Wednesday, 08/08/12

Well, the rain started around 1:00 am and seems to be slacking off now at 7:00 am.  I am tired, deep down to the bone tired, but the funny thing is I want to get out there and work on that home for that family.  I am such a blessed man, I have three beautiful, wonderful children, three sisters who would do most anything for me, my mothers smile is still one of the most joyous thing I can imagine and a woman who really makes me happy and loves me.  Yet even with all these blessings I get wrapped up in the daily hubbub of life and forget how fortunate i really am.  But I guess it all comes into perspective when you see that tiny little house we are building, the 6 people who will be living in it and the gratitude they show everytime we help them.  I'm not sure if they have jobs, or how they earn money to buy food and what we call the "necessities of life",but they manage.  Every day we need to realize how good we have it....

Today at the work site, our two builders started working on the windo and door frames on the home, while the other five of us went to work on a house that was recently finished, but suffered some damage in this latest rain.  The house hasn't been lived in yet, thank God because we had to redig some of the septic tank sides.  The septic tank consists of an inverted cone dug into the grounds out 8 feet deep with river rocks lining the walls, the waste water flows into the tank and the water leeches through the rocks back into th soil.  Guess who was the lucky guy to climb into the bottom of the septic tank?  Yup, yours truly.  After that we had to dig a trench around the entire pit, about 12 feet on each side about a foot deep so they could place cement blocks to support the cement lid they have to add to cover the septic tank.  After we dug the trench we had to mix cement to fill the trench and bricks.  We got an amazing amount of work done today, it sure felt good. I have never sweated as much as today.  It was like a wet t-shirt contest for us, we were soaked from head to foot.    I mean drenched!!  At lunch time we went back to the main compound and ate our pb&j's drank our Gatorade and started playing with the kids.  Playing with the kids consists of soccer, frisbee, bouncing the balls, jumping rope, basically spending time with the kids.  (Come to find out that alot of the kids don't even know who their father is. Most of the kids come from a single parent (mom) family.  So any attention they can get from a male figure is craved and needed.  It is a very sad thing to see.  All the kids love " Miguel" the missionary, they especially like him to play soccer with them, it's not that he is great or teaches them moves, what it is is that he hugs them, roughhouses around, and gives them attention.  He is a very loving man towards the kids).  Pretty soon the soccer field cleared and a game developed, the local kids against the gringos.  We have 3 really good soccer players with us, one played in college, 2 others in high school, these three were our only redeeming grace, the rest of us just plain were terrible.  But we had fun, and the kids had fun. There were 2 injuries during the course of play, of course old graceful me sustained both of them.  The first was when I tripped on the ball and instead of taking the hit to my face, I took it to my hands and left knee.  Scraped and cut, still staying in there.  The second was when I stole the ball from a kids and again tripped over the ball, this time I banged my head really hard against the concrete wall. I banged it so loud that one if the kids was concerned and asked Mike if I was ok, Mike replied " he's still standing, I guess he is ok". I was still standing, thank God I have a thick skull.the game finally fizzled out, then the real fun began. 

I had a molar pulled.

I had a molar that the temporary crown had fallen out of about a year ago. I couldn't afford to get it fixed, (1000.00) so I decided to get it piled along time ago.  I never had the time or inclination to get it done. The other missionary team has two dentists and a complete dental office in a suitcase.  He offered to take it out so I said sure.  I had a friend take pictures of the chairs they used and the dental process of removing the tooth.  The dentist had to cut the tooth in half, then pulled half out, and then had to cut the half in half again to get it the rest of the way out.  All in all not the most pleasant afternoon.  After that we came to the dorms and showered and ate dinner.  I'm gonna cut this short now and go to bed, I hurt all over, knees, back, hands, and mouth.   But that's ok, I would do it again in a second.

But I am a blessed man having the ability to be here, assisting in Gods work, hopefully inspiring the kids thru our actions.  

