right now // november 2014

READJUSTING to elevation changes. Traveling between Colorado Springs (around 6,000) ft) to Houston (about 75 ft) to Honduras (2,600 ft) in the span of one day was enough to make our bodies go crazy! Thankfully we are starting to feel back to normal, but if the elevation change wasn't enough, the weather was quite a shock as well! It was about ONE degree Fahrenheit when we landed to attend the EMI Conference. Very different than what we are used too! But nevertheless, thankful for the time of learning and fellowship.

RESTING from lots of computer screen time. The Total Water website is finally launched and Lesley is enjoying looking at the computer screen LESS this week. Once you stare at the same thing for too long, your mind starts to play tricks on you. Go check out her hard work at www.totalwater.org and don't forget to share about Total Water for Giving Tuesday (Dec. 2nd)!

CONSIDERING putting the Christmas tree up early... like before Thanksgiving early. Normally, we are very respectful toward the order of the holidays and decorate for Christmas starting the day after Thanksgiving!! But we're considering it because we won't be here to enjoy the tree on Christmas day (which is okay, because we'll be with our families instead this year!) and because we just want to feel like the holidays in always-summer Honduras. Speaking of the holidays, we are...

SEARCHING for easy peasy Thanksgiving recipes. Pray for us as we Lesley will be cooking a Thanksgiving meal by herself with one mini-sized oven, that only has one shelf (gasp!), and that runs on gas (so we'll need to conserve baking times). Last year we played it low key, but this year we have some curious Honduran friends that are being introduced to Thanksgiving food for the first time. We want to do it justice! First item on the list, bake the pumpkin pie the day before.

GETTING creative with crafts that only use paper + glue, because that's what we have the largest quantities of. Most recently, we tried braiding paper at the CDI! Check out these awesome bracelets (or ties, or bookmarks, or belts, or whatever the kids want). These kids are rockstars, and get a kick out of the simplest things!




WONDERING where the time has gone. This month we celebrated ONE YEAR in our host country! Somehow the time seems to go by faster here? Or maybe it's just because we aren't always aware of exactly of what day it is like we were back in the States, and work always spills over to the next day and the next with all that needs to be done, so the day called "Friday" sneaks up on us a bit! Sending a big Thank You to everyone who has supported us and prayed for us this year! Seriously, this ministry wouldn't be possible with each one of you!

INDULGING in anything chai flavored. Chai Tea of course, but we've also gotten into putting chai spices in other things, like cookies. Can you make chai cinnamon rolls? We don't know, but we might figure it out soon!

PRAYING for the two local civil engineers that Jamey is currently discipling. Praying that he is an example to them, and they that would begin to take interest in being open to the Gospel. Praying that they will continue to strive towards integrity-driven professional work, and that they would want to learn more about what has changed our hearts towards wanting to do good for all people.

PLAYING just a little bit more as we are wrapping up the Honduran public school year. The kids studied hard for their exams (well, and crammed a bit too) and they will be receiving their final grades in about a week. Then the government gave them surprise extra school days after their exams were over, with just a days notice, because that's just the kind of thing that happens here and no one really understands! Now they are receiving some well deserved extra play time at the CDI, which many of them don't get very often... time to play with other kids their age, in a safe area, without worrying about anything else. We have plans for a very creative cardboard Christmas tree before we break for the holidays!

friday photo dump // november 7

Welcome to the Friday Photo Dump! 

As an October baby, all Lesley wanted for her birthday was pumpkin! Pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin candle, pumpkin anything. We searched and searched here, with no luck. But thanks to Lesley's dad and stepmom, she ended up getting all three! Now we're trying to convince our Honduran friends that it's a great idea to eat big orange gourds that they've seen sit on your front porch. 

We have been busy bees at the children's development center figuring out creative ways to bring construction paper and glue to life for our students. Recently, as you may have seen on the CDI's Facebook page that we and the students created a table-sized board game to review all of the English they've learned all year. The craziest part is, most of them have never played a board game before and some of our kids are 11 years old or older.

In addition to other things our students have never played before, we are reviewing English numbers with our homemade Bingo cards! 

While traveling to Northern Honduras, we had two Honduran friends with us that once again taught us the art of car travel here... you stop at the shakiest looking little fruit stand and buy a huge bag of your favorite fruit, especially if it's known for growing better in the part of the country you're in. Though Jamey still has a hard time opening them, we enjoyed eat licha! 
(Also known in other parts of the world as rambutan.)

