If you want to contribute to the Las Mangas Elementary School roof, you can send a check to:
The Tabernacle Church
1619 Ferndale Avenue
Melbourne, FL 32935
1. In the memo line of the check, write: "Las Mangas Fund".
2. Please include a note with the check specifying that the money is for the Las Mangas Elementary school roof.
We have learned recently that the elementary school building in Las Mangas
is in dire shape – the concrete roof could collapse at any time without
warning. Although the village leadership has been aware of this for
sometime, they have moved slowly to correct it, in part because of a lack of
funds. The cost for materials is around $2600, and between the development
workers in the area we already have about $2000. If you are interested in
donating to the school roof, please let us know by commenting here or emailing us.
Good friends of ours Joe and Rachel Staven have started an organization called "Libros", which will support a community children's library here in Las Mangas. Peter will be the officiant on this end.
Please visit their website and weblog to find out more about it and consider being involved. Printed materials are much needed here, and we have access to so much in the States. Plus Joe and Rachel and Peter are really cool folk.
Yamileth of El Naranjo went to be with Jesus on Tuesday. Her husband Santos
died of AIDS earlier this year, and she had suffered for months with the
same disease. Kelly and I did not know her ourselves, but Rachel, Larry,
Sharon, and Catalina all spent a lot of time caring for her. We are
thankful that she is free of her suffering, but are concerned for her six
children. It looks like they will be split up between different households,
and we are praying that they would still have the chance to be raised with
love and attention, and that they would know comfort now.
Another activity that we mentioned in The Okie Free Press is our Friday
night fellowship, which has been moved to the afternoon, and our
discipleship group on Sunday. The campus has been hosting the local youth
(mostly students at Instituto El Rey) since the beginning of the school year
to fellowship and study God’s Word. These times of fellowship have grown
deeper and deeper as the year has progressed, and now we call many of the
attendees our dearest friends here. Those of you who keep up with our
weblog (www.chattablogs.com/okie) are aware that a few months ago, two of
our closest friends, Sara and Francis, committed their lives to Christ. I
had been studying the Gospels with Francis on the bus in the mornings, and
occasionally asked if she believed the things we were reading about. “Of
course!” she would reply. But when I asked if she was ready to follow
Christ, her answer was always, “Not yet, but soon.” A few months ago that
“soon” turned into the present and she, along with Sara (with whom she
lives) committed their lives to Christ. Oh, what rejoicing there was in
heaven! Never before have I witnessed a conversion so personality-changing
as Sara’s was. She went from being stern and tight-lipped to smiling and
singing songs all day long. God’s grace is definitely evident in both of
their lives.
After Sara and Francis became Christians, Tom and I along with others here,
were fervently praying that Lesbin, Sara’s older brother, would soften his
heart to the call of the Lord. He has always been one of the most caring
and conscientious people here – especially for a 16-year old boy. Last
weekend, after a hymn-sing co-led by Tom and Abe, the discipleship group
launched into a serious time of prayer. Many tears were shed and Lesbin
decided that night that he wanted to re-dedicate his life to Christ. Jesus
calls for all those who are weary and heavy laden to come to him for rest.
Now Lesbin has taken that yoke upon himself, and is experiencing the joy of
surrender. All of us here are honored to be in friendship with him and to
share this time of his life.
I (Tom) felt very loved on my birthday last Thursday. It started with 24
kisses and a love letter from my wife. At school Ester and the eighth
graders made a card, a cake, and some lemonade; and had a hilarious round of
toasts, in which a number of students shyly said how they loved me and hoped
that God blessed me and my wife and gave me muchos años mas – many more
years. After school, Kelly took me to the butterfly museum in La Ceiba,
which is the most amazing collection of carcasses I have ever seen. Then we
drove to the airport to pick up my brother Abe, who visited us for the
weekend. When we returned to the campus, there was a special birthday
dinner (lasagna and apple pie!). And then I opened gifts – oatmeal,
oatmeal soap, a mug, and an assortment of things from stateside family. I
usually suppress expectations of feeling special on my birthday, but I was
much loved this day. Thanks everyone who made it that way.
Abe’s visit was short but dulce. We played a lot of music at the school,
for the discipleship group, and with our friend Juan from the mountains (a
singer-songwriter himself). We saw the ocean, visited the Ramirez family in
La Muralla, fed the rabbits, swam in the river and the brook, and saw the
violent destruction of two piñatas. You can keep an eye on his weblog, Noli
Tangere where he may post some of his own reflections and photos. Thanks for making the trip, brother.
We have spoken often of the Ramirez household, a family I (Kelly) have known
for over four years now. Many of you know that Ramirez has been having
trouble with his heart, which results in painful respiration, and makes it
generally uncomfortable to sleep and very hard to work. Though he has been
blessed with many free doctor’s visits and inexpensive tests (we at the
campus have been able to help out with the minor costs since he is a farmer
with little to no income), the problem persists, and the results are
inconclusive. It is certain that he has a heart disease, but the next step
is less certain. We are all waiting to hear a second opinion from a
stateside heart specialist who has the video of the inside of Ramirez’
heart. Until then, Tom and I are continually enjoying our biweekly visits,
and looking forward to the arrival of their baby in mid-November. We are
all hoping for a girl to supplement their four boys!
