It's a holiday, let's celebrate....

The kids are off school on Monday and so the celebration begins...

Student send-off ...

Friday was my last day of teaching and my 4th, 5th, 6th & 7th grade math classes all surprised me with hand made cards. They were very touching for me. It's amazing to me how much we connected in such a short period of time especially considering I had to be their strictest teacher. I thank God for the opportunity!

The first card is from Fabiola and you can see from the name that it means a lot to me!

This is a composite from my 4th graders and the smaller cards around the bottom are their individual good-byes.

These are my 5th graders who completely surprised me since I had to do more disciplining in their class than the others.

The sixth grade class actually said they learned some math...PTL!

The seventh graders are the larger individual cards on the table.

Will's Honduras Update 9/30/2011

It's been awhile since the last update so I will fill you guys in with as much information as possible. Today was Bob's last day of voluntarily teaching at Good Seed. When he came in today he asked me to help him unload the van. Unload the van? Turns out, all of the kids he taught for the last month had made him goodbye cards. It was pretty cool watching him go through them all. He actually almost started to cry! I never thought I would see that! It really sealed the deal when he got to Fabiola's card. In the card she wrote: "I love you daddy". Haha, the was it. Hook, line, sinker. you didn't hear anything but when he went into another room you knew what was going on.

For me it was pretty cool to see the letter. "I love you" is easy for her to say but to mean it...that is extremely hard. Those words in that letter were for real and you could tell. Mauricio's written words were "thanks for teaching us math and correcting us". Seeing that showed me how thick Mauricio's walls are. He will mess with you and everything but as far as letting you in 100%....that is almost impossible.

In the last update I mentioned that I wanted to recruit a married couple to come down and relieve Bob and Joyce so they could return to the States for a MUCH NEEDED break. God provided! Jay and Jen Sipes answered the call and I can not tell you how stoked I am about it. Jay and Jen Sipes are two good friends that I met through Zad Tomberlin who discipled me. From the very beginning of trying to get toHonduras they were two of the very few that stuck with me and encouraged me. Since then I have wanted them to meet the children and God is finally allowing that to happen. Right now they are trying to raise the funds to get down here. If you would like to help them in any way please e-mail me and let me know.

Also, I can tell you that I am extremely happy Bob is finished teaching because 3 or 4 times a week we had to grade papers....and that took FOREVER! For Bob's last day of papers it took us 5 hours! I'm glad that is over! I never expected that I would be grading school papers here in Honduras. Pretty neat how God throws surprises at you huh!?

Since I mentioned "teaching" I just want to tell you how much I appreciate Dahlia. She is the tutor of the children and it is amazing with how much patience she has with these children trying to teach them. She took a week off so you know what that meant. Bob, Joyce, and I had to teach! Bob had Mauricio and Fabiola and they are pretty good by themselves. Plus Bob was real busy trying to grade papers that week as well....by himself. Joyce had Pedro and Angel while I had Cesar. I know well enough now that I can never teach elementary school. I would want to slit my wrist. When Dahlia came back, it was like an angelic being walking in. I was so relieved!

Whenever Bob was in school, the tasks fell on me. Which I was glad they did. God has really used this month to mold me into the man He wants me to be. Whether it be from repairing things around the house or by running errands. One such errand was this week. I had to go to Galdamez's shop to power wash all of the clay from the last drill off of the rig. That was interesting. When I arrived to the shop I noticed the rig had a tire with no air in it. I had to take the "llanta" off then find a "llanta" repair shop to place more air in it. Once that was taken care of I had to figure out how to lower the feet that held the rig off of the ground. I figured out how to do that. Then the fun began. I had to back the truck up to the rig so I could hitch it up to the truck. That took forever as well but, I got that accomplished. I backed the rig up without a problem to the area I needed to take it in order for me to wash the machine. After 2 hours the mission was accomplished and I headed back to the house so I could wash up and pick up Rosa and Antonio from school. The 2 hours surprised me because on the way to the shop I had no clue as to how I was going to get this done. Praise God!

In terms of my residency, up until 2 days ago I would not be able to get the paperwork to renew my visa for another 4 months! That left me with 2 options, try and drive to the Guatemalan border or fly to the States at last minutes notice with little to no funds. Today however, God came through and worked it out to where the lawyer can bring me the papers tomorrow morning at 9! Yes! So that was a big sigh of relief! It is so cool, because since moving here you can literally see how God provides for everything. Even the impossible!

