highlight // Casa Hogar Vida

Yesterday marked our 2 month mark of living in Honduras... time is definitely flying by! Before too much time gets away from us, we wanted to give a highlight with more details about one of the projects that the GCLA church here in Choluteca has, Casa Hogar Vida.

Casa Hogar Vida was started in 2009, and there still continues to be a vision for future construction of this project. In Spanish, Casa Hogar Vida means "House, Home, Life." The main purpose of this project is to help provide homes for people that normally would not be able to afford their own home. Currently, there are a total of 49 houses on a piece of land that the church owns about 10 minutes outside of the city of Choluteca. The church hopes to eventually have over 100 homes on this property. People who live in these homes pay a small monthly amount and eventually will own the home, in which the church will then title over their plot of land to them. They are about to begin the next phase of construction with additional homes in the coming months.  Praise the Lord that over 90% of the people who live in Casa Hogar Vida attend the GCLA church here in Choluteca!!

On the same site, there is also an orphanage (where Lesley currently works) that right now consists of 3 houses. There are currently 6 children living in one of the homes, and the construction of the third house is almost finished. Praise God that they are currently ready to and in the process of bringing new children into the second house. The orphanage is meant for children who are either affected or infected by HIV. The set up of each home consists of one "Tia", or aunt, that gets paid by the church to work in the home. She is responsible for caring for and loving on the kids, including feeding them, helping them with school work, and basically raising them. This orphanage structure is starting to be used widely across the world in new orphanages. Each of the children have monthly sponsors to provide for their basic needs.  It takes $75 a month per kid for everything they need.

Left to right: Jorge, Heidi, and Bryan. 

Right now, Lesley is serving at the orphanage on Monday and Wednesday mornings. Some of the kids go to school in the morning, where as some go in the afternoon, so currently she works with three of the six kids -- Bryan, Jorge, and Heidi. She spends time with them, plays with them, loves on them, and helps teach them English.

On site there is a block factory in which the church employs people to make concrete blocks for church projects, as well as other projects they receive orders from. There is also a couple of ladies who live in the community that work at "Manualidades" on site, where they make and sell handbags and jewelry that the church helps to promote throughout Honduras. Casa Hogar Vida also has a coffee roaster on site where they roast coffee and sell it throughout Honduras to make money to help fund projects as well as provide for the kids in the orphanage. They have also partnered with Revive Coffee in the United States to be able to sell coffee in the States to which some of the profits come directly to GCLA for project funding.  For more on Revive Coffee, check them out at www.reviveyourcoffee.com .

Part of the block factory.

Currently at Casa Hogar Vida, I (Jamey) am helping with a water project in which they will be treating the water that goes to the community homes as well as the orphanage. Currently, there is no treatment of water that comes from the well in the community. Part of the project will be to dig a new well on site as the current well is at it's maximum capacity and only provides water to the homes every 3 days. The orphanage receives water 24/7. Living Water International will be joining the team here in Choluteca in late January to help with this project. This project is serving as a "pilot" project for GCLA and their hope is to connect with Living Water International continuously over the coming years for projects in all of GCLA's major churches in Honduras including in Danli. I am VERY excited about this opportunity!! I have also been tasked with designing a treatment system for the "aguas negras" (wastewater) that comes from Casa Hogar, as there is currently no treatment for it at this point.

We hope this gives some more background on Casa Hogar Vida and it's vision, since it's where we both are spending a lot of our time working while we are in Choluteca. We hope to post a video in the future giving you a tour of the project site, so that you can see it first hand!  For more information on Casa Hogar Vida as well as GCLA, go to http://www.greatcommissionla.com/tag/casa-hogar-vida/

Love,

Jamey

personal // a year in review... {happy 2014!}

What did you do in 2013 that you had never done before?
well. moving to a developing country is our "easy answer"; but ALSO, Jamey saw the Rocky Mountains for the first time, Lesley traveled internationally by herself, and Jamey rode the Intimidator 305 at Kings Dominion multiple times in a row (anyone who has ridden it knows that's an accomplishment!).

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
having a conversation completely in Spanish with no translator AND becoming 100% fully support raised and getting released to assignment!