The reason for our travel was to go to the October GCLA Leadership Conference in La Ceiba, Honduras. Though we didn't spend as much time outside as we would have liked, it was beautiful to get to see green mountains and the Atlantic Ocean right beside each other. 
Honduras, you're pretty. 

During the conference, we had the pleasure of getting to attend a special session where we heard one pastor's story of living and ministering in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, where it is incredibly dangerous to even identify yourself as a Christian. It was so amazing to hear his stories and wisdom, and once again praise God for all of the countries who have religious freedom, while so many are still fighting for it.  

One of the biggest parts of Lesley joining the trip to the conference was having the chance to visit another CDI in the GCLA network at the Iglesia Gran Comision church in La Ceiba. They currently have over 100+ children in their program, which was great to see and learn from. It definitely helped us gain more vision for the direction our CDI in Danli could go as we continue to grow. 
We would love to visit more CDIs if God permits!

As many of you probably already know, we have other missionary friends from the States that live in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. They were kind enough to make the trip out to see us and us their tools/talents to help us get some projects done around our home, which was an amazing help to us. 
In this picture: we were cutting back our "weeds".

Just to realize the size of our crazy weeds trees, use Jamey as a reference!  

We were out in Urrutia, the community where we are doing our pilot water project, recently conducting bacteriological tests to see if there is contamination in the well due to lack of sanitation. You can also see that most of the people out there don't understand proper water storage because their collector bin is sitting outside uncovered where rain, animals, trash, mosquitoes, and more can get into it. 

Speaking of the water project, our website for the Total Water ministry is in the works right now and will be making it's debut VERY SOON! Be excited. Seriously, excited. If you haven't yet go like our Total Water Facebook Page to get more updates on our ministry here.

We had a good response to our first installment of our "missionary cookbook" series of recipes, which began with Honduran empanadas. Comment to let us know which recipe you'd like to see next in the series: perfect banana muffins, lasagna made abroad (without ricotta cheese!), or one of our favorite meatless Monday meals, pasta primavera. 

missionary cookbook // honduran empanadas

Anyone who knows me knows that I am an avid cook. I have been cooking since I was about 10 years old and my passion for it has only grown. But for some reason, I never thought about looking for a missionary cookbook during our (very long and tedious) packing process to move to a developing country. I honestly thought to myself, "I make up recipes all the time, and I love Latin American food. I'll figure it out in no time."

Well you know what?

1) Latin American food is NOT all the same. The words "tacos", "salsa", "queso", and "enchiladas" are very different things and prepared very differently in each country. Even the type (and state) of tortilla that you're supposed to use changes with each meal, and they really only use two types of cheese that aren't really what the word "cheese" means to me. Honduran food, as far as my experience goes, is actually fairly plain and very specifically made. (I'm very much missing my Mexican food restaurants from home.)

2) Almost everything that I expected to be normal about food flew out the window. Hondurans practically only use cilantro, natural salt, garlic cloves and "especias" (which only refers to a mix of black pepper and cumin) to season their food. Where were all of my different spices and distinctly different flavors? Why do so many people tell me that onions and green peppers are not for eating here and only for flavor? What? I eat them all the time! Oh, my, there is only one kind of each vegetable (one kind of tomatoes, squash, potatoes). I didn't realize the variety I had before!

3) Surely someone had thought of making a missionary cookbook! Nope. Once I realized that I couldn't purchase so much of what I always used to cook with and that you'd start to miss "your way" of preparing food sooner than you thought, I realized that I really needed very simplified recipes with all homemade ingredients (read: no pre-made sauces and mixes) and with items that could be easily substituted if you couldn't find them. Thus the hunt for a great missionary cookbook began. There just had to be one out there! Nope. Well, technically, yes. BUT the only widely known one that was referenced to me is still so very basic and keeps you missing flavor variety. I wanted to be just a little bit closer to how it's done at home.

So, in hopes that this is helpful to at least someone, I want to share the recipes I've found, tweaked, loved, and shared. And the perfect way to start that is with the very first Honduran recipe that I learned to make from one of the ladies in our church here. Enjoy!

Honduran Empanadas
Makes: 15 half-moon empanadas
Time: Prep (20 minutes)
Wait (30 minutes)
Cook (10-15 minutes)
Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 stick of margarine (120g)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1/3 cup cold water
Fillings (beef + potatoes, onions and peppers, quesillo/mozzarella cheese, etc.)

