mission team // the rock church 2014

Honduras 2014 from Anthony Lagoon on Vimeo.

Just a few days after we arrived back in Honduras from a trip, we welcomed a mission team to our church, Iglesia Gran Comision Danli, from The Rock Church in Salt Lake City. We were anticipating this trip quite a bit, simply because we had heard so much about them from our friends here in Danli. This church started bringing teams one year after our sending church, NLCF, so you can imagine the bond they've been forming with the church in Danli.

One great thing about this church is they are able to bring such a wide variety of people and ages on their teams -- from teenagers and their parents, to nurses, to previous longer term missionaries, to photographers and engineers. That dynamic makes for a very unique experience between the members of the team each year, and it's very cool to get to witness the amount they have to teach other, and the people that they encounter here in Honduras. We were lucky enough to be the "host parents" of one of the translators from Tegucigalpa and the team leader, who was thankful to be in a house with good internet since he and his wife had welcomed their first baby 3 week prior!

We had several people on the team that had been on this same trip before, so we were able to immediately bond with them, even on the ride from the airport back to Danli, by sharing our stories together. Between these stories and us comparing the similarities and differences between Virginia and Utah, we never ran out of things to talk about!

The week began with a classic Honduran Sunday, a day of rest and fellowship. We went to what we call "the mountain" (the actual name of the mountain is "La Roca", which means "The Rock" ... appropriate for this team!). We ate carne asada for lunch, went for walks around the beautiful property, rigged some homemade fishing polls, and then rigged a rope for a Honduran version of volleyball. It was a beautiful day!

The rest of their time here was very busy; filled with evangelizing in different communities, working at under-funded government run daycare centers, and visiting the very poor hospital and giving out supplies. The team also raised the funds to build the third wall at the church (!!).  We're only lacking one wall to completely close in the church!

The face on this little boy was pure joy when he got his new shoes!
Also proud of these young boys from our church going out to help share the gospel.

On Friday, the team spent the morning with our CDI kids, which of course the kids loved. The highlight about this was one of the team members is a sponsor to one of our CDI students, and the two got to meet for the first time. It was an awesome thing to witness! Tim, the sponsor, also gave Brayan, the student, a few gifts; Brayan, however, realized that the other kids didn't get to meet their sponsor that day, and he chose to share his bag of candy with all of the other students and the teachers. It was precious!

Brayan meeting his sponsor, Tim, for the first time. 

The CDI kids making crafts with the mission team.

On Saturday, while part of the team was at band practice, the other part of the team made two beds to be given to two CDI students that needed them most. Now our students Anner and Angel both no longer have to share their beds with their two other siblings.

One of the beds being delivered to Anner's house. He now has a bed to himself!

As we said, there was a variety of people on the team and two of them specifically are the very talented folks who made the recap video above, as well as kept up with a great photo/video blog for the people following them back home, which you read more specific stories from the week here.

We're already looking forward to seeing you next year, you guys! Thank you for everything.  You're such a blessing to the GCLA church here in Danli!

video // danli home tour

We've had many requests for another home tour of our new house in Danli, so enjoy!  We've been living here for a little over a month now and still have a couple more changes we need to make, but we love the house.  We live on a really quiet street in a neighborhood where we know a few families in the church where we work.  It is such a blessing that we were able to live here and we are so thankful. We chose the house just from a few pictures that were sent to us, but it was even better than the pictures!  If you have any questions about what it's like to live in Danli, feel free to post them below!

Danli Home Tour from Jamey Smith on Vimeo.

video // a tour of our apartment

In just a day or two, we are going to be posting a big wrap up of or first two weeks in Honduras to the blog! But, before we do that, we wanted to check-in for the first time via VIDEO!

And the direct link in case you can't play this one or would like to view it larger:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu88E39crHE

This video is a tour of our apartment in Choluteca, Honduras. It's super cute and very yellow. :) And starting to already feel somewhat like home. So, we hope that y'all enjoy the video tour and we hope that you will forgive us for our lack of professional video-shooting skills! Hopefully we'll get better with practice.

And a bonus, just because it's our first video and we think it's funny:

See if you can find a) the terminology Jamey tends to use because he's an engineer, b) the phrases that both Jamey and Lesley use because they are from little Southern towns, and c) see if you can count just how many times we use "um" as a filler word. Yes, we'd love to know the actual number count!

With love FROM HONDURAS for the first time,

J&L