Our last communication with you as a group was a prayer request for the
folks of Las Mangas because of a shooting here in the village that took the
life of one child and the arm of another. Since then, one family has left
the country, and three men have hid themselves in other places. We thank God
that there has been no further violence, and continue to remember in prayer
the affected families.
Maria lost her son Angel. There was recently an evangelistic campaign up
the road in El Pital, and, somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to go. On my way
up in our green Toyota I happened upon Maria and her children. Following a
sudden idea, I asked, “Do you want to go?” Her face lit up. “Oh yes,” she
said. “I don’t like to be shut up in this house.” Her three children and
two grandchildren caught the excitement immediately. “We’re going to the
campaign!” they shouted, scurrying around for their shoes and “going out”
clothes.
In spite of the rain, everyone seemed to enjoy it. Maria closed her eyes and
sat still as she mouthed the words to the praise choruses. Meanwhile the
children climbed on my lap, shoulders, arms, and legs, munched on chips, and
pressed the Indiglo button on my watch (an incessant fascination for the
younger boys especially). It was a beautiful grace to me that my reluctant
gesture of courtesy -- attending the campaign – became such a joyous
exchange of love. We have all been trying to visit Maria and her family
regularly, and every time we stop by we are greeted by a flurry of hugs and
greetings. The youngest usually says, “Tomás! When are you going to bring
your gallo again?” I tell him that my “rooster” is at the campus, and the
older children and I laugh. (He means carro).
Unfortunately, Maria’s husband has not been much help to her in her grief,
perhaps not knowing how to deal with his own. We are praying for harmony
and comfort for them and their little ones.
The following is our quarterly update letter, broken into bite-sized chunks. Enjoy!
September 10, 2004
Las Mangas, Honduras
Dear Friends and Family,
Greetings again from Honduras! We hope this finds you well. Today was the
Day of the Child in Honduras, and we just returned from a colegio-wide trip
to Paraiso, a village some ways from the road. After fording the river four
times, braving two hammock bridges, racing with sacks and eggs, bursting a
piñata, and cheering and singing, we are glad to be back at home resting.
It was fun to be with the students as they went to serve their poorer,
younger compatriots, and as our departure nears, each day with them seems
more precious.
This is a quick update to let you know that if anyone will be sending financial support, it should be mailed to:
Bethlehem Wiley Church
500 Lookout Street
Chattanooga, TN 37403
And designated for Tom and Kelly Okie in Honduras. Sorry if this causes any inconvenience.
Blue Morph Butterfly, supposedly one of the rarest in the world, on the path to La Moralla
So much happens in this valley...
When we first got back a man had moved into the house adjacent to the soccer field and claimed it as his own. He lay in a hammock all day long in his boxers and a holster for his pistol and refused to let anyone play on the field or use it for anything. He talked of building a great hotel, of taking a scientific expedition (to find a cure for AIDS) up into Pico Bonito, and much else. He was a talker. He talked in English and French as well as Spanish. Once as we were on our way to school, he said to us in English that it is good to be a god, because only gods can kill people. Then he accosted Ernesto, the elementary school teacher, to berate him about how the teachers were always on strike, and threaten him with "Death! Death right here on my doorstep!"
Shortly after this, the police took him away, though we are not sure for what. A couple days later he returned, for a few hours at least, for when we came home from school that day, we saw him lying in his own blood, policemen standing guard over his body. He was killed, as some had predicted, but no one talks (at least not to us) about it. People seem to have forgotten it now.
. . . . . .
At school last week, I noticed some of my first year students acting a little strange as they shared a beverage. The next day, they offered me some! Chicha, they said, is made from pineapple husks soaked in water for a month and then mixed with other drinks. "It's pineapple juice!" Angel exclaimed. "Very good!" And they said that it was very strong in your throat, which is why you have to dilute it in orange juice. I tried a little, but not enough to get a very good taste.
After talking to Ester about it, the next day I asked them to bring more, and they did. Angel caught me in the morning ceremony and said excitedly, "Tom I brought more of that drink today!" During break, I called Ester into the class, and she confiscated all the chicha, found out who was involved in a long interrogation session, and suspended nine students from school for two days, and a week for the leaders. In one of my classes today I only had six students, and only one male.
. . . . . . .
That is some sad news. But there is also good news!
Our friend Tim from Wheaton, who has graced us with his presence for two months, offered to go up and help Ramirez build his oven. Most people here only have an earthen stovetop, but Ramirez is very skilled with the earthen oven, and had previously made bread to sell in Las Mangas. Since he is not as able to work as he once was, with the health trouble he has had, baking bread is a very appealing alternative. Soon hopefully we will be buying his products on a regular basis.
. . . . . .
The best news we save for last!
Francis Julissa, the student with whom Kelly has been reading the Bible and talking a lot, has decided to follow Jesus! Friday after discussing Mathew 12 together, I, Kelly, asked Francis once again if she wanted to follow Jesus or if she had any new thoughts about the Gospel in her life. She said she still wasn't quite ready to be a Christian, though she believed in Jesus and the teachings of the Bible. It was something she would pursue later on in life. But, she said, I think I am getting closer...
Little did I know that two days later at our Campus discipleship group she would commit her life to Christ. When I heard the news, I ran downstairs to deliver the plate full of pataste bread and sat quietly. Ester said, we have two new sisters among us - Sara and Francis. I smiled really big, jumped up, and gave them squishy hugs. I am truly overjoyed.