8/7/12 Tuesday, 

Let me explain something before I get much further,  I am posting my blogs typed from an I-phone.  Yes I have 2-thumbed all this so far.  Not to bad for me if I do say so myself... Ok, here we go, the rain from tropical storm Ernesto came thru with a vengeance starting last night around 6:00 pm and raining really hard all night.  Most nights we wake up because the mangos falling from the trees onto the tin roof makes a loud BANG!!, but last night the rain drowned out the mango drums it was so loud.  We woke up at 6:15 and the rain was just as hard as it was last night, with no letup in the forecast.  We also learned that hurricane Ernesto was passing north of Honduras and we were experiencing the outlying rain squalls from the storm, but we are safe, the storm had passed, we all figured that we would not be heading out to  Armenio Bonito since you can't lay brick in the rain because you need to control the amount of water in the mortar, what we didn't realize, was that cement can be poured in the rain, so we spent the morning helping build up the wall around the compound.  The cement mixing technique here is very primitive but it works, it's all done on the ground with shovels and a big pile of the materials.  Basically they pour the cement and sand on the ground then start shoveling it in to the middle to build a big volcano then create a huge crater in the middle and add the water, all the time 3 or 4 guys are shoveling the sides to keep the walls up and thus the cement gets mixed,  I know, I know, you have no idea what I'm talking about.  I will try to film it tomorrow.  Once we mixed the cement we had to shovel it in 5 gallon buckets and carry it to the wall then lift it up to the workers.  It was pretty difficult but we handled it well.  While the workers were making the forms for a column we needed to pour, the lead missionary mike, introduced us to the joys of eating fresh right off the tree mangos.  Since we aren't supposed to eat any fresh fruit or vegetables we had to make sure that mango came right from the tree and didn't sit on the ground to long.  So basically we had to eat it as it fell from the tree. Man, they were sweet and juicy and delicious.  After we ate around 20 mangos, we went inside and ate lunch (maybe that's why we weren't to hungry) after lunch we went out the Armenia Bonito to hold kids club for the kids.  There were about 85 kids there, and man was it loud! The gringos had to put on a skit based on a biblical passage, create a game, and help with a craft activity. The team leader Zach, the Pastor Phil, and myself had to do the skit based on Balaams Ass (Numbers 23) we needed 3 character an angel, Balaam, and the ass... Guess which one I was?? That's right, the ass....(sigh) that's my lot in life.... But we had a great time and the kids had a blast too.  After skit, we helped the kids do arts and craft, making a paper bag hand puppet of me, the ass... After we picked up all the trash, put away all the benches and table and chair we left to have dinner at a local place here.  We ate 3 things, deep fried plantain chips, fresh beans, refried, and barbecued meat, chicken, beef, and sausage.... Man was it delicious!!! Just what the doctor ordered.   All us guys sat at one table and the beans and plantain chips were devoured almost instantly them they brought out the trays of meat.i think we scared the other tables, be within 5 minutes we were done with our meat plate and looking for others....  I kinda think we scared some of the other tables because they started bringing us their trays when they were done.  We ended up with 6 trays on our table, the only thing missing were the flagons of mead and the elkhounds to use as napkins, so we had to settle for the local beer and a couple of chihuahuas,  (and the beer was pretty bad too....).  That pretty much puts today to rest.  We are back at the dorms, resting after a long day of work, fun, spreading the blessings and the word of God thru our actions and our prayers.  Good night everyone.

Day #4

The tropical storm Ernesto turned into a hurricane today, but it turned north and avoided us completely.  The windiest it got today was about 10 mph.  We did see tons of rain, though.  It poured all night long.  I woke up a couple times trying to figure out who was in the shower, but it was the rain right outside my window.  The rain continued throughout the morning, which forced us to alter our plans a little bit.  They emphasized the first day that the number one thing we needed to remember this week was the "F" word--FLEXIBILITY.  We were unable to work on the house we were working on yesterday because you can't work with mortar when it's raining.  It was a little disappointing, and we hope that the rain will clear up either tomorrow or Thursday so we can go back and make some progress on that house.  I left my camera inside, so no pictures today.

