Feliz Navidad, Island Style

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Recuperación

My heart is a little heavy this week over what's going on in the Honduran education system (well, heavier than usual). This week is recuperación, which means that all the kids at all levels who did not pass their exams last week need to come back this week until they have passed. At my school, about a third of the kids needed recuperación. They are described as aplazados, "the defered", a word I refuse to use. It seems that these children see themselves as such. Every school in the entire country works like this, and there is no exemption from it for Christian schools. This is not how God sees his children!

In addition, the public school teachers were on strike for over a week earlier this year. The president said they would need to go until the end of November in order to make up for it. From what I understood from a radio broadcast, and what I see in the public schools in our town, it seems that the teachers have ignored this and quit school when they wanted to, shorting the kids of their right to be educated.

I have a new-found love of No Child Left Behind and the harsh consequences that go along with these laws in the United States!

Book Review: Communities First

By Katie

I recently finished the book Communities First, edited by Jay Van Groningen. It's a project in collaboration with Center on Faith in Communities and CRWRC. Our small group at Calvary had started it but Matt and I left before we finished. It had produced some great conversations and visions for what our church could be in the community.


The book makes a distinction between churches that minister in a community, to a community and with a community. We need to strive to be with the community, willing to work along side them, to shape them, and more importantly to be shaped by them.

The book encourages us to bring shalom to our neighborhoods, helping them to become more like heaven in the relationships people have, in the beauty of the neighborhood, in strong and accountable institutions, and in sharing and working together for the common good. It outlines possibilities for what this is and isn't, giving some practical advice to churhces and individual Christians wanting to make the most healthy difference possible.

Maybe you've been reading our blog and thinking this development stuff can only happen in foriegn countries. This book will help you think again!

Communities First books and workbooks can be ordered here. I also noticed on the CRWRC website that there's a conference coming up about this. Check it out here.

All Good Things

By Katie

After some tough days, we've had a bit of sunshine in the last two weeks. I've leaned on (or complained to) some of you and want to share that we are out of the valley! The electricity has been very consistant, the water man finally came and filled our tank, I made some killer oatmeal-raisin cookies, we went to Tegucigalpa and met with the CRWRC staff and Diaconia staff there, and got some things that we needed. There was a sale on our cell phone for calling the States, so we took advantage of that. Later, we got a mobile internet connection at our house which has made a lot of things so much easier, including talking to more of you (how great!) and actually helps us save money on our communication costs. It's been invaluable to use to research things for our work as well and has been a blessing to the whole organization. The modem for the internet ended up being free to us and we got on a deal that makes it only $15 a month and Diaconia will continue to use the modem after we leave. Not bad!

Thank you to those who pray for us. In a foreign culture, it is very easy to see that God provides for our every need. Your prayers for us do not go unnoticed by our Lord. Please, if there is any way we can pray for you, let us know.

Hogs and Moringa

By Matt

Diaconia is working on a pig raising project in the community of Guanabano. The Ag/Env program has nine sows and one boar distributed among nine farmers. Most of the sows are pregnant, and recently one gave birth to a litter of ten (of which nine survived). The idea is that the farmers can pay back the value of the original sow with from the profits of selling the hogs for meat.



The trick is to find cheap feed for these hogs. “Concentrate,” which contains soybean meal and other essential minerals for hog diets, is available in sacks locally, but it is quite expensive. This month we are planning a training session with a Honduran technical institute to teach the farmers how to make their own concentrate. This should provide a cheaper source of feed for the program. We are also looking into alternative ingredients that are available locally and at lower prices. This is the fun part!

In the midst of researching alternative feeds we were told about a program in Haiti that uses Moringa trees as hog feed. Moringa is a pretty amazing tree. The leaves are edible and high in protein as well as many other important vitamins. The seeds are also edible and high in nutritional value. It just so happens that earlier someone from the North American church had requested a packet of Moringa seeds for Diaconia from ECHO (a Christian agricultural organization in Florida). Well, we planted the seeds and they grew very quickly! These two photos show the trees 6 days after planting (about 1.5” tall) and 11 days after planting (about 8”).





We are hoping to include the Moringa as a possible alternative hog feed. In this way we would be planting more trees and providing more food. Moringa is also good for humans. The leaves taste quite good. Only the Lord knows how this will all end up, but it was very encouraging to me to see parts of the body of Christ working together, supporting each other, and sharing information to help bring some of our brothers and sisters out of poverty.

