mission team // step program trip

We are so glad to be able to write about the first team we've planned a trip for and hosted ourselves in Honduras! Funny enough, it actually happened to be a team that currently lives in Honduras already. Yes, you read that right!

We met our friends Jim and Sonia Bridge at our training in Colorado before we moved to Honduras, and we were thrilled to find out that they were also moving to Honduras! They live in the capital city of Tegucigalpa, and their ministry is serving as the leaders of the STEP program here in Honduras that is part of the BIC churches. It is a program that designs team internships to give young adults realistic, intensive and developmental cross-cultural ministry experience for six months. As the new leaders of this program for the first time this year, Jim and Sonia have been searching earnestly for opportunities for their participants to learn and serve throughout all different parts of Honduras, and it just so happens that we live in a very different part of Honduras than them. We were so glad that we were able to help host one of their many trips they will take to the edges of Honduras and show them around the ministries that we have going on here in Choluteca.

This first team that Jim & Sonia are hosting consists of all girls, ages 18-21. They all traveled down from Tegucigalpa last Sunday, and we enjoyed having them serve at the children's nutrition clinic and the family home orphanage during the five days that they were here. This was their first time serving in a more rural Honduran setting as a team, which gave them new experiences and challenges to work through. They were certainly a blessing to the under-staffed CDI, and prepared several fun activities for the the children to do! The kids, in combination with the much hotter 100F degree days, definitely wore out the Steppers by the end of each day.

Along with serving at both children's ministries, we were able to give the group a tour of other projects that Iglesia Gran Comision Choluteca has, including the Casa Hogar Vida community, the block factory, the CHV coffee brand roasting site, the "Manualidades" crafts store, and one of the rural communities that the church is doing a lot of outreach in, Las Bresas.

Here are some wonderful pictures from the week, documented by the very talented Nikki, who is one of the participants in the program. Enjoy!

Everyone needing hugs at once. :) 

The girls showed the kids how to make paper frogs that jump!

We all helped serve lunch for the kids each day!

Bryan is pretty awesome at soccer!

All of the Family Home kids got involved in the soccer game -- 
even the little twins who kept running into each other!

Vilma, the oldest at the Family Home, with her balloon flower. 

Lesley loving, but being a little afraid of, Bryan making his own balloon design!

Elias, the youngest at the Family Home, with his awesome dino face paint!

Water balloons at the family home for a hot, hot day!

Children in the rural community we visited using old bed springs as a trampoline. 

Visiting one of the families that the church here has built a strong structure home for. 

Visiting the Casa Hogar Vida coffee brand roasting site. 

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

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.