A birthday guest and a startling statistic...

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we hosted Andrea, the older sister of Fabiola, Mauricio, and Angel. Friday was Andrea's 16th birthday and Fabi invited her to spend the weekend with us...normally Andrea lives in an orphanage, El Refugio, about 5 miles outside of the city. Friday evening we had a birthday dinner complete with cake and gave Andrea her gift from her 'adopted' family. On Saturday they (mostly Andrea & Fabi) just hung out and did girly things! Sunday it was off to church and then the family put up and decorated our Christmas tree. After that we took Andrea out to eat with us before taking her back to her home at El Refugio. They had a great time together and we got to sow some good seeds of Jesus into Andrea.

Now for the startling statistic...you think unemployment is high in the U.S.? La Prensa (the largest paper in the country) today announced that the unemployment rate for 20ll in Honduras is at 51%!!! No wonder violence is so high. Also in the paper today...we have a great political cartoonist named Banegas who literally has to hide to guard his life, today his cartoon was off a man on his knees, bleeding badly with spears sticking out of his back much like a bull at a bull fight and the back of our president was seen dancing away holding a bullfighter's cape. There were flags on the spears reading: Third most corrupt in the Americas, Poorest in the Americas, Most violent in the Americas...kind of says it all, doesn't it?