Tragedy in La Avispa

By Matt

Recently I traveled with some of the Diaconia staff to the community of La Avispa (the wasp). The long and bumpy road to this remote community cuts up into the mountains and passes some steep-sided valleys. A couple of months ago, just after we had arrived in Honduras, a disaster struck the community of La Avispa. In the valley above the village a large embankment of rock and soil had formed because of an earlier landslide. One night during a torrential rainstorm water built up behind the embankment until it burst around midnight. The wall of water trees and rocks ripped through La Avispa sweeping away houses and people. The water passed just in front of the Christian Reformed Church and many of the victims were members of this church. The first picture which looks like a dry river bed is where several houses once stood just in front of the church.



The purpose of our trip was to bring food and supplied to the people who lost their homes. In all we were able to supply 15 families thanks to donations from North American churches. It was incredible and humbling to listen to the stories of the survivors. Many people woke up to find themselves being swept away along with their houses. Others told about how after escaping the deluge they gathered on a nearby hill and prayed together in the rain and darkness. My understanding is that on that night 6 people died, including 3 children. In the next picture we are handing out supplies to victims in front of the church building.



The chronic deforestation of this part of Honduras played a part in this tragedy. Wealthy landowners have often hired the poor to cut down the forests of Honduras illegally. The lumber is harvested and sold, and then the bare mountainsides are used as pastures for cattle. The problem is that without a single tree root to prevent erosion the steep slopes give way after a heavy rain causing damage, and in some cases creating unstable embankments in the ravines. The pictures here show that the slopes above La Avispa have been almost totally deforested (some trees remain near the top). You can also see that the rains resulted in many new landslides.



The next picture shows a closer view of where the embankment burst and ripped out many large trees. One community member mentioned that the government is planning on reforesting some of the problematic slopes above La Avispa.



David and I are thinking about doing some tree planting activities in this area as well through the agriculture and environment program. Another more immediate need that we see is many farmers who lost all of their tools and supplies for working the land, planting, and harvesting. Hopefully we can work something out to help in that area as well.
This event shows that when people don’t take into account the well-being of the larger community, especially in terms of the management of natural resources, everyone loses. It also reinforced the importance of the Ag/Environment program at Diaconia which emphasizes our responsibility to be good stewards of Gods creation.

Tropical Depression

By Matt and Katie

This describes the weather and, yes maybe our state of mind for the past week or so. Suffice it to say it has rained a LOT! "Tropical Depression 16" has been dumping water all over Honduras for the past week. It has caused a lot of destruction and deaths. Hundreds of people have lost their houses due to flooding and mud slides including the mother of our neighbor Noè. Her house that was made out of adobe got saturated and fell over last Sunday night. Thankfully she got out of the house before it collapsed. In Catacamas we have been without power for 7 days, and are not sure when it will come back. So today we drove 45 minutes to Juticalpa to get some things and use the internet. But it has been sunny for the past two days and things are starting to dry out. The military is working really hard putting up new power lines and the municipality is repairing the roads. Please pray for the people of Honduras who have lost their livelihoods and families in this storm. We are seeing first-hand that during disasters like this it is usually the poor who are most affected because their property is often not suitable for building, or their houses are not made of strong enough materials.
We just thought we´d let you know why you haven´t heard much from us lately. We are doing fine, and did not have any major problems with water in our house because it is on high ground and is well-built with a ditch along the road. We will post more updates as we are able.

A View of Catacamas

Gardening

October 9, 2008 By Katie



We’ve spent some time working on building a garden and a compost hole lately. Don’t be deceived by the pictures—Matt didn’t do ALL the work (although he did do quite a bit of it). Our neighbor Noél and I pitched in too.

Only in the Tropics

October 9, 2008

By Katie

The other night I found this little frog in our house. It was about an inch long and was jumping more than four feet. Do the math: that’s forty-eight times its own body length! I got Matt out of bed and we chased it around the house for a little while to marvel at it. Entertainment is pretty cheap around here.

Dia de la Biblia (Bible Day)

September 30, 2008
By Katie
It had been about a week and a half since there had been a parade in Catacamas, so luckily there was another one this last Sunday (I think there is one this coming Friday too to celebrate our great town, we’ll have to see). This Sunday I got to march in it. The parade was for Dia de la Biblia and included many of the Christian schools and organizations in town. It ended with a big church service in the park. It was really a neat thing to be with so many Christians gathered in one place, proclaiming Jesus’ sovereignty in their town. I was glad to be a part of it. All of Honduras celebrated Dia de la Biblia with many other parades and celebrations all over the country.

The movie is a little fuzzy, so you’ll have to trust that the girl in the brown dress under the umbrella is me.