Sara is another 14-year-old in my second year class who Francis lives with during the week. I am excited that they will be able to pray together and encourage each other in their new life in Christ.
Here are some pictures of our life:
The desk in the study where we do a lot of planning for classes
Rogelio's cows roaming the riverbed
Our hats
The front porch of our apartment
The campus from the river: gardens to the far left, our apartment and library in the middle
The river by night
Here is the soccer field/volleyball court/parking lot of Instituto El Rey, decked out for the annual Culture Night in honor of Honduras' Indian heritage. There were an estimated 500 folks there from all over the River Valley, ready to enjoy the students' food, talent, and historical knowledge. Each class had to nominate a male-female pair of "Indios Bonitos", who then made costumes and studied Honduran Indian history to be ready for the trivia questions. At the end of the night, the judges chose the best two, who will carry the title until next year. It's sort of like a beauty pageant, but a lot more wholesome.
In between the Beautiful Indians' presentations, the students regaled us with all kinds of talents, from the latest raperro to folk dances to skits to praise songs in English to "Bombas", traditional Honduran comedic dialogues. And we kicked it off with a hymn to the Indian hero Lempira, who for a time united many tribes against Spanish conquistadors before he was tricked and murdered.
It was a beautiful night, but not everthing was perfect. The electricity went off for about 45 minutes at the beginning, which apparently gave some lustful males (not our students) opportunity to grope some females. Which is not unusual (here or anywhere else, I suppose), but nonetheless sad.
Black Pepper: Hope for the Future?
Through Larry's friendship with some folks from the Pico Bonito Foundation here in La Ceiba, several of us (Larry, Lesbin, Tim, Tom and Kelly), got to see this black pepper demonstration farm on the edge of the Pico Bonito National Park. The farmer who took us around had planted a relatively small area with black pepper, alternated with rows of guama trees, which keep the soil in place, add their nutritious leaves to the humus, fix nitrogen for the pepper plants, and provide firewood for the farmer. The pepper plants are trained up another leguminous tree that also fixes nitrogen and sheds nutrient rich leaves.
Right now, if I remember correctly, black pepper goes for about 30 lempiras a pound, compared with corn, which is usually less than 5 lempiras a pound. So, if the price stays relatively high, and pepper proves relatively easy to grow, it could be an excellent economic alternative for some local farmers. Larry already has a few black pepper plants, and has been experimenting with guama barriers, so the visit was an added encouragement to him -- although he was disappointed to find out that this demonstration farm is not self-sufficient. So, even if it proves to be a viable alternative, there is still the obstacle of introducing it to farmers who cannot afford to make big mistakes if their families are to have enough to eat.
Here Larry and Lesbin learn about pruning the pepper plant for maximum production...
And here we take in the view...
Chris asked Sharon “for her forever” on July 4, and we all got to be a part of the celebration. There was a guitar to tune and place by the brook down the road, a chocolate-coffee engagement cake to bake and ice, prayers to be said, and it was fun to pitch in on their day of joy. Chris is teaching computer classes at the colegio, and Sharon, along with her right hand girl Catalina, are sort of a two-woman community clinic. Chris and Sharon are planning to return in February to live and work here for a year or two. In this series of pictures, you can get a feel for how they told their story.
In mid June, I had the extraordinary opportunity to help chaperone Instituto El Rey's first ever distance running team -- the Corredores con Cristo – to La Prensa’s International Marathon in San Pedro Sula. It was really a half-marathon, but 21 kilometers (13 miles) is still quite a distance, especially for a culture where running is pretty weird. The students had been training for some four months under the instruction of Chris Struna, with help from Larry Smoak (who ran also), which in itself demonstrated remarkable discipline, goal-orientation, and courage.
The real joy was seeing those guys, in their bright yellow "Instituto El Rey" jerseys, walking the streets of Honduras’ second-largest city – the biggest city most of them had ever seen – and running their hearts out. In this great city, surrounded by runners from all over Central America with expensive shoes and fancy running suits, these eight young men – it was extraordinary. Our top finisher, Lesbin, was clocked at 1:36, and many of the others were right around two hours. Our last finisher, Kilmer, a seventh grader and son of a hardworking farmer from El Pital, had us worried as the race had long since ended and he was still missing. When we found him, I asked if he was hurting, and he said, “No! I feel great – like I never ran.” It turns out he stopped to walk with another runner about his age who was in a lot of pain. “Finish the race!” we said – and he shook his head. He had already done what he came to do.
So, not only did our boys compete well, they also gave credence to the “Jesu Cristo es el Rey” blazoned on their backs.
The cast of characters:
Durbyn
width="184" height="138" border="0" />
Denis
Gerson
Ruben
Kilmer
Joel
Ever
The Intrepid Leader, Chris
Ester
Getting hydrated
Unveiling jerseys -- a surprise in the central square of San Pedro. We had a lot of curious onlookers.
Warming up
Larry, who finished close to the top 10
Lesbin, in 1 hour 36 minute form
Resting together post race
PJ Parties
Our friend and neighbor and coworker Peter Johnson turned a year older in June. Peter is a former dairy farmer from New Hampshire who moved down to the river valley four years ago to work with local farmers and children. Right now he is doing a brave job of teaching chorus to unruly seventh graders (nine of whom just got suspended for drinking a alcoholic pineapple beverage during school), teaching English to unruly elementary schoolers, raising pigs, distributing donated goods, participating in a discipleship group for some young people from the colegio, and being a generally good guy.