What are you most happy about completing?
TWO huge moves in one year! The first was moving out of our first married home, and packing up everything that was his, hers, and ours together for the first time. But the craziest part was packing it all up to be left for four years! It's hard to know what you will and won't need between now and then. ;) The second move was mastering the art of packing everything especially crucial into just 5 bags and getting them all to another country. When we got here, we then had to do things like purchase appliances! We had never done that before even in the States!

Goodbye Warrenton, Va and Covington, VA -- HELLO Honduras!

What was your biggest failure?
We learned that Jamey can't even make baked spaghetti unsupervised when the prepared noodles, sauce, and cheese are provided for him... thus proving Jamey's need for his wife's cooking.

What song will always remind you of 2013?
Okay, let's be real. Since both of us are answering this question, there is no way we could only answer with one song. Here's the list: Songs that hit close to where we were with our faith this year: "Oceans" by: Hillsong and "Whom Shall I Fear {God of Angel Armies}" by: Chris Tomlin. The country songs that absolutely remind us of home and represented country music right this year: "We Were Us" by: Keith Urban & Miranda Lambert and "Southern Comfort Zone" by: Brad Paisley. And the fun song that we listened to more than any other song this year and still never got tired of: "Catch My Breath" by: Kelly Clarkson. (And let's just say that that song made Jamey's year.)

*disclaimer: we know that two of these songs debuted at the end of 2012, but they sure had a good run in 2013 too. :)

What was your favorite meal?
Our first time going to our new favorite restaurant in the South, TUPELO HONEY CAFE!!! Lord have mercy!

The best sweet tea, biscuits & blueberry preserves we've ever had, along with a perfect
meal of mac & cheese, asparagus, bbq pork, parmesan corn-on-the-cob and sweet potato fries! 

What was your favorite TV program?
Both of us: Friends (of course) because we've made our way through all ten seasons in the past year because Jamey got the whole set for Christmas 2012 in order to take it to Honduras with us. No gift Lesley has given him has ever paid off more. :)
Jamey's: Last Man Standing (because Jamey's dad got him hooked)
Lesley's: Castle (because Jamey's mom finally succeeded at getting her completely hooked)

What was your favorite film of this year?
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire; because it was way better than the first one, because it blew our minds, because it inspired us to finally read all the books, and because we got to see it in theaters in Honduras in English!

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013.
If saying goodbye hurts, it just means you loved well.... AND always where shoes, even inside, in Central America. (This is something that we are not quite used to yet, but we have finally decided to comply with.)

How had you positively influenced a child this year?
Lesley taught one of her nanny kiddos, Scarlett, to read (yay!) and now is moving on to teaching this sweetie, Bryan, his first words in English because he wants to learn so badly!

Scarlett (left) with her first 50 sight words that she could spell immediately just from memory;
Bryan (right) with his first page of English words that he asked to learn.

What are you most grateful for this past year?
Getting to spend some time at home before leaving the country, and especially the time we got to spend living at Jamey's parents house. Lesley even came to love all of the family pets in her own way and cried to leave them. :)

What restaurant did you eat at most often?
Chickfila .. Jamey would make us wait to eat until he found one of them while traveling for support raising! And the we also had to hunt one down while in Colorado so Jamey could get his sweet tea fix. (Mission accomplished!)

Did you see any art shows or theatrical productions this year?
We finally had time to go see our first play as a married couple that wasn't produced by the local middle school! We saw the stage production of Steel Magnolias at one of the oldest community theatres in the country on our one year anniversary trip. It was awesome! (And Jamey liked it too.)

Did you attend any weddings or major personal events for friends and family in 2013?
Yes! Three weddings this year, and one of us participated in each one of them. First we had Jenna & Brandon's and Alex & Nicole's, that Lesley was so excited and grateful to be the wedding coordinator for! Then Jamey was one of the groomsmen in Matt & Allison's summer wedding. Also, we returned to Blacksburg to see some sweet friends graduate from the a-ma-zing Virginia Tech.

Three wonderful weddings that we LOVED being a part of!!

Did you have any surgeries this year?
Jamey had his wisdom teeth removed! And he tried to convince Lesley the whole way home that she didn't know the right way to drive us back to our apartment in Warrenton. Too funny.

What did you wear often in your closet?
Jamey: His $10 dollar  gray shorts find at TJ Maxx that he never took off again.

Lesley: She finally caved and bought her first pair of Crocs for Honduras. They are even more comfortable than walking barefoot! 