Language Learning and Grace

September 30, 2008
By Katie

Matt and I were humbled this Sunday when a family at church spent quite a bit of time talking with us and getting to know us. They showed an amazing amount of perseverance in the conversation since it’s not easy to talk to language learners like ourselves. The time they spent laboring through the conversation meant a lot to me. They could have smiled, shook our hands and then talked amongst themselves. Actually, this family is only one example of the many people we encounter each day who show us grace by working hard at communicating with us (especially with me, as my Spanish is weaker than Matt’s). I’ll never be able to repay some of these people who I encounter, so I hope that the readers of this blog might read this account, and in turn choose to show such grace to the language learners they meet. Please help us pay it forward!

Classes and more classes

September 27, 2008
By Katie

After the week of many holidays, I was able to return to the school Luz y Verdad for a full week of classes. It was very nice to see better how the school runs and where I will fit in there.

The school serves K-6 with kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third/fourth grades, and fifth/sixth grades. There is one English teacher named Marcos who I work with. English is the only special and all students have it everyday for 20-40 minutes.

About halfway through this week, I took over the third/fourth grade and Marcos and I split the fifth/sixth grade into two small groups. I teach the fifth grade in that class. There is a textbook that the teacher uses, but it has limited use since only a few kids still have their photocopied versions of the text and there is no teacher’s edition which has many of the instructions for the activities. I’d like to see what other supplementary material we can come up with to boost the program a little.

School is done at noon every day and I ride the school bus home with the kids. I had been praying about what to do with the rest of my time. The housework and making all our food from scratch has been keeping me busy, but if you know me, I like to keep things moving faster than that! But, no worries, a situation has presented itself.

I had been getting to know my little neighbor girl, six-year-old Briana. Her friends liked to shout “Katie!” to which I would respond “Hola!” repeatedly a dozen times per day. Doris told me that Briana can’t read and that she may have to repeat first grade. I talked with Briana’s mom too and she told me that the entire first grade class can’t read (except for one person). Katie’s After-school Program was instantly born. Just like that, I’ve got about 12 kids (with more every day) coming over to my front porch in the afternoons for classes from 2:00-4:00 five days per week. The students take this very seriously and everyone who walks by starts cracking up. I think it must be quite a sight! I’m thankful for the answered prayer of an opportunity to do what I do best and am praying now for the students that they can learn and see God in the classes.

Biodigesters

September 27, 2008
By Matt

This past week David (of Diaconia Nacional) and I have been working with a technical institute in Honduras (INFOP) to train communities on how to make biodigesters. A biodigester is basically a large plastic bag in a trench filled with water and manure. Bacteria digest the manure and produce methane gas. The gas travels from the inflated bag through a PVC pipe to the kitchen where it is used for cooking. This is helpful because the traditional cooking fuel used here is wood, which can be scarce at times, and the smoke causes health problems. Diaconia and INFOP collaborated to build a biodigester in the town of Guacoca to serve as a model and a means of training for the community.
We worked really hard on the biodigester this week. We hauled water, cow manure, and equipment to the worksite. Dug a big trench and filled the bag with a mixture of water and manure. About 12 community members helped out and the entire process was very interactive so that now they are trained to build their own biodigesters. In the end everything looked good. Now we will just have to wait about 15 to 25 days for it to start producing gas. To maintain the process the owner will need to put in a 5 gallon pail of half manure, half water every other day. There are a lot of cows around, so this should not be a problem.





Diaconia has a long term relationship with the community of Guacoca because there is a Christian Reformed Church there. Most of the people we worked with are members of that church. We spent the whole week working there, so it was a great chance to get to build relationships and get to know my brothers and sisters in Guacoca.

Stuff

September 26, 2008
By Katie

Being in a country where “stuff” is more scarce brings up a lot of questions about what to use and what not to use. We have a car to use on the weekends, but is it ok to be the only people who drive to church? Am I being too extravagant to ask my students to write things down in my class rather than just listen and read what I wrote on the chalkboard in order to save paper and pencils? How often should we shower since water here is scarce? As we are spreading our wings here in Honduras, we are constantly confronted with questions about how we should act and how we should approach the use of the things we have at our disposal. It would be nothing for me to buy a notebook for each kid at school, but in so doing would I set up myself as a person who has stuff to give, and diminish my effectiveness at identifying with the people? There aren’t black-and-white answers to these questions, so Matt and I spend a fair amount of time discussing them and praying about them.

