no refrigeration. It was a great salad with cucumber, tomatoes, and radishes with lime and salt, very refreshing. Here is my co-worker David giving his approval.

Go Dogs, Go AWAY!

2010-08-01T06:30:00.000-06:00

By Katie

My classroom management skills have had to extend to a new species recently. A pack of dogs has been coming to the after school classes at our house. Princess, Blossom and Tail follow their owners to class and then attract a few other strays from the neighborhood. They get a little territorial and growl at each other or try to get a piece of the shade by entering the front porch. The running joke with the kids is that the dogs want to come to learn to read and do math too. But, the rule is: NO DOGS ALLOWED! 15+ kids on a 10 x 10 porch is enough, so I have to send the owners of the dogs home so their dogs will follow them and hopefully not return.

On a similar note, this happens at Luz y Verdad too. Stray dogs wander into the classrooms during class looking for food. Sometimes even chickens wander in through the open doors. Chickens are pretty skittish though, so the they only come in during recess when the kids aren't in the room.

I wonder if I can add a line on my resume that says, "Effectively manages any living species that wanders in to the classroom."?

Teacher Conference

2010-07-25T15:06:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Right after we got back to Honduras from our trip to the States, I got to go to a teachers' conference with other teachers from my school. The conference was for the five schools in Honduras whom Worldwide Christian Schools supports financially. Teachers from these five schools all over Honduras met at a conference grounds outside of Tegucigalpa. The purpose was to both hold teacher trainings and to have a spiritual retreat.

Here's the teachers who came from Luz y Verdad working together to name our strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities as a school. It was a great opportunity to talk and reflect on our school.

One afternoon we got to take a little get-away trip to a near-by town that sells artisan goods. I appreciated all the time we got to get to know other teachers and share in motivating one another in the work we all do. In the photo below, you can see our two conference coordinators on the left; Gloria (who also works with us at Diaconia Nacional) and Heidi (who came from Canada to help with the conference).

I went to the conference a little defeated because only half of our staff chose to go and the group attitude has been a little low. But the time we had with other teachers and getting to know my own coworkers even better, on top of lots of time spent on spiritual encouragement, was good for me and those of us who went. The positive change has rubbed off at school a little too. Pray with me that God uses what we took away from that conference to strengthen the school even more.

Another positive thing to look forward to is this Friday two teachers from every school are going to meet in Tegucigalpa to make preparations for a possible event like this next year. In the past Canadian teachers have planned this conference and Worldwide has funded it. Those opportunities are unlikely for the future due to budget cuts, so a group is forming to see if they can solicit funds and elbow grease to make the conference happen despite those challenges. I see this as a perfect opportunity for strengthening the unity and collaboration between the schools.

Back at it

2010-07-21T20:19:00.000-06:00

By Katie

We made it back from our trip to the States about a week and a half ago now. It was great to see many of you, although we felt the pressure of having only a short time to see you and didn't hardly get to see as many people as we had hoped. Regardless, it was good to take a little time to give a couple of presentations and reflect on our work and life here and to get some time being plain old Americans in our own country. The greeting cards and coffee all got sold, so thanks to the many of you who rushed to buy them!

Sometimes it's good to leave things here in Honduras for a while to be able to come back and see how well things went. There were a few successes to share. The youth board planned a retreat to a mountain-side cabin with a variety of area churches. Kids from our church got themselves there, and the success of that is that we didn't drive them! It shows that they had the initiative to do what wasn't easy to get themselves to the event. Also there was a substitute Sunday school teacher who did a great job, and could maybe take over for us when we're done. Also, in our presentations to the churches I talked about giving the front porch kids a bunch of homework to see if they could find others to help them do it. Some, but not all, of them did with reasonalbe success, so that was good to see too. The last thing that we want is to leave Honduras in December with gaping holes in leadership. The two-week test while we were in the States gave us a good indication of how we all are doing on that.

Greeting Card Fundraiser (again!)

2010-06-19T19:06:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Last summer when we came home we sold these greeting cards with photos from around Honduras. We sold out (twice!) and even more folks asked for more as the year went on. So, here they are again, with new and improved photos and a new category.

The money that we raise with this project will go to fund school supplies for Katie's afterschool program, things we need for the school, Luz y Verdad and innovative seeds and educational materials for the farmers that Matt works with. None of this is in our budget, so having a fundraiser helps provide us with the materials we need to provide Hondurans with another outlet for learning and growing.

Cards are available in packs of eight different cards (described below) at a cost of $10 per pack.

Pretty Things Pack *New*
Last time we sold cards many of you asked why we only included plants and not other things in the mix. So this year we focused on photos of things unique to Latin America, including churches, a sunset, and some island scenes.

The Dwarf/Cloud Forest Pack
These flowers were all taken in two unique ecosystems high in the mountains of the Sierra de Agalta mountain range in Olancho, not far from where we live in the valley below. The dwarf forest was particularly interesting as it was so high on the mountain and the wind is so strong that plants do not grow tall there. Many fascinating bromeliads are included in this pack.

The Tropical Garden Pack
Included in this pack are the flowers of many gardens we've seen in Honduras. Some are trees acacia blossoms. Others are lilies and hibiscus, and more.

The Coffee Pack
This pack includes coffee at several stages of the growing, harvesting, and roasting. You'll find blossoms, berries, and tranquil shots of shade-grown coffee farms in this pack.

Pre-orders are appreciated, but not at all necessary. Email us if you'd like us to set aside a pack or particular card for you, or just ask when you see us. We'll be in the States starting next week for two weeks. Thanks in advance for taking an interest in this project.

Rio Olancho Coffee

2010-06-10T20:44:00.000-06:00

By Matt

For over a year we have been working with a group of coffee farmers in el Carrizal with the goal of exporting coffee to Canada. The Carpinteros have been a big part of this project, and they are the ones recieving the coffee. We had the coffee cupped (quality tested) here with the Honduran Coffee Institute (IHCAFE) and it turned out to be great coffee. This is not too surprising considering the beautiful, high-elevation, shade covered farms where it is produced. It has been a long road full of surprises and plenty of paperwork to get the coffee on its way, but today the boat finally left the port on its way to Canada. Praise the Lord!
I know that is what many of the group members are thinking too. Many of them are dedicated members of the Christian Reformed Church in El Carrizal. Claudio, the president of the group, made some big sacrifices to produce quality coffee this year including briging his family up to the mountain to help pick the beans. But it was worth it because his coffee turned out to test very high in the quality ratings. This is Claudio on his usual mode of transportation.

Here is a picture of most of the group in front of the church where we usually meet. They call themselves the "Asociation of Coffee Growers, Rio Olancho".

The coffee was screened in the village before heading off to the exporter.

Here are Raul and Fredy showing off the washed "green" coffee.

If you live in Canada this coffee should be available just as soon as it arrives and can get roasted and bagged, so get ready for some great coffee straight from the mountains of Olancho!

Arbor Day

2010-06-09T16:04:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Schools around Honduras celebrated Arbor Day last Monday by having school assemblies in which they shared poems, songs and plays about trees and why we should protect our forests. Luz y Verdad took it one step further this year by collaborating with the Agriculture and Environment Program at Diaconia Nacional to plant forty trees in some unused space we have on the playground.

The fourth, fifth and sixth graders planted trees with the help of some of us teachers and the technical help of Matt and David from Diaconia. It was AMAZING how hard some of these kids worked. In the photo below, you can see Ruben shoveling his little heart out! I was proud of the way the kids took the work very seriously.
After we dug forty holes for the trees and hauled compost to fill them with, David gave us a lesson in how to plant the trees. We planted mahogany and cedar trees, with the idea that in 20-30 years the school could harvest a few of them as a fundraiser. The kids liked that idea quite a bit. Matt also led a devotional time about how we all are charged with caring for the environment and how this is an act of worship.

Each student "adopted" their own tree, marking it with their name and promising to care for it. When the dry season comes Matt and David are going to return to teach us about a simple irrigation system using a 3-liter pop bottle so the little trees can make it through the dry times and on to maturity. In the picture below you can see Scarlet helping Dariana to plant her tree.
A lot of good came out of this day! We're really hoping that all the little trees survive to help encourage the kids that planting trees and working together produces positive results. May God bless these little acts of worship!

Tasty Baked Chicken

2010-06-01T19:12:00.000-06:00

By Katie

It's time to share a good and easy recipe that my lady friends in the community of Guacoca shared with me. It's baked chicken, but instead of pouring water over the chicken and covering it, pour orange juice and vinegar (maybe totalling a little more than you would have poured on if it were just water). 2 parts OJ to 1 part vinegar, but that's flexible. Salt and pepper to taste. The Guacoca ladies add in achote and other spices, but I don't. The vinegar and orange juice make the chicken just a little sweet and sour. I don't marinate it at all, and often don't even thaw the chicken first.

Here's a picture, in case you've never seen baked chicken before. ;)

Try it and let me know how you like it! The Guacoca ladies will love it if you do. Ever since they made this a few months ago and I asked for the recipe, they have loved to sit and chat with me about recipes and ask how my Honduran cooking is coming along.

Meet the students at Luz y Verdad

2010-05-25T13:24:00.000-06:00

By Katie

The fourth graders at Luz y Verdad made a series of videos to share a little bit about our school and who they are with you. They're practicing their English pronunciation and some were pretty nervous to be in front of the camera, so the words are below the videos in case you can't understand. Enjoy!

Hello!

1. Hello! We are students at Escuela Cristiana Luz y Verdad.
2. In English that means Light and Truth Christian School.
3. We are in fourth grade. These videos are a little bit about us and our school.

The Map

1. Here is Honduras on the map of Central America.
2. We live in Catacamas, Olancho.
3. Catacamas is a small town.
4. Here is Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.

The Schedule

1. We start classes at 7am each day.
2. We finish our classes at 12 o'clock each day.
3. At 9am we have recess for 30 minutes.
4. During recess we eat at the cafeteria.
5. We eat baleadas, pancakes, chips, pop or candy for a snack.

Our Classes

1. In our classes we learn science, math, Spanish, Bible and social studies.
2. We also have English class and computer class.
3. My favorite class is English.
4. We hope you enjoyed our videos! Goodbye!

In Mangulile with Jorge and Douglas

2010-05-20T17:35:00.000-06:00

By Katie

A few weekends ago we traveled to a town in northern Olancho called Mangulile. Jorge and Douglas had invited us to be guest speakers at a training for the youth of the church there and to stay for a joint church service for young people that night.

Jorge and Douglas (in the picture below) are two members of the youth board from our classis, or regional grouping of churches. They are super motivated to share the gospel in a deep and thorough way to the young people in Honduras. They’re also inseparable. They both are in seminary, preach on a local Christian television show, and spend much of their time visiting other churches in order to preach or to motivate the youth to get organized to bring about actions that deepen their faith and reach out to non-believers.
They invited us to come along on this trip to visit some folks we’ve already met at last year’s youth retreat. Their youth board was falling apart so Jorge, as president of our youth board, wanted to address the situation openly to get things rolling again. Matt lead a time of reflection about the potential they have as planted seeds, watered by each other and their mentors, and pruned and cared for ultimately by God. My part was to present some different models of youth ministry to help them define how their programs might lead toward the desirable goals of growing deeper and reaching out. No visit to a community would be complete without a church service. A few hours before the service began, we heard a pickup truck with a loud speaker and a microphone announcing the event, saying, “Come to the united church service today at four o’clock. Our brother Mateo and our sister Kati are here visiting from Catacamas and want to see you there.” At the service, we sang a bunch of “happy songs”, Jorge’s specialty. To get the full effect, hook your computer up to huge speakers that you might use for blasting an action movie in a home theater and turn them up all the way. It was loud; incredibly loud. But everyone was having a great time praising the Lord!

There were some beautiful sights to see on the trip to and from Mangulile, about five hours from our home on a nasty dirt road. These photos make up for the bumps and uncomfortable drive! Opportunities like these are an exciting part of our job here in Honduras. What made this one even greater was the youth put everything together themselves and only invited us as guest speakers. They continually remind themselves that they are not the church of the future, they are the church now. Their faith and capabilities of organizing themselves for the sake of the gospel message are very impressive.

Cleaning Day

2010-05-18T20:14:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Today the front porch gang collectively declared they were going to clean my front porch. A few of the girls had been cooking this up over the past few days and were determined to put it into action today. So, after I dismissed most of the kids, the five most regulars asked for a broom, soapy water, sponges and rags so they could clean the walls and window. Of course I complied. It's not every day that someone wants to clean for you! They wouldn't even stop to look at the camera when I got it out. When it was all done, I thanked them very sincerely. Zeydi (the girl with the broom) said, "Well, you teach us everyday, so..." Their actions mean a lot to me.

A week in La Avispa

2010-05-16T08:51:00.000-06:00

By Matt

This past month I was able to re-live an experience that was very important to me. It was "Campo week" for the International Development Studies semester students of Calvin College, and they came out to Olancho to spend a week in the community of La Avispa. Kurt and Joanne V.B. (the Calvin Profs who live here in Honduras) along with David and I set up the experience through the Ag and Environment program of Diaconia and invited the 19 Calvin students to spend a week experiencing the rural Honduran lifestyle. This was meaningful to me because I had done the same trip five years ago when I was studying here in Honduras with Calvin's development studies semester abroad program (although I had gone to a different part of the country).

On the first day the church did a big welcome service for the students. There is no electricity in La Avispa, but the church has a little solar panel, and the music was very loud (as usual here in Honduras). In the morning David and I held an assembly in the school where we taught the kids about the water cycle and why the forest is important. Here we are doing a group game that helps them understand how the water cycle works. Some of the kids represent trees, others clouds, others rivers, etc. I am about to cut down the forest with my chainsaw here, which cuts the signal of the water cycle (squeezing hands).

The people of La Avispa had set as a priority an environmental campaign to help get people thinking about not polluting the community and not burning down the forest (deforestation has led to a lot of problems in the community). During this week the whole community worked with us to put up signs around the community as reminders of how we all need to care for the creation so that we all have a healthy and productive place to live. Here a local youth is putting up one of the signs which says "Don't contaminate the environment" (the community chose which messages to display). Another sign says "Welcome to La Avispa, Land Blessed by God, Caring for our natural resources is the responsibility of everyone". Many of the local youth helped out with this little project and it was fun to get to know them. At the end of the week we ended up going with about 10 of them to a nearby church for a youth training of Diaconia with Roldan.

