Highlights

Dear Family, friends, and supporters,
I thank you so much for your prayers and for you generous donations in making it able for me to go to Honduras. I praise God for meeting my every need. Here are a few highlights from my trip:
We all weighed in on Sunday evening in Dower Auditorium. We "checked" in our bags thus all we had to take on Monday evening was our carry-ons. Excitement grew with every passing hour and I was especially excited because I wanted to heat and humidity.
Monday evening after supper and worship we loaded up onto the bus's and headed to the airport. It was a really cold evening too. We got to the airport and unloaded all the bags. It was a lot of work but with about 90+ people it was done quickly. We were suppose to check in by our travel group colors so we got into our groups but then the airline people said that would not work for their system so they just called people out randomly to come check in. That was a huge ouch to our groups but it all worked out fine. After check in we proceeded to the gate to wait for our flight to Houston. We arrived in Houston the next morning and we were given breakfast money. If you are someone who knows me well, you know that I hardly eat when I am traveling. I finally did find a place where I got a berry smoothie but that was all I had.
I was so excited to finally spot the Island of Honduras! It was beautiful and made me think of home so much! Even the landing felt like an "Indonesian" landing! (: I felt just like home when I walked off the airplane and felt the HEAT & HUMIDITY! It was amazingly wonderful.
I had an amazing trip. I enjoyed getting to know more people, working very hard and helping the people there, going on the rafting trip, walking the streets, and just getting closer to God.
I'll let you read the updates for more details but I did want to extend my thank you to all of you who supported me through this adventure, either through your financial support or you prayers, I thank you! I pray that God will bless you in return.
Enjoy the pictures and leave a comment so I know you saw these pictures.

Stephanie

Final Trip to the Job site

April and Stephanie
The power of four!(:





Haley and me
Haley and Stephanie

Final Sabbath

On our way back to the hotel from the beach, our bus broke down. I guess we ran out of fuel. So we had to wait for about 30 minutes before we were on the road again. It was a very hot day too, so some of the people, waited outside in the little shade that was available.



Here we were our final day in Honduras. I was very sad to be leaving for I loved serving people there and I loved the weather. That sabbath there were more than 2,000 people who were baptized. We went to watch the huge baptism but we got their too late to see the huge crowd. I was mostly over by the time we got there, so to me that was a big disappointment because it is my dream to conduct a huge evangelistic meeting and see a huge baptism happen.

Hotel Room & Grounds

The kitchen room


There's a funny story to go with this picture above. Our light had blown out a couple days before and we had asked the front desk if they could put in a new light bulb. They said they would while we were gone but it never happened. So a couple says later, we actually got someone to buy us a light bulb, and we found the man with the black shirt and asked him if he would change the light bulb for us. He agreed but when he went to look for a ladder he could not find one so he came back with his buddy instead. So this is how our light bulb was changed!(:



Here's our room-Emily and me

Final Friday

Alex & me


On the last Friday, we worked half the day and got everything accomplished so in the afternoon we went to a water park. It had two very good slides. I enjoyed the slides and hanging out with Alexandra Weir. Here are some pictures!

Road and Job site

Michelle Morgan and I are roommates at Auburn. We just posed for a quick snap at the job site.


The inside of one classroom.




Looking down from the second story.
Mr. Kraft, Pastor Weir's father in law went with us. He was were you went if you had any question on how to lay block(:
The wall I helped build
View from the second story of the school.
April, Emily, Me, and Haley...(: We had a lot of fun together. April and Haley were roommates and Emily and I were roommates.


Job site-you can see the second story is up.
This is the scenery we saw everyday going to and from the job site.

Update #8

Hello to all. We are beginning to turn our face towards home. I am
beginning to work on our final Sabbath plans, preparing all the paperwork
and money (you have to pay an exit tax to leave the country) for our
departure. While the kids are not yet thinking about home and school and
cold weather, it is on my mind especially since the number of days is
growing short.

Yesterday was our first “real” day at the job site. By real I mean that
there are now defined places to work and specific work to be done. And did
these kids work!! They laid almost 800 blocks, which rivals some of the
best “first days” we have ever done. Of course, there is one other factor
working against us, all the block laying is on the second story. Every
block, every tool, every bit of mortar has to be sent up via a chain of
people on the scaffolding one item at a time. That kind of work is
back-breaking and exhausting. The water crew used a pitcher and a catcher,
one to pitch the full bottles up and someone on the second story who would
catch the bottles to be distributed. The job site is like a huge beehive
with workers all over doing all kinds of different things. So, a day in the
life of a jobsite worker is something like this.

There is a sand crew. All day long they shovel sand through a screen. The
fine sand is used to make the mortar, the larger pieces used in grout and
the large rocks as fill where a sidewalk will go. It is all day with a
shovel. The mortar crew mixes up the mortar mix so it can be distributed by
the hauling crews. These people take the mortar where it is needed so
students can work. There are people on the ground hauling big buckets of
wet, heavy concrete to those on the scaffolding. The people on the
scaffolding pass it from one to another until it gets to the second
story. Once there, more people distribute the mortar to the block layers. The block
layers have to be sure their walls are straight and level. A couple of
times sections had to be fixed but again, this was out first “real” day.