The Hidden Honduras

By Matt

Three years ago when I was studying here in Honduras our class read a book called “Don’t Be Afraid Gringo” written by a Honduran woman named Elvia Alvarado (She also visited our class at the end of the semester). In the book Elvia talks a lot about how the poverty of Honduras is hidden, and out of reach of the average visitor. She is speaking about the lives of average Hondurans, specifically those who live in rural areas. One way this shows up is in the huge contrast between rich and poor. In a big city like Tegucigalpa you will see fancy hotels and beautiful shopping malls, but if you happen to make it to the outskirts of town you will see many people living in tiny shacks with dirt floors. In Santa Lucia where we studied Spanish there were huge mansions up on the hill with manicured lawns and vineyards. One day we took a walk with the family into the woods behind the mansions to a community of little shacks without running water or electricity where people were living in pretty rough conditions. We see the same contrast as we walk down the street to our house each day. There are nice little brick homes painted green and pink with glass windows and cars in the driveway and two doors down will be a house made from dirt blocks with limestone coating which seem to be slowly melting because of the rain. Honduras is truly a country of contrasts.

Internet Famine

By Katie

Our apologies to our readers who have been checking our blog the past two weeks only to find we STILL hadn’t updated anything. For one reason or another, we couldn’t get to the internet for a long time... but now you can feast on all the blogs we’ve been saving up!

Home in Catacamas

Here are some videos that show the house we are living in in Catacamas. Enjoy!

September 13, 2008

I have had a busy but good first week working with Diaconia Nacional. Doris, who lives next door, also works at Diaconia so we often ride together a couple miles to a nearby town called Santa Maria del Real where the office is located. This week I have been working with David Cruz on the environment/agriculture program. First we went to the tree nursery of the municipality and picked up a few loads of saplings to bring to a local high school that is doing some reforestation projects with Diaconia. In the past a lot of deforestation has happened in Honduras, especially in Olancho. The traditional way of cooking is using a woodstove, so firewood is in demand. Honduras is also known for its high quality timber such as mahogany. Some of the trees we supplied will be good for lumber in the future. David also has a nursery set up at Diaconia. He provides trees to farmers which will give a good return when they are sold as lumber in the future. In all we moved about 1000 little trees this week.



The high school we are working with is in another town about 30 minutes south of Catacamas across the valley. I have been driving on a lot of these trips, which has been just fine. We are in a valley and it is very flat terrain. It reminds me of rumbling down the gravel roads of Minnesota. The Sierra de Agalta mountain range looms just to the north of Catacamas. I love being this close to majestic mountains Driving down the dusty and very bumpy road we see a lot of people hauling milk from their dairy farms. There are a lot of cattle in Olancho. On one of the trips we also visited a few farmers that Diaconia has worked with to provide pigs (sows to be specific). The group shares a boar, and the piglets that are produced will be finished and sold for meat. I am excited to get more involved in this project.

This Friday I went with Don Roldan and Arturo to another community where they held a meeting in the local Christian Reformed Church. The meeting was held to help the community organize itself and form a board (President, Secretary, etc) that could help direct community projects. The people were very enthusiastic, and it was a great meeting. Being organized will help them be able to petition the government for grants and community development projects.

David and I will soon be working on a bio-digester stove project which I am very excited about. It is basically a big bag filled with manure that produces methane for use as cooking fuel. This type of stove would significantly cut down on fuel expense (either in terms of money or labor).

--Matt

Tostadas

Matt and I have been learning to cook Honduran over the past few weeks. Thanks to a cookbook I found when we were in Tegucigalpa and to the expert guidance of some Honduran mothers, we get better with every meal.

Here’s a creation that we’re quite proud of:


September 13, 2008

Tostadas

Shell: Corn tortillas fried in vegetable oil. Fry until just crispy, flipping once.

First layer: Red or black beans. We like them cooked with onions and a little hot sauce.

Second layer: Ground beef or chicken cooked with onion, tomato paste, and a teaspoon or so of vinegar.

Third layer: Chismol salsa consisting of one tomato, one green pepper, and one small onion all chopped finely. Add plenty of salt and lime juice to taste.

Buen provecho! (Bon apatite!)

-- Katie

Bienvenidos a Catacamas!

Matt and I have been in our new house in Catacamas for about six days now and we’re starting to get into the routine. We are blessed with a wonderful two-bedroom house next to a woman named Doris and her family. Doris works for Diaconia Nacional and takes great care of us. The house has a gas stove, refrigerator and a pila, a wash basin in the back yard. Doris and her family did a super job cleaning the place up for us and everything is sparkling. It’s very impressive!



We’ve begun our routine of going to our respective jobs here. Matt goes to the office every day and has been talking and learning about the history of the program and doing some visits to various places and making plans for future events. On Tuesday the staff had a little birthday party for me and another staff member, David. It was really thoughtful of them!