After a community meeting David went with a bunch of people to collect seeds from the cedar trees in the area. Another community priority is reforestation on the steep mountainsides to prevent landslides and erosion and to provide resources such as wood for the community. We also worked with a group in the community to establish a tree nursury which will produce timber trees as well as fruit trees for the community. Below you see how the seed collecting works: David threw a stick way up in the tree to knock open the little helicopter seeds and the youth with the tarps ran to where the cloud was falling. We collected a lot of this very valuable and expensive seed with very little effort. These seeds will help us do reforestation in other communities as well.

On Thursday morning David went and made a wood saving stove (a better design of the usual woodstove that burns 50% or less of the normal wood). This stove is to serve as an example to see if other people in the community would like to change to this design. The woman was very happy with the stove and could appreciate the results immedeatly because very little heat escapes into the kitchen. The strong cement tube chimney insures that there is zero smoke in the kitchen which is often a big problem in these communities. The idea is that if much of the community changes there design, they will cut down less trees in the area and have more time to spend working on other projects.

On one of the mornings we went up to the land of Oqueli, one of our community facilitators. You can see that on this plot he has not burned for several years. The land is steep around La Avispa and we are promoting the use of erosion barriers so that the people don't lose the fertility of their soil when it rains. We also work to change the common practice of burning to prepare the land because burning leaves the soil unprotected from many types of degradation especially on these steep slopes.

I wanted to get a better taste for what it is really like to work the land in La Avispa so I helped chop the weeds to prepare for planting. I also wanted to put my machete to the test. Do this for 6 or 7 hours and you get paid around $5 total here in Honduras.

On the last day in La Avispa we took some time in the afternoon to go look at a nearby cave with the Calvin students and members of the community. It was enjoyable, but full of bats which are not my favorite animals.

From what I can tell the community and the students really bonded well during their time. I know many of the students learned how to make tortillas and wash clothes by hand. I saw some out riding horse too. Some of the students helped out with the community activities such as the signs. On the last night the local Christian Reformed church put on a big farewell service which was very meaningful. Below is a video of the students singing a song to the church in spanish.

In this video the church is singing a song that says: "Goodbye brothers, goodbye. I carry you in my heart"

We did a ton of other things as well, and it was a great week. I wonder if any of those students will come back to visit La Avispa.

Sticker Collection

2010-05-06T18:35:00.001-06:00

By Katie

We are in the capital city of Tegucigalpa this week for meetings, so we've got a little break from country life and the opportunity to see what's going on in the city. It seems that World Cup mania is gripping Honduras tighter than ever. Now available in the cities are these World Cup sticker albums and packs of trading card styled stickers. There are 32 teams playing in the World Cup in South Africa starting June 11. Each team has a page for all their players and info. Lisa and I passed it off as a geography lesson and are building our collections, a pack or two at a time with every errand we run. It's fun, and informative of course.

I only have one player from Honduras. I had better work on that...

Isaiah 58

2010-04-23T20:23:00.000-06:00

By Katie

A member of our church recently delivered a sermon in which he quoted from this text. The chapter begins with the Isrealites complaining that God isn't listening to their dutiful fasts and sacrfices; God responds with examples of what is much more important to him in the following verses. I hope it inspires you as it has inspired me as I've re-read it over and again in the past few weeks.

Isaiah 58:6-12
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the prisoner free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say:
Here am I.

"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings."

May we all find ways to be Repairers of Broken Walls and Restorers of Streets with Dwellings in this world.

Holy Week in a mix of styles

2010-04-16T16:33:00.000-06:00

By Katie

I already mentioned in the last blog that we got to do some traveling during Holy Week. It was quite a week of mixed styles of worship for us. We started the week with Palm Sunday in Nicaragua with the other folks living in Central America and working for CRC ministries. So our Palm Sunday service was probably a lot like whatever yours was in North America... and in English :)

Skip ahead to Good Friday where we spent the day in Copán and got to see some of the Catholic traditions that give honor to this important day in the Christian calandar. All through the night on Thursday teams of people were hard at work creating this carpet of colored sawdust near the Catholic church and central park. Each square had a picture of something Christian made by patting the colored sawdust over stencils. On Friday night a parade passed over the carpet, ruining it.

Also on Good Friday in Copán we saw a live reenactment of the Stations of the Cross. It was really fun to have Tanya along with us during the stations since she is Catholic and we could together decipher what was universally Christian, what was specifically Catholic, and where Central American culture had influenced the event. In the first picture, you can see some people doing a reading with a very social justice theme at one station.

This video was taken at the next station after the reading and as the actors were playing the part of giving Jesus the cross to carry to the next station. It was a very touching scene that left many dumbfounded at what happened to Jesus.

By Sunday we had picked up another friend of ours, Jenny, and were at the Resurrection Day (Easter) service at the river. It was the annual joint service of the Christian Reformed Churches in Olancho.

The Catholic/Protestant mix of my week continued strongly into this day. Both Jenny and Tanya are Catholic. Unfortunately many "Evangelicals" (as Protestants call themselves here) are very openly opposed to Catholics. We heard a mention in the sermon scoffing at the way Catholics do things. Another person came up to ask me if my friends were Evangelicals. I said they were Christians who are Catholics, to which the response was "Oh, but how are their hearts?". I am continually disgusted at the Evangelicals for thinking they are so justified in openly belittling the Catholics. While I don't know the history that brought these feelings about, I can't help but think that if we continue into the future with such an us-vs-them attitude that we will never bring about healing.

On the other hand, there was some really exciting things about the service. Every year this is one opportunity that new Christians can be baptized in a truly beautiful setting.

Two of the youth in the Sunday school class that we teach were baptized. Here is Lucía being baptized by our pastor Isidro.

In the end, no matter how you celebrate, it´s a beautiful thing to know that Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins on the cross and has risen from the dead. Happy Easter, everyone.

Copán Ruins

2010-04-13T18:02:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Many people travel during Holy Week here in Central America. We got to do a little of that ourselves this year since we had the week free from work. My friend since childhood, Tanya, came down and the three of us went to the Mayan ruins of Copán in western Honduras.

While you might not expect this photo of an ugly barren mountain to be the first on a blog post about the ruins of an ancient civilization, really this is the most important picture for us today. The most popular theory about why the Mayans at Copán fell is that they had deforested the surrounding mountains, over-populated them and over-farmed them to the point that the rains stopped coming and the land became useless. From the looks of it, not much has changed since Copán fell around 800 ad. Maybe we modern humans need to learn a little from history.

We toured the ruins on the date of our four-year wedding anniversary :)

Honduran first graders learn the Mayan numbering system since it´s a great introduction to learning to work with fives. In this picture you can see the glyph of King Rabbit 18, so named after the month he was born in and for being the 18th king of Copán. The three bars on the left side represent fives and the balls represent ones. 3 fives plus 3 ones = 18

Immaturity break!

Tanya and I had learned about the ancient Mayan people as little elementary school kids together, so it was fun to go there with her. Of course, what impresses you most as a kid is the Mayan ball game; a soccer-like game in which players need to hit the stone bird heads with a heavy ball. The winner of the game is sacrficed to the gods, a high honor. A very memorable history lesson!

Tanya and I in the ¨locker rooms¨ of the ball stadium, naturally.

Nestled in a hillside among the ruins is a very impressive sculpture museum housing many of original pieces that were taken out of the ruins to be preserved. Also in the open-air museum is this full-scale replica of one of the first temples in Copán. When it was unearthed they found it to be brightly painted as in the replica here.

It was an amazing trip, and a destination that Honduras can be (and is) very proud of.

The pros and cons of isolation

2010-03-26T19:39:00.000-06:00

By Matt

It is a long, bumpy, dusty couple of hours to get from Catacamas to el Coyolar. On the way we pass a lot of cactus and some huge rock formations, the terrain reminds me of Arizona. In the community of El Coyolar for the past three years the harvests of basic grains have been low or nothing at all. This past October they asked Diaconia for help in getting bean seeds to plant because there were so little in the community. A group of 20 people in the community each received 50 pounds of red beans to plant. Then we prayed earnestly for rain. The agreement was that they would pay Diaconia back the same amount of beans at harvest time (which is a pretty good deal considering that it is customary to pay back twice the amount of seed borrowed). God sent rain, there was a modest harvest, and they paid back the beans. Here you can see a youth putting a 200 pound sack of beans in the Diaconia truck. Most grains are stored in sacks like those. I’ve had to move them around and it is not real easy.

The people in El Coyolar are motivated and true to their word, I think in part because they realize they are quite isolated and not a lot of institutions notice them. This isolation also means that local disputes tend to get resolved locally. Olancho is renowned for this kind of independent mindset. Every time we have a community meeting is seems that an argument gets going, and sometimes it gets pretty heated, but it is almost always resolved somehow. The people know that somehow they need to make things work with each other.

A while back we trained the people of El Coyolar on how to grow and use Moringa trees. Here is a photo of one of them and the owner. On this day the community started the process of the Ag diagnostic where they start to make priorities for agricultural and environmental improvement. They also elected their “facilitators” who will be trained more intensively and work to get people to adopt new practices. Raul, the owner of the Moringa tree is one of the facilitators for El Coyolar.

Fundraiser: La Subasta

2010-03-21T16:13:00.000-06:00

By Katie

There's a great easy fundraiser that is very common here in Honduras called the subasta. It's a type of silent auction. I recently did one to raise money for the computer lab at Luz y Verdad. The hot item I auctioned was an inflatable swimming pool, perfect for the season since we have entered the very hot very dry season. In other subastas I've been involved in we've auctioned cooking pots, a study Bible, and the very common subasta item; a whole rotiserie chicken.

The subasta is based on using envelopes such as the one below. The person in charge writes the information on the envelope, stamps the official stamp of the organization on it, and gives it to the people to sell. I gave three to every student at the school. You must put in at least 10 Lempiras (50 cents), but if you really want the item, you put in way more.

Then, on the appointed day, the people in charge open all the envelopes and see who put the most money in. I announced the winner at our Father's Day celebration on Friday. Fourth grader Alejandra was the winner.

The students helped raise about $75 dollars for the computer lab. With it I was able to pay myself back for the paint for the classroom walls and I'll also buy one battery/surge protector. The electricity has been going out a lot lately and the problem has already fried one motherboard and a hard drive. Little by little we hope to raise enough money to buy batteries so that all the computers can have an emergency power source.

Suggestions, anyone?

2010-03-18T16:56:00.001-06:00

By Katie

So, what do you want to know? Is there anything that you've been wondering about our lives here in Honduras, about the ministries we're involved in or any other random question? Now's the time to ask! Feel free to send us an email or write a comment here if there's anything you'd like to read about in a blog post or newsletter.

I came across the idea of asking for suggestions while I was preparing for a workshop on newsletter writing at our last all-country meeting for Diaconia. It was a fun workshop for me because I got to bring out some old language arts tricks and got to teach computer skills too with my newly-learned Spanish-language computer teaching skills :)

I'm looking forward to hearing from you all!

Big Changes for Danya

2010-03-04T13:56:00.000-06:00

By Katie

It's been quite a ride since I last wrote about Danya about two weeks ago. She's seen more changes in her life than any one person can imagine with two brand new ways of communicating now. But, more than anything, she sees herself as an important human being, a child of God equal to all the other children of God, even those without disabilities. The difference is startling. Let me tell you the story...

It started with Danya finally going to the specialized school like I mentioned in the last blog. At the school she's starting to learn sign language. Hopefully by learning sign language she'll eventually be able to communicate more complete thoughts. She's also taking language therapy classes where she'll learn to improve the limited speech abilities that she has. Here's a video of her and I practicing the vowels in sign language.

But the changes certainly didn't stop there! After communicating with every single person possible in both the United States and Honduras, we succeeded in getting Danya and her dad Elvin to Tegucigalpa to get hearing aids. She arrived one day early and had all the stuff she needed (even though we had a few frightening days before hand of thinking she was missing some paperwork and ear molds). The medical mission from the Starkey Foundation came to the swanky Hotel Honduras Maya in Tegucigalpa. We got there at 6:45 am and left around 11:45 am with Danya hearing the sounds of her environment for the first time.

Her dad and I had a lot of fun letting her walk in front of us and then calling her name, just to watch her turn around, the signal that she had heard us calling from behind. It was really fun to watch people around the hotel who were experiencing hearing for the first time like Danya.
However, learning sign language and hearing for the first time were just signposts of the true transformation that happened with Danya. Not long ago she was a naughty little bugger, bent on doing her own thing and never helping her mother. Her dad reports that after five days at school she was already showing signs of calming down, maturing up. While we were in Teguc together they stayed at the Diaconia Office where she helped me cook and do the dishes. She was keeping her dad and I on track much of the time, being sure we got out the door on time and were ready when we needed to be at the brigade. It's clear that she fully understands the sacrifices being made for her (her dad takes every Monday and Friday off of work just to bring her to school, and she understood that I have been working very hard on her behalf too and that people have helped me financially so that I can help her). She has taken it all to heart.

Fiftieth Wedding Aniversary

2010-02-28T06:35:00.000-06:00

By Katie

We were invited to a fiftieth wedding aniversary celebration by a couple who raise pigs with the pig project in Guanabano, a community about 45 minutes away. María Ilda Mendoza de Rocha and Matilde Rocha have been married for fifty years and celebrated it in a grand style. In a society where marriage by law and in the church is not common, to celebrate a fiftieth anniversary is unheard of. No one that we talked to at the event had ever heard of anyone celebrating fifty years together before. It was a great testimony of what a happy, healthy marriage can mean for a family and an entire community.

¨
Welcome to the Golden Wedding
Rocha-Mendoza
50th Anniversary

The happy couple: Matilda Rocha and María Ilda Mendoza de Rocha

During the ceremony their daughter-in-law María Elena and her sister sang the most beautiful ranchero song we have ever heard. We thought they sounded a little like the Indigo Girls of rural Honduras.
He is in this wedding, blessing the multitude.

The Rochas have 13 children and many grandkids and great grandkids. Some of them still live in Guanabano. One son named Delson lives in Worthington, Minnesota and works for a farmer there. It´s a small world!

The evening ended with a delicious meal for everyone who attended. Pictured here are some of our co-workers and friends. L-R: Roldan and Conchita, María and Matilde, Rigoberto, Nicol and Rosa.

We counted it a rare priviledge to be invited to attend such a great event. We´ll never forget it!

Progress with Danya

2010-02-21T15:47:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Some of you have been following Danya's story since we met her on my first trip to Honduras in 2007. She's about ten years old now and still very nearly deaf, still able to say only a handful of words. But, I've got happy news to report today! She started her first week of school at Casa Ayuda, a ministry of the Catholic church a couple of hours away from her home community. She's enrolled in classes there for language therapy and also to learn sign language. She spends the week living there and comes home every weekend.