What happens if you need a different sized block? You have it taken to the
block cutters. All day long, a student is running our concrete saw. Jesse
Churchill and Matt Choe trade off, but by the end of the day, they are
covered in concrete dust.

We are very concerned for safety. The block cutters wear safety glasses and
a dust mask. The kids all wear gloves and hardhats for safety, and the
gloves make for interesting tan lines! There is also the water crew, who
simply rotate around in a systematic fashion pushing fluids. It may sound a
bit chaotic, and in some ways it is, but it is an ordered chaos.

Back at the hotel there are two crews working. The kitchen crew is up
EARLY, 4:30 on some days, preparing breakfast, then clean-up. About 10:00
the kitchen crew goes shopping, and their list, 25 of this, 50 of that, 40
lbs. of another thing leave people scratching their heads. In the afternoon
they get their break and then gear up again for the evening.

The laundry crew begins about 8:00 by sorting the MOUNTAIN of dirty clothes.
I have no idea how many loads are done in a day, but imagine what you would
be doing if there were 97 in your family! After the sort and washing and
hanging up to dry comes the folding and sorting by name. Often, the laundry
girls will then deliver the clean clothes in nice little (and sometimes big)
piles to the individual rooms. The laundry crew also dumps the garbage in
the bathrooms. This has to be done daily because all toilet paper is thrown
into the garbage, not flushed.

One of the realities of this project is that there are only two entities
providing funding. The people here and us. The people here are doing all
they can. That includes the Mission, the local church and the local school.
The land cost $42,000 and I sent $25,000 to help with that. Since we have
been here I have given almost $6,000 more. But last night, I was having a
real challenge. Yesterday at the jobsite, we were running out of materials
and there was no money for any more. The money I gave bought the blocks we
are laying, the concrete we are mixing and the second story floor we are
working on. At one point we ran out of concrete entirely and Francisco
Brito had to insist that some be gotten NOW, or we are DONE. Some was
purchased, but only enough for the rest of the day and about two hours
today. So, now what?

At 9:30 pm, Francisco and I sat down to discuss the needs. Basically, there
is $6,000 owed on what had been done before we came. But without additional
funds, there is no more we can do. The Mission President has promised
$5,000 and was not willing to go any deeper in debt, so, Francisco informs
me that unless I provide additional money now, there will be nothing for the
kids to do. Immediately, I am beginning to count what I have left. I
cannot operate without some financial cushion because any emergency, simply
having to buy an unplanned meal, costs plenty of money. Right then as I am
literally thinking through what I have and what we must have to continue,
the lady who has been our contact at the hotel walk toward us. She had been
working all day on a final bill for our stay. As Francisco and I followed
her, I turned to him and said, “I certainly hope there aren’t any more
surprises.”

I have been carrying the sheet detailing the cost for the hotel that I
received when I was here. The lady had made a very detailed outline of the
cost, listing each room and the number of people in each room. At the end
of the page was our total, and it was thousands of dollars less than I
expected. We double checked about the number, and this is accurate. God
had already been working to influence people to give us a reduced price (but
still a huge chunk of money be anyone’s standards, especially here) before I
knew that we would have to have extra money for our kids to continue.

Every year, there are amazing things that happen that remind me of the great
God we serve. He was providing the answer even before I knew of the
need. After
we found this out, Matt Pierce and Sharon Pleier were out wandering to check
on the kids and I shared this with them. All we could do was offer our
praise to the way in which God solved our problem. I shared this story with
the kids this morning at worship. We serve a great God

Solving problems is something that I spend most of my time trying to do. (I
also try to write a bit, plan ahead for our group a bit, and sometimes even
sleep a bit). But I really cannot solve too many things. But I serve a God
who over and over, year after year, has done amazing things on our behalf. If
this is luck, okay, but I sure get lucky a lot. If this is just coincidence
or circumstance, okay. All I know is that things like this happen to
frequently. I do believe in a God who is interested in what we are doing
here and in demonstrating to these kids that He is in the business of doing
the amazing.

Keep us in your prayers. We will be getting back to the airport about 3:00
on Sunday. You are more than welcome to meet us. But we will never forget
what we have been a part of here in this place.

God’s Blessings Upon ALL of YOU!!

Fun Day

Here I am getting ready to jump off the cliff (about 30 ft. down to the water!)

Me on the zip line. I kept turning side ways on it...I ever crashed into the tree at one spot(: hahaha

Lauren Hilde and me.
Lauren testing the zip line. (:

At the Zip line place. (Me)
This was the place we were put into groups to go white water rafting, zip lining, and clift jumping.

This is one of the funest things I've ever done. This was a blast!We had level four rapids!
Getting ready to go rafting!