3 Martini Christmas

The Christmas week is finally over and my brother and his family flew back to Seattle today.  The presents are all unwrapped, the games are all played and the wine has all been consumed.  We learned how to make the perfect martini according to Peter and also that pictures should only be in black and white.   I call Christmas a success because even Kira ended up playing a game with us and that game was...Jungle Speed which Max and Laney got as one of their Christmas gifts.  I think I frightened Ivey at first but I was getting smiles out of her before she left.   The pictures are in black and white in deference to Peter as we say goodbye to Christmas 2012, it's all over but the cryin'.

This is 40...

Well, I'm officially old enough to join the "geriatric club" at church.  I turned 40 last week and my wife made sure our week was jam packed with festivities, putting up the tree, birthday get-togethers and Christmas parties.  I'm thankful for friends and families who enjoy laughing and playing games because the week was full of fun...thanks to my much younger wife for organizing the week of bday fun and never complaining about it(if you believe that, you don't know my wife.)   I think I need a nap.
~Jeff

 

Thanksgiving with the Indian(food)

We had our Thanksgiving celebration early this year on Saturday and it seems like every time we get together the noise level gets louder and louder.  The kids had fun and we got to celebrate Brayden's birthday.  Celebrating early meant that on Thanksgiving day we could have a low key dinner with just Cat, Hayes and I.  We ended up eating at Khana Kazanah where we enjoyed some delicious non traditional Thanksgiving feast.  Then after that we were thankful for the warmish weather so we took Hayes for some time at the park.

Honduras (Parte Tres)

I thought I would do one final post about Honduras.  My time in La Esperanza was and experience I will never forget and continues to shape my heart for those that are  forgotten by  society but not by our Father.  Thanks to all who supported me, prayed for me and encouraged me.   I will leave you with some of the faces of Honduras.  Faces, people and a community that has touched my heart.

Honduaras (Parte Dos)

In addition to the home construction, the other element of our work in La Esperanza was to involve ourselves in the community and get to know the people in the invasion.   Interacting with the kids and families of this community was definitely a highlight of the trip for me although sometimes the communication barrier put a lull in the conversation.   My favorite question to the kids was always "Donde es tu novia/novio?".  Asking an eight your old boy where his girlfriend was always provoked embarrassed protests along with laughter and pointing from his friends.

Every day we took the kids down to the end of the lane for a vbs type program that included singing, a story, coloring or some other activity.  For the David and Goliath story I was Goliath along with Chandler on my shoulders.   We also used party favors as horns as the kids marched around the walls of Jericho.   We also played a lot of soccer with the kids.   It was raining pretty hard one day but I had 10-15 kids who Leslie suggested I take over to the field to play soccer.  The field was soaked with huge puddles and long grass but we had fun.  I tried to use my Spanish when I heard Lisette who was on my team shout out to a teammate "primo", "primo" and then he would pass the ball to her in the center of the field.  She kept yelling it and he kept passing it so I thought "oh, "primo" must mean center the ball".  So I started yelling "primo, primo!"  to whoever was dribbling the ball up the sideline.   As soon as I started yelling "primo" Lisette started yelling at me in Spanish.  Of course, I couldn't understand her so the next time I down the field I continued to yell "primo" but every time I did Lisette would just shake her head.   She of course would still yell "primo", whenever she wanted the ball.   Maybe she just didn't want me to get the ball.   It was only the next day when I was talking with someone and they mentioned the spanish word primo.  I told them i thought it meant "center" you know to center the ball.  They then told me that "primo" means cousin.  Lisette was yelling primo because it was her cousin that was on our team and she wanted him to pass the ball.  Now it makes sense why I couldn't yell it too...

We also brought down bags of Rice and Beans from Midwest food bank which we distributed to the households along with spanish bibles and devotionals.  This was a good way to meet the parents of the kids that we had been hanging out with.

It was really great meeting the people of Honduras and also bonding with the team from Imago.  It was hard to say goodbye to all the friends we made and the people who welcomed us so warmly into their lives.

Steve Harris along with his wife Leslie led the team and he has also blogged about the experience and some emotional moments and you can read it here.

 

  

  

Honduras (parte uno)

I came back from Honduras a week ago with my team from Imago Dei church and have avoided blogging about it because I don't know how to convey the experience without sounding cliched and trite.  I had an amazing time serving on the outskirts of La Esperanza in an area known as the invasion.  It's dirt road with houses and shacks bordering each side and our team was able to finish one house and start another one in the week that we were there.  In this post I will talk about the actual building of the house and then in a separate post I will talk about the people that I encountered.

It was amazing to see how little most of the people in the invasion actually live in and even the concrete block houses that we were building seemed primitive compared to American standards but the families were grateful for the added protection from the wind and the rain plus doors and windows that can be locked.  We spent our days mixing concrete, digging trenches, carrying rocks and doing our best even with rain most days at some point.   The house we built was for a family of fourteen and they had been on a list for a couple of years to get a house built.

Luckily, not much skill was required and we had some local guys leading the effort.  It was tiring but also very rewarding to be a part of what God was doing on that street in Honduras and I know that it was a visible demonstration of God's love for that family.   We wrote bible verses on paper as prayers for the family that was embedded into the cement and one in particular stood out as it was also written across the wall where the team was staying...

Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

The city name La Esperenza in Spanish means "hope".   The invasion sits on the outskirts of hope and it's easy to believe that hope will stay on the fringes with the lack of money, jobs, fathers and even lack of dreams for the people living in this poverty stricken area when a huge worry is where your next meal will come from.   Just as the houses are being built on each side of this dirt road, I have to believe that God is building hope in those that live in them and it was exciting to be a small part in the big plans as God continues to move hope from the outskirts to the center of those who put their trust in Him.

 

 

Hayes is Three!

Hayes celebrated his birthday with friends family and pumpkins.  Hayes enjoyed playing with friends at Chuck-E-Cheese after coming back from his month long vacation in Hawaii where I believe he reigned as a little prince.   We also discovered that there is something worse than Chuck-E-Cheese on a weekend and that is Tanner's Orchard on a weekend.  We went to Tanner's to pick out a pumpkin but the lines were unbelievable and it was just a mess.  We also celebrated Hayes' birthday with my family and Catherine decided to have all the kids decorate pumpkins and that was fun for everyone except Hayes who didn't want to have anything to do with the activity.  We couldn't even bribe him with M&M's much to his mother's chagrin.