This has been a very long road. For one reason or another she's been turned away from the school before. But this time, they've got the money to send her (thanks to those of you who bought coffee from us and gave donations while we were home for Christmas) and she is emotionally mature enough to spend the week away from her parents and community. Her dad Elvin told me that on the first day she walked straight up to the front seat and participated as much as she possibly could and was making friends with the other students there.

More happy news is that medical brigades are returning to Honduras after the political crisis. A brigade is scheduled for March 5 and 6 and will be bringing hearing aids to a privately-funded free hospital in Tegucigalpa. It's been two full years since this brigade has come, and the last time they gave her hearing aids to someone else so she went home with none due to a scheduling error. I go every few months to the hospital to see when the brigade will come, to make sure she's still on the list and for any other updates or information I can follow up on for the family. I'm really hoping and praying very hard that it works this time. I would love it if Danya could hear the sounds of her environment.

Please pray with me that the adjustment to school goes well for both Danya and her family. Also pray that all the many pieces can fall into place at just the right time for Danya to take advantage of the medical brigade. I hope to have more happy news by March 5 or 6!

Ten Big Days

2010-02-21T08:48:00.000-06:00

By Katie

The De Kam family got to come to visit us in early February. It was ten big days (followed by seven days of recovery, so we're just blogging about it now). Here's a peak at what we did.

We picked Helen, Verlyn and Kenzie up from the airport and took them straight to the Diaconia office in Tegucigalpa where they got to meet the whole crew and watch and participate as we finished up our monthly meetings.

That night we went out to dinner with Matt's old host family from when he lived in Tegucigalpa for a semester with Calvin in 2005. Everyone had a blast getting to know each other after hearing about one another for so many years.

The next morning we took a little walking tour of downtown Tegucigalpa.

One of the stops was the central park and a peak inside the cathedral.

Later that day we got to visit a high school called El Verbo in Tegucigalpa. Kenzie's high school in Minnesota is starting a relationship with this school, so it was great for her to get to see the place and establish some solid contacts. It was also an opportunity for us to introduce the De Kams to a few more of our friends since the ministry center at that school has many connections to the ministries we are involved in.

By the next day we were already in Olancho hiking up a mountain. It was coffee harvesting time, so the mules were loaded up bringing the harvest down the mountain. Another North American named Don was with us on the hike.

We stopped at Calixto's beautiful coffee farm on the mountain. Here's Verlyn and Calixto (our guide/friend) in front of some of the recently harvested coffee bushes.

Later in the week Kenzie and Helen helped out with the front porch gang as they made friendship bracelets. It happened that the littler kids came this day and the bigger ones didn't, so the bracelets turned out as bracelets do when you're only five years old. Oh well. We all had a nice time and the kids loved the extra attention!

Helen and Kenzie got to try their hand at handwashing laundry in the pila.

The De Kams also got to visit a couple of communities where Matt had meetings during the week. One was the community of Guanabano where we went for coffee with real cow cream at Lorena's house and got to stop in to check on the pigs from the pig project. We spent some time with the pastor Dilma (pictured here) and later went to an all-community meeting to finish up an assessment Matt and David had been working on about the state of agriculture in the community.

The final leg of their time here was a trip to the south, to an island called Amapala. Verlyn, Matt and I got to stop in on two more communities where Diaconia works and where we had done a training on moringa earlier. Unfortunately chickens, iguanas or leaf-cutter ants had eaten all but one of the moringa seedlings, but they all said they had ideas for how to do it better next time and would get some seeds and try again. We also got to spend some time on the beach enjoying the warmth!

All in all, it was a very blessed time. Matt and I really enjoyed showing the fam around and introducing them to our friends here.

Getting Ready for School

2010-02-02T17:42:00.000-06:00

By Katie

The new school year is about to begin again at Luz y Verdad. I've been getting the computer lab ready by painting it this weekend. It's the same exact color as the inside and outside of our house, so I feel right at home. Today Matt came to help me set up the computers, and found only three that didn't work (which is better than usual!). The school year starts this Monday. It was supposed to start the following week, but things change pretty quickly around here and the date got moved up.

We've been signing kids up for the school year over the past three weeks. We have almost forty students signed up right now. Last year we had over ninety in total, so the teachers are pretty worried that the numbers will be much lower this year. It's probably due in part to the world economic crisis but also we had a pretty difficult and disappointing school year last year. A few teachers got fired, so what remains is to motivate those who continue to work there. Please pray for us!

Work Group in El Naranjo and El Burillo

2010-01-31T07:44:00.000-06:00

By Katie

This past week I was able to tag along with a work group that came to southern Honduras from West End CRC in Edmonton, Alberta. All in all the group included twelve visiting Canadians, four Honduran masons, four translators and a few more Diaconia and CRWRC staff. I went as one of the translators.

We spent five working days pouring cement floors in homes in El Naranjo and latrines in El Burillo. This was the fourth time a group from this church has gone to this community, so it was fun to see how the relationships they had continued to blossom. Pastor Lucio of El Naranjo explained to me how exciting it was to have them back every year and to see how much more open both sides were with each other as every year went by.

The family of Dominga and Emiliano was a recipient of a latrine. They were very involved in all parts of the project; the men and boys worked super hard to finish their latrine in one day (not to mention the two weeks they had spent prior to our arrival to hand dig the 12ish foot deep by 5ish foot diameter hole for the waste from the latrine!). Dominga was a big part of the church and worked in the kitchen to make food for the group. In this picture you can see a hammock stretched in front of them. Nearly all of the families in this community make hand-made hammocks for a company who distributes them.

Several of the houses in El Naranjo had moringa trees planted. Lisa and Gloribel (Diaconia's nurses working in the south) had done another moringa training and given the women seedlings to plant. If you look hard enough, you can see that this one was doing great!

On Sunday we took a day trip to Amapala, an island in the Pacific Ocean. We for a swim and then had a wonderful lunch prepared by a woman who is in Diaconia's health program in that community.

We had a kids' program in each of the communities for the kids and whoever else showed up. It included a short message, craft and piñata.

Here´s some of the hard-working guys in front of a nearly finished latrine. Jorge, in the cowboy hat, was the homeowner.

This is my little pal Deny. On one of the first days I drew a picture of him so that he could color it and every day after that he was always at my worksite. But he didn't say one word to me until the very last day!

Here's the group, smiling and satisfied after seeing their friends again and lending a hand in making a healthier, stronger community.

La Costilla Perdida

2010-01-27T15:53:00.000-06:00

By Matt

This is one of my favorite funny things about spanish. Since God made Eve out of one of Adams ribs people refer to your wife as "La Costilla" (the rib) sometimes. Anyway my "Costilla" is "perdida" (lost) right now. Well not exactly lost, I know where she is. She is near the southern coast of Honduras helping translate for a group of Canadians that are building latrines and floors in some communities down there for about 8 days. It is really hot down in the south, so hopefully she is surviving. The town that she is in has no cell phone reception or electricity, so I haven't been able to talk to her much.
So, last friday after work, rather than spend the night at home alone I went over to the national park just outside of town where the caves are. I wanted to visit our friend Calixto and meet the new peace corps volunteer that is living with him. It is about a 30 minute walk from park entrance up the gorge to where calixto's house is perched above a river (dry right now). We drank coffee and tried to tell some jokes in spanish (which basically failed for lack of experience and memory). Josh the peace corps guy seems like a good fella. He's only been here a few months and he already bought a horse! He paid about $75, and I guess it is pretty slow.
The best part was in the morning when we were drinking coffee. About 6 white faced monkeys were picking fruit from the huge trees just behind Calixto's house. They were jumping from tree to tree and scurrying all over the place. It was really neat. Sorry, again, no pictures because Katie has the camera with her.

Coffee Harvest

2010-01-24T16:25:00.000-06:00

By Matt

At this time of year many people have migrated up to the mountains of Honduras to pick coffee. We see pickup trucks and mules coming down out of the mountians with big sacks of coffee on them. Coffee is one of my favorite crops not only because I love to drink it, but because I have seen the positive impacts it can have on God's creation and for the people here in Honduras (when its done right).

In the Ag/Environment program we are working with a group of producers from El Carrizal with the goal of exporting coffee to Canada. This is no small task! But I really love the challenge, and the farmers are very excited about it too. The Carpinteros have been instrumental in this initiative since they know the producers well and have a desire to see them get a price that is in accordance with the quality of coffee they produce. This year is more of a trial than anything with the amount of coffee small enough so that the risk is low enough both for the farmers and the buyers. One thing is for sure, Olancho has some amazing terrain for coffee growing. Up in the mountains north of town there are large areas of land with good elevations (from 1000 to 2000m) which have the potential to produce high quality coffee.
The farms are beautiful. The coffee is grown under a mix of shade trees most of which are native to the area and provide plenty of habitat for birds and animals. This past week we had a meeting up at one of the farms where they were harvesting and processing coffee. We went with the regional engineer from the Honduran coffee institute, and the manager of a regional Cooperative that we are looking to partner with. Getting up to the farm involves a couple hours of steep, muddy, rocky, mountain roads and ends up in a pristene valley, source of the Olancho River.

The pictures are on David's camera. I'll post them as soon as I can get them from David. (to be continiued)

Christmas Break

2010-01-21T06:20:00.000-06:00

By Matt

Well, we went home to the US for Christmas break to spend some time with our families. It was great to see everyone again, but the transition to winter in Minnesota and Michigan was pretty rough! The high was -2 the day after we arrived.
We got snowed in over Christmas in Leota. Here is a picture of us fixing a puzzle with Matt's Grandma Hoekstra. Grandma's cancer has come back in her mouth, so please keep her in your prayers.

Since there was a big blizzard, we had some spare time and made tunnels through a big snow-pile. It was a great time.

Later we traveled to Michigan and spent time with the Hamstras. Here we are with Aunt Darlene and Uncle Jerry and Katie's parents. Michigan was very snowy too. Again it was great to be with family for the holiday season.

Now we have been back in very tropical and hot Honduras for a while. Things are going well and we are keeping quite busy with work.

Planting Fruit Trees

2009-12-10T14:00:00.000-06:00

By Matt,

This past month David, Jordan, and I helped plant about 15 fruit trees in the schoolyard of El Guanabano. This activity came out of our relationship to the Ag University near Catacamas. Prof. Lopez and his university students made a nursery of several varieties of tropical fruits including mangos, tamarinds, limes, marañon (cashew), passion fruit, and mamón. Originally the U students were going to come and help us plant, but the scheduling didnt work out for the prof.

We met with the kindergarden teacher, the students of the school, and some of the parents to plant the trees.
Each student planted a tree and adopted it, promising to water and care for it. I told them that in 10 years I want to come back and eat all the different kinds of fruit.
It is really great to see so many different people and institutions working together on a project like this. The idea is to provide cheap food at the school to help suppliment the lunch program. Another strategy is to encourage the school to make natural juices from these fruits instead of selling the kids soda.

Included in the event were some students that recieve scholarships through Diaconia. These students are have the responsibility of doing community projects like this with the Ag/Env program. The hope is that the studens and adults learn the importance if investing for the long term benefit of the community.
We all had a great time, and got nice and dirty. I even had a chance to practice my chopping skills with the machete because the place where we planted the trees had 4 foot high grass growing.
Later that day we had a meeting in the church to do a community survey. We noticed this turtle shell that they use for the rythm section in the praise band. The different colored panels make different noises when you tap them with the sticks.

To Yocón and beyond

2009-12-06T18:49:00.000-06:00

By Matt

Well, you might be wondering "what happened to Matt?". It's true I haven't posted a blog in WAY too long. The truth is that I have been quite occupied with the Ag and Environment program to the point of not having much time for blogging, my apologies.

Anyway, as you may know for about the past 6 months we have had Jordan Fox living next door to us. He is a Canadian, and part of the "Carpinteros" group that comes often to Honduras to help out. It was really great to have him here. A while back Jordan's dad Steve came to visit. Steve is helping out with the health program in the south with some suppliments. Steve, Jordan, Arturo and I traveled down a very rough dirt road to the town of Yocon, and then beyond to several villages up in the mountains. This northern part of Olancho is quite isolated and many of these villages have recieved very little attention from the governement in terms of development and law enforcement. We stayed with Pastor Adrian and his family in a typical little country home. There is no water or electricity in these remote settings, so to shower we walked about 15 minutes down to a big waterfall. It was very beautiful.

The purpose of the trip was to continue the "Community Transformation Plans" that Arturo has been making with the community members. The goal is to unite and organize the people of the community around their shared priorities for improvement. The people write a short history of the community, draw a map, and identify the local resources that they have to work with including organizations. Community priorities are set and plans are made for how to achieve those goals, who will do it, and when. The priorities often include things like water projects, latrines, and getting electricity in the community. Diaconia often works to help strengthen and guide groups like the water board, or whatever other group of people that might be responsible for getting projects going.

On this trip I mostly translated for Steve so that he could contribute to what was going on. It is exciting to see communites working together like this to improve their well being. By now Jordan is back in Canada with his family, it was great to have him living here for that time.

Front Porch Gang Update

2009-11-24T10:26:00.000-06:00

By Katie

The front porch gang has been just as active as ever, but I realized it's been a long time since you've had an update. We still have classes in the afternoons usually four days a week. After working on some reading skills and reading a story together, we usually play a learning game. In this picutre we are playing Go Fish with some letter cards which has done wonders for those who previously couldn't recognize their letters. One second grade student, Wilmer, went from hardly being able to name half the letters to naming almost all of them very quickly because he was very motivated to win the game. It's been fun to watch them develop a sense of strategy too. On this day we were having so much fun that some teenage cousins and even a mom who were visiting the neighbors came over for a round.

After game time we usually have free reading time so the kids can enjoy the little library I've collected. It's a great opportunity for them to practice and has really made a difference in their skills. Most of the families of these children do not own books of their own, so it's the only opportunity they have for reading material at their level. The little squirts who are too young to be reading yet usually work on letter or number worksheets during this time. Here's a video of a nice quiet work time with some of the kids.

Hanging out with the front porch gang is certainly my favorite part of the day!

Movie Night

2009-11-24T10:03:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Last Friday night the youth at our church hosted a movie night. We used a data projector from Diaconia to project a movie on the wall of the church. In the end we had a pretty good turn out, but it wasn't without some struggles. We had about five youth who were part of the church's youth board which Matt and I help with since it overlaps with work we already do for Diaconia. The week before the movie two of the five announced they were switching churches. Another one was working and couldn't come and the other two showed up very late. So basically the event was a Matt and Katie production. We'd certainly like to see more ownership of the group by the youth themselves. Pray with us for the strengthening of this group.