I went to school twice this week and met the staff and some parents and students. I’ll be helping the English teacher with his class. The school is sponsored by the Iglesia Cristiana Reformada (Christian Reformed Church of Honduras).

It’s one of those crazy weeks at school because there is a holiday today (Dia del Nino, Day of Kids) and there were classroom parties with piñatas, games, candy, cake and other food. On Monday it’s Independence Day and so the kids are practicing for their role in the parade. There is no school at all next week because of Independence Day and yet another holiday. This week is the equivalent of our spring break since the school year ends in about a month and a half.

All in all, things are going really well for us. We’re excited to be here and are very content with all that surrounds us.

The internet is a long way from our house, so we’ll probably only go once a week at best. Continue to write, though, and we’ll do our best to write back.

--Katie

Book Review: Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence

September 10, 2008

CRWRC armed us with a few books to read to help us discover more about the mission field. One of those books is Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence by David A. Livermore.

In the book, Livermore cites research that he and others have done on the impact of short-term missions on both the participants and the receiving parties. He exposes some common American assumptions about life, culture, mission work, and the Bible. He challenges us to "complexify" our understandings of these things, rather than do the typical American thing—to simplify them into easy-to-understand, and dangerously overgeneralized black-and-white categories.

For me, the most helpful section of the book was Part Three, about the theory of Cultural Intelligence (CQ). This was the first I had heard of this theory, and was impressed. He breaks CQ into four different, equally important parts:

Knowledge CQ: Understanding Cross-Cultural Differences
Interpretive CQ: Interpreting Cues
Perseverance CQ: Persevering through Cross-Cultural Differences
Behavioral CQ: Acting Appropriately

He mentions that the most training materials are made for Knowledge CQ and Behavioral CQ, but when used separately from the other two parts of Cultural Intelligence, they are at best useless knowledge and at worst extremely harmful in perpetuating vague generalizations about entire people groups. Books like Foreign to Familiar by Sarah A. Lanier and A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby Payne can only provide a quarter of what we really need to be skilled at intercultural communications (and that is only if we can trust those books to be the kind that don’t make too many overgeneralizations).

Livermore’s book is a good solid read for anyone working with people of other cultures, and especially for anyone going on a short-term missions project. I find it useful!

--Katie

Graduation

Matt and I have spent the last few weeks in Spanish classes. It has been such a blessing to have this time to review Spanish so intensively. The school, Centro Hondureño de Español, prepared us well for the months to come, teaching LOTS of Spanish grammar, along with helpful background like Honduran politics and culture. It was a very rich experience for us.



This picture was taken at our graduation from Spanish school. Pictured here are Laura (director), Lisa (fellow CRWRC intern), Matt and I (Hablando español = speaking Spanish, our graduation t-shirts), Gloria (Katie’s teacher), Maria Elvira (Lisa’s teacher), and Victor (Laura’s husband). Victor has an agriculture degree and has worked with many development organizations in Honduras over the past 20 years. Matt was able to interview him and get some good suggestions and make some great connections for his future work in Catacamas.

The last two weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about the “newcomers” I used to teach in Minneapolis. Man, I don’t know how they did it! I had four solid hours of school every day and then came home, ate lunch, and had no choice but to sleep for a half hour before starting a couple hours of homework. My head was totally filled up! My newcomers in Minneapolis had school all day (no recess) and then immediately after school they had an extra two and a half hours of after-school program. Luckily now I’m at a point where I don’t need naps, but I still don’t think I’m up for ten hours straight in my second language. Little by little, I get better though. Our language-learning continues to be a prayer request.

--Katie

Zamorano

This week my Spanish professor Erasmo (who is about my age) took me to see his alma mater. The Pan-American Agricultural School (a.k.a. Zamorano) is a gem of Honduras. Zamorano was started by in 1941 by Sam Zemurray, head of the United Fruit Company. The UFC had reaped plenty of benefits from the banana plantations on the north coast of Honduras and Sam wanted to give back. The school is well respected and draws students from all over Latin America and the world. Zamorano certainly the most impressive institution I have seen yet in Honduras. I have read about Zamorano several times, and many people have suggested that I go to see it given my background in agriculture, so this trip was a special treat.



The campus is neat and orderly including its tile-roofed stone buildings and rows of tall palm trees as well as its blue-uniform wearing students. Zamorano teaches agriculture in the classroom and in the fields. Students that don’t have class are working out in the fields, or in the processing facilities. Erasmo and I walked around for about 3 hours in the hot sun and we were still not able to see much of the campus. As I walked through the fields and courtyards I kept thinking that Zamorano stands out as an example of the amazing potential this country has.


