mission team // nicaragua emi project trip

The next few weeks are so are definitely going to liven up the blog as we have, and will have, plenty of “the interesting stuff” to write about. We have officially started our mission trip schedule for 2015 – first, with a trip that we went on!

We had several friends say to us, “What? Missionaries on a mission trip?”. But yes, that’s what we did. Jamey joined the team of an Engineering Ministries International (eMi) project trip last week and I (Lesley) more or less tagged along as his wife. When we attended their annual conference back in November to learn a thing or two, we heard about the trip and decided we’d like to see what project trips were all about since we would only be one country away. And before we knew it, off we were to Nicaragua! 

Mountains of Nicaragua

We stayed in the mountains in a place called La Finca, which is close to Matagalpa, and is at a higher elevation than we are used to. It was COLD! I mean, the emails warned us that it could get “cool” but we barely saw the sun that week and we all constantly kept on hoodies, fleeces, and jackets. Thankfully we each had one warm item a piece with us here in Honduras to take with us… but with all the shivering I did, I honestly would have loved to have had more. We stayed in the cabins of a Young Life (or “Vida Joven”) camp where the team was working.

The La Finca Vida Joven Camp

Over the course of the week, three separate teams to our group tackled their various projects that we would be doing in order to help out the camp with their upcoming expansions. Jamey was on Team Stormwater, and they were tasked with assessing the water sources on property and giving a report of recommendations for stormwater management, both short and long term. The team of architects creating renderings and designs to help model what the proposed expansions would look like, and the bridge team assessed the bridge need, decided on a bridge type, and designed the bridge needed all in the week we were there. Collectively, we are very proud of the work the whole team accomplished and pray that this will greatly help the Young Life camp, will assist the staff that constantly works so hard there, and will bless the youth that will be attending the camp, and hopefully through the camp coming to know Christ in a more personal way.

Tour of the camp grounds /project sites

Makeshift "central office" set up by the eMi project team

Now, you also might be wondering what a non-technical spouse might be doing on a trip like this? Well, originally, we (another wife and I) had hoped that we would be able to get to know the people we were doing the project for while the engineers were busy plugging away on their computers in a time crunch. But, as there were no campers on site at the time we were there, we were only able to meet the camp staff and staff that works with their coffee production. So, Alli (the other wife) and I went to work at the most useful place for us that week – to roast coffee! We helped Isa, a woman who works with the coffee, to roast, weigh, package, and grind 300 pounds of coffee. It was awesome and Isa was so kind to us. (Unfortunately, Alli did more roasting than I did, because for a day and a half I was stuck up in the cabin super sick!)

My coffee roasting buddies, Isa and Alli

During our time in Nicaragua, there were also a few times where we left the over 120 acres of camp property and got out to see more of Nicaragua, which we absolutely loved. We got to go to Matagalpa, a nearby city, to attend church (which was a wonderful and uplifting service!) and then when out for pizza. The restaurant gave our huge group of the team, local missionaries, and Young Life staff, the top floor and we gulped down the tasty natural juices that were available there. Lesley's favorite: orange carrot juice! It was excellent. On Wednesday night, we had the opportunity to go to a Young Life club in Matagalpa and get some amazing homemade ice cream after. Then, to wrap up the trip, on Friday we had our adventure day. 

Pretty drive to Managua 

View from the pizza restaurant in Matagalpa 

For that day, we did probably one of the best canopy tours in Nicaragua. Not only was in beautiful, had lots of lines, and was a long course, but it also included the best guides ever. They were making the funniest jokes, earnestly helping us have a great time, and took our cameras to take our pictures for us so we could enjoy the experience. They also encouraged some crazy moves on the zip lines to like "Superman" (head first with another rider holding your feet behind you) and "Freaky Monkey" (upside down with your legs crossed and arms out). It was a blast, which was followed by a visit to the local artisan market, lunch at the pupuseria, and a wrap-up session at our hotel in Managua before everyone flew out the next morning. 

Canopy Tour!

Our friend Jamal doing the "Superman" -- his arms are so long
that he did hit a few trees along the way!

Watching the magic at the pupuseria.