1) Prep your dough. Begin by mixing the dry ingredients together well (flour, salt, sugar, baking powder). Then blend the margarine into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or with your hands, blending the dough between your thumbs and your other four fingers. Blend the dough until it resembles coarse meal. Lastly, whisk the eggs, cold water, and vinegar together and pour onto the flour/margarine mixture, stirring it with a non stick spatula or spoon until it forms into a large ball. 

2) Form the dough into little balls of dough, each about the size of a ping pong ball, then cover the bowl and let them rest for 30 minutes to let the gluten relax. Your dough should yield 13-15 balls of dough. 

3) After the waiting period, flour your work surface, then roll each dough ball flat. It doesn't have to be a perfect circle! The creasing of the seal will perfect your shape. 

4) Fill with desired ingredients (quesillo and beef are traditional) and press closed with your fingers and the wrong-end of a fork.

Cooking Instructions: Put enough oil in your size frying pan to generously cover the bottom. The oil amount should not cover the empanadas, but it should come up around the side. Fry each side on medium heat until golden brown! 

Missionary Tips: (Or for anyone making this abroad)

1. My Honduran friends swear by making dough in plastic bowls. I'm sure that it would be fine in glass or stainless steel bowls too, but they are so superstitious about it that I must say I've never tried to make them in anything else. 
2. If you don't have a rolling pin, anything cylindrical will work. In the kitchen I cook in at our church's nutrition clinic, I use a glass spice jar (with the lid on tight!). You can also use a bottle of cooking spray, soda bottle, whatever. Which is great, because that makes this recipe do-able without any special kitchen tools you might not have access to... just a bowl, a large spoon, and a frying pan!
3. The fillings are completely up to your tastes and your available ingredients. The traditional fillings in Latin America are either a ground beef/potato mixture (seasoned with cumin and cilantro) or a quesillo filling, which is simply the very popular fresh cheese here (see picture on the left above). However, you can use any similar semi-soft cheese that melts (i.e. mozzarella, etc). My husband and I have also enjoyed these filled with chicken and veggies, or with cheese and pepperonis with a tomato sauce side as a quick version of "calzones". 
4. As you might guess, especially if you are from the southern region of the United States, these are very similar to fried pies. However, fried pies commonly contain shortening as the fat and could use a little more sugar in the dough. If you would like to make these into a dessert, I would suggest filling them with a fruit + simple syrup mixture, and dusting them with a little sugar once fried. 

highlight // feliz dia del niño (meet naomy)

Feliz Dia del Niño! (Happy Children's Day!)

Honduras has quite a few of their own (highly celebrated) holidays that are very new to us, but we really have a heart for the holiday that is today. Today is the day that children are celebrated, honored, and allowed to be exactly what they are: children. Celebrations happened in schools all day today with food, cake, piñatas, games, costumes, outings, parades, dances, performances, and more. We would like to celebrate by introducing a new series. We'd like you to have the opportunity to get to know some of the wonderful children that we're blessed to work with!

Meet Naomy!

Naomy is 8 years old. She is in the 3rd grade, and is a very, very intelligent student. She was very quiet when she first started attending the children's development center earlier this year, but since then she has opened up tremendously. She used to only play with her little cousin Andrea who also attends, but now she will organize pick up games of hide and seek, tag, and frisbee. She thinks outside of what everyone else is doing with art projects we do, and always wants to go first in English class to prove that she doesn't need to listen to someone else practice before she knows how to do it.

We have loved personally witnessing her skill level in learning English at the CDI. She is very interested in it and has excellent pronunciation abilities.  She also goes home and practices the lesson from the day if it was difficult for her, without ever being asked to, and comes back the next day declaring that she's mastered it after having a night!

Naomy lives in a house with eight other people, which includes her aunt who is Andrea's mom. Naomy's mother is a single mom. She also has a brother who is 18 years old and another brother who is 5 years old. She and Andrea are two of very few who are actually walked by and picked up by a parent or other family member when they come to the CDI. It's simply the culture here that younger children (as young as 7) are permitted to walk places alone or in a group together, but Naomy's family always ensures that she is very cared for even in this aspect. It's a very great thing to see here.

When she grows up, she says that she wants to be an English teacher. Her favorite color is light purple (the "light" is very important to note, she says). Her favorite foods are spaghetti, rice, and carrots.

Please be in prayer for our dear Naomy. She has come so far in just this school year, and we are elated to have the privilege to watch her grow even more. Pray that she will continue to be a part of this program for many more years. Pray that she will become a leader within her class, an example that other kids can look to. Pray that she keeps this spark for learning, and that she won't be afraid to ask her questions she has.