What did you really, really, really get excited about?
Lesley: launching our blog and getting a lot better at learning to do it AND a years worth of recipes recreated successfully -- there were some big triumphs in that category this year!
Jamey: our family beach vacation in July. He talked about it for months before and then when the day came to leave for the beach, we're pretty sure we could not have left early enough in the morning for Jamey's liking.
Both of us: finally making it back to Lane Stadium for a Hokie football game as alumni!

Our family vacation at the beach!

Where did you feel most connected to God this year?Just the feeling of being surrounded by other missionaries and hearing so much from the Lord at Mission Training International.

What was one memorable gift you gave this year and who was it too?
Actually successfully giving Jamey's dad a surprise retirement and 60th birthday party without him knowing about it AND creating his big present of scrapbooks of all of his newspaper clippings from over the years, all right under his nose!!

What was a fun surprise you had this year?
This is so random, but we were moving to Honduras just 5 and a half weeks before Christmas, so we weren't planning on purchasing a Christmas tree because we were going to be putting a new house together and buying so many basic necessities already. However, we were pleasantly surprised that because we bought a love-seat and two stuffed chairs for our living room area, the store here gave us a free 4 foot little Christmas tree and a gift card for a some ornaments for it. We have enjoyed it so much that we just don't want to take it (or our precious Christmas wreath) down!

Looking into 2014... what does it hold for you?
1 // Living Water International will be joining the team in Choluteca and Jamey will be working alongside them
2 // We will be "hosting" the Virginia Tech annual mission trip in March for the first time from Honduras
3 // Finishing our language and cultural studies in Choluteca, and moving to Danli, Honduras in the spring
4 // Attending our first big GCLA conference as missionaries in Honduras (during Easter!)
5 // Our second wedding anniversary! :)

personal // christmas 2013

On the week of Christmas, we made the best plans. Instead of staying in Choluteca, where we currently live and having a quiet little Christmas in our apartment (because our friends would also be out of town with their family), we decided to travel too! We went on a little adventure to see all of the other friends that we have in Honduras, including our beloved friends at the church we feel called to be working with very soon in Danli.

One wonderful early Christmas present we were given was we actually got to travel and see ALL of the other friends we have in Honduras -- while making a transportation switch-over in the capital city of Tegucigalpa, we got to meet up with our dear friends Jim & Sonia Bridge, whom we got to know while at Mission Training International, for an hour and a half! God is so good; He provides gift after gift for us daily. How wonderful that we were able to meet missionaries that would be serving in the same country as us; how wonderful that we would also be blessed enough to see them for CHRISTMAS!

Getting to see our missionary friends, Jim & Sonia, in Tegucigalpa before heading to Danli. 

Some of our best friends from Danli, Luis & Belkis, had invited us to stay with their family for Christmas. We've stayed with them on previous mission trips. It was such a delight! They picked us up in Tegucigalpa after our three hour bus ride there, and we talked the whole drive home. It had been almost two years since we had spent time together! We could hardly believe it had been that long, because it didn't feel like any time at all. When we arrived in Danli, we immediately began helping the family run errands and prepare for our Christmas celebration; we had just one day after we arrived to get everything ready because in Honduras, they celebrate on Christmas Eve night -- with a big Christmas dinner at about 8:30pm with celebrations lasting into the night. At midnight, people all over set off fireworks and hug each other rejoicing. You're up until at least 2am, if not longer, and pretty much everyone eats Honduran nacatomales and torrejas. Actually, we had a lot of torrejas for several days before and after Christmas! (It's a dessert of cinnamon bread cooked down in a sweet leche sauce. Yum!)

But, on the day before Christmas we had a really important job to do: drive all the way up to the top of a mountain (a very, very bumpy ride, might I add) to a farm to select & retrieve our huge pig to be prepared for Christmas dinner. Our friends had joked that that they were going to make Jamey catch and kill the pig. Thankfully for Jamey they were kidding. :) Here's some pictures from the absolutely beautiful top of the mountain -- we sincerely wish these landscapes were our 100% all-the-time-real-life.

We had to add the pictures of the turkeys from the farm because these two enjoyed chasing Lesley around the farm that day! And their "gobble" hilariously sounded EXACTLY like Hokie game days in Lane Stadium.

