Pictures

The "old" house renovated.

Downstairs will be a house for some new children

while the upstairs will be offices, a library and a storage room.

Current state of our first house built.

(Elvin and Oscar) Two happy workers

One happy student at school.

Two of our "tias" (aunts) who take care of the children.

A Great Day at the Beach

Last week was kind of like spring break here in Honduras for schools. Friday we took the Beltrand children and their caretakers to the beach to have a vacation day. It was a beautiful day. The children had NEVER been to the beach. We left their house at 8:00 that morning, stopped at the ice factory to fill our cooler and headed to Los Delgaditos. When we got there the kids did not know what they were supposed to do. Everyone was hungry so we all ate ham and cheese sandwiches and enjoyed yummy cold cokes. Then Chad ran and got in the water. Soon after him, everyone had found their way into the water too.

They had so much fun. Iris is the only one that was not too fond of the water. She would go in but did not like to go where she could not stand up. We buried Gabriella in the sand, Geovani and Leonel made sand castles, Diana rode the waves, Nohelia and Iris played in the waves as they broke, and everyone had a great time. Doris, Danilo (our driver) and his two children went with us also. At about 11:00 they all went on a walk down the beach because the "lanchas" were coming in with their catches from the morning. They went down and visited with the fishermen and Danilo came back with fish and shrimp that he had bought to take home for supper. The rest of the time we were there we kept a count of all the boats that were coming in with seafood to sell.

The 2 Claudias got into a sand fight. It was great getting to see them all pitch in and throwing sand all over the place. Little Claudia was covered in sand! We got some great pictures of the day. We took a break at noon to eat lunch. Claudia had made a big pot of rice, veggies, and chicken. Chad had made brownies the night before to take with us. We ate and then decided we better get ready to leave. We had a 2 hour trip back to San Marcos. Chad decided he would drive us back to Choluteca because he wanted Danilo to have some time off from driving that day. We all loaded up in the van and backed up about 10 feet and we were stuck. Chad got the van stuck in the sand. Danilo, Chad and Doris all went and found rocks to put under the tire that was spinning to give it some traction, but that did not help. Eventually the man that runs the area where we were came over with 2 shovels and we dug out the sand and tried some more rocks under the tires. Chad went across the street to get someone to bring a truck over to pull us out and while he was there, Doris, Danilo and the man from the beach got the van out. We were able to head back toward home.

We stopped in Choluteca at Wendy's and got everybody a Frosty. We were all sitting there quiet. We were all so tired that we just sat there and ate our Frosties. After eating their frosties, the little ones went to the play ground to play for a while.

We had a great day and I think the children will never forget the experience they had that day. We hope to go again soon.

Shelly

Funday Sunday

This morning we woke early to join up with the Mayfair church of Christ (Huntsville, AL) group to go to Choluteca for worship. We had an area wide meeting today in the Central Church in Choluteca. There were 12 congregations present with 760 in attendance. We have 2 groups of North Americans here right now and they were all there along with the 10 interns and all of the Mission Lazarus team members. It was great to see some old faces that we do not see on a normal basis.

After worship we took the Mayfair group to Cedeno to the beach for lunch. We arrived around 1:15 and ordered our food. At 2:30 our food was brought to the table. It was so yummy! Chad and I had fresh fried shrimp and freshly peeled french fries. Everyone enjoyed the time we spent there.

This Mayfair group is spoiling us. They have rented out a restaurant here in San Marcos to cook all their meals like at church camp. They have invited us to join them whenever we can. Yesterday we had BBQ sandwiches and chips. Last night for dinner we had very yummy spaghetti and garlic bread. We are heading there now for chicken salad sandwiches. We think we will be hanging out with them the rest of the week.

Shelly

Update

We haven't forgotten about you on the blog. We have just been that busy and have not had the opportunity to sit and type. We have a group here from Crieve Hall church in Nashville, TN and another arriving today from Mayfair in Huntsville. We are swarmed with people on top of our regular day to day activities. It is fun to see the groups here interacting with the locals and practicing their Spanish. They really do help us out to get things done faster.

Well, the book. We finished the first copy of the book and had a group meeting about it last Tuesday night. Everyone is looking over it and revising it as much as possible and we are to meet again Monday night. It is thick! It is a great accomplishment that will help us in the future. It is still a work in progress though.

We will have another IHNFA training seminar on Monday for all our teachers and care givers for the children. It will run from 8 am - 3 pm. We will serve everyone lunch again. It is so beneficial for our employees to get this kind of training in children's rights. We are expecting 50 again.

The interns are doing great. They are working in all our areas and doing a lot of helpful things. We plan on joining them tonight to make homemade pizza. It is becoming our Friday night tradition with them.

Everything is running smooth right now so we must be thankful for that. I have just spent the last 3 hours looking for and repairing the motor on my truck's door to lock-unlock the door with the security system. The motor went out 2 days ago. It is not easy to find things in Honduras. You have to get use to that and understand that it might take several hours to get the simplest things back in the States. I found one though and the lock is fixed.

We are about to head up the mountain back to San Marcos to work up there this afternoon. Have a great weekend and we want to hear from some of you. Let us know what is going on in your lives. My email is chad@missionlazarus.org.

Chad