So as I was saying, here we celebrate Peter's birthday with him.
Hector, Peter, Erick, Chris, and Tom. You will note our fine clothes, chosen in Peter's honor.
Our beloved nurses, Sharon and Catalina, smile brightly.
Peter blows out the campfire atop his cake.
We all enjoyed a nice chicken dinner. At least most of us did.
Peter's guests, the Chavez brothers.
Larry says that he thinks that air travel is too fast for our souls, that our bodies get transported fine, but it takes a day or two for our insides to catch up. True or not, it´s been a difficult adjustment for us to get settled in again after three months in the states. We have missed our friends Joe and Rachel (they left the same day we arrived), and the faces of you all are still fresh in our minds.
But the Lord´s mercies are new in these glowing Honduran mornings, and we have these six months to work hard and enjoy this other country.
One strange thing happened since we left. A fellow moved up here from La Ceiba, a nephew of the fellow who owns the soccer field in Las Mangas. He said at first that he wanted to get an expedition together to climb the highest mountains around here to look for gold and herbs that would cure AIDS. He was looking for a geologist and a botanist to join him.
After awhile, he started saying that the property really belonged to him. He carries a pistol and a rifle, and he has closed off the soccer field by shutting the gates and hanging around the field with his guns. Unfortunately, he also effectively evicted one of the families living adjacent to the field, the parents of Victor who is the student body president at Instituto El Rey. It is still uncertain how things will turn out.
In other news, Ramirez has had a battery of tests, including an echo cardiogram (?). The doctor, the chief cardiologist at a hospital in San Pedro Sula, has promised to pay for one of the most expensive tests($400) himself. Apparently Ramirez is a very unusual case. Praise God for this unexpected gift.
We´ve posted some more pictures of Mother´s Day at the school, kicking around the campus in Las Mangas, and visiting the Ramirez family in La Moralla.
Just click on View Photos to get started.
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=8o7jdnrr.bb68r19z&x=0&y=tx4eb7
Monday, April 12, 2004
Dear Friends,
I write today from the computer lab at Instituto El Rey, where our
colleagues are showing “The Ten Commandments” starring Charlton Heston, to
several classes. It is the first day of school after a Holy Week of eating
various carmelized fruits (papayas, pumpkins, banana), soaking our skins in
the river and drying (burning) them in the intensifying tropical sun,
celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus, and receiving family and
friends from far away.
Holy Week….
For us, Holy Week was a welcome change in rhythm. It is one of the two
grandest holidays in Honduras, and the whole country escapes to various
bodies of water to celebrate – the ocean, the lakes, and the brooks and
rivers, including our own Rio Cangrejal. Thursday, Friday and Saturday saw
hundreds of families from La Ceiba and elsewhere sprinkled throughout the
river valley. Las Mangas is also home to a retreat center for the Church of
God, and so the village played host to 400 youth from all over the North
Coast. Friday and Saturday night we bedded down to the sound of a
well-amplified “praise karaoke” that went late into the night.
In the River…
On the campus we hosted the families of Joe and Rachel, teachers from the
colegio, and friends of Chris and Sharon – thus increasing our numbers from
7 to 18 and giving us bountiful opportunity to offer hospitality and enjoy
the company of others. Kelly baked bread and made another batch of homemade paper. I studied Honduran history and helped Larry slay our three rabbits for Easter dinner. And we swam almost daily, discovering through our
younger neighbors that the river is not just full of rocks and water but of
waterslides, ramps, free falls, and kiddie pools.
Several days after playing, we sat in the shallows with the Lobo sisters
Karla, Maria, and Ilsa, and other friends. There they taught us a song:
En el arca de Noé, todos cantan, todos cantan
Quieren escouchar como canta hermana Karla.
La hermana, canta si!
In Noah’s Ark, everyone sings.
They want to hear how sister Karla sings.
Sister, sing!
The selected sister or brother then sang a Canto from memory, and everyone
else joined in with smiles and laughter. This growing friendship with the
sisters from the Lobo family is a great blessing, especially for Kelly.
Maria is grown and living some distance away, but has a job that allows her
to attend colegio and provide for her daughter who lives here in Las Mangas.
Ilsa is in her last year of elementary school and is as enthusiastic about
learning as she is about playing soccer, sewing, and hurling her body off
high rocks into the river. Karla is 19, an eager tenth grader at Instituto
El Rey as well as participant in the Bible study we host at the campus, and
hopes to wait to marry until after she has studied all she wants. We are
looking forward to seeing how the Lord continues to intertwine our lives
with those of this family.
Holy Week also gave us an opportunity to get ahead with our planning for
English classes at the colegio. We have been teaching five classes of
seventh, eighth, and ninth graders since February, about 85 students,
including four of our fellow teachers. As first time teachers and barely
conversational Spanish speakers, it is certainly a challenge. But it has
been a great joy to work together at filling this role in the River Valley,
and to get acquainted with our students and their families. Many of them
are the same young people that we see everyday in Las Mangas or El Naranjo,
which provides a blessed coherence in our lives. And we hope that the
English the students learn will expand their minds and give them education
and employment opportunities they might not otherwise have.