Thank you to everyone who knew about our trip ahead of time and prayed for it and our travel. It was our first time crossing the border by bus, but it went very smoothly -- with the exception of a quick taxi hop to make our bus and Lesley having to hold her bladder for 6 hours with no bathroom! Normal for Latin America :) Thanks to eMi for letting us expats, and another local missionary Brian, join on the team with you all. We loved it! 

personal // better late than never! EOYR for 2014

The first two weeks of this new year have really caught me off guard! I was not prepared to start the new year and all that it entails yet! Part of the reason is because we were home in Virginia visiting family until January 5th and actually got back to our own apartment in Honduras on the night of Jan 6th. So, I sort of pretended that the new year didn't start until Jan 7th. So in my pretend world, 2015 has only been around for 6 days. :) So maybe you all can pretend with me that this post isn't THAT late?

Last year Jamey and I did a "End of Year Review" post in the beginning of 2014 and I have sincerely loved getting to go back and read it and see all that made up our year in 2013. Mainly because I have a very bad memory and everything starts to run together for me after a while. So, I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to do it again this year and talk about 2014.

So here we go! Our End of Year Review for 2014. 

What did you do in 2014 that you had never done before?
- We learned a language.... like, actually learned it! For the first few months we were just making out what people were saying to us and nodding and smiling. Responding with "yes", "no", and "I don't know". Cognate words (words that look and sound the similar in different languages) really helped us to get started. Then, we found the "sabor" (flavor) of the language. We enjoyed that much more! Finding "flavorful" words that mean a lot in Spanish really helped us to get our point across and now, though we will always be learning more, we actually enjoy speaking in Spanish! Check one off the bucket list!

What are you most happy about completing?
- Building www.totalwater.org -- the website for the ministry Jamey began in partnership with GCLA, called Total Water. This was one of the biggest things (besides starting the ministry, of course) that we completed this year and it truly was a labor of love. We have so much respect for people who work in that industry and are constantly designing new things. It's amazing and really hard to do!

What song will always remind you of 2014?
- Just like last year, we just can't pick ONE single song. And so, we have categories yet again. :) Pop favorites: Shake it off by Taylor Swift and Ghost by Ella Henderson. These two songs were on repeat many a time in 2014, and were also often played when we needed a sing/dance break in the middle of our days! Country genre: Sweet Annie by Zac Brown Band and From this Valley by the The Civil Wars. Both had melodies that were soothing and sounded like home. And lastly, we would normally included a category of Christian music, but it just so happens that most of the Christian music we listened to in 2014 was in Spanish. So I'm not sure whether to call this section Christian or Spanish, but nevertheless they are: Gloria en lo Alto by Christine D'Clario and Eterno Amor by Hillsong.

What was your favorite meal?
- We probably ate our own weight in Honduran Empanadas this year after our friend Tania introduced them to us and then Lesley started making them for the kids at the Danli Children's Development Center. It was the number one most requested meal by the students and they would keep coming back for more leftovers until there were none left... but also always sent one or two home with Lesley to give to Jamey. :) In our home, homemade pizza was a definite favorite. Lesley finally perfected her pizza crust recipe and Jamey declared it better than Digiorno Pizza. He's sweet, huh?

What was your favorite TV program?
- Lesley: Grey's Anatomy; Yes, she started it in 2014 and made it through the 9 seasons that are available on Netflix. And can't believe she never watched it before now!!
- Jamey: Reckless; This was another Netflix find, but introduced to us by Jamey's mom. It's first season aired as a summer show, and was set in Charleston, SC. We all adored it, and then went to see when the next season would start. We found out that it had not been renewed and cried our eyes out. We want another network to pick it up!! Long live Roy Rader.

What was your favorite film of this year?
- Well, we didn't see many of the movies that came out in 2014, to be honest. But, we really enjoyed the ones we were able to see, which was Divergent (caught it on a plane ride. Yay free movies on Delta flights!) and The Hunger Games, Mockingjay Pt 1. Yes, we realize there are some similarities between these two and another 2014 movie, The Giver. But we liked them all! Hopefully eventually we will catch up on the movies we missed in 2014.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2014.
- People are people, no matter the language, country, or culture. Also, DO NOT buy a fridge without a full-on separate door for the freezer. It's a mess.

What are you most grateful for this past year?
- Internet access and modern advances in communication for missionaries! We could Skype with friends in Swaziland, Africa y'all. That's just too great. And we know that people who moved overseas years ago did not have these technologies (and some still don't!) and we are so incredibly grateful for them.

What restaurant did you eat at most often?
- Every Saturday night, we get out of church between 8pm and 8:30, depending on our responsibilities and how much we chat. Then we are super hungry and go get Baleadas at one of the church deacon's stores just like half of the church does. So, you could say we went there a LOT. Also, Pizza Hut. It's the one American chain restaurant in Danli, Honduras and sometimes we wanted U.S. food.