Prayer requests:

1. The Sipes.

2. Pray that God will bless Fabiola with a passport and a visa so she can go to the states in November with Bob and Joyce. This would be huge if this would work out. It would give Fabiola an opportunity to meet those who have been supporting her and praying for her the last 2 1/2 years! It would also be great for the individuals to see how much God has changed the lives of these kids!

3. Bob and I may be able to drill next week. Pray for that and for the drill site.

4. For the first time God has blessed me with the opportunity to preach His WORD! I have had the desire for a long time now and He opened the door! I preach on October 9 so pray that I am taken completely out of the picture and for my preparation, because if we drill it will be interesting seeing how I will be trying to prepare.

5. ANTONIO.

Trauma in the night....

Pedro, our Chinese missionary from yesterday, had a rough night last night. Before we were awarded custody of Pedro he lived in a nearly starved condition all the four years of his young live. He never knew anything other than hunger and that fear and pain is so deeply etched in his mind that to this day he can't control his eating without supervision. As a result if he is left to his own devices he will eat until he makes himself sick; much like an animal left in an over-rich pasture for too long a time.

Yesterday the school had a party to celebrate "Missions Day" and there were cupcakes, large cupcakes, at the party. With no one to tell him to stop Pedro gorged himself with four of the large wheat bran cupcakes. The result: during the night he vomited all over himself, his bed, and his bed clothes...and then slept in it. This morning was not a pleasant one for Joyce....Pedro with a bed full of vomit and Antonio with a bed full of pee...again!

Of course, the real sorrow of the story is what Pedro had to endure as a baby and a toddler. Who knows how many years it will take to erase all the fears that life period have sown into him?

Missionaries from around the world...

Today was missions day at Good Seed school and we awoke to find a mission team assembled from around the world right in our very own home.

Now that's a worldwide mission team!!!

A Geisha Girl...in Honduras?

This cowpoke looks a little to happy to me...

All the way from the island country of "Mauricio" that's right, that's Mauritania in Spanish!

This cowboy bears watchin'!

From the underground church in China?

Praises & Prayers...

Praise the Lord...Fabiola now has her braces for a full day and so far, she has experienced absolutely no pain! She's not too crazy about me calling her "metal mouth", but it insulates her from any abuse her fellow students might drop on her. She is really grateful for being pain-free!

Praise the Lord...Mauricio had the first two of four molars pulled today, in preparation for getting braces,...the dentist told us he would be in extreme pain, but we have been bathing him in prayer and up to this moment he has ZERO PAIN! Keep praying for him; he's still bleeding and next week he gets the other two pulled.

It's neat to see and hear them both acknowledging that "prayer really does work!"

School schedules and loooong study halls...

With 5 children in a private Christian bi-lingual school and 2 more in a private Spanish school our school schedules are filled to over-flowing! I start by taking the "5" with me as I head out to teach at 6:40 a.m., then Will takes the other "2" at 6:50 a.m. to their school.

At noon Will picks up Rosa & Antonio and brings them home for lunch...in the interim I've returned to house and along with Joyce run the errands and pay the bills that are needed to keep us running day to day. At 1:00 p.m. we have a tutor who comes in to work with the kids; first with Rosa & Antonio, later with the others when they get home. At 2:10 p.m. we pick up Fabiola, Mauricio, Cesar, Angel, & Pedro and get them settled into 'study hall' at home. Joyce, Will, and I join our tutor and take the kids to different rooms to work with them one on one as much as we can leaving the old two to work on their own. The tutor works with the younger kids until 4:30 p.m. and then we take over sometimes studying until 6:30 or 7:00 p.m. (In between I do the dreaded 'paper correcting' that all teachers so look forward to.)

That leaves one half hour for the younger 4 children to have a snack, watch a little tv, and then head to bed at 7:30 p.m. (they're up at 5:15 a.m.); the older three go at 8:00 p.m. Then the next morning it starts all over again at 5:00 a.m.

Will usually hits the 'rack' around 8 p.m. and Joyce and I struggle mightily to make it to 9 p.m.; sometimes we're successful and other times we give up and go to bed. I guess we should be grateful...there's not much time for temptation to set in!!! Good ole school days????