--Matt

Life in Santa Lucia

A few days ago Katie and I needed some exercise, so we went on a long hike up to the top of the nearby mountain. There was a great view of Tegucigalpa (as you can see in the video). If I seem tired in the video it is because I had just hiked several miles uphill!


People keep asking us about the food in Honduras. Well, it is great! Look at this soup! Huge chunks of corn, beef, plantain, cabbage, and other tropical things that I don’t know how to say in English. Evelinda, the mom of the family we are living with is feeding us very well, and Katie is learning how to make all sorts of great Honduran dishes. This will come in handy when we move to our apartment in Catacamas in the first week of September.

Diaconia Nacional

I know many people may be interested in some more information about the organization we are working with here in Honduras. Here is a brochure that describes what Diaconia Nacional (a partner org of CRWRC) is all about. To read individual pages, just click on it and you'll get a larger version of that page.

Enjoy the View

We are now in Santa Lucia, a small town high in the mountains outside of Tegucigalpa. We are staying with a family here while we learn Spanish. The school we attend is the same school that the Peace Corps uses for its Spanish training. It is nice and cool in Santa Lucia, and the views are amazing. There are many places to look down and see the sprawling capital city below.

We each have our own teacher at the school, and the courses are tailored to our needs. This is a great preparation for the year we have ahead of us. Another volunteer from Canada named Lisa is here attending Spanish school as well. She will be working with Diaconia on health programs in the southern part of Honduras. We have only been here a few days and our Spanish is already improving. The teachers are also giving us many tips on how to understand Honduran culture. --Matt

In Tegucigalpa

Matt and I arrived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras yesterday. Ana the bridger from CRWRC and Dilia the director of Diaconia Nacional picked us up at the airport, took us out for lunch and then to a mall to get a cell phone, groceries and do some banking. After that we went back to the office that CRWRC and Diaconia share. It used to be a house, so we stayed the night there. We can’t say enough about how hospitable they’ve all been to us. We feel so blessed to be so well taken care of. They’re all very patient with me as I fumble with my Spanish and they practice their English. We go back and forth between the languages. Today we had a meeting with Ana of CRWRC and she’ll take us off to language school soon. Thanks for your prayers for a safe arrival!

Email us if you´d like our cell phone numbers. It´s incredibly cheap for us to call you too!
--Katie

In Michigan

Well, the U-haul is all unpacked and we are in beautiful west Michigan. Thanks for all the help from the De Kams getting the truck packed and sending us on our way.

Thanks to everyone who came to the going-away party at the Hamstra's on Sunday!Thanks also to the Hamstra family (Katie's folks) for putting it all together. There was a really good turnout, sorry if you came and we didn't get to talk with you for very long. It was great to see everybody.

This week we are making the final preparations for departure (paperwork, bank accounts, packing). We will also get to spend some time with Katie's family before we take off. It should be great.

Moving on

One week from today Matt and I will be checking out of our apartment in Minneapolis and loading up our U-Haul to bring to Michigan. We're storing our things at my parents' house for the year (thanks, Mom and Dad :)). Right now our house is a mess; we have boxes everywhere, evidence of our move to come.

We'll spend a little more than a week in Michigan (August 10-18; we'd love to see all of our Michigan friends--call us!). On August 18 at 5:35 am we fly to Houston and then on to Honduras. We'll be in Tegucigalpa in the early afternoon. It's a really short trip (especially compared to our friends Joy and Paul who are in Uganda right now--it took them two whole days of travel!).

We just got an email from our Honduran coordinator (Bridger, to use the terms CRWRC uses) about what we'll be up to in the first few weeks. Here it is:

On August 18, Ana (the Bridger) will pick us up from the airport and bring us to the CRWRC office.
From August 19-31 we'll be just outside of Teguc taking Spanish lessons.
From Sept 1-5 we'll be at the CRWRC office meeting the staff of CRWRC and Diaconia for a monthly meeting. From there, the Diaconia folks will bring us to Catacamas, our new hometown!

(Culture note: I just noticed how incredibly American I am to inform you all of my schedule...I'll have to adjust this mindset.)

Both Matt and I are really looking forward to the experiences we'll have working in Honduras. We can tell that we are being prayed for during this time of preparation because the peace we feel about this coming year can only be attributed to God and His care for us. Thank you for those prayers. We pray for you too, our friends and family from all over, in all your life situations. I predict that this year I'll learn a lot about the power of prayer.