You can, however, mix and pour cement when it is raining, so instead of going to Armenia Bonito, we stayed at La Isla, the downtown ministry center, and helped the workers here.  Mike keeps a staff of about 12 Honduran construction workers at all times.  Half of them work here and the other half work at the center in Armenia Bonito.  He used to have double that number, and the work progressed much faster, but it was hard for them to sustain a workforce that size.  Unemployment is very high here, ~4x what we have in the states, so he's had the same workers for a long time because they have a good job and want to keep it.  They make $12 a day, which is more than minimum wage, and they get quite a few other benefits most workers do not enjoy as well.  We were able to help out some today by essentially doubling the workforce at this site.  We mostly mixed and carried buckets of cement that were poured to form a top beam on the 12 foot exterior wall of the compound.  We also poured a corner column on the church/school/seminary and made a bunch of rebar ties.  You had to watch your head, because mangoes were constantly dropping from the tree.  We ate some fresh as the fell, and they were delicious.  It's interesting, because the Hondurans like their mangoes very hard and green, and they have a chili-salt sauce that they dip them in.  We chose the riper ones.

We at lunch at the dorms, and then drove out to Armenia Bonito for Kids' Club.  This is a Bible club that Erin Pettengill usually puts on, but we went with Mike instead.  We set up chairs and tables, and then played soccer and baseball as the kids trickled in.  An interesting fact to me was that Hondurans dislike rain a lot.  It seems like it would just be a fact of life here, especially with a months-long rainy season, but Mike said life basically stops when it rains.  Thankfully the rain cleared up by the start of kids club, otherwise Mike said our attendance would have been cut in half.  We had about 75 kids, many the same as yesterday at English class (we had about 40 kids yesterday).  There are definitely a few kids we have each connected with, and it's fun when one will come up to you and point to the soccer ball or say "bate" when the want to play baseball.

Kids club started with a game, which Jon and Caleb got to choose.  They chose dodgeball, and it was probably a poor choice.  The Honduran kids don't believe in things like rules, and any game where honesty is involved basically has to be heavily policed or it's total chaos.  We had total chaos.  After the game Mike ran through some memory verses and catechism questions with the kids.  They do four verses at a time, and 3 of the four are review from previous weeks.  I was impressed with how well the kids knew them.  After that we performed the story of Balaam's ass as a skit in Spanish.  Richard was the donkey, Phil was Balaam, and I was the angel.  Phil did very well with the overacting and beating Richard with a whip.  We did crafts with the kids at the end and made puppet donkeys out of brown paper bags.  I forgot how hard it is to cut out shapes along the lines.  I would not do well in kindergarten.  It would have been nice to have some women on the team to help with the crafts, but we got by.  After the crafts we just played with the kids some more until it was time for them to leave.  Word about me has spread among the kids, and all day random little girls would come up to me and tell me to take my hat off, then point at me and laugh.  They also play this game where they hold up their hand like they are holding something in all 5 fingertips, and if you look at their hand then then peck at you with their hand like it's a bird beak.  They think it's hilarious.  If you don't look, they just shove their hand right in your face and then start pecking at you anyways.

Tonight we got to sample the local Honduran cuisine, but we were limited because we had to eat food they felt reasonably sure was safe.  We have to stay away from the local water (including ice), and any fruits or veggies are off limits as well.  We went out to a local restaurant and had plantain chips (which taste just like potato chips...not bananas) with a bean dip that was really good, followed up by plates of grilled meat.  There was steak, chicken in some kind of sauce, pork, and a sausage that was kind of like a weak chorizo.  We had one tray of meat to share, and it disappeared quickly.  The other group is mostly full of dieting women, though, and three more almost full trays made their way over to us before the night was out.  We made sure none of the food went to waste, and it was all very tasty.

We got back to the dorms around 7, and lights out is at 10, so we have some time left to relax and hang out as a team.  A lot of us are journaling our experiences, and its nice to have time in the evenings to do that and process everything we are going through while it is still fresh.