With Ramirez…
On Thursday, we filled our backpacks with foodstuffs – corn and wheat flour,
fat, milk, sugar, and various root crops – and hiked up the mountain to La
Moralla, the home of our friends Santos and Rubenia Ramirez and their four
children, Cristian, Noe, Orly, and Osman. This is the family who hosted
Kelly for several days during her first visit to Honduras in 2000, and we
have been visiting them at least once every one or two weeks in order to
continue our relationship with them. Holy Week provided a chance to spend
the night and enjoy a holiday with them. We arrived at dusk on Thursday,
and soon sat down to a dinner of beans, eggs, and pacaya (a slightly bitter
stalk harvested from a palm tree). As the darkness gathered we sang Spanish
praise songs by kerosene lamp – Rubenia in particular loves to sing. We
slept very close on a single bed in pitch darkness, a little fitfully but
content. In the morning, through the cracks in the wall, I watched the
growing light paint the mountains blue.
Ramirez took me to see his fields, where he is growing corn, lichas,
bananas, tomatoes, peppers, melon, rice, tobacco, radishes, mustard, and
more. He is a hard worker, but you may remember that he has had mysterious
pains throughout the right side of his body, which make it very difficult
for him to work. We at the campus try to see that he gets what treatment he
can. An EKG that an American friend helped procure turned out normal, so we
are pursuing other possibilities.
After looking around and doing a little maintenance, Ramirez and I returned
to breakfast (rice and beans and fresh radishes) and a trip down to the
stream to bathe and swim. Meanwhile, Kelly was attempting to help Noe with
his letters. Their school teacher has only come twenty days in the last
eight weeks, and the children are not learning much. Noe, at age 6, still
cannot recognize by name more than two or three letters of the alphabet, and
the older children are not much better off. It seems that one reason God has
placed us in their lives is to help the children with their education – at
least the alphabet (we would be rather poor Spanish teachers at this
point!). Long term, though, we are praying for a faithful Honduran teacher
in La Moralla.
We are glad for the way the Ramirez family has welcomed us into their lives.
They are very devout Catholics (we had a confusing, funny discussion about
how Catholics don’t use animal sacrifices, only fasting and other personal
disciplines, when I told them I was going to help Larry sacrificar the
rabbits) and very affectionate with the children – somewhat unusual here,
we’ve found. They also seem to be very committed to each other. On Friday,
they dragged a very dusty suitcase from their “attic” and pulled out her
wedding dress, all the cards they received, and even told us a little about
their honeymoon.
Today..,
A typical day for us now begins at 5:20, when we wake to be ready to catch
the bus at 6:30, to be at school at 7:15 or so. We have 5 classes back to
back, and then a couple of planning periods where we try to prepare for the
next day. We’ve also been teaching educación fisica to about 40 students,
which has mostly involved running up and down the dusty caraterra, except
for one day when we braved the soccer field – yikes! So we got a whistle.
School is over at 2:15, and we pile back onto the old school bus (which
still bears the name of some county high school) to arrive home at three.
Afternoons are usually filled with cooking, cleaning, feeding the rabbits,
watering seedlings, visiting, and occasionally reading, jogging, or
swimming. Evenings are generally devoted to spending time with Larry,
Chris, Sharon, Joe, Rachel, and Peter: delicious dinner, fierce matches of
Settlers of Catan, and “jawing.” On weekends, we visit neighbors, do
chores, plan for classes, run errands in La Ceiba, and meet together for
prayer, Bible study, and singing.
Please continue to pray for growing friendships with the Lobo and Ramirez
family, and especially for the health of Santos Ramirez and well-being
(basic needs, education) of his family. Pray for a teacher for the children
of La Moralla. Pray for our health here at the campus – several of us have
had persistent sickness recently. The student Bible study is beginning
Sunday April 18, with about nine young people from Las Mangas and El
Naranjo. Pray with us that the students would be open to following Christ
and that the leaders Ester, Larry, and Peter would be full of Christ’s love
and truth. One other thing: we have been considering together how to start
some sort of children’s library here in Las Mangas – books are rare and many
kids are eager to read. Please pray with us about this and feel free to
offer your own ideas and input. At this point it is only an idea and
something we hope for the future…
We are thankful too for your faithful friendship to us, aware as we are that
we are only here because of the strong Gospel community where we have been
raised and loved.
For the second and third years students, this week has been a review of the English alphabet, vowels, consonants, capital and lower case letters, and cardinal numbers up to 1000. Overall, the students performed fairly well and remembered a significant amount of material from preceding years.
It was also an exciting week because there are a lot of activities available for reviewing / learning the alphabet and numbers. Sharon has several great sets of flash cards, pictures, etc. I also had my students create a two-sided bingo board in their notebooks. They made a big square with 25 little squares in side of it on the front and back of their paper. Inside the squares on one side of the page were capital letters placed in random order (one square had two letters), and on the other side of the paper were the matching lower case letters. The teacher draws letters out of a hat (in my case I used the flashcards) and the first student to get five in a row calls out bingo.
Aside from the teaching and planning, I had two really interesting experiences this week. The first had to do with the incident I wrote about last week involving the whole-class demerits (this happened with my first class, segundo curso B). Ester, who had been gone the two weeks before do to a last minute “directors” meeting in La Ceiba, had finally returned to school. During her time away many disciplinary measures were put on hold (as she is the primary discipline giver at the Colegio). One child in need of discipline was Francis, the girl who had told me the week before that everyone in my class hated me now.