Well everyone, we hope to see you soon. And if it doesn't work out to see you in person, we'll keep in touch another way.

--Katie

PS. Matt finished his thesis and defended it and now he has a master's degree! Yeah! Phew!

The Human Farm

For the past few days I have been in Minas de Oro under the care of the Diaz family. I am staying at the house of Guillermo. Minas de Oro is an old mining town surrounded by a circle of pine covered mountains. The elevation is high, so it is cool here. I sleep really well at night. I am reading the book "The Human Farm" by Katie Smith because I have more free time here in Minas. The book tells the story of Elías Sánchez, a Honduran man who started a model farm called Loma Linda to teach campesinos improved farming methods. I am amazed to find myself interacting with people who played a part in that story. Guillermo was Elías' boss at the ministry of natural resources here in Honduras, and he played a part in bringing the ideas of "The Human Farm" here to Minas de Oro, eventually resulting in the organization I am working for: Tierra Nueva. The main point of the book is that Elías focused on changing peoples hearts and minds before trying to change their farming practices. The book tells how this style of people-centered development work spread around Honduras and the world. I am soaking up all this experience and history each day as I interact with the people here, and I love it. It is humbling to see each day how God is taking care of me here, and preparing me for each next step.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

This is a question I have been asking my self a lot lately. Almost every family in the countryside has a few chickens roaming around the yard. When I approach on motorcycle, chickens on the side of the road almost always feel the need to frantically cross just in front of me at the last second. ¡Que barbaridad!
Lately I have been getting around via motorcycle, on foot, on mule, or in the back of pickups. The roads are pretty rough, so everyone goes fairly slowly. Since good quality coffee grows at high elevation, many coffee producers live in little villages high in the mountains. I have been visiting these small scale coffee producers to give them information about a certification they could get for their coffee (Rainforest Alliance). My goal is that they understand in detail what the certification is all about so they can make a good decision based on their present situation. Getting certified will take some work and cost some money, but it would likely get them a better price for their coffee, and it would benefit the community near the farm as well. We had a meeting this week with all the producers and the organization that does the certification. It was really good to connect the farmers with the resources of this organization, but I don´t think the producers are ready to start the process of certification yet.
Today I have some downtime here in San Luis. So, I went to find the other gringo in town. Charles works with Peace Corps and has been here for about a year. He is from the Twin Cities too. He led me here to the library where I can use the internet for free!

In Tegucigalpa

Two days ago I arrived in Tegucigalpa Honduras. I am here to finish up an internship that I am doing for the Sustainable Ag minor at the U of MN with a Christian organization called Tierra Nueva (TN). The project is to work with a group of coffee farmers near Minas de Oro. They are thinking about getting Rainforest Alliance certification for their farms. This could help them get a better price for their coffee.
Yesterday was the first storm of the rainy season. It rained really hard, and was the first rain they had seen in over 4 months! It was really hot when I arrived, but it is cooler now because of the rain.

I had a really good day yesterday. In the morning I went downtown to talk with Miguel Welches with ICADE (Institute for Cooperation and Self-Development) and Rainforest Alliance. It was really helpful, and I can see where my project fits into the whole process now. He gave me some good suggestions for how I could help and use my time here wisely. We might be able to have a big meeting/training with him and all the farmers while I am here. He gave me some good documents as well.
I am staying in Teguc with the host family I stayed with when I studied in Honduras. They are so great! Dora is the mom and she watches out for me and makes sure I am taken care of (and feeds me a lot of good honduran food, que rica!). Dora takes care of babies that have been abandoned by their parents at the hospital. The government pays her a little for this, but just enough to break even. Right now she has Maria Jose who is about 18 months and full of energy! She also has three month old Moises who is tiny and so beautiful. It just melts your heart to look into his big dark eyes and see him smile back at you.
In the afternoon I went to the Diaconia Nacional (DN) and CRWRC offices and met with Ana and Dalia (and the rest of the staff too). It was really great! My understanding is that DN is basically the Honduran sister organization of CRWRC.
We talked for a long time about all kinds of things and they were very helpful. I will try to sum up: When we arrive in August they can pick us up from the airport. For the first two weeks we will have language training in Santa Lucia which is on the way to Valle de Angeles, and is also the place where the Peace Corps people get their language training. After that, in the beginning of sept the DN staff has a meeting in Teguc, so we can join them and then head out to Catacamas on the 4th of sept. We will live in a house that is owned by Doris who works for DN. I think it might be like a compound with two houses. One house is for Doris, one for us. So we will have privacy, but also interaction with a family. The house has most of the basics, including two bikes that we can use thanks to the previous volunteers. The house is on the side of Catacamas nearest to Santa Maria de Real where the DN office is, so that's good. The school that is interested in having Katie teach English is a school of the CRC church in Honduras. They teach 7 grades and classes are in the mornings. The school is a 15 minute bus ride from our house. They said it is easy to take the bus. They have one english teacher, but they are interested in having Katie teach some classes too.
I will be working on two programs: the training program for deacons and church leaders in principles of communty development, and an agriclutural/ environmental program that they want to spend more time on. They are starting a project focused on raising hogs that they want me to help out with!