8/6/12

First full day of work, woke up at 5:30 to be ready to roll at 7:30.  I had to be real quiet since Phil needed his beauty sleep, and i had agreed to set  my alarm for 6:15.  I had been tossing and turning since around 5:00 and all of a sudden at 6:10, Phil comes flying out of his bunk saying it was 7:10 and we only had 5 minutes to get ready!!! It took 3 grown men and a small boy to convince him it was only 6:10.  Then we all had avoid laugh and got ready for the day.  After breakfast, Trevor and I who are in charge of hydration had to fill the 5 gallon thermos water cooler and load it and four other 5 gallon water jugs into the truck taking us to the work site.) I had no idea what to expect. None what so ever.  As we got to the job site I saw a foundation for a house that was about 12 X20.  That as small as my trailer living room or the area under Josie's parking cover.  The structure housed two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a, eating, resting, food prep utility room.  The building they were living in before was half that size.....  They had the footing and the first course of bricks layer when we got there and our job was to lay more brick and build up the walls.  But there isN a lot of things that need to be done before the bricks become a wall, we had to build up the floor shovelful by shovelful, we had to move 500 bricks by hand,  we had to mix enough mortar, again by hand. And all this during a torrential rainstorm.  The good thing and the rain was that it cooled us off at he cost of our clothes getting soaked and weighing 20 pounds.  Since all the water that touch the land is basically contaminated it felt good to be able to open my mouth point it to the sky and thank the Lord for the wonderful refreshing rain.  We ended up building up about 3 rows of bricks around 2 walls of the house.  It doesn't seem like much but my body says it was way too much...  After we finished the house we went back to the compound and ate lunch and relaxed (slept) for about an hour.  Then the kids showed up and the soccer play began.  The missionaries built a covered soccer court the size of a hockey rink for the local community to use.  We played around with the kids for about an hour than we started English lessons.  We helped the children with their english pronunciations, reading, and comprehension.  I guess a kids are the same everywhere, some would try and others would not, it was great helping the kids. The kids had a blast when it was their turn to teach us Spanish they were quick to correct our pronunciation and grammar.  But it was a great time anyway.   We came back to the dorms to a wonderful stew and biscuits and fruit that was prepared for us by the unknown cooks.  It was wonderful, tasty and filling.  After that Phil, Caleb, and myself had dish duty tonight washing dishes. Prewash, wash, rinse and bleach.  Yes I said bleach, since we use contaminated water we must bleach everything.  30 people generate a lot of dishes.... A whole lot of dishes.  After dish duty, I went up to the eating area to relax and start by writing, listening to the rain outside reveling in the miracle that brought a 51 year old call center representative, living in Arizona, to the town of La Ceiba in the Honduras to help build a home for 6 people living in a one room shack.  God is a wonderful provider for me and for them....  After my thinking, I got recruited in to making lunch for the teams.  What would you think that a missionary team in the Honduras eats for lunch? Perhaps a stew with vegetables, or maybe,  a sandwich with a slab of local ham,  no nothing so exotic, we will be having peanut butter and jelly sammiches!!  Hey, at least it's jif brand.  After we made the sammiches, some of my team and the intern and one lady from the other team started playing spoons.  No broken bones, cuts or contusions, just some smashed fingers and bruised egos.vwhich brings to a close today's events, I'm heading to bed now to get some sleep in preparation for a long and toting tomorrow.  Good night all.......  XOXO

8/05/12

Woke up in the morning and felt a lot better. Whew......  

All 7of is were more tired then we thought, we slept until 8:30 and had what is called "gringo" worship at 9:00 we all took quick showers being extra careful not to let any of the water into our mouths or eyes since we would all probably get very sick.  After showers we all ate a quick breakfast ( popitas de sucre, sugar pops for my gringo kids) and a prepackaged cinnamon roll.  We had service and communion courtesy of pastor Phil.  After that the missionaries took us on a tour of Le Ceiba And Le Fe. Just a back up real quick, there are 2 missionary teams here, 1 team from Georgia and one from Tucson.  The Georgia team is doing dental work and teaching some of the local women to sew.  Our team from Tucson is working in Armenia Bonita doing construction and ministry with the local children.  Ok, back to the story.... After our tour we came back to the compound and rested until 3:30 when left to the local Honduran worship device.  We piled in 3 vehicles, 5 of us climbed into the back of a Toyota truck bed and ride to the service like that, let me tell you, it was the coolest I have been since we arrived.  The service was in Spanish but us gringos were given a translator we could use if we wanted to.  It helped alot, the young lady who was translating kept trying to find the right words to use so we would understand her.  It was kinda funny, couple of time the preacher would talk for 30 seconds and her translations was " we love God" or " "we must be stewards of Gods gifts". I just wondered if we were getting the full translation, but it worked.  But the coolest thing was that they sang one of my favorite songs "Blessed Be The Name".  That is one of my favorite Christian songs, followed by Let's Get Down and Raise the Lord up!!!  a one-hit-wonder from the 70's.  (just kidding about the 2nd song I didn't care for the beat).... After service we came back to the compound and enjoyed a wonderful meal of black beans/shredded chicken bowl "Chipotle eat your heart out!) it was awesome then we had a mango mouse and some sort of awesome pudding.  I am right now sitting outside waiting till 8:00 to take my malaria pills, and then till 9:00 to go outside and look at the moon simultaneously with the woman who has stolen my heart in Tucson.