On Tuesday the Okies will be in Rio Viejo early, ready at last to welcome 79 bright, smiling, yellow and khaki clad youngsters into our 15x15 foot, concrete block, wide-windowed, naturally lit aula; and into our 2 rules and 13 classroom procedures. Hopefully we will have a blackboard as well.
We're starting to get acquainted with the ins and outs of Las Mangas life.
The other day Peter came over to tell us that several of the colegio students in town need to go to La Ceiba to get checked for AIDS, apparently due to their own concerns that they could have been exposed to it -- through homosexual and heterosexual promiscuity, or parties with syringes, or something. There is not a lot of accurate knowledge of the HIV virus, but there have been enough cases here to cast a dark fear. It is probable that in a few years the AIDS bomb will blow up here as it has in other locations, and already there have been some scares.
But we were shocked and saddened because these were kids from Instituto El Rey who have been actively involved in a Bible study with Ester, the directora. As it turns out, none of those who have been tested have tested positive, but it was sobering nonetheless. Please pray for these young men and women in particular, and for the youth in the river valley generally -- it is a real battle to remain pure and faithful to Christ.
There are also some weird things going on with the church next door, the main evangelical church in town (the other is Adventist). Apparently since November the pastor has been increasingly disagreeable: throwing people out of the church during meetings, calling others thieves or accursed, claiming to be a prophet of God. He sometimes goes to La Ceiba with a placard on his back reading "profetia de dios", and he claimed to have had a vision of President Bush coming to Las Mangas with bags of money. They've built a glass office with expensive furniture for the purpose of receiving him. Once he told a family that he would not pray for their ringworm-infected son because it was leprosy. Which would seem comical, except that many of the people in town are really hurting because of it. And there is good evidence as well that the pastor is hurting too. Please pray for unity, love, truth and righteousness in the church.
In other news, we have made our first loan, of about $20 for medicine for someone's young son. He has not paid it back yet, but there may be an opportunity for him to work in order to pay it. Pray for continued good relationship with Jose.
I´ve been working with Santos Ramirez, an ingenious and ambitious farmer living in La Moralla. He grows a lot -- everything from the traditional beans, corn, and yuca, to rice, pastiche, tomatoes, peppers, pineapple, mustard, and tobacco. But they are struggling to make ends meet right now. The bean harvest was severely damaged by the rain we've had recently, and he is frustrated enough to talk about going to the states to earn some money. On top of this, he has some sort of heart problem that makes it difficult to climb and carry heavy things (which is the farming life here).
Thanks for your prayers.
Our Christmas letter follows.... our first attempt at writing a Christmas letter. Interesting literary form, it is.
Feliz Navidad y Ano Nuevo a Todos!
We had the gift of celebrating Christmas with the Clarkson family (Momma, Poppa, Kris, and Corrie), as they visited us for the week following Christmas. It was a grand time. After a little bit of airline trouble and an unexpected night in San Pedro Sula, they made it into La Ceiba on Christmas night. We feasted on Kelly’s delicious minestrone soup and some kickin’ garlic bread and then opened “presents” – the Clarksons came laden with supplies from our fair homeland (peanut butter, chocolate chips, shoes, etc), as well as their own regalos de Navidad for us, and we had a couple of things for them.
It has been raining and raining here. We just sit around the campus watching our things mold, reading, make food, and sometimes venture outside to play. Actually we've been doing more than that. I hope to write more soon and talk about our thoughts and adventures.
For now, you can view some photos online at ofoto.com. Just click on this website. Sorry about the request for your email address. In the future we'll try and post directly to our blog, so as to avoid this.
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=8o7jdnrr.bwqa34bb&x=1&y=-u0fhet
November 14, 2003
Las Mangas, Honduras
Dear friends and family,
Greetings from Central America. After seven weeks in Honduras, we have a great deal to be thankful for concerning the Lord’s provision to us thus far, and much to share concerning the direction we are headed in the next couple of months.
When we first arrived to Honduras, we anticipated four intense weeks of language-learning in the city of La Ceiba. In the back of all of our minds was the thought that at the end of these four weeks we would be essentially fluent and able to hold long discourses with our Honduran neighbors. Any of you who have sought to learn another language before can laugh alongside us: these expectations were far from achieved. However, we did learn a great deal of Spanish. Now that we have the book knowledge, we hope to watch it unfold and develop as we carry on daily exchanges.
We were blessed to live in the house of Petra, a Christian woman, during our four weeks of language school. On several different occasions we were able to have lengthy conversations concerning the disciplines of the Christian faith and the difference between the Spirit and the law – something she feels is easily confused in these parts. Petra was the fragrance of Christ to us by the way she prayed and cared for Kelly while she was sick with amoebas. When the time came to leave her home she bid us farewell as her hermanos en Jesus (brother and sister in Christ).
It has been three weeks now since we moved ourselves up to Las Mangas and into “El Campamento” (the campus) as they call it here, and we are very glad to be here. We didn’t realize how fast and frenzied La Ceiba felt until we had lived in Las Mangas for a while. Tranquillity seems to reign here, as our lives adjust to the rhythms of the river valley: people walking slowly and saying good day to folks they pass; the noise of familiar hymns sung with unusual gusto at the church next door four times a week; the constant roar of the Congrejal in the distance; the daily tasks of washing, preparing meals, and growing things.