Just one view from the top!

The "lagoon" where the tilapia live and grow!

Our silly "little sisters", Lia & Mimi, enjoying some hammock time while waiting on the pig to be done. haha!

Luis grilling half a sack of corn-on-the-cob for Christmas with lime and salt on top! 

After all of the fun on Christmas Eve night, there is a lot of sleeping, cleaning up, and eating leftovers. For us personally, we woke up just before 8am to make sure to video call with our families and siblings! Lesley's grandma in particular thought that video calling was something extremely "nifty", giggled the whole time, and used the call as a "show and tell" time. Then we used the rest of the day to get really good at new card games we were learning from our friends! The family asked Lesley to make lunch that day, with a special request -- her version of spaghetti :) Unfortunately, it hasn't been perfected using Honduran ingredients yet. But it was good to practice again and to get to serve them in that way.

Also on Christmas day, Jamey and Luis (the husband of the family we stayed with, who is a deacon at the church in Danli) went to the dump directly to take the trash from Christmas, so that they could also take extra food to the children that live there and share the Gospel with them.  This was definitely a very meaningful moment for Jamey.

During our week stay, we also were so glad that we went to the Danli church to see what has been updated since we were last there in person! We were so thrilled with and impressed by the additions that have been made to the children's nutrition clinic on site and with the stage in the main church building. It all looks SO great!

The new stage design (left) and the view from the new second story of the nutrition clinic (right). 

Lesley in front of the nutrition clinic, and Jamey with our tour guides,
Luis & his little shadow, Eimi (affectionately called Mimi.) 

We were so thankful for this trip for so many reasons; not only did we get the chance to spend Christmas with people who love and care about us so much (even when we were far away from home) and get to learn about Honduran holiday traditions, but we also were able to reconnect with God in a brand new way about His original calling for this to be our lives in Honduras. We were also able to have talks with some of the leaders about their vision for the future of the church and the communities in Danli as well as our future roles in helping to advance the Gospel in Danli. It was truly a time of rejoicing in Him. Also, as it would have it, we've officially been taking Spanish language lessons for a little over a month now and this trip served as almost a "end-of-the-first-month-exam" for us! This was both of our first trips to Danli with no translators and staying with a family where no one speaks English. Truly by the grace of God, we were able to make it the whole week with little to no confusion and with having wonderful conversations! Of course, it helped that it was two of us working as a team to listen carefully and "translate" in our minds, but we know that it sincerely helped our Spanish SO MUCH. You can't learn a language without practicing it, and there is no better way to practice it than to absolutely have to use it! 

Just a few last pictures we just really want to show (because we know you think that's the best part just like we do):

Jamey getting a LOT of driving experience in Danli! This photo was on our way to
 going to see one of the funniest people we know, Miguel! 

The view from hiking up on the side of the mountain where one of the huge cross statues
is in Danli early in the morning on the day that we left. 

right now // a week of firsts

In Honduras, church service happens on Saturday nights for most churches, including ours. It's still something to get used to, especially since it's dark out when we leave from church -- still feels a little funny! But it's interesting, because it's really put us on a new weekly schedule. Saturday night has really become the official "end" of the week for us. It is well known here that Sundays are dedicated for rest and time with family. Your new week starts from a place of rest, of Sabbath. It's the idea of starting work from a place of rest, not resting from all of the work you've already done all week. (Our Mission Training International friends will certainly understand what we mean about that!) 

So, with this being the end of our week, we took a moment to just think about what we'd accomplished and we realized that we've had quite a few "firsts" this week! It's really been a big week!

1 // We took a public transportation bus around the city out to work at the CDI (the children's nutrition clinic) in Limon for the first time. We had already toured the CDI before, and we have actually taken a long-trip by bus between cities before, but this was our first time actually going out to work there and taking a around the city bus that if you don't hop on it and grab the handle bar above your head as quickly as possible you will either miss the bus or fall down. The buses around the city have the same design as a U.S. school bus, but the seats are closer together to fit more of them. They practically keep rolling instead of stopping for passengers to get on. Thank goodness we had our friends with us who led the way and remembered to turn around long enough to shout "Hang on!!!".

The kids having their morning meeting at the nutrition clinic to start their day! This is also where they had to prove they could remember our names instead of just yelling out "Gringo! Gringo!". (Gringo = white person in Spanish.) 