There certainly were some successes though. There were about 20 people who ended up coming; some youth, some kids and some adults and we watched a remarkably good Christian movie that many seemed to enjoy. I made popcorn over an open fire for my first time and only burned a little bit!

A model for short-term missions

2009-11-20T09:06:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Recently I got to go along with a group of visitors from Michigan to their first visit to the community of Dos Quebradas, about 45 minutes from where we live. It was exciting to me for a couple of reasons. First, I went along as a translator for the group. It was my first time doing something like this, and I was happy that it went pretty well, although I know too that I've still got a lot more Spanish to learn!

Folks from the community, Diaconia and CRWRC staffers and the visitors from Michigan.

What was most exciting though was the way this church, Mayfair Christian Reformed of Grand Rapids, MI, is looking to form a partnership with the community of Dos Quebradas. In 2007, Diaconia Nacional began a process of making a "Community Transformation Plan" for each community they work with. The process involves surveys, writing the history of the community story, community mapping, and asking the community to name their top ten priorities they'd like to see for the development of their community. Arturo of Diaconia took the information he collected and wrote it into a report. The community uses the document to assess how they are doing on making their priority projects a reality in their community. The process inspires them to look within their community and to various NGOs and the government to get the resources they need. The document is revised every year to mark changes and to hold the community members accountable to it.
A picture from a community transformation planning meeting in Dos Quebradas, 2007.

Once the plan is done and is being used within the community, CRWRC takes it and translates a shortened version into English. Churches who are interested in forming partnerships with a church or community in another country can read the profiles of the communities with the plan and choose one that fits the interests and abilities of their congregants. The North American church then sends a fact-finding team to initially meet the community and explore what they could do to continue a long-term relationship with this community. This fact-finding trip was what brought the three people from Mayfair to Dos Quebradas. They'll take what they learned and present it to their council, and Lord willing will start planning another trip with a group from their church.

I really like this model for many reasons. It ensures that the community names their own priorities, as opposed to donors who might put the ideas into the minds of the community members. From the outset the community understands that they are in charge of making the connections necessary to get a water project (or whatever other project) done. It's possible that a North American group might come and lend a hand, but really they need to get things done locally. It's a good deal for the North American churches too because they are encouraged to make long-term relationships with one community and learn to share in their joys and sorrows over the years and helps instil a new set of values and way of looking at the world for both sides of the partnership. The groups that return year after year to Honduras certainly exhibit higher levels of understanding and have realistic expections for what their time with the community means for the building of their on-going relationship. It's a great model to follow for doing short-term missions right.

Student Prayers

2009-11-17T17:41:00.000-06:00

By Katie

The exams are done and school's out for the year at Luz y Verdad. Just before the end I got some fun work in from the students in computer class. Their assignment was to write a series of prayers by drawing a picture in Paint, then saving it and inserting it into a Word document where they typed the words to the prayer. That they all were able to do this is showed the progress that they had made throughout the year. Many could hardly use a mouse at the beginning of the year, and only one or two knew how to save their work.

Here's some of the pictures they created and the prayers they wrote, translated into English.

By Oto (fourth grade)

Our Father in heaven, holy be your name. Come to do your will on the earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, forgive us our sins. Also help us to forgive the sins of others. Help also the politicians that they can resolve the problem in the country and that all can return to normal. Amen.

By Fernando (third grade)

Father God we ask that you guard all the people of the earth including the people of the world, for the pastors and for Mel and Michelleti. Father, guard us. Amen.

By Adela Michell (third grade)

Lord, I pray for the children that they can learn. Amen.

By Estefany and Cintia (fifth grade)

Our Father in heaven, protect the forests, the animals and the people in our country. Amen.

AMEN!

Gift Catalog

2009-11-10T17:58:00.000-06:00

By Katie

This year's CRWRC gift catalog is out and again includes some things from Honduras. I thought I'd highlight the items specifically for Honduras. There's lots more gifts to choose from around the world; check out the entire catalog by clicking here.

Moringa Tree ($2 usd)
"Purchasing animal feed in Honduras is expensive and has the added environmental cost of transportation. Moringa trees provide highly nutritious leaves and pods that can be eaten by cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and rabbits." Humans can eat it too!

Of course, this is our personal favorite. Matt does trainings on the moringa tree very often and the purchase of these trees would continue the funding for even more trainings, seeds and seedlings.

Nutrition Kit ($17 usd)
"A nutritional kit containing soybean milk, vitamins, and anti-parasite medication can help a Honduran child gain the nutrients and protection she needs to grow strong and healthy."

Two nurses work for Diaconia in southern Honduras where very high rates of malnutrition exist. They distribute these kits to trained health leaders in the communities. These community leaders run mini-pharmacies and are sources of knowledge in their communities.

Water Filter ($50 usd)
"A plastic filter that uses water and sand to filter out germs can clean stored water and make it healthy to drink."

These are also distributed through the health program in the south.

Water Containers ($65 usd)

"A water storage container, or PILA, can help a Honduran family gain regular access to water."

The people fortunate enough to have running water in Honduras don't experience running water like we know it in North America. It rarely comes every day, sometimes up to once every fifteen days. In the mean time, we keep stores of water to use. The alternative to having a pila is filling up 3 liter pop bottles little by little and keeping them for storage. Even those who don't have running water find it much easier to store the water from the hand pump in a pila rather than so many small containers. Pilas are essential for life in Honduras.

Popular Honduran Music

2009-11-04T21:34:00.000-06:00

By Katie

One of our favorite Honduran musicians is singer/songwriter Polache. He often sings about Honduras, and this song, "Mirá a Honduras" is very popular lately. This song is especially popular among folks who want to remind Hondurans that Honduras can be more than just another country ruled by corruption. The song takes on extra significance this month as we gear up for elections on November 29.

Have a listen!

Mirá a Honduras

Que no te tapen los ojos, Ojos con la corrupción y la incomprensión, la indiferencia y la delincuencia que con frequencia amigo uno se encuentra en esta nación, ponele mucho atención a esta canción de corazón, es más lo bueno que aquí tenemos más los que queremos, creemos en esta tierra que es una bendición

CORO
Mirá a Honduras con otros ojos que esta es tu tierra
Descubrí que al mirarla con otros ojos vas a merecerla
Mirá a Honduras con otros ojos, tenés que quererla
Descubrí que al mirarla con otros ojos, vas a merecerla.

Laralala…

Que no te tapen los ojos, la desforestación y contaminación, la pobreza, injusticia y bajeza, que con frequencia amigo uno se encuentra en esta nación, ponele mucha atención a esta canción de corazón, es más la riqueza, grandeza, nobleza, y más la belleza que hay en esta tierra que es un bendción.

CORO BIS

Translation:
Look at Honduras

Don’t let them cover your eyes, see the corruption, and the incomprehension, the indifference and delinquency that with frequency friend one finds in this nation, pay much attention to this song from the heart, it’s more the good that we have here, more the ones that we love, we believe in this land that is a blessing.

CHORUS
Look at Honduras with other eyes ‘cuz it’s your land
Discover that to look at it with other eyes you’re going to deserve it.
Look at Honduras with other eyes, you have to love it
Discover that to look at it with other eyes you’re going to deserve it.

Laralala….

Don’t let them cover your eyes, the deforestation, and contamination, the poverty, injustice and lowness, that with frequency friend one finds in this nation, pay much attention to this song of the heart, it’s more the richness, grandness, nobleness, and more the beauty that is in this land that is a blessing.

We Have Water!!!

2009-10-26T17:25:00.000-06:00

By Matt

Yes that's right, the water project in our barrio is finally done and running water comes to our house!
On my birthday (Sunday, Oct 18th) we had a big inauguration party for the water project which included cake, lots of pop, and Tapado Olanchano which is an amazing stew-like dish that Olancho is famous for. To make the tapado someone in the barrio killed a cow, cut it up and put big hunks of it in a huge kettle, then added yucca (cassava), green bananas, sweet ripe plantains, spicy sausage, and a bunch of coconut juice and let it cook slowly over a fire with pepper and spices. Let me tell you that it was just about the best birthday meal I could have asked for. I had to go sleep for a while afterword because it was so heavy!

Here are some pics of the water tower which includes the project title "gift of God" and Psalm 120:1, "I call on the Lord in my distress, and He answers me".

Because the tank is not huge the water is distributed on a schedule (this is very common in Honduras). Water should arrive every other day for a couple hours in the moring.
Diaconia helped out with a little bit of the funding for the project too.
It is really cool to see this neighborhood rally together and raise funds, and then complete such a big project on their own initiative. It was a great birthday.

Early vacation and free passes for everyone!

2009-10-25T14:48:00.001-06:00

By Katie

The latest drama in the Honduran education system is that the school year will be cut short by about three weeks, as decided by the current government. This rule applies to the private school where I work as well as the public schools. Now our last day will be Friday, and we only learned this less than two weeks ago.

Understanding that this would make it difficult for teachers to have time to properly test their students, the current government said that each student in all grades will pass; there will be no one in the country repeating a grade this year! Kids on the edge love the idea while the studious ones are disappointed.

Why end the year early? Answer: The teachers are taking a hard line against the current government (hence the strikes I mentioned in an earlier blog). The elections for a new president will be at the end of November, a few days after school was originally supposed to end. Public schools are used to house the polls. The current government feared that the teachers would take over the schools if let allowed to stay there for too long. Now as soon as school is done, it is said that the military will occupy the schools.

For me this is a lesson in not taking myself or my work too seriously. I admit, I'm upset about this; it's not fair for the students and I had some cool lessons planned for the end of the year. But I also need to work on not letting my ideology or would-be plans stress me out. I need to tackle what I can, let go what I can't.

Grant Proposal

2009-10-20T20:41:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Matt's been busy lately (so busy he can't write his own blog post, so I'm doing it for him). He's working on a proposal to an agency in Canada to help fund Diaconia's Agriculture and Environment program where he works. The proposal is quite long and intricate and there's been plenty of bumps along the road in writing it. But he's getting much-appreciated input from CRWRC staffers from all over. Please pray with us that the writing goes well, and that this grant could be approved to help fund the agriculture program.

World Cup update

2009-10-15T16:43:00.001-06:00

By Katie

I wasn't paying any attention to the playoff soccer games last night until I went outside to do the dishes. All of a sudden, shouts arose from every single house in the neighborhood and I judged that Honduras had won. I ran over to the neighbor's house and there learned that not only had Honduras won the game, but the US had tied Costa Rica in a nail-bitter. With those two outcomes (that happened within moments of each other), both Honduras and the US will advance to the World Cup in South Africa. Today I had two people tell me how grateful they were that "my" team had helped their team beat Costa Rica in points, thus allowing Honduras to advance. It was sweet because they really meant it.

After the game last night I went and sat outside on the front porch for a bit, just listening to the noise around the neighborhood. You could hear many loud excited voices coming from many of the neighbor's houses, lots of fireworks, whooping and hollaring, and car horns honking. One lone teenager whizzed by on his bike and, for no audience in particular, threw back his head and yelled, "¡Viva Honduras!", "Honduras lives!".

I love what sports and a little bit of good news can do to humans.

Radio broadcast

2009-10-09T07:22:00.001-06:00

By Katie

Calvin College professor and Association for a More Just Society co-founder Kurt Ver Beek was on Chicago Public Radio recently to talk about the current situation in Honduras. It's a very interesting summary and analysis. Have a listen by clicking here.

Honduras vs. United States of America

2009-10-08T20:53:00.003-06:00

By Katie

This Saturday night we get ninety minutes to forget about Honduras vs. the United States in the political world and watch what the two countries can do on the soccer field. The two teams are playing in the playoffs for the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. There's only a few games left, so the stakes are quite high and it's supposed to be a close one.

When asked who I'm cheering for, I can't deny it, I go for Honduras. Futbol fever grips Honduras on game days like people in the US can't begin to understand. Blue and white jerseys are everywhere. Many banks and grocery stores encourage their employees to wear their jerseys during work. Vendors selling jerseys line the streets of every town for a week or more ahead of big games. It's serious business. Go Honduras!!

In the South

2009-10-04T15:34:00.001-06:00

By Matt and Katie

Recently we traveled to the south of Honduras to help out Gloribel and Lisa in the health program by giving trainings on how to grow and use Moringa trees. This had been in the planning stages for a while, and Lisa had already grown a nursery of Moringa trees from seeds that we got from Olancho. The south is a very distinct part of Honduras, it is known for its very hot temperatures, wind, watermelons, and shrimp farms. It is also known for malnutrition and deep poverty. Our first stop was Amapala, a volcanic island very near the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador. Matt and Lisa led a meeting of women who meet regularly as part of Diaconia’s health program. Meanwhile, Katie cooked moringa soup (in a Honduran lady’s kitchen, over the open flames for the first time… by herself… for twenty people… successfully!). We also brought some powder made from dried and ground moringa leaves. A woman added it to her tortillas. They tasted good, as long as you don’t mind green tortillas. We added 2 tablespoons (which contains about 100% of the vitamin A needed for a child) to make about 9 tortillas (most children eat around that many per day).

In the video below, you can see the women taking turns reading from the pamphlets Matt brought. Matt goes on to explain a few things and the women pipe in with their own ideas.

To wrap up the meeting, Lisa distributed the moringa trees that she had grown from seed. Each woman got two or three seedlings and several more women took bags of seeds to plant nurseries. When the seeds grow into seedlings, they’ll distribute the seedlings to other women in their community and train them on the uses and benefits. We spent the night on the island too, in the house of one of the women in the group named Juanita. She has a little guest house and serves up quite the meals, this one containing a whole fish, a whole crab, green beans, and boiled bananas.
But, how on earth do you eat a meal like this? Juanita got out her grinding stone to smash the crabs so they could be eaten. She’s also a big fan of the eyeballs of the fish. I gave her mine.

Sunday we were able to take some time to enjoy the water and go around the island a bit. Amapala is an interesting place in the fact that it located in an absolutely beautiful place, but the poverty is immense. More people live in houses made of plastic sheeting on the island than any other place we’ve been to in Honduras. On the flip side, there is a lovely brick road that goes all around the island and little quaint mototaxis as a common mode of transportation, which of course promotes tourism.

Monday the four of us went to anther community on the mainland and did the same training on moringa in one of the churches in the area. It was so incredibly hot this day that we just hope all the little seedlings survived!