Saturday, 8/4/12

Honduras..... We arrived in Roatan an island about 60 miles north of the coast and as we stepped of the plane we were smacked with a blast of hot humid air tinged with the smell of the ocean and you could taste the salt in the air.  The customs were handled by 4 ladies who seemed to be totally bored with the jabber of tourists and the tedium of the seemingly endless lines of people who had the forms filled out wrong, the wrong forms filled out, or even no forms at all.  As pastor Kruis got thru customs he was immediately grabbed by one of local bellboys and simply had to point at our bags and they were wrestled from the conveyor belt and placed on a large luggage cart.  Once we had all the bags they were ran thru an X-ray machine that may have been used in an old Jack Palance sci-fi movie.  As the bags exited the X-ray machine, they were dumped in a pile for the travelers to sort thru.  Our negotiator,  Pastor Kruis, them wrangled us 2 cabs for 7 men and a mountain of luggage,  somehow we all fit in the cars and luggage fit in the trunks of 2 1985 vintage Toyota corollas... As we left the airport amid the honking of horns and the squealing of tires, we were treated to a fast and scary ride thru the country side to get to the ferry landing.  All the men made it as well as the luggage (slightly worse for the wear).  We purchased our tickets and proceeded to wait for the ferry to depart.  We ate an empanada type snack filled with beef or chicken, pretty tasty....... We then watched the Olympic soccer match between South Korea and Great Britain relaxing talking and sleeping.  As the time came to board the ferry, which was very modern and clean, and we got underway, I went to stand outside in the midst of the salt spray reliving my days at sea (Man I miss the being at sea......)  I went inside and fell asleep listening to my music, disco music, just woke up in the ferry as it was pulling into the dock.  Got our luggage and met two guys from the mission who loaded our luggage and we took off to the mission .  Oh man, such a different culture here.  There are no traffic lights, the policemen carry full automatic weapons, even the guys giving our luggage at the ferry were packing pistols...... Got to the compound and found a huge mango and avocado tree on the site, I took pictures of them.  We have 1 1/2 hours till dinner.  Just made my bed, tempted to lie down, but I'm afraid I won't wake wake up... One of the guys in our team wanted to go to a local store to look around so Mike one of interns and I went on a walkabout to explore a little bit of the neighborhood.  We went and found the local "Pulpiria", kind of like a Circle K without the Circle.  Turns out my buddy was looking for some chewing tobacco.  I don't think he is going to have much luck finding it.  After the fruitless tobacco search we went to the local soccer field to watch some of the local soccer clubs play.  According to the locals they were wearing the Honduras and Brazilian jerseys reenacting the latest Olympic game between the two rivals that played today.  In the Olympics the Hondurans lost 2-1, but on the local field, the Hondurans won 3-1!!!!!!  The fans and players were very happy that the brazilians lost on the local field.  After the soccer match we walked back to the dorms and ate nachos, (chips, hamburger, tomatoes macho cheese. Salsa and sour cream.) And all the water or Gatorade, or tea you could drink.  After we ate dinner, we were given a do and donts of living in honduras,  a couple of the interesting ones were we are not allowed to pet any of the dogs we saw running around  some of them were quite mangy looking bit some of them were quite cute. The other strange rule was we can not flish anything but human waste down the toilet.  Including toilet paper!  After using the paper we had to place it in the trashcan!  Kinda gross. After dinner all 7 of our team found ourselves back in the eating room talking and basically being friends.  At 8:57 I went on to the roof to look at the moon as Josie and I agreed to do. I noticed that the 3 moon sweepers had pushed the stars to the lower left side of the moon. (Brave the movie, reference).  As we were sitting on the roof, I noticed that I started to itch in my armpits, behind my knees, my groin area, and I noticed that my lips were swelling as well as my eyes.  I told pastor and we went to the intern who is sleeping in the building and she called the pettingils (the missionaries) and while waiting for assistance  I looked  a bit more at myself i saw I was developing hives in all the places I itched.   Erin the nurse, doctor, carever extraordinaire  came over and gave me a shot of 50mg of Benadryl because I was having an allergic reaction to something, she also put me on zirtec and a steroid to help my breathing.  I went out like a light woke up several times to go the bathroom (which is a wonderful necessary function down here.). 