We have been awash in these peaceful ways for the last three weeks, spending time helping out with English classes at the secondary school down the road in Rio Viejo, visiting families, working with nearby farmers, tending to our chores at the campus, and a lot of reading, reflecting, talking and praying. God’s mercy is real to us in these things, and we are grateful.
But we are also increasingly aware that all is not at at peace here. We understand that few families in these parts have been spared the violence of murder. Absentee mothers and fathers are common. Alcoholism is a problem, and there is plenty of lying, cheating, and stealing.
And we have our own problems. The change in circumstances has not changed the sin in our hearts. We get mad at each other; we feel lazy and miserly; we struggle to be content with what God puts before us.
However, above all we are learning as Thomas Merton writes in Life and Holiness “the meaning and import of [the Holy Spirit’s] intimate closeness to us,” learning to “be more attuned to that secret, inward ‘inclination of the Spirit which is life and peace’ (Romans 8:5).” And so we believe our calling for our next few months in Honduras is clear.
We plan to be teaching six classes of English at Instituto del Rey (The King’s Institute) the secondary school in Rio Viejo. We have had a lot of opportunity to get to know the life and work of the school, which was started three years ago by Earl and Sharon Washburn of Washington state. This year they had 85 students, mostly 13-20 year olds from the river valley area, and next year expect to have 130. It is one of only two secondary schools in the area and the only Christian school, and is apparently developing a very solid reputation for its academics. We will be taking over English classes for our friend Peter, who taught five classes this year, and also helping to develop a full five-year English curriculum.
As you might remember, we arrived in Honduras not knowing what we would be doing, only wanting to serve wherever we could and to grow in our marriage. But now it seems that the path had been laid out for us from the beginning. I believe it was.
One, we spent our last six months in Chattanooga teaching English as a second language (ESL) to Guatemalan immigrants, which gave us a chance to experiment with different learning tools and start gathering ideas for curriculum. Two, we have talked a lot in our first nine months of marriage about teaching as a vocational pull on both of our lives. Three, we will have the freedom here to plan and teach together – an opportunity that is as rare as it is valuable. Four, Instituto del Rey needs teachers, especially those who don’t require a salary, and it gives us a specific and useful role in the lives of our neighbors. And since it is a Christian school, we are encouraged to integrate our faith into our classes in any way we can.
Our commitment to the school requires a little more time here than we originally anticipated since the school year runs from February to November. But it will also allow us to be home for Thanksgiving next year. It also means a more structured schedule than we imagined, since the school day goes from 7:30 to 2:15 everyday, with a 45-minute commute by bus from Las Mangas. But we are thankful for this, too, as it will give us a specific task to do and help to grow in us certain virtues like discipline and self-control.
So our work here will be teaching. We have also committed to live here in Las Mangas with Joe and Rachel, our friend Larry Smoak, and Chris Struna, another longtime friend of Las Mangas who will be working at the secondary school next year as well. This means participating in life together with the four of them, something we have hoped to do all along; it also means paying $500 a month into the Las Mangas fund at the Tabernacle Church in Melbourne, Florida. This money covers all our living expenses here and is also an investment into future needs of the facilities here (such as a new refrigerator, possibly very soon). We have $6000 right now, which is enough to stay through next November, and all we lack is the money for plane tickets back to the States. However, we found a great deal to get here, and we’re keeping our eyes out for more of the same. We are confident that God will provide what we need, as he has again and again.
Entonces, for the next few months we will be working on a curriculum and syllabus for five years of English classes. We hope to visit families in the area and continue our relationship with Rubenia and Ramirez and family. Tom is looking forward to learning more about farming from friends in the area, and carpentry from a fellow missionary. You can pray with us that this would be a good time of preparation, not only for our classes but also for our hearts – that they would be made humble and Christlike and loving toward the students. Pray also that we would continue to grow together in making decisions in trust and following through in faith – something we have struggled with in the past. Pray for Ramirez because his heart has been giving him problems, which makes it hard for him to do the agricultural work like he needs to. And pray for growth in friendship with Joe and Rachel. It’s been a blessing to be here with them learning from them and working with them.
It’s been great to hear from you all from time to time. Please let us know what’s going on in your worlds and how we can be remembering you before the Father.
We have discovered that Kelly has some amoebas in her system. We are not sure what they came from, nor if the medicine they prescribed (usingthe word loosely) for us will work. But we are trusting. She is certainly feeling much better.
Entamoeba histolytica can be some nasty little creatures. For more gory details see below.
But it has been a wonderfully growing experience for us. We have felt a strong sense of unity, and God has given us both an alien patience and longsuffering faith to take us through this trial. Sickness always has the potential to turn us both inward, away from each other in order to pity ourselves and complain internally. This time, it has been much more of a chance to cling to each other as we look to God in gratitude and uncompromising trust. Especially with the experience of seeking medical help from people you can´t understand and who can´t understand you fully. Aye yi yi.
This is from netdoctor uk. Fortunately, Kelly does not have all these symptoms.