Ever-changing news from Honduras

2009-09-30T20:48:00.000-06:00

By Katie

It's been three months since the June 28 coup that deposed Mel Zelaya. He recently snuck back into the country and shook things up quite a bit. Mel continues camping out at the Brazilian Embassy. And the news keeps on coming...

I've tried on several occasions to write blogs about the current political situation but keep erasing them. The problem is that the news changes dramatically every few hours. There have been bouts of violence from both sides in the capital. Curfews of varying hours were set for every day in weeks past. The de facto government suspended five civil liberties, and in turn invaded and shut down several media sources. About 24 hours later they changed their mind and reinstated the civil liberties, thank goodness! There has been cracks in the support that backs both sides lately, which may point us closer to a compromise.

So far everything has been very calm in Catacamas, although sometimes things are canceled as precautionary measures, including Catacamas' Bible Day celebration.

It's undeniable that something in Honduras has to change and that there's a few roads that Honduras could take in the future. Please pray that Honduras can be transformed for the better through this crisis, and that it will end peacefully.

Hiking up La Picucha

2009-09-24T18:39:00.000-06:00

By Katie

In late August we went on an amazing hike up the mountain just outside of Catacamas. I'm playing catch-up on blogging now, so the story's a little late. At any rate, I hope you enjoy these pictures!

Day One: Five-hour hike

Our team of hikers consisted of Lisa, Brayan, Matt and I, Sarah, David, Jordan and Calixto the guide. With the exception of Brayan, who is a youth from our church, all the others work or volunteer in various parts of Honduras. You can see two peaks in the background; we camped on top of the one on the left, and hiked up to the taller one on the right. On this day we had a donkey and a mule to carry our bags and give us rides.

Our campsite the first night was amidst a coffee plantation in the cloud forest.

On this night we cooked and slept in a shack that houses the coffee pickers during the harvest season.

Day Two: Six-hour hike
The day of big adventures!

Straight up!

Calixto built this trail himself with a couple of other people. He continued clearing the trail with his machete as we went up.

Just before the peak of the mountain we arrived in the dwarf forest, a unique ecosystem found in areas of high altitude, high wind and humidity. In this picutre you can see a bit of the dwarf forest overlooking the cloud forest and then valley below.

The plants in the dwarf forest are all short with thick leaves. It's like an ornamental garden everywhere you look!

How many are your works, O Lord!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
Psalm 104:24

You didn't want to go walking around at night at this campsite-- the land went straight down to both the left and right of our cluster of three tents.

Day Three: Eight-hour hike
We woke up to see the sun rising and the clouds below us.

We packed up in a bit of a drizzle, then did a hike/run down the mountain and made it back to catch the last bus back to Catacamas. We were tired, very dirty, and very satisfied.

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
Psalm 19:1-4a

Running water, Here We Come!

2009-09-24T13:03:00.000-06:00

By Katie

The last few days in Honduras have been interesting, to say the least. On Monday the old president returned and all day Tuesday and most of Wednesday the entire nation was under curfew to prevent people from traveling to the capitol city.

Fortunately, the days off of work coincided perfectly with our community’s water project. Soon and very soon our barrio, Colonia Villa Verde, will have running water! This is no gift from the government; it is entirely a project of the people who live in the neighborhood. There’s a group of community leaders who started almost two years ago petitioning different organizations (such as Diaconia Nacional), as well as their own neighbors, for the money to put a tank, pump, and tubes in for the neighborhood. Bit by bit the tower for the tank was built. Last Tuesday was a national holiday, so people had the day off of work. They spent their time digging the trenches in front of their homes and community spaces for the pipes. Then, this week when we all had another surprise day off because of the curfew, the neighbors all set out to work again, this time laying the PVC pipes in the trenches and covering them back up. It has been amazing to see the community come together for the project. On work days you can see everyone out in the streets working for a total of about four square blocks—pure people with shovels and pickaxes! Everyone is there to work and encourage each other, young and old.

While there’s plenty of disunity in the capitol, our neighborhood has shown what a little bit of working together can do. It’s encouragement we all need these days.

Church in Patuca

2009-09-13T13:54:00.000-06:00

By Matt

In the ag progam we have been working with a group of farmers down in the southern part of olancho in a town called Patuca. It takes us at least 4 hours to get to Patuca, and the trip is both difficult and beautiful. We cross over a mountain range and then follow the mighty Patuca river for quite a while. In town you see a lot of boats from the travelers coming in and out of the Moskitia on the river (this is the very undeveloped, rainforest/lagoon region on the eastern side of Honduras).
The farmers are working land that is owned by Diaconia and paying it off bit by bit with every harvest.

They always ask David to preach in the local Christian Reformed Church when we go there. This time I was able to lead a bible study with the farmer group focusing on how God was the first farmer and how he has given us the responsibility to care for the land. This was all great, but the best part of being in Patuca is the praise and worship with a band of very animated Olanchanos playing ranchera music on a variety of well-worn instruments. A couple of the farmers are also in the band. Here is a short video to give you a taste:

As we clapped and praised the Lord together, I was struck to think of how fortunate I am to have experiences like this. I love this job.

Professional Development comes to Luz y Verdad

2009-09-12T08:36:00.000-06:00

By Katie

A few weeks ago Escuela Luz y Verdad was blessed with an opportunity for professional development. I went to school that day thinking we were just going to have a regular teachers' meeting, so I was astonished to see Professor María Rodriguez of Calvin College show up to do a training for the teachers at Luz y Verdad and the teachers of a nearby town.

I had Prof. María Rodriguez´s sister as a professor in the Spanish department at Calvin, and her other sister Blanca works here in Honduras for Worldwide Christian Schools. Accompanying María and Blanca was Elaine Helmus, who is a former missionary with CRWM and was integral in starting the school about 20 years ago. It was truly an honor to have them come to visit our little school.

Professor María gave an excellent workshop on teaching strategies for improving reading skills and examples for providing more hands-on, high-interest learning activities in the classroom. It was exciting to see Professor María talk about these things for several reasons. First, the examples she gave were very much in-line with the style of teaching that I try to promote by example in our school. This style is contrary to the more popular mode of copying off the board or doing book work. But María, who was born and raised in Honduras, was able to be very convincing to the teachers that we need to shift our methods to reflect changing times where group work skills and creativity are necessary for success in life. She explained that, although this was not how they were taught, it is a necessary shift that needs to be made by today´s educators. Also, parents might be skeptical if they see that students play games all day long, so the teachers need to educate the parents on the new learning techniques too. Professor María said in a few short minutes what I´m hoping the teachers glean from me in the two years that I´ll be with them.

The results of the workshop were immediate. The next day the English teacher, Marcos, developed an activity that combined an activity that Professor María had shown with one I had done with another group the week before. It was encouraging for Marcos to see that not only did the students learn the new vocabulary better, but they behaved much better too. Now he is incorporating pre-planned activities such as this into his classes more often. Another teacher, Cendy, had her kids create posters for something they were learning, and those posters are now hanging in her classroom. You can see in this picture that teacher Jarmin also hangs student work in her classroom and has the students interact with it.

Bit by bit change is coming to Luz y Verdad. With the support of trainings from highly-qualified professionals like Professor María Rodriguez, these changes can become permanent pieces of our identity as a school, so that we can better reflect our calling to be a Christian school dedicated to real learning for ALL of the students.

Youth Retreat

2009-09-04T13:55:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Recently youth from all over Honduras gathered at a church camp in the mountains just outside of Tegucigalpa for the national youth retreat. It was a weekend of new experiences for many youth, some of whom had never been to the city before.

The sessions started with Ana Joya, who works for CRWRC, leading a session called “To love is to wait”. Ana did an excellent job speaking to the youth about this topic.

She started out with group work, which is not something commonly done in the rural areas outside of Tegucigalpa. It was a great opportunity for the youth to have their voice heard and to develop teamwork skills. To finish the session, Matt and I gave our testimony about our dating relationship and how God guided us through that time of our lives.

On Friday night, we had the ever-popular Honduran tradition: Open Mic Night. Here’s a video of a couple of guys from Olancho singing a ranchero song, a Honduran country song. The crowd is going nuts because they love it.

Some youth from the city had entirely different presentations for open mic night. Here’s a group that made a skit about how only Christ leads to salvation, not other lifestyles like rock n’ roll, goth, etc.

There was one last thing you thought you’d never see in Honduras: A little Christian Reformed *bling*bling*:

It was a great opportunity for the students to get together and push their limits of comfort, expand their circle of friends to include people all over the country, and to challenge their hearts and minds to live more fully for Jesus Christ.

Public school teachers still on strike

2009-09-02T08:48:00.000-06:00

By Katie

No one has felt the effects of the political crisis more than the students of public schools in Honduras. Since the coup occured on June 28, the public school students have not been to school more than three days a week in most cases. The teachers' union is very strong and is has been striking for eight weeks to show their support of the ousted president, Mel Zelaya. For the first three weeks there was no school at all, and now they only strike Mondays and Tuesdays and give classes the other three days of the week.

This is infuriating because it is especially affecting the poor students in Honduras. Anyone who can at all afford it does not send their children to the public school. The teachers have a history of striking far too many days, so any other school is better than the public schools, as long as they give classes most of the time.

However, I do know some public school teachers who are fighting against their unions and truly looking out for the students they teach. One of these is my Spanish tutor, Delvin, who is the president of the local chapter of the teachers' union. He does not take a political stance in the Mel vs. Michelletti game, and does not support the strike because it is not the fault of the students that their president was ousted. He is working with a few local teachers to move the strike to only one day per week and to teach four days per week. He'd like to teach full five-day weeks, but realizes that there is only a small minority of teachers who want to stop the strike and sees the one/four option as a compromise.

Other teachers keep teaching despite demands on them not to. The teacher of the second graders in my neighborhood holds classes in the afternoons for struggling students on the days of the week when she is not supposed to be striking. Many of those kids are in my after-school program, so I make sure they go to her classes on those days so that I can show my support of her efforts. Other teachers are holding classes on Saturdays in order to keep educating their students.

Please pray with us that this situation gets resolved soon, and does not last the entire year. Pray especially for the strength of people like Delvin and the second grade teacher in our neighborhood who face strong opposition for their support of putting students first.

Photo from La Tribuna, a newspaper in Honduras. The school called Rafael Pineda Ponce says "We want classes, We want teachers".

Front Porch Gang moves indoors

2009-08-22T11:25:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Lately the Front Porch Gang has been testing their limits and coming inside the house whenever they see us around. Today I was working on the computer and noticed these two stinkers spying on me. Pretty soon they were inside reading a book. This is getting to be a pretty common occurrence. I guess our house is turning into a library that's open all waking hours of the day :)

Resources about the political crisis

2009-08-15T21:19:00.000-06:00

By Katie

There's a lot of news and propaganda out there about the current state of Honduras. It doesn't take long to realize that this is a complicated issue and that reporters are giving us stories from all different angles. It's a little hard to decifer how we should analyze the problem and how to respond to it as North Americans.

One of my Honduran co-workers directed me to the website of the Association for a More Just Society as a great objective resource. I encourage anyone looking for more analysis on the situation to check it out, especially those of you who send regular church groups to Honduras. Among the great resources on their webpage there's a handy Prayer and Advocacy Guide that you could use for adult Sunday school classes. Association for a More Just Society is partner of CRWRC, just like Diaconia Nacional is.

AJS suggests the following prayer requests:
"1. Pray for a peaceful solution to the political crisis, and for wisdom and humility on the part of both the deposed and the newly installed presidents of Honduras.
"2. Pray that Honduras' leaders (elected officials, businessmen, etc.) will wake up to the fact that “democracy” as it has been practiced in Honduras for the last 25 years hasn't done much at all for the poor. Pray that Honduras will finally be blessed with leaders whose priority is the common good rather than their own self interest.
"3. Pray for world leaders (Oscar Arias, Hugo Chavez, Obama, Clinton, United Nations, OAS), for wisdom in responding to this situation."

Thank you for praying with us!

Journey to Colón

2009-08-13T20:34:00.000-06:00

By Matt

There are also some Christian Reformed churches in the department of Colón up on the north coast, just north of the expansive department of Olancho (where I live). Some years ago Diaconia did a housing project up there, and the people are paying back the houses little by little. So, at least once a year Leti (the woman who manages the loan program) has to go and get the books all up to date. Jordan and I accompanied Leti and her mother Conchita on the 6 hour journey on mostly dirt roads through the middle of Honduras.

We passed through some of the beautiful hidden valleys of Olancho crossing several mountain ranges. As we entered Colón we started to notice it got hotter, more humid, and there were many more palm trees around.

After arriving in Bonito Oriental (the pretty east) and leaving our bags at a church member’s house we moved on to another town called Feo Oriental (the ugly east). The joke is that “Ugly” is actually more pretty than “Pretty”. Leti got right to the paper work and Jordan and I taught the people about Moringa and how to use and cultivate it and gave them some seeds. We also gave them some useful bean seeds and talked about what people grow on the north coast.

You farmers might be interested to see this corn shelling operation. A lot of corn is harvested by hand (since it is grown in the mountains) and then shelled later.

One of the men has an African palm farm. We talked about what he could grow under the palms instead of having to spray all the time to kill weeds. He want to try a green-manure cover crop of sword beans, so I’m going to send him some seeds with the missionary Caspar who travels up that way once in a while.

Here is a picture of the “heads” of fruit that come off the African Palms. They can weigh up to 100 pounds and contain a lot of vegetable oil. They are cut off the tree with a special tool at the end of a long pole. It is certainly a different world up on the north coast.

A new neighbor and more moringa

2009-08-09T15:53:00.001-06:00

By Matt

When we arrived back in Catacamas we were happy to find a new volunteer living right next door with Doris and the family. Jordan Fox has been to Honduras before on short term trips with the Carpenteros and now is spending about 5 months here as a volunteer. I am happy to have him around because I have all kinds of ideas about how he could help us out with the agriculture program.

In fact, he has been helping out already by harvesting Moringa seeds. After we became familiar with the Moringa trees that were produced from seeds that came from ECHO we noticed that there were some very similar trees in the neighborhood. I took pictures of the leaves, seeds, pods, etc. and sent the data back to the scientists at ECHO to verify that it actually is Moringa Oleifera. We were happy to find out that yes these local trees were Moringa. The best part is that we now have a local (cheap) source of seeds for the program. Anyway, before leaving for the states I had told a local family that I would pay them for the seeds if they would harvest them for me. When we got back the kids came over and told me the seeds were ready. I was able to purchase them with a little bit of the money we raised with the greeting card fundraiser back in the US. Jordan and a few kids from the barrio helped to shell and sort the seeds.