Day #3

Today was our first day of working, and we had a great day.  There are several missionaries down here, and they each have a different area/need that they focus on.  The other church that is with us is working in the village of La Fey, which is inside of La Ceiba on a river's edge.  We got to drive by and see it yesterday.  They are doing some construction, but also have a dentist with them, and he has been pulling lots of teeth already---something he swore he'd never do again some 20 odd years ago.  Another group of women from the other church is working on sewing with some local women.  We got to go out to Armenia Bonito, which is about a half hour drive and outside of La Ceiba.  It is up river and actually inside of the national rainforest area.  It is a poor community with about 3000 people, and is the focus of the Pettengill's ministry.  They are in the process of building a center with a high school, medical clinic, church, and indoor soccer field.  Below you can see pictures of the field and what will be the medical clinic.

I believe the team last year did some work on this complex, but another thing the Pettengills do is find the poorest of the poor in Armenia Bonito and build them houses.  They try to do 2 houses each summer, and the basic floor plan is 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, and a living room.  They have running water and electricity.  It costs the Pettengills just $1500 for to build a complete home.  The family we are helping build a house for is a single father (the mother has passed away) with four of his children and a nephew living there.  A picture is below...it's literally a wood shack with dirt floors and just big enough to fit two queen mattresses.

Here's a picture of what it looked like when we showed up today.  The team last week laid the foundation, and we're working on filling up the floor and the walls.

They stressed very heavily the need to hydrate and not work too hard.  They get a lot of teams down here who push it way too far in the heat and humidity, and this summer has been their worst yet.  Lots of IVs and a few trips to the emergency room.  It's hard advice to follow, because you want to do as much as you possibly can to help, but pushing it too far and causing a medical incident is not what we want to do.  Richard stayed well hydrated.

Jon and Daniel spent most of the time laying blocks on the walls.  The rest of us hauled the blocks over to the work site and brought wheelbarrows full of dirt and rocks to fill in the floor.

Phil, Trevor, and I took turns digging a hole for an outhouse.  It's about a third complete in this picture.

To mix the mortar they make a "concrete volcano" where they basically put cement mix and sand in a pile on the ground and keep pile it up for a while to mix it, then hollow out the middle and pour in some water, and then start mixing again.

Here's how it looked the end of the first day.  You can see it rained quite a bit, which  made us stop early.  You can pray for the rain to hold off until the afternoon in the coming days so we can get as much work done as possible.

After working, we went back to the Pettengill's center in Armenia Bonito for lunch, and then waited around for the kids to arrive.  Mike puts on English classes for the kids on Monday afternoon, so we got to help with that, but a lot of the kids came early and we played soccer for a while, which was a lot of fun.  In English class the kids basically repeated simple questions and answers back and forth with us, and we were spread out among them at different tables correcting their pronunciation

The questions were things like: "What is your name?", "What is your favorite food?", or "Where do you live?".  I was impressed with the very evident desire the kids had to learn and to learn to say things correctly.  You could tell some didn't really care to be there, but most did and were trying very hard.  The kids like to give us gringos a hard time as well.  I worked with a table of 8-11 year old girls, and they were drawing all over me with pens.  It turns out on my arm they wrote something to the effect of "You are ugly when you take off your hat because you have no hair."  Nice kids.  It was fun working with them, and we're hoping to see many again tomorrow at the kids club Erin puts on.

I've seen the emails about the tropical storm/hurricane, and it looks like it has turned north of us, so no worries there.  We are seeing some rain, but should not be in any danger.  It's pouring right now.  We're just hoping it'll stay dry so we can work tomorrow.  We did name a small lizard we found in our room "Ernesto" in honor of the storm.  There are lots of critters out here, and we'll hopefully get to see some more on Wednesday when we go up to the river in the rainforest to swim with the kids.