We have finished language school and have learned a lot, and still have much to learn. The last day was devoted to an overview of the subjuntive mood, which they use all the time here and supposedly takes many weeks to learn. A good way to leave, in that it reminded us how broad and how deep and how long another language is, especially when you`re learning by analyzing verb tenses and memorizing vocabulary, instead of mere absorption.
We hope to do a lot more absorption yet.
Here is a picture of all of us seated in front of our teachers. Kelly´s name was Lourdes, and mine Christian -- brother and sister.
Saturday was our last day at Petra`s. Peter came and took us and all our luggage up the mountain to Las Mangas, where we have been living for the last few days, and perhaps the next 10 months. But we have been exceedingly blessed to live here during school. Petra, Patty, and Billy have all been careful to speak patient, clear Spanish to us, not to mention the large extended family.
Thursday night, I think it was, Petra touched us on the heads and said, "Son mi hermonos. Es verdad." (You are my siblings, it´s the truth). And that is how they have treated us. Aside from giving us a bed and bathroom and preparing stomach sensitive meals, which was the contract, they have driven us places (like to the pharmacy in the rain after dark to retrieve some sorely needed medicine for Kelly), given us a lot of advice (like warning us never, not for the world, to drink water in Las Mangas without boiling it first), and always been kind and flexible. Petra has prayed with and for us and given us a ten month anniversery gift. And it is largely because of Petra querying, "¿Porque no han ido al medico?" that we went and got kelly tested at the hospital. She went in with us, helped us find the laboratory, and then her daughter Liana interpreted the results for us, saving us about 300 lps. Truly we have been blessed to have landed in such a strange place and found family so readily.
We just returned from Trujillo, a very historic coastal town (The oldest fort in the Americas, William Walker was executed here), where we did almost nothing that we expected to do and a lot we didn´t expect. A few tips for the future.
We hopped into the back of a rusty red Toyota 4x4 -- 5 of us -- just as the skies commence a vigorous 30 minute downpour. Soaked to the skin, we start up the road to Las Mangas, which follows the Congrejal River up into the mountains back of La Ceiba. This the first time we had really come close to the mountains -- before they had just been an impressive backdrop to our travels around the cities of San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba -- and they grow more and more beautiful the further into them we drive. Steep, green hillsides rising to surprisingly sharp points (for one used to the Appalachians, anyway).
To our right as we ascend,
¨Canto queso, I said to the man at the internet cafe in our neighborhood, hoping to discover the cost for one hour of internet time. He smiled politely and answered, `triente lempira`. It was only after we walked out that we realized I had actually said something more like `I sing cheese`.
So goes our first week of language study here in La Ceiba. Our conversations are peppered more and more with little pieces of espanol as we learn more vocabulary and verb usage. We say `quieres?`or `me gusta`when mealtimes come around, and `vamos a caminar`when it´s time to leave for school. And then there is the all important, `mi estomago`, as in, `I need to go to the bathroom.´ We are learning a lot, and finding it is one thing to know the correct conjugation on a worksheet, and quite another to engage our Honduran friends in conversation. `Que? No entiendo...´ Fortunately, kelly knows a good bit of spanish already, so I lean on her a lot to understand questions from our host family or vendors or neighbors.
Language school has also been an adventure as Kelly and I continue to learn to communicate with each other. The first few days were very difficult as we struggled to establish a balanced rhythm between twin goals of acquiring a language and growing in unity. Thankfully, we have learned a little, and have set aside a specific time for talking only in English. `Te Amo much`wasn´t quite cutting it for us. Praise the Lord for partnership, though! It has been a wondrously rich time for us.
Hola. Greetings from San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in Honduras. We´re sitting in a cyber cafe (where we got frisked at the door by a man who seemed to be a policeman) waiting for the banco to open so we can change our dollars to lempiras. Right now the exchange rate is 17.56 lempiras to one U.S. dollar, and the cyber cafe is 10 lempiras for one hour. Not too bad.
We had a really good time in Melbourne with our friends talking about how our time in Las Mangas will look.
It was one of those conversations that entering into is much more strenuous and complicated than leaving. We had had some misunderstandings between us, and being with the folks in Florida gave us all a chance to affirm our love for each other as fellow believers and freely get everything on the table. Praise the Lord. It´s amazing how good this process has been for us together and as individuals -- all the lessons the Spirit is teaching us about trusting him, not worrying, and how perfect love casts out fear. More on this later, I´m sure.
Trying to get around the country
So Friday we leave the country. We are excited to be going, a little sad to be leaving – an appropriately bittersweet feeling. This trip to Honduras is something we’ve been praying about and planning since before we were engaged, and now we are walking wide-eyed through the open doors.
A whole lot of things have fallen into place
We said goodbye to Chattanooga on Wednesday and Thursday September 10-11. On Wednesday night, Will and Kim H. threw us a going-away bash/prayer send-off. Robert, Tim, Jade, and Ben from the AP house were there. Bob and Michelle – good friends and small group partners from St. Elmo Pres – were there. Becca H. was there fresh off one of her first days of work. And the entire Holt family was there: Robby, Chrissy, Clark, Abby, Emma, and Ellie. It was the first time we had seen the Holts since last November at Ben and Jane’s wedding, and it was a great blessing. They had us over for breakfast several times when we were dating, and have served as both relational and mercy ministry mentors to us.
It was one of those evenings with friends when conversation and “being-with” flows so easily that suddenly you’ve spent 3 or 4 hours and can hardly believe it.