We had a great time working at the Limon CDI -- they were having more of a relaxed morning, so after Jamey was done helping the older kids with their cleaning projects and after Lesley was done helping feed the younger, malnourished children breakfast, they each got to spend the rest of the morning just playing with the kids and getting to know them all! They all just want any love and attention they can get and to ask us as many questions as possible. It's also always fun when you're a kid to have someone new to explain everything you know about! It also gave us some more practice with our Spanish because kids are always willing to repeat and talk slower because they want you to understand what they are saying.  We can't wait to tell you all more about the nutrition clinic and all that they are doing! 

2 // We were very blessed to be able to see a movie in the theaters in Honduras for the first time, and that we were able to see a specific showing where the movie was in English with Spanish subtitles! We were so grateful for this luxury, because there is no other way that we would have understood an entire movie in Spanish that we'd never seen just yet! It was really nice to go with friends and to be in air conditioning for a few hours too. :) Also, the sound in the theater was much louder than we were used to! We have a new saying that we love to say: "Everything is louder in Honduras."

Lesley obviously overly excited to see the second Hunger Games movie. 

3 // Cooking in Honduras has certainly been an interesting feat for Lesley; everything is different! One huge difference is not having any of the shortcut conveniences for cooking that we had in the U.S., like canned foods (that allow us to always have access to certain foods no matter the availability of fresh, and allow for a lot of work to have already been done... like with canned tomatoes!). So here, you have to make almost everything from scratch. Thankfully, Lesley already had a lot of experience with cooking, experimenting in the kitchen, and learning to make from scratch before now, but there are still a number of things that she never needed to know how to make or prepare on her own. So it's been a week of "firsts" in the kitchen this week, too! It was the first time Lesley made homemade peanut butter, finally perfected a homemade salsa recipe to be just right, and made homemade applesauce! Just a few small steps in the right direction of learning to become a fully from-scratch home cook. But, we have definitely realized that we did not bring enough mason jars for all of this scratch-made cooking!! Also, Lesley already had a lot of practice at making homemade coffee creamer, to which Jamey is VERY thankful. It's not available in the supermarkets here, except for the imported (read: very expensive) version.

First ever homemade peanut butter & applesauce, and a finally perfected homemade salsa. 

4 // We actually had another "first" adventure this week -- it was also our first official time going out to work at the church's living community, Casa Hogar Vida, as well and Jamey's first time driving more than two miles down the road in the city. He did a great job driving on the crazy Honduran roads all the way out of the city limits! If you've ever heard us talk about roads and driving here, it's a real experience. Let's just say there are a lot less road rules than we are accustomed to!  Be on the lookout for more information about Casa Hogar Vida soon!

Lesley outside of one of the new orphanage "family homes" at Casa Hogar Vida.

5 // This week was also Jamey's first haircut in Honduras, which was MUCH overdue with how quickly his thick curly hair grows. However, the end result is much better described as "Jamey's first Latin American 'Do!". We, with our friends included, all found it very humorous! He came out with Latin American vertical hair "stacking", Latin American sideburns, and a definitely Latin American mustache (with no more beard). The mustache, especially, wasn't his intention. Lesley couldn't even believe it! He looked Honduran! :) With a couple of fixes from Lesley and a good clean shave, the old "Jamey" look is back now.

6 // On Friday, we had our first Christmas party in Honduras!! We went to our small group's annual Christmas dinner with the other same-aged small group from the church. It was very fun, but the games were quite an experience! Before the food came out, they had everyone pull their chairs away from the table in a large circle and basically played "Hot Potato" with balloons that had sparklers affixed to them. In order to pass it to the next person, you had to say a word that started with the letter chosen for that round. If the balloon popped on your turn or you got scared and dropped it on the ground, you were out! We both elected to stand aside to watch and take pictures. Hondurans absolutely LOVE anything with firecrackers!

Our small group's annual Christmas dinner, with our friends Frank & Emily (top right),
and silly games with firecrackers (bottom). 

Bonus: 7 // Tonight at church was our first time hearing "Amazing Grace" performed in Spanish. We have already heard many songs we know performed in Spanish, but there was something very comforting and peaceful about hearing the melody of that particular song. It's a melody that you know, recognize, and feel no matter what language it is.