We also found some moringa that had branches big enough to be cut and planted (producing a new tree). We paid the neighbor about $15 for 70 branches and brought them out to the folks involved in the hog raising project in El Guanabano. Moringa can serve as part of the diet for the pigs so, they are planting as much as they can right now.

We were also able to see how the moringa seedlings they had planted earlier are doing: at this point; Todo Cheque! (its all good!)

Día de Lempira

2009-07-26T06:20:00.000-06:00

By Katie

July 20 of every year is Día de Lempira in Honduras. We celebrated this special day on Friday at school. Lempira was a leader of the Lenca people who in 1537 united over 200 villages of different tribes to fight against the Spanish conquistadors. The Honduran money is named after him and he is certainly a national hero.

The day started out with a little program that included a beauty pagent to vote for the India Bonita (the Pretty Indian). All the Indias Bonitas here collected money from their friends and family and the person with the most money will wear her costume in the Independence Day parade in September. Alejandra, the girl with the coconuts, won.
Many of the kids dressed up in costumes for the occasion. They either dressed like ¨indians,¨cowboys, or a Spanish-influenced costume. Here´s the kindergarten class looking cute.

After the program, we all went to buy traditional food in the chumpas, the huts made of tree branches and palm leaves. Every school in Honduras makes these chumpas to celebrate Día de Lempira every year. A few teachers and students spent two days making them to get ready for the event.

There was a wide variety of food for purchase made by the parents of the students. Here´s Kelly with arroz con leche (rice, milk, sugar and cinnamon) and a tamale (a piece of chicken with other pot-pie stuffings encased in mashed corn).
Dayana and Victoria are eating baleadas, my favorite Honduran food. It's a flour tortilla with blended beans with a cheese and a sour cream-like dairy product.

Juliana (orange shirt) and Cheily (red hair tie) are eating Catrachos, which is also slang for Honduran (like gringo is to North American). Catrachos the food are corn tortillas fried crispy with blended beans and the sour cream on top. Lissy (the shortest girl) is drinking natural juice from a plastic bag and Edwin is eating fried corn dough.

A mom and Teacher Wendy are selling taquitos, or little tacos of chicken paste rolled up and fried crispy in a corn tortilla. They'll put a red sauce and some white cheese on top to serve them.

All in all, it was a pretty fun day celebrating Lempira and his efforts for the native people of Honduras.

Glow-in-the-dark Fun

2009-07-24T07:19:00.000-06:00

By Katie

The front porch gang has been really excited to be back. There had not been school for three weeks because the teachers were striking again, so they were looking forward to some learning. To kick off the classes, I invited everyone to our porch at 7pm and gave out glow-in-the-dark bracelets. It was a smash hit and full of laughter. It was a rare move for me to give out something without making kids earn it, but was really a great thing to get a chance to see everyone again. Thanks to our friends at Calvary in Minneapolis who donated the bracelets!

A Great Welcome Home

2009-07-17T11:03:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Here we are, back in Catacamas, Olancho, Honduras, safe and sound. We arrived to the airport in Tegucigalpa yesterday and met our director there. She took us back to the office where we ate lunch and then headed to the bus station. Four hours later we came home. It was safe the entire way and we had no problems whatsoever. Certainly everyone is talking about the political events and the possible implications, but most people go about their lives as normal, although a little more carefully.

When we got back to the house we were greeted by our neighbors Doris and Noé. A bunch of members of the Front Porch Gang also showed up not two minutes after we got home. It was great to see everyone again!

Our biggest surprise was that Doris and Noé (who are the caretakers of the house) had played Extreme Home Makeover while we were gone. They tiled our shower, fixed up the sink so that it works now, and painted two rooms. We were super surprised and very excited to come home to such great improvements! Life will be a little less like camping now :)

There´s a new volunteer here now who lives with Doris and Noé named Jordan. He, Matt and David are reviewing last year and making their next plans now. The kids are ready to have classes, so I´ll start those this afternoon already. We´re picking up right where we left off. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers for our safe travel!

Adiós y Gracias

2009-07-15T07:46:00.000-06:00

By Katie

The bags are packed and off we go! Tomorrow at 5:30am we'll be boarding a plane in Minneapolis and will arrive in Tegucigalpa around 11:30am. There are two teams of people (an assessment team and crisis management team) that both have agreed that it is safe to return to Honduras.

We'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you to so many of you who we got to visit with during our time here. We thank you for your financial contributions and for the encouragement you gave us while we had face-to-face time here in the United States. Your partnership with us means a lot!

Please continue to pray for Honduras and the Honduran people, as well as for our safe travels and as we re-emerge into life there without family, old friends and some modern ammenities. Also let us know how we can pray for you!

No news

2009-07-12T13:01:00.000-06:00

By Katie

It's been a quiet weekend for news from Honduras. The talks between the two rival presidents did not meet their aims in Costa Rica late last week, and we haven't heard of any definite plans for how either side plans to move forward. This is a big disappointment.

We've been talking to friends in Catacamas who say things are back to normal there, at least on the surface. It has been good to talk with them.

Meanwhile there hasn't been any decision made yet from the committee from the Christian Reformed Church about going or staying either, so the limbo continues. We got to do some fun things this weekend at the Dutch Festival in Edgerton; a parade, Mark Schultz concert, my first-ever rodeo, and hanging out with some friends.

Thanks for your prayers for Honduras and these uncertain times.

Thursday Update

2009-07-09T13:23:00.000-06:00

By Katie

We're still here in Leota, Minnesota, and will be for a few more days. We've been talking via email, phone and skype to lots of our friends and co-workers in Honduras and it sounds like things are becoming more stable. The airport is open again and everyone reports that they're able to travel around the country like normal again. Of course a tension is still in the air because there are still issues to be resolved in the political world, but daily life isn't largely interrupted by that right now. So now we're waiting for the green light from CRWRC that we can go back.

The political world, however, could use a little prayer today. Manuel Zelaya (ousted president) is meeting in Costa Rica with Roberto Micheletti (interim president) in talks mediated by Oscar Arias (Costa Rican president and winner of the Nobel Peace prize for mediations he lead in the 80's). People in Honduras are hopeful that these talks will have sucess and have more going for them than previous attempts did in the weeks and days prior to today. Pray with us for fair talks, clear and honest minds, and a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

To find out more about the daily news in Honduras, we do searches through Google News and always read at least two articles by reputable agencies with each turn of events. I suggest reading two articles because sometimes one will have a slant to one side and reading an opposing angle gives a more full and accurate idea of what's going on. In case you missed the news as it first came out, here's a decently objective article that describes what brought Honduras to this in the first place. http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5686N820090709

We'll try to post a general update every few days, so please keep checking back to the blog to see what we're up to. Thanks for all of your prayers in this situation.

Still here...

2009-07-06T08:57:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Surprise! We're not leaving for Honduras Tuesday. The airport in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, is closed for an idefinite period. That means we're staying here in Leota, MN with Matt's family for an indefinite period. We'll keep reading the news reports, emails from Hondurans and North Americans living in Honduras, and US travel warnings and prayerfully make the decision to go when we feel that the airport and roads are secure.

Meanwhile, prayer is appreciated, specifically for the process of moving forward with diplomatic talks toward a resolution, for the people of Honduras, and for our safe travel when that time comes. Many times over the past year we have seen how when we ask you to pray for something, God answers those prayers and we trust that He will hear all of us praying for this situation as well. Thank you for praying with us.

Greeting Card Fundraiser

2009-06-02T20:43:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Matt and I have had the opportunity to view some different ecosystems that contain some amazing plant life here in Honduras. Throughout the times we've been to Honduras, we've taken some beautiful photos that we now would like to share. While we are at home in June, we'll be offering greeting cards for sale with these photos on them.

The money that we raise with this project will go to fund school supplies for Katie's afterschool program and innovative seeds and educational materials for the farmers that Matt works with. Both projects are not currently in our budget, so having a fundraiser helps provide us with the materials we need to provide Hondurans with another outlet for learning and growing.

Cards are available in packs of eight different cards (described below) at a cost of $10 per pack. Individual cards are available for $1.50 per card.

The Dwarf/Cloud Forest Pack
These flowers were all taken in two unique ecosystems high in the mountains of the Sierra de Agalta mountain range in Olancho, not far from where we live in the valley below. The dwarf forest was particularly interesting as it was so high on the mountain and the wind is so strong that plants do not grow tall there. Many fascinating bromeliads are included in this pack.

The Tropical Garden Pack Included in this pack are the flowers of many gardens we've seen in Honduras. Some are trees, including moringa and acacia blossoms. Others are lilies and hibiscus, and more.

The Coffee Pack
This pack includes coffee at several stages of the growing, harvesting, and roasting. You'll find blossoms, berries, and tranquil shots of shade-grown coffee farms in this pack.

Pre-orders are appreciated, but not at all necessary. Email us if you'd like us to set aside a pack or particular card for you, or just ask when you see us. Thanks in advance for taking an interest in this project.

Forgiveness mixed with a little encouragement

2009-05-28T21:28:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Things have slowed down a bit with the front porch gang lately. I attribute it mostly to HEAT, HEAT, HEAT! It's kind of like January in the Midwest; no one wants to go out too much beacause the weather is disagreable.

The other day I had one girl show up, after waiting without anyone for about 45 minutes. Both Briana and I were hot and tired, so we sort of went through the motions of class. That day we read a short story about how Jesus asks us to forgive people up to seventy times seven times. She asked a few more questions than normal and drew some connections to her own life. At the end of the class, she asked if she could stick around and draw on the board. I said yes and headed out back to do some laundry. After a few minutes she called me to the porch and showed me this picture that she had drawn representing forgiveness.

Sometimes we are blessed in small ways like this. We're reminded that what we do does have an impact, in spite of that fact that we're hot or tired. There's power in the story of the gospel that can speak for itself.

El Boquerón Youth Hike

2009-05-27T21:13:00.000-06:00

By Matt

On a recent Saturday we took a hike with youth groups from the church that we attend (La Mora CRC) and the CRC in nearby Cofradía. It was Jorge’s idea from the get-go (he is the president of the CRC youth of Olancho). Jorge (or Jorgito, if you prefer) suggested that we get some youth together and hike up the beautiful canyon of El Boquerón to the village of La Avispa to hold a church service up there. We were all for it!

The morning of the hike we woke up to rain, but it looked like it might clear off. We prayed a lot for good weather, and God really blessed us with a beautiful day. We arrived at the trailhead with a group of 14, most of whom had never been to the canyon before. At the beginning of the hike we talked for a little bit about what a beautiful gift God gave us in the creation and how as Christians it is our responsibility to take care of it. The hike was a great example of the contrast of how beautiful creation can be, and also what can happen if we don’t care for it. For the first few hours it is beautiful tropical forest with huge trees, beautiful birds, and impressive rock formations. The group loved it! Some of the guys were scurrying around like squirrels all over the rocks. Katie got a little wet crossing the river. A few of us had more experience hiking than others. Some of the girls were hiking in bare feet, but they weren’t even the slow ones! The women of Olancho are TOUGH!

After following the river for a couple hours we took the path up the side of the mountain to La Avispa. As we emerged from the canyon we passed by some banana plants. This was a sure sign that we were near the “cave of the tiger” where an older couple live in a cave. The group was both excited and nervous to meet them because there is a rumor that they really don’t like it when people pass by. We spoke to the wife for just a little bit and then moved on. From the cave the hiking was pretty flat and we came out into large areas where the forest had long since been clear cut to make room for crops. It was very hot and dry in this stretch of trail. It was a good example of the consequences of not caring for the creation very responsibly.

We arrived in La Avispa after almost 4 hours of hiking and ate a quick lunch at the pastor’s house. From there we headed to the church and the people began to show up. The church was packed! At least 70 people showed up.

We had a energetic worship service and I gave a little pep-talk about how God gives us the strength we need to meet the challenges he puts in front of us. This was mostly directed at our group of 14, some of whom were pretty tired and not looking forward to the hike back.

God gave us the energy to make it back and we arrived before dark back at the truck. All of us had a great time and the youth were asking when we were going on the next hike. It was a great day, but we arrived home very tired.

Student Showcase

2009-05-09T12:16:00.000-06:00

By Katie

We had a Mother's Day program yesterday and the kids all sang "Lord I Lift Your Name on High" in English. After lots of practice it turned out well, so I thought I'd share it with you all. It surely would have been more pleasant to listen to if the cd had worked, but instead the poor children had to follow my out-of-tune lead. Oh well, being in-tune matters a little less here, thank goodness.

We've also been working hard on English greetings lately. Many of the students are excited to use the greetings with me even outside of class. Here is a video of a kindergartener named Nathaly talking with me in English.

Getting to work

2009-05-02T12:41:00.000-06:00

By Matt

I've had a few different jobs in my life, and getting myself to work has taken several different forms over the years: Dirt bike, napping in the sleeper part of a semi, car rides of varying distances, and in Minneapolis, biking (even in the winter). But this past week I had one of the most interesting "commutes" to work I have ever had.
The Diaconia cars were already spoken for for the day, and David and I needed to get to the community of La Avispa. There are basically two ways to get to La Avispa; one is a bumpy ride in a pickup truck around the mountains, through a pass and backtracking through the next valley to the north (1.5 to 2 hour ride). The other option is a foot trail that follows the Olancho river up a steep canyon called El Boqueron (1.5 or 2 hour hike). We decided to hike up the canyon, much to my delight!
We crossed the river a few times and then ran across a fellow traveler. He is a young man and happens to be the pastor in training for the Baptist church in La Avispa.
We followed the trail together, crossing the clear waters of the Río Olancho several times. It was incredibly beautiful! There were amazing lilies, huge cliffs, beautiful rock formations, tropical birds, and caves. I am told that the Honduran government is in the process of making this area a national park.

As we continued up the path we passed by the famous "cave of the tiger", where a man and his wife have set up their homestead in a cave. We bought some really flavorful bananas from them and kept on hiking up to la Avispa.
The reason for our trip to La Avispa was to meet with an agriculture group, train them on how to grow and use the Moringa tree, and check up on how their Moringa nursery is doing. Moringa leaves are packed with vitamins and protein, and are good for humans and animals. We brought some leaves with us to make into a sort of stew with sausage and potatoes. It was really good.

