thought of the day // june 16

source: www.water.org

right now // june 2014

Right now we are...

ENJOYING the rainy season in the mountains more than we thought we would! We weren't sure how "intense" the rainy season would be, but so far at least the downpours have been happening towards the end of the day and it makes the evening air feel and smell so good. Don't get us wrong, the rain comes down really hard when it's actually happening, but it's also fun to listen to.


LEARNING more places in town where we can buy things as locally as possible. We want to support the local economy, but more importantly we want to get to know this city like the back of our hand so that we can know even more of the people in it and form even more relationships. Thankfully, we have sweet friends who are sending us to their "best people" to buy things from. We're trying to learn the Honduran way of buying certain things at the "special" place to them. We know a few, but we still only shop about three different places. Our friends have told us that we still haven't found all of the best ones yet!


LOVING how much the CDI children are loving our new technique for our English classes. It's our own take on language learning that we were taught at our training at Mission Training International (for adults!), but we realized that kids can pay so much more attention to the funny words that you're saying (read: English words) when they have pictures and cards that they can hold and work with. Last week we made a sentence forming game out of the cards and the kids said "I can speak real English!".


FORGETTING to cut Jamey's hair. Somehow, we remember when he's out in public and looks a bit shaggy, but we always forget when we're at home trying to get other things done. Poor Jamey. Doesn't help that Lesley is nervous every time she thinks about cutting it (again). That might be helping her forget.


LOOKING forward to our trip to the States at the end of this month. It'll be jammed-packed busy, with a mix of work, fun, and personal errands, but we know anything will be a great time when we can speak 100% in our native language. (Well, we could have secret conversations in Spanish but our family might not understand us.) We're already contemplating ways to fit as much as possible in our suitcases again when we're on the way back!


HELPING to plan an event in Jamey's hometown to share about how people can become more involved with the children's development center that we work with here at our local church in Danli. We're so excited to be able to help out with this vision for gathering local churches in the Covington area to work together for this cause. Be on the lookout for more information about this event (happening in the first week of July). We'll be there speaking!


TRYING these new reusable paper towels to try to be more green + save money while living in Honduras. Sounds funny, I know, but they're made by the Clorox brand (so they must be legit, right?) and they can be used, rinsed, and reused up to twenty times. We're hoping for big things with these cool towels. There little to no recycling programs in most of Honduras except for 1) people burning their trash on the side of the road (burning plastic...ouch, my lungs!) or 2) people, mostly children, who "work" certain communities each day on that neighborhood's trash day to go through the bags of trash that were put out for plastic bottles before the city trash workers pick them up. They'll then go make a few cents for every bottle by selling them to a recycling company.

friday photo dump // may 2

It's been a few months since our last Friday Photo Dump, so for this one we'd like to show you around little bits of our last couple of weeks through Instagram-style snap shots. Sometimes pictures do a better job of telling a story!

When we first moved here, Lesley thought it was hard to learn how to adjust to cooking
in Honduras. Now she's taking on an even bigger cooking challenge: cooking for over
10 people at a time in a little kitchen with barely the "bare essential" tools at the CDI (nutrition clinic).

This week we got a big surprise when we pulled onto the church's lot
and found a whole bunch of cows! Apparently there were some random cows
walking down the street, so they were let in to "mow" the grass. 

After almost two months of having no storage for the kitchen or for our clothes, we were 
able to unpack the final boxes and suitcases with the addition of these great shelves! Hallelujah!

Jamey has recently been spending his Saturdays learning the sound board and mixer
in order to be another spare hand of someone who can help out with AV when needed. 

We are beaming with pride for our sweet student, Alison, from the CDI! Last
week, Alison won the "Most Intelligent Student" award for her entire school. We
already knew that (duh) but we're so proud of this accomplishment for her!

We finally got a picture in action of some of our sneaky iguanas that have been
roaming all in the church's roof where we can hear them everyday! Lesley is 
obviously not a fan of these super fast guys. The kids want to make a soup out of 'em!

Sunday was Jamey's birthday, and what a happy day it was! Jamey was surprised
by the church leaders and their families at our house with cake and singing at our gate!

Jamey got the best of both worlds this year as far as cake goes! Lesley made him 
a spice cake with buttercream icing just like from home, and our church 
friends brought him a Honduran cake as well! Two cultures, two birthday cakes!

And what we did today: we woke up early this morning to head to the church and
 help our dear Luis, another of our students from the CDI, with his piles of English homework.
He says that this year his English homework is getting a lot tougher! You go, Luis!

We also got to visit this cutie today and play a lot of peek-a-boo while visiting
prospective neighborhoods for a new church outreach project.  

Also, for a fun surprise, a video! Here's a quick video clip for y'all to see a worship service at our church, Iglesia Gran Comision Danli, with our friend Larissa singing with her beautiful God-given voice! 

Larissa singing at church from Jamey Smith on Vimeo.

highlight // exponencial - easter conference 2014

With this being our first Easter, or here "Semana Santa", in Honduras, we got the distinct pleasure of attending our first of the annual GCLA Easter conferences called "Exponencial." For those of you who don't know, we are employed by Great Commission Ministries, but on the ground we work for and partner with Great Commission Latin America. GCLA is an awesome movement of 33 local churches in Latin America in 9 different countries, including Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezula, and the United States.

We love working with GCLA for many reasons, but especially because it believes in a holistic approach to ministry. GCLA believes that Scripture wholeheartedly desires to compliment our faith in Christ and manifest our faith through our compassion projects and evangelism throughout Latin America.

We were so excited to go to Exponencial to hear more about all of the churches involved in GCLA and hear from the leaders of these other churches while we explored through the book of Ephesians during the duration of the conference. It was such a wonderful experience to bring as many of us as possible all together, and of course we loved having practically everyone we know in Latin America under one roof. We wanted to share a few pictures, though it seems that we were always talking too much to actually take pictures with other people! Imagine that. :) 

Daytime session 

And nighttime session. 

Also, below is the promotional video for Exponencial 2014. If you can read Spanish, great! If not, still give it a look. It's so pretty!

Exponencial 2014 from GCLA on Vimeo.

Since this was our first trip to both the conference, San Pedro Sula (a very large city in the northern part of Honduras) and to the Iglesia Gran Comision church there, we decided to travel with a group from our IGC Danli church in the church's bus. It was an interesting trip for sure to travel across Honduras in a school bus, because the road quality significantly improves as you get closer to San Pedro Sula, but on the way home, it just gets rougher and rougher. 

One thing we do love about travelling with Hondurans, is though it may add more time to the trip, they definitely love to stop for snacks. And anyone who knows Jamey knows that he is one of the thirstiest men alive. He always needs something to drink... and snacks don't hurt either! We even picked up some knowledge on where to find the best kinds of Honduran snack foods. 

For most families in the church, Semana Santa is their one week off of work during the entire year, and the fact that they chose to use it to attend this conference is incredible. So, since we were near water (which rarely happens to a person from Danli), our group made a trip to the beach during a conference break AND a stop at the one and only lake in Honduras on the way home for a Latin American "fish & chips" (tilapia & plantain fries). This was Lesley's first time having fish that still had a head on it! Our friends thought that fact was hilarious. :)

To the right is our friend Kike (who works for GCLA at the church in Danli) & his daughter Dayana, and we are to the left.
Note that both Kike and Lesley were already wearing their "Exponencial 2014" t-shirts! 

We can't wait until next year!