Did you attend any weddings or major personal events for friends and family in 2014?
Yes! Jamey was a groomsman in Josh and Louisa Hammett's wedding in July 2014.

What did you wear most often in your closet?
- If we're being honest, Jamey often looked like a Target employee through a lot of 2014; he really loved to wear a combination of a plain red t-shirt and khaki shorts. But, his newest and most used addition to his "look" were his glasses, which he'd never really been accustomed to wearing regularly, but came to love! For Lesley, she finally gave in to a life-long fear of wearing extremely light colored jeans and bought a capri pair from Loft, which she wore ALL the time. (Hey, the fear was a result of being a 90's baby, okay? We were put in some pretty terrible outfits.) Also, she lived in sandals permanently (even during times she probably should have been wearing tennis shoes.) We live in permanent summer!

What did you really, really, really get excited about?
- Our rug in our living room. It's a small 8x5 rug that we found for like $30 in Tegucigalpa, and it has brought so much happiness to us and people who visited our apartment! You always, always wear shoes inside in Honduras, so this little spot is the one place we take our shoes off and rub our feet on. Once, we had teenagers from another city staying with us and they admitted to having stayed up for hours the night before just walking all over this rug because it was so soft. haha!

Also, Lesley probably got unreasonably excited about school supplies in 2014, but after a school supplies drive we did for the children's development center, we realized just how much having supplies changes everything!

Where did you feel most connected to God this year?
- Sunsets. Danli, Honduras where we live has some wonderful pink and orange soft sunsets that we really love. But really anywhere we were, we always took a moment to just be still and know during the sunsets.

What was a memorable gift you gave this year and who was it too?
- All of the memorable gifts that we gave this year were small things but that meant a lot to someone else. We found vanilla and cherry Cokes for a friend who had always wanted to try them, and he felt really special that we remembered him and got them for him. We also found someone who was willing to give shoes to one of ours students who's only pair had burned in a house fire. When we visited homes, we gave crayons to the little kids and sat down to draw pictures with them. Things like these were the most memorable!

What was a fun surprise you had this year?
- We were pleasantly and hilariously surprised with our Honduran friends' obsession with a pumpkin spice candle from Walmart that we were sent in Lesley's birthday care package. It is to the point where if friends are over, the candle MUST be burning and be in the "special spot" for best smell distribution throughout the apartment. :) Also, finding chai latte mix in the capital city. That was a really big win for us!

Looking into 2015... what does it hold for you?
- Total Water project construction,
- More mission teams this year than ever before,
- An intern living with us,
- Jamey's parents visiting Honduras (and first time ever leaving the U.S.!)

missionary cookbook // expat lasagna

Sweet Maggie Stewart, who is currently serving in Ukraine, requested this recipe to be next in this collection. This is for you, Maggie! 

Let me tell you something. There are some amazing ex-pat/missionary/whatever you call them people who can make anything from scratch. I'm talking making your own ricotta cheese kind of people. And yes, I've heard it's not that hard, but living as an expat in a developing country, there are some things I don't mind making from scratch and some things that I just say "forget it". And ricotta cheese is just one of those things. You don't have time to reinvent the wheel on everything you've ever made.

So let me introduce you to my version of "expat lasagna", or maybe better named "you-can-make-this with-the-stuff-you-already-keep-in-your-fridge lasagna", or even "won't-break-the-bank-in-imported-goods-prices-lasagna."

You pick which name you like best.

Though this recipe is for the less-terrified expat home cook, I personally feel like this recipe is one of the best ones I have to share because it marks the time where my overseas cooking really came full circle. I stopped feeling like I couldn't make anything, and started feeling like I could really make things that tasted like home and things that would wow my guests.

And to be honest, I don't even really miss the ricotta cheese! I didn't love it to begin with.

Step 1: Prepare the meat sauce. (Or pull some out of the freezer from a previous batch!) For this recipe, feel free to use your own meat/marinara/bolongese/red sauce recipe our change it to you or your family's liking. But for the purpose of this post, I will include my own. My husband is extremely partial to using meat sauce, but of course it changes a little every time because really what I do is just dump in spices until it looks good. So this recipe is truly just an estimate. Please note that when making sauce with only tomato paste as a base, using butter or margarine is extremely important, as well as a dash of sugar! A lesson I learned from my Honduran friends.