At the home where they prepared the moringa stew for us someone had caught an armadillo and was planning on butchering it (they say the meat is pretty good). I did see armadillo meat, but I don't think any of it ended up in the stew!

The moringa nursery was doing fairly well. We have had some trouble with seed germination (I think the seeds we bought are old) but around half of them had sprouted and produced nice seedlings.

After our meeting Roldan and Arturo showed up in one of the Diaconia vehicles. We helped them with their meeting which involved all of the community. They are working with the people to create a "plan for community transformation" which is a big document that contains all sorts of statistics about the community, history, levels of well being of the residents, and helps organize the felt needs of the community. Through this process the community decides together on their major priorities and how they will work together to make those things a reality (for example, we need running water, let's organize a water board and start raising money and making plans for a water system, etc.)

After the meeting we left with Arturo and Roldan. In the end I think the foot path is the best way to get to La Avispa. It is nice that I was able to get to know the way, because Jorge, the president of the Olancho CR youth board, wants me to accompany a bunch of young people on a hike up to La Avispa. The plan is to put on a big youth-oriented worship service up there and then hike back down some Saturday in May. I'm looking forward to it!

"I'm Leaving Tomorrow"

2009-04-19T16:40:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Lots of people use the words "I'm leaving tomorrow" here in Honduras. They leave to go to the United States and sometimes to Canada to pursue dreams of money, adventure, opportunity. I know plenty of people here who have said the words to their families and are back now, and many more people who heard those words and haven't seen their family member since. But Friday was the first time I heard those words myself. One of my fifth grade students, José Carlos, left on Saturday with a family friend to go mojado/"wetback"/without papers to live with his mom who is living and working in Wisconsin. José Carlos came Friday to say goodbye to his class and teachers. A few kids were sobbing so hard they couldn't move. Everyone knows this is a dangerous trip. Most of the students have immediate family members living in the States and know what it means to say goodbye.

Before he left, he and I got to talk a bit about Lake Michigan, one of my favorite places in the world, his new school and future ESL teacher, and about learning a new language and living in a new culture. Then the class prayed with him and all gave him hugs. He's a bright kid with poise well beyond his years, so he'll do ok. We're all going to miss him terribly.

"Resurrection Day" Service

2009-04-13T08:08:00.001-06:00

By Katie

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, or Día de Resurrección, as it is called in Spanish. I usually look forward to punchy organ tunes on Easter Sunday, but this year I was looking forward to something very different. We gathered at the river with CRC congregations from the area along with some other churches as well. It was a huge event!
Little did we know that the service location required quite a hike to get there. Matt had to carry an older lady from our church across the river!

There were more than two hundred people who attended. You can see them all here crowding into the shady parts because the temperature was well into the 90's.

Our guest preacher was Casper Geisterfer, a missionary here in Honduras. He and his wife, LeAnne (who works for CRWRC), have taken us under their wing and provided us with tons of support. It was great to have them out to Olancho and to hear Casper preach. He spoke slowly and used a nice neat five-point sermon which I could understand well. Thanks, Casper!

What really made the service though was about a dozen baptisms done in the river. It was a beautiful way to celebrate our Risen Savior and to welcome new brothers and sisters in Christ!

Retreat

2009-04-10T10:38:00.000-06:00

By Katie

This last weekend we were able to go to a retreat in Nicaragua with many of the staff members and volunteers of the CRC in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Ecuador. We were excited to be able to join the group in their annual retreat. The topic of the training was "The Dance of Racial Reconciliation".

Besides the training, we spent many, many hours soaking in the wisdom of the other missionaries who have lived and worked all over Latin America for many years, and some who are new to the field, like us. It was a great encouragement to hear the histories of these programs and of the church in the different countries. These conversations gave us good insight on how to live in Latin America.

There was time for the swimming at the beach too, which of course made me feel right at home! We were very happy that we were able to attend the retreat. Originally we had declined the opportunity because we didn't think we'd need the break and it wasn't included in our budget. But, the door opened when one family backed out, and at the same time we realized we were fighting burn-out and needed some North American contact. The retreat was clearly worth spending our own money to go. It seems that God provides us with the support we need, even when we don't think we need him to!

Sierra de Agalta National Park

2009-04-03T08:32:00.001-06:00

By Katie and Matt

Last weekend we got a chance to go hiking in the mountains surrounding Catacamas. We had the weekend free and so did some of our counterparts in other parts of Honduras, so they traveled out to us to spend time together enjoying nature. The original plan was to hike up the second tallest peak in Honduras, called La Picucha (2354 meters). But the plans changed when we realized we really were not in shape to make it all the way, and David got sick.

Our travel buddies were Lisa, intern with Diaconia in Southern Honduras, David, who works for Parnters Worldwide in Tegucigalpa, Joel and Deanna who are Lisa's friends from Canada, Calixto, the guide we hired to show us around, and Calixto's kids Sarai and Samuel.

Calixto used to work for the Honduran forest service, and is a strong advocate for protecting Honduras' tropical forests. Matt wanted to get to know Calixto because he is thinking about taking groups of young people on hikes. The idea would be to use this 'natural classroom' as a way to teach young people about how God calls us to care for the creation He has given us.

We hiked on "trails", or rather through the river bed which sometimes was knee-deep in water and other times required a machete to clear the path.

Other times we went nearly straight UP the mountain. Calixto said the trails were "a little inconvenient". I'd say so!

Here's Tarzan swinging through the jungle.

It is a good thing that we went on this preliminary hike to get to know the terrain and Calixto before trying to bring any youth groups. The hiking was really difficult! But we did see some amazing scenery including waterfalls and a couple species of toucans. We heard howler monkeys and spider monkeys (but never saw them). We also were able to explore a beautiful cave.

Matt is looking forward to planning some hikes with Calixto and the groups of young people. Through the Environment and Ag program there are several groups of students organized into environment care groups. Helping them get to know the beauty of Honduras could be a great way to teach them to appreciate and care for God's creation.

Tour of Luz y Verdad

2009-03-14T10:06:00.000-06:00

By Katie and the 5th and 6th Graders at Luz y Verdad

The fifth and sixth graders at Luz y Verdad have prepared a tour of our school for you. For this project, they learned the words for parts of the school and learned some basic PowerPoint skills. This slideshow is a combination effort by Kelly, Estefany, Dariana and Yeimi (with some editing by Teacher Katie). Enjoy!

And... you're on!

2009-03-07T16:50:00.000-06:00

By Katie

If there's one quality it takes to live in Honduras, it's FLEXIBILITY! You never know when you'll be called upon to stand up and lead something. This happens especially in church, and can make the experience a little stressful, especially for well-planned Type A's like myself. We've been doing our best to train our friends to give us a warning, but sometimes that warning is only two minutes or so. Matt gets up and sings songs and prays all the time and I was called on last Sunday to teach Sunday school with no warning. These things get easier all the time as we have more Spanish words to use in each situation, thank goodness.

Here we are at the deacon's retreat in February, where we were called upon to lead a game about one minute before the game was to start. Imagine about 50 people in the crowd staring at us when this picture was taken. After a one minute deliberation we chose Simon Says, which failed miserably because we couldn't remember the names of body parts under the pressure. Then we said "Simon says DANCE", which is a really bad thing in Honduran Christianity. Oops.

The Ladies' Group

2009-03-07T16:24:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Recently the ladies at our church formed a group called the "Diaconas" for the purpose of doing fundraisers and using the money for people in the church who need it. I'm the treasurer of the group. I hardly know how to cook Honduran dishes, so it's one way I can be a part of the group.

Yesterday and today we were hard at work making mondongo, tripe (cow stomach) soup. It sounds disgusting, but really is quite tasty. There are over fifty ingredients and we made 100 plates, so it was no small task. More than ten women helped with the project, chopping all kinds of vegetables and cooking the meat and soup over the fire.

This is one of two gigantic pots that we used for the mondongo.

The project was definitely a success in many ways. We made lots of money for our fund and the group is really pulling together to organize things for the church. It's exciting to be a part of the growing vibrancy of La Mora Iglesia Cristiana Reformada!

This pot contains 50 servings of mondongo. The main ingredients are vegetables of every kind, bits of tripe, macaroni, little balls of corn flour and spices, Maggi cubes, tomato paste, salt and sugar.

The Hogs

2009-03-01T14:37:00.000-06:00

By Matt

When I came to Honduras I never dreamed I would be working so much with hogs. The good thing is that it's something I am pretty used to. My dad, both grandpas, several uncles, and a bunch of cousins all have worked in the hog business. Actually I have been talking with them every once in a while to get advice. Thanks for the help guys.
I also never expected to use so many of the analysis tools that I learned in graduate school. My coworker David and I put together an elaborate, interactive spreadsheet that analyzes the hog project here including different diets, prices of all the feed ingredients available, average litter size, etc. The spreadsheet is helpful because it helps us understand what things most affect the profit. It also enables us to make up new diets based on the feed ingredient prices and still meet the basic nutritional needs of the hogs.

One of the main problems we have right now is that most of the group members lost their crops this year in the flooding, so they don’t have corn available. Now we are in the dry season, so you can’t grow much unless you have an irrigation system. We made an agreement with the group and another community member which allows them to use an irrigation system and grow corn during this season which will be used for pig feed.
Right now we are averaging about 7 surviving piglets per litter, and have 52 piglets in total for the group. We have found a feed supplier that mixes feed right here in Catacamas, and has very good prices, so we have been working with him to supply feed for the pigs during this time when there is very little food available in the community.

me, castrating a pig

We are also working with the group to plan for this coming production year so that they will plant enough to provide the food they need for their hogs. One of the alternative crops we are promoting is the Moringa tree. The leaves and seeds are high in proteins and vitamins, and can serve as part of the hog diets. Thanks to the Carpinteros group that funded the Moringa tree proposal David and I were able to travel to Siguatepeque to get seeds, and I planted 100 Moringas this week. This will allow us to plant around 10 trees for each family, with plans to plant many more when the rainy season begins. The group has been quite responsible in caring for the trees we have planted with them before, so we trust that they will be able to water and care for these initial 10 trees during the dry season.

This project is a lot different than the hog operations I am used to in Minnesota and Iowa, but I am glad to be able to put to use some of that experience from growing up on a farm. It kind of makes me feel at home.

Computer Supplies

2009-02-22T15:43:00.000-06:00

By Katie

The school year has started out on a good foot, praise God! The only big surprise for me in the first week was that I will be the computer teacher, teaching one-hour classes each day of the week. I'm glad for the change of format; last year each teacher taught computers for their own class so naturally no one took ownership of the computer lab. But now, after some headaches that come with fixing computers, we're getting closer to starting.

However, I need some replacement parts to get the computers in working order, so here is where you come in. Does anyone have any of the following items sitting around your house from old computers? Would you be willing to donate them to our school?

1. Two mice (can be USB connection or the traditional green plug)
2. Two keyboards (again, USB or purple plug)
3. One power strip
4. One walkman cd player (I found some English CDs in the computer lab that match our textbooks. I can hook up some computer speakers to a walkman to use them).

Money is very tight around the school this year, as I'm sure it is at all schools around the globe. The government in Honduras raised the minimum wage so that Luz y Verdad needs to pay the teachers more just to meet the minimum wage requirements. So, we'll be doing fundraisers to make the ends meet, which means no money is available for any other thing other than salaries.

If any of you have one of these items at home or work that you would be willing to mail down here, please leave a comment or send me an email (mattkatiedekam@gmail.com).

Thanks in advance! We appreciate your help in "bridging the digital divide"!

Back to School

2009-02-11T15:18:00.000-06:00

By Katie

It's that time of year--everyone's buying their new school uniforms, notebooks and pencils. The neighborhood kids are fighting like they've spent too much time together the past three months. Teachers are busy preparing their classrooms. The school year starts tomorrow!

I'll be helping in the English classroom at Luz y Verdad again this school year. I spent the "summer break" teaching a few of the kids in first and second grade who are struggling readers. During the school year they wear uniforms of tan and brown, but only one wore his in this picture.

The school is a part of Worldwide Christian Schools. You can read a rather vivid description of the school on their webpage. It claims "Hardship is a way of life for this school." I would certainly echo that statement. It has been interesting to see how the summer break has unfolded, and still I'm curious to see who actually shows up to teach tomorrow for the first day.

For those of you who have known me for a while, you might ask yourself why I have a terrible attraction to schools with bizarre qualities. I ask myself the same thing! We do have a new director and a strong board and I'm hopeful to see where they can bring us.

I ask for your prayers for my time there, and for the positive changes that the school needs.

An Almost-All-Nighter

2009-02-05T20:53:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Last Saturday Matt and I were chaperones of a huge all-nighter (almost) that united youth from most of the Cristiana Reformada churches in Olancho. Over 150 people came! We were surprised at the great turnout.

We were involved in this through the Ecclesiastical Training program with Diaconia Nacional. Our supervisor Roldan had already set up a very energetic youth board of directors who did an excellent job planning the night. There were several preachers, groups of singers/songleaders and performances by each group. Here is a picture of Matt, Brayan and Oscar performing a song.

Matt and I had the task of leading games. We had a bunch planned, but had to throw a lot of them out at the last minute due to a cultural difference: in North America kids come to all-nighters dressed ready to run and be active. That's not the case here, nearly every girl had on high-heels and there were even a few prom dresses. Huh... Here we are playing a name game.

There was one thing common between all-nighters in the two cultures though. There was plenty of energy! Here's a quick video of some singing.

Around 1:30 am it started to rain, which was a problem because we were in a school yard without a great option for moving things indoors. So, we called it a night and ended the event early. All went well, and the youth definitely planned an event to be proud of.

We'd like to say a HUGE thank you to our friends Christy at Madison Square Church and Ben, Tim, and Cheri at Grace Adventures Youth Camp for giving us some wonderful ideas for group games.

Water is NOT a Simple Substance

2009-01-25T07:35:00.000-06:00

By Katie

"Water is a problem here." This is a sentence we hear often, and let me tell you, it's the truth. We get and use our water in extremely different ways than those of you who live in North America. Here's a little picture tour of all things water in our neck of the woods.

Our water comes mainly in a truck. We call the water man when we're out. Sometimes it takes him 24 hours to come, but once we were without water for five LONG days because he kept putting off coming. We need water about every three weeks. The cost for 450 gallons is about $11.

We have two places that we keep the water; one is this tank, which provides the water for our toilet and shower through a tube to the house. Here the water man is filling it up.

The other place we keep water is in the pila in the back yard. On this day, the pila was empty so I was scrubbing it out. It gets dirty because it is open all the time. Once we tried covering it with a plastic tarp, but the mosquitos loved the nice protection the tarp gave and breed like crazy in the water. We never did that again!