In about a half hour I will head out to the Minas de Oro area in a bus.

Hasta Luego,
-Matt DK

A goal of interdependence

In December of 2006, Matt went to the Urbana international conference on missions.

At that conference, he saw a pastor from Kenya named Oscar Muriu give a speech called "The Global Church". The speech is striking in its clarity about the current state of Christianity in regards to the global church. Before I carry on about how I am so in love with this speech, here's an excerpt so you can read it for yourself:

"But the world has changed. And the church in the two-thirds world is alive and robust. And the Spirit of God is blowing in a new direction. How will this change the way the Western church conceptualizes missions today? As you today sense a call of God into missions, what is he calling you to? Are Western missionaries needed around the world anymore?

"Paul answers that question for us, in I Corinthians 12:14-27. And I read:

"Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the American church should say,
‘Because I am not African, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the Canadian church should say, ‘Because I am not Asian, I do not belong to the body’, it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were European, where would the sense of joy be? And if the whole body were African, where would the sense of order be?

"But in fact, God has arranged the parts of the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The Canadian church cannot say to the Asian church, I don’t need you. And the American church cannot say to the African church, I don’t need you. On the contrary, the Asian parts that seem to be weaker are indispensable. And the African parts that we think are less honorable, should be treated with special honor. And the Latin American parts, that seem unpresentable, are [to be] treated with special modesty.

"While the presentable parts, like the big wealthy American church, need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it."

If you'd like to see a video of the speech or read the transcript, it's available online at: http://www.urbana.org/u2006.mediaplayer.pop.cfm?clip=132

I've watched and read this speech several times since Matt first showed it to me. I like it because it keeps me humble. I am reminded that if I go into the next year thinking that I'll be helping poor folks get better lives, I will miss the mark of what God really intends for his global church. Instead, I must take a stance of partnership and be willing to learn from the Honduran church and share what I've learned with the North American church, building the bridge for a healthy interdependence between the two. As the speech goes on, Muriu explains his question, "Are Western missionaries needed around the world anymore?". Yes, but let's rethink how missionaries work in what he calls a "new paradigm" of missions. Exchanges of people and ideas need to go both ways. "Our ultimate goal is interdependence, not independence," Muriu states.

That's a goal I can aim for.

--Katie

Catacamas

Recently we have been getting more information from Diaconia about the details of living in Honduras. We will be staying in an apartment in Catacamas where other volunteers are currently staying. Catacamas is a city of about 30,000 people right in the middle of the department of Olancho near the "Sierra de Agalta" mountains. When I studied in Honduras I was able to travel near Catacamas, but never made it to the city. This May I will be in Honduras finishing up an internship for my studies in Sustainable Agriculture Systems at the University of Minnesota. I will be working with coffee producers in Minas de Oro for about a month. I might get to meet with the Diaconia staff at the end of my internship trip. Here is a map that shows both Minas de Oro and Catacamas:

View Larger Map

-Matt

We're Going to Honduras!

We are going to be working with CRWRC (Christian Reformed World Relief Committee) on a one-year project in Honduras!

We'll be leaving sometime in mid to late August and heading to the department of Olancho. Our job will be to work as community development workers with Diaconia Nacional, which is connected to the Christian Reformed Church in Honduras. Matt will likely take on a bigger role as the community development worker than Katie will, so she hopes to find an opportunity to work in a school.

This position comes after a few years of consideration and prayer. Matt studied development in Honduras and Katie studied in Ghana. We got married and moved to Minnesota, where we both studied in disciplines that were conducive to development work; Matt in sustainable agriculture and biosystems engineering and Katie in English as a second language. We started to realize that these events were for a reason. Now, after two years of marriage, we're looking ahead to working together for CRWRC, and most importantly we're looking forward to new ways to stretch our faith--and it will be stretched! We've got to brush up on Spanish (Katie way more than Matt), to spend a year away from our families, and to raise a lot of money. This is a lot to think about, but with God's help, we'll climb these mountains!

-Katie and Matt