Meat Sauce:

1 lb ground beef, browned
1-2 tbsp oil (olive is best, but whatever you have access to)
4 tbsp margarine
1 medium to large onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced small
14 oz diced tomatoes, fresh or stewed
5-6 cloves of garlic (if using powder, 1/4 teaspoon is one clove)
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1 bay leaf (or 1/2 tsp powder)
1 tbsp parsley
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp black pepper
3 bags of tomato paste (mine are 4 oz each)
1- 1 1/2 cups water, to desired consistency
2 tbsp Worchestshire sauce (opt)

Brown ground beef ahead of time, set aside. In a large dutch oven, heat margarine and oil together. Saute the diced onion, green pepper, and your choice of garlic until soft and onions are translucent. Add tomatoes and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Add the remaining spices and ground beef and stir well. Next, add the tomato paste, stir in well, followed by the water until you reach your desired consistency of the sauce. Optionally, you can also add 2 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce (if you have access to it) to help cut back on the bitterness of the tomato paste. Allow the sauce to simmer for at least 30 minutes, during which you can prepare the other ingredients.

Step 2: Prepare noodles. At some point during your sauce preparation, bring water to a boil in a pot large enough for 8 (or however many depending on the size of your dish) lasagna noodles. Cook based on package directions. Do not overcook, or they will tear easily.

Step 3: Make a béchamel sauce, to replace the American-loved ricotta cheese. Does the name béchamel sound scary to you? Because it's really not. Make a roux first, by melting butter/margarine in a pan and then adding equal parts flour. For this recipe, I used 5 tablespoons of each, because my margarine sticks here are about that size (a bit smaller than the standard 8 tbsp sticks in the States). Whisk to remove a lumps, and then continue cooking and whisking the roux for two minutes, until it begins to look something like melty cookie dough or applesauce. (Hey, that's what it looks like to me!). Then, based on however much butter/flour, stir in 8 times as much milk; so if you used 5 tbsp of butter and flour like me, that's 2.5 cups of milk. Stir the milk in slowly while heating and stirring the mixture together until it thickens.

Step 4: Grate cheese(s) if necessary. For making this dish in Honduras, I am able to affordably purchase grated parmesan and mozzarella cheeses. I sprinkle a layers of parmesan evenly, and I use approximately one cup of shredded mozzarella cheese per layer.

Step 5: Arrange all of your ingredients closely together and build your lasagna. I used a square 9x9 baking dish, put you can use whatever size you have. Grease the dish first, then lay down enough noodles to cover the bottom of the pan. I my case, I put 4 noodles. Your layers should be as so: noodles, meat sauce, béchamel sauce, parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese. Try your best not to mix the meat sauce and béchamel sauce together, because the béchamel will blend with the cheese(s) to make a wonderfully creamy layer. In my pan, I had two layers that included noodles, then of course you layer again ending with cheese on top. (You may not use all of the béchamel sauce, it's completely up to you.)

Step 6: Bake at 400 degrees F (204 C) for 25 to 45 minutes.

Missionary Tips:

1. I like to use a pre-seasoned tomato paste as one of my tomato pastes that are used in this recipe. (See picture.) That's basically because I tell myself that the flavors have been absorbing into the tomato paste for longer... but I have no idea if that's true.

2. Can't buy lasagna noodles where you are? Use zucchini strips instead! It's healthier too.

3. A tip for the béchamel sauce. You are supposed to slowly stir in the milk, but for some reason, with our ultra-pasteurized milk here in Honduras, I've found that it works better for me if I stir in the milk in thirds, each right after the other, and then stir all of it together well for a minute or two after I've quickly done this. I know, I'm breaking the rules. But it really works better for me! Make your own decisions based on whatever milk you have.

4. Tomatoes: you can diced fresh tomatoes and they will cook down in the sauce. Most people would discard the seeds for a pasta sauce, but I'm a little impatient when it comes to that and the seeds don't really bother me. Or, you could stew your own tomatoes, freeze them in batches and use them in place of canned tomatoes. It's pretty easy and directions are easily found online.

5.That cheese problem again. If you can buy grated parmesan, it's actually possible to make this dish with only that. You can also substitute mozzarella for a local variety of a similar soft cheese, like quesillo here in Latin America. Or you could get fancy and make your own mozzarella from milk!

Please share with us if you make and enjoy this recipe!

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!