After the time we waited for five days to get water, we bought a fifty gallon barrel so we could go to the local water pump when the water ran out and we were still waiting for the water man. On this day, our neighbors came with us and we loaded up every water container we could find in our truck.

After all the work at the pump, don't forget that there's still the work of unloading all the water into the pilas (water containers).

There are two other ways of acquiring water, both shown in this picture. You can see the PVC pipe cut in half and used as a downspout and the container that collects the rain water off the roof. The other is covered in the green tarp. It is a small cement-lined basin that has a spigot from the city. Sometimes there is a little bit of water that comes through this pipe. Our neighbors use both of these methods, but we do not.

Sometimes we get an unfortunate visitor in our water, these little squirmy bugs. We always pour bleach in the water, and we have a sock filled with a chemical that is supposed to kill them, but it's not always successful.

So thank goodness we use different water for drinking! We buy five-gallon jugs of drinking water from the store for about $1.50. We use a little more than five gallons per week.

We are fortunate to have a modern bathroom, most of our neighbors have outhouses. The water from the black tank flushes the toilets and provides water for the shower. The sink does not work. There is no hot water, so if we want to take a warm shower, we boil the water on our stove and take a bucket shower.

One of the challenges of not having a kitchen sink is doing dishes in the dark. We have a light in the back, but it's not sufficient to see whether a dish is truly clean, so we use the headlamp at night.

And of course, there's no washing machine, or rather, I am the washing machine.

This is one example of one way the people here deal with water. Each location presents its own challenges and opportunities. We've been to places where the people are much more disadvantaged in other ways, but have running water in a kitchen sink. Development of water projects is slow in coming to this mountainous country and often gets set back with each passing hurricane or tropical storm.

Our Church in Catacamas

2009-01-20T16:31:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Before coming to Catacamas, one of our biggest prayers was finding a church because we've learned how important that is to settling down into a new place. The second week we were here we went to Iglesia Cristiana Reformada, La Mora (one of two CRC churches in Catacamas), and they instantly put us to work. We took that as a welcome sign, and have dug our heels in there ever since. Hardly a day goes by when we're not there for one reason or another. Our car has become the church bus and the side lot has become where I store my bike most days.

We eat Sunday dinner with this family every week. The rest of the small congregation has been very welcoming and supportive as well.

Row 1: Pastor Isidro, his wife Delia, Angela, Katie, Brian, "Abuelo" (Grandpa) Roberto
Row 2: Elias, Raúl, Angel

Matt, Pastor Isidro, Oscar Jr. and Oscar Sr. are also deep into a project growing peppers and tomatoes at the school to sell.

We're incredibly thankful for these people. There's no doubt that being far from home would be much more difficult without them. We praise God for them and continue to pray for the increasing vitality this small church is experiencing.

Book Review: Freedom of Simplicity

2009-01-14T06:38:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Recently Matt and I were in a hotel and had the opportunity to watch CNN and Good Morning America in English. It was interesting to hear how many times words like “less”, “fewer” and “shoestring” were used. It seems the economic recession is really creating a fad of “less is best” in the United States these days.

I had been reading this book, Freedom of Simplicity by Richard J. Foster, when I saw the tv shows. The book is very aptly named; Foster breaks down what simplicity is and how to find freedom in it. Simplicity is much deeper than what the media is promoting these days.

Of course Foster talks about the things you would expect in a book on simplicity: prayer, money, time. He also talks about how simplicity is both a grace and a discipline. If he were to write “Five Simple Steps to Simplicity”, he would be focusing too much on discipline and neglecting grace, therefore crossing into an ugly legalism. In fact, the first chapter is called “The Complexity of Simplicity” and sets the stage well for the rest of the book.

Another thing that deserves mentioning is the sources Foster draws from to write the book. He quotes the Old and New Testament, of course, but also includes examples from the saints of all denominations through the centuries, along with examples from his own life and the lives of his friends. In doing this, he shatters any thoughts that simplicity is a new idea with the Green Revolution or the recession (the book was written in 1981, before all that anyway).

It’s a beautiful book, one that I will definitely re-read often as my life changes. Read it for a breath of fresh air.

Singing in Spanish

2009-01-12T11:37:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Señor Nate Vanderzee of Grand Rapids Christian High School put in a request for a song to share with his Spanish classes. Here´s what we at La Iglesia Cristiana Reformada La Mora have to share with you.

First, an introduction by my two favorite three-year-olds, Elias and Raúl:

No importa la iglesia que vaya,
Si detrás de Calvario tú estás.
Si tu corazón es como el mío, Dame la mano y mi hermano será.

Dame la mano, dame la mano,
Dame la mano y mi hermano será. (Repetir)

A few notes on the video:

We sing this coro at every service. When shaking hands, one needs to go as fast as possible, trying to get to every single person in the room before the song is over. This seems to be the manner in which this is done, almost as if your life depends on it!

This is one coro in a cadena de coros, a chain of choruses. Coros are very short songs all sung to the same chords and strung together to make one song that's about ten minutes long. You can hear the end of one and the beginning of another one in the video. The song leader sings them in whatever order the spirit moves, and there are no written words. This style of praising really got Matt and I down at first because it's really difficult to learn the songs and participate. We're doing better now, though, and learning more all the time.

Feliz Año Nuevo (Happy New Year)

2009-01-04T15:15:00.000-06:00

by Matt

After Katie's family left we came back to Catacamas, and were kind of sad. Probably sad because we had such a great time with her family, and it was time to get back to reality. Also because it is hard to be apart from your friends and family during the holidays, and even harder in a foreign country. Anyway we decided to get right back on a bus and go visit some old friends near Minas de Oro, Honduras.

While studying at the U of MN I had done an internship with some coffee farmers for an organization called Tierra Nueva. We always keep in contact, and they invited us to stop by for the new year since we had the time off anyway.
First we went to a small village high in the mountains called Pocitos to the house of Tobias. Tobias showed us his ripe coffee which is just starting to be harvested. We had a great time with the family. There is no electricity in Pocitos, so we went to bed early, and slept well because it is really cool at night up in the mountains.

Next we got a ride from Pocitos through the mountains to Tablon, where Apolinario and his family lives. We spent new years eve there in Tablon eating lots of Tamales and drinking lots of really good coffee. Actually there was a period of about two days during which the only thing we ate for breakfast lunch and dinner were tamales! Good thing they taste good and agree well with my stomach. In Honduras it is tradition to celebrate the new year by "burning the old man". So, you take a bunch of old clothes, stuff them with sticks, grass, and fireworks and make it look like a person. Then at midnight you light it on fire. It is supposed to represent leaving behind all the bad things of the past year. We stayed up well past midnight waiting for the old man to burn since he was a little damp and didn't really want to start up.

Finally we passed through San Luis visiting Carlos briefly, and then on to Minas de Oro where we met up with Dagoberto. We ate some more tamales, got to look at Dago's coffee processing operation, and then roasted coffee with Dagoberto. Dago is the only Honduran I know that brews coffee without sugar. Katie and I were happy to have some rich, dark, fresh, bitter coffee!

It was really a blessing to see all these people again and it helped prepare us for coming back to live in Catacamas where we have the luxuries of electricity and relatively easily accessible transportation.

Feliz Navidad, Island Style

2008-12-29T19:05:00.001-06:00

By Katie

My mom, dad and sister Emily had the wonderful opportunity to come to Honduras to celebrate Christmas with Matt and I. We went to the funky island of Utila, an island off the north coast of Honduras filled with scuba divers from around the world. We had a wonderful time visiting, swimming/snorkling and exploring a new part of Honduras together. And, my mother reports that both Matt and I look healthier than she expected. Thanks, Mom!

It was a memorable Christmas and I'm so thankful that my family got to come share the experience.

Buena Vista and Alfalit

2008-12-29T13:37:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Just before Christmas Matt and I had the opportunity to do an intercambio, an exchange with another CRWRC-sponsored organization called Alfalit. We traveled with CRWRC staffers Ana and Irene to Olanchito to meet with the Alfalit staff and stopped in on some of the folks benefiting from their programs.

We went to one community called Buena Vista to hold a meeting with some of the community members. These folks will be receiving a group of the Carpenteros from Ontario who will be building latrines and visiting with some groups they provide microloans for. I don't often get to attend meetings like these, so I found it to be very interesting. The meeting began with introductions of everyone, and Irene spoke a bit about the work that CRWRC does through its partner organizations in Honduras. Ana then led a discussion on cross-cultural communication, which was really fun to listen to from the minority standpoint. They talked about what work the Canadians would be doing and a little about how they might react to certain things. The community members spent some time nailing down the logistics of where the Carpenteros people would sleep, who would do the cooking and reminders to get the sand and water prepared for the cement before the group came, and to help single mothers do the same. I had heard that this community was on-the-ball when it came to organizing themselves, and they really proved it at this meeting!

God at Work (or, a biodigester for grandma)

2008-12-16T17:26:00.000-06:00

By Matt

On our most recent project for the Ag/Environment program David and I got a glimpse into how God is working through Diaconia Nacional. We spent a week in the community of Los Charcos, teaching the people how to make biodigesters and building one for free as an example. A biodigester is a system that uses manure to produce methane gas for cooking, and it is helpful because it reduces the need for firewood, and also eliminates smoke in the kitchen.

On the first day we had the exciting activity of selecting who would get the example biodigester built at their home. 18 people showed up at the first meeting, so we put 18 little slips of paper in a bowl one of which said "biodigester" and handed them out. There was one older woman at the meeting who wasn't really sure if she could make it to the training all week because her house was pretty far away and she has a tough time walking, and she had no-one to look after her house while she was gone. A lot of the other people were really glad that she had showed up, and were encouraging her to keep coming for the rest of the week. Before we started handing out papers David read a Bible verse and gave a little message (since he is also a pastor, this is pretty natural for him), and we prayed that the week's work would be in God's hands. As we picked slips of paper she was one of the last to draw, but the biodigester went to her, and everyone was very excited! She immediately got up and started hugging people. It was very clear that most of the people were hoping she would get it. It turns out that many of the women of the church have been trying to get her to come to church, and commit her life to Christ. They said that this would be a great testimony to this woman and her family and to the community since her house is near the bus stop and a lot of people would pass by during the project.
We built the biodigester and trained the group on how to build their own. The work turned out well, and the community really rallied to help out this woman, who we called "abuela"(grandma). At the end of the last day we all prayed together as a group, and Abuela left with a new biodigester and many new and meaningful relationships with the women of the Church. David and I left feeling like we had played a small part in the work God is doing in Honduras.

David, "Abuela", and I

The Biodigester

Gift Catalog

2008-12-10T14:00:00.000-06:00

By Katie

The CRWRC Gift Catalog is an opportunity for people to give money to certain projects around the world, often in the form of a gift to your family member or friend. Check it out here. I thought I'd highlight the Honduras projects to illustrate in a bit more detail how the funds are used.

Water Storage Container (USD $65)
Matt and I just met with a group from Canada called the Capenteros who were on their way back from building a series of these, called pilas here in Honduras. They were in the southern part of Honduras building pilas and doing a variety of other things.

Nutrition Kit for Children (USD $15)
The southern part of Honduras struggles the most with malnutrition. Diaconia currently has two nurses in that area who train women in better nutrition and health. They work in twelve communities and have a woman in each community who runs a mini-pharmacy through which the contents of these kits are distributed.

Water Filter (USD $50)
The nurses in the south also do teachings about various health topics. One of these topics is the importance of clean water for drinking. They distribute these filters to families who need access to clean water.

These particular projects are directed mostly to the south, although I think there are going to be some pilas built closer to us in months to come. One of the nurses there is Lisa, a CRWRC intern from Thunder Bay, Ontario. She writes an interesting blog on her work in and around Choluteca.

¡Feliz Navidad! Merry Christmas!

neighbors

2008-11-30T11:10:00.000-06:00

By Matt

Here is a picture of the family that we live next to (we share the same lot). From left to right is Doris´ daughter Alejandra (16), Noé (husband), Doris, her son Pedro (20), and Katie and I. We love living next to them. They take very good care of us, and give us lots of good advice for living in Honduras. Doris teaches Katie how to cook Honduran food, and recently Katie taught Doris how to make some great oatmeal rasin cookies. In this picture we are dressed up and ready to go to a birthday party of a friend of the family.

Garden Update

2008-11-30T08:35:00.000-06:00

Look at these two pepper plants planted on the same day!

The pepper plants in the ground:

The pepper plants in the tires. The tires have better soil and hold moisture better:

Youth Leadership Training

2008-11-26T12:36:00.001-06:00

By Katie

Last Saturday Matt and I worked together along with Roldan, our supervisor from Diaconia, to put on a youth rally of sorts on the topic of leadership and working together. Ecclesiastical training is one of the areas that Diaconia works in (along with environment, health, microcredits, etc.). This was our first opportunity to work in this area.

We met with youth ages 10-13 from about four different rural communities around Olancho. We had been a little nervous about the whole thing, especially about how our Spanish would hold up for six hours of talking about spiritual and other non-concrete things. That's no easy task if you are new to a language! But, we picked up a group from a community just outside Catacamas and as soon as I saw the kids, I knew we would be ok. I sat in the back seat with four very excited girls who were going into fifth grade, my favorite grade to teach. They were so happy to be there that I knew we couldn't go wrong.

For the day, we planned a bunch of games and discussions about group work and leadership. Thanks to some resources from our friends at Grace Adventures Camp, where Matt worked one summer, and Christy from Madison Square Church, where we used to be youth group leaders, we had some great games and even greater reflection on what happened. Matt also gave a talk and there was singing. The ladies of the community served us a wonderful lunch. It was an amazing time for the students to get together and feel totally safe to participate in everything. God blessed that time richly!

We are going back in January with the same group and we'll use the leadership/group work principles to plan and give a service by the youth for the community. We're excited to see what God has in store for this day too! Pray with us that these activities help the students grow and deepen their faith.

Graduation Ceremony

2008-11-26T12:31:00.000-06:00

By Katie

Last Saturday evening Matt and I went to the graduation ceremony for the kindergarteners and sixth graders from Luz y Verdad, the school I work at. It was held at the church we go to in Catacamas. It was pretty normal as far as graduation ceremonies go, except that it was hard to tell whether the kids were dressed for graduation or a beauty pagent! The girls wore very fancy dresses, all had their hair done up or in tight curls and even the kindergarteners wore make-up. It was a very Latina experience. Enjoy the pictures.