baking cake

I had a wonderful afternoon today with my friend Veronica. I taught her how to make cake and she taught me how to use an oven made of mud with wood as the heat. The mud wood stoves are more common than a gas stove here, especially where we are in the campo (fields-middle of nowhere) and in the mountains. We got her oven fixed with a little door a couple of weeks ago, so today after about a month and a half of talking about making cake, we finally did.

Cake is in the oven

Veronica with her first homemade cake

The kids were so anxious to try it!

Finished product. :)

Please pray for Veronica this month. This time last year her husband was murdered in San Pedro Sula and we all walked through that tragedy with her. She has done so well this year and really beaten many odds. At first she was so depressed, she wanted to die so she could be with him. Then she finally realized this is not what her husband would want or what the Lord would want. She fixed her house back up, and moved back in without her husband. She has put a new thatched roof on her mud hut, put in a cement floor, and payed her two kids way through school last year. 

Now she is ready to start making cakes for her kids birthdays, etc. She was thrilled to learn how easy it was. It was a joy to spend a Sunday afternoon with her.

Visit with Osiris

Last Thursday I went to visit little Osiris during their 2 week vacation for Christmas. It was the day after Christmas and I wanted to bring them their little Christmas presents and see them one more time before they headed back to the capital of Tegucigalpa. I went with my friend Deyni, a medical student, who is studying in Tegucigalpa and met them there. We played, chatted, and prayed with the family.

Osiris in her princess dress that she went and put on specifically to show me. :)

Osiris with little sister, Dilcia, and little brother Hilber.

Osiris has more stuff animals than she has had in her life...she
decided to show them all to me by piling them up in my arms.

My dear friend Deyni and I. Osiris took our picture. :)

Osiris' family.

It's amazing to see how this family has grown. There is so much joy. There are lots of toys. There is lots of love.  As a family of 7 (one not pictured), with only the father working when he finds work, this father has struggled to provide for his family. Deyni said to me when we left their house, "What if God just wanted to use this experience to bless them? They are stronger, they are more loving, and closer to the Lord. The kids also have more toys now then they have ever had in their entire lives. There was a sack full of toys and stuffed animals. Even the kids know they have been blessed this year.

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone is ready, or almost ready for Christmas tomorrow.
We have started celebrating Christmas already here in Honduras. We started with a lab Christmas party on the 14th. I had the 5 lab employees over to the house and we had lasagna, salad, bread and apple pie. :) And of course secret santa.

Gloria was my secret santa.

Everyone at my house.

Last Friday (20th), they had the employee Christmas party at the hospital. All the employees are invited for a nice dinner with singing, Christmas music, and of course presents and candy. I didn't volunteer to help this year, since in the past, we have still had patients in the afternoon. They had an enjoyable time. 

Table with employees :)

Missionaries serving the food.

On Saturday, I was able to attend the wedding celebration of one of my best friends here in Honduras. Diana, my Spanish tutor, who taught me Spanish for my first 6 months here, got married on the 10 and celebrated with friends and family on the 21st. It was so exciting to see their relationship develop after her waiting of 32 years for the man of God that the Lord had for her. It was a joyous celebration.

Diana and I.

Cutting of the cake

Calix and I with Diana and Gerardo

Another with Leukemia

Last week, we sent another child, Julio, from the hospital to Tegucigalpa, the capital, for probable Leukemia. We gave him a blood transfusion on Friday, then they had the weekend to pack and get ready to leave for the capital. He arrived last Tuesday to the hospital in Teguc and received the diagnosis this week after about a week of testing. His blood was sent to Guatemala for specification of the type of Leukemia he had. He has probably from what I can tell AML, Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The most hope for these kids is a bone marrow transplant which they don't do here in Honduras. His mom, Sandra, is with him and is very concerned. She is very anxious and concerned for her son. She left 3 kids behind to bring him to Teguc. She is already ready to leave and desperate to leave. They have told her that he will need to be inpatient for 10 months before they are able to leave.
Erlinda, Osiris' mom, has been taking her everywhere and teaching her the ropes of having a child in the hospital with Leukemia. She says that children with the type of leukemia that Julio has almost all die. She hasn't seen one yet that has lived in her 5 months of being at the hospital. They say there is a 50% chance that the treatment will work. That's not very high odds.
Please pray for this family.
Pray for:

• healing for Juilo's little body
• hope for mom Sandra
• wisdom of Erlinda as to how to encourage knowing there is not much hope
• wisdom for the doctors treating Julio

• 

  Julio and mom Sandra at the hospital

Rain rain go away!

Well it's been raining for 3 days now, since Tuesday night. Yesterday we had a little pauses from the rain and then it would start again. Rained all night last night and all day today without stopping. (As of this morning we had gotten 15in of rain in the last 56 hours). The rivers are flooded and at times are impassable. Some of the lower lying streets are flooded as well. Went to see the river in Lucinda today and it was about waist high as people were crossing on foot. Employees were bringing clothes so they were ready to stay the night if needed. (As I am writing this, it has stopped raining...hopefully for good and we will see the sun tomorrow!)
With the large amounts of rain have come the power outages. Also, the water system here at the children's center needs all new tubing, but the hospital doesn't have the money right now to fix it. So, I have been blessed with water a couple of times since Tuesday. I try to take advantage and shower and wash dishes when I have water. I have been collecting rain water to flush the toilet and wash dishes when needed.
When the rain comes, it gets cold. Cold here is in the low 70's. This morning it was 70F in my house when I woke up. This is when we break out the sweaters, slippers, and warm blankets. With the humidity and very open houses, it always feels colder.
Taking advantage now of the electricity and internet.

Honduran Elections

Many of you have heard about the Honduran elections and wonder what is going on down here. Well, there was lots of military personnel and police presence even in the rural areas such as here on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, many of the local churches spent in prayer and fasting for the elections on Sunday. Sunday, it was forbidden to have meetings before 5pm, so we moved church to the evening. Most people just recommended not going out of your house. (We didn't even make it to church Sunday evening...it rained and the river flooded and was impassable.)
So, the candidates for the elections were some interesting characters. The Libre (Free) party was created by the EX-President's (Mel Zelaya-who was thrown out in 2009) wife named Xiomara. Yes, his wife was running for president! Which meant, he was pretty much running again but through his wife. They are very much wanting a dictatorship and was the issue why he was thrown out. They go along the lines of communism and socialism, very much involved with Hugo Chavez when he was alive. What the uneducated here don't understand is that this is not freedom, but bondage. I was praying that either one of the other candidates would win. This became a very strong party here with lots of support and the final election was very close between her and the winner. Some still think it was fraud.
The other candidate that was big was for the Nationalist party, the more conservative party. He is actually the one that won. His name is Juan Orlando and will be the next President of Honduras. Some think this is the safest thing for the country right now, some think it's the worst thing for the country. God knows best! One of the things he has already done, many Hondurans don't like. He created new hourly work contracts here, which means that Hondurans now can work for a company part time making less money than they were before. After the minimum wage was almost doubled 2 years ago, this has created a way to keep employees.  In the states, we are used to working hourly and this is nothing new. The Hondurans though think that their rights have been taken away. So, this is the new president and some are not happy.
The other that was in the running was Villeda for the liberal party. He did get some votes, but not like the others. Don't know much about him and what he stands for, just know he is part of the liberal party.
So, yes this was a very pivotal election in Honduras. There was rumor of communism, socialism, riots, uproars, fighting, even possible intercountry war. I think because of this, God's people came together and prayed and God heard their prayers. People say that even if things are investigated that the results can't change now. There has been fear of the Libre party upraising and creating problems. Up until now, there is nothing really different.
Thank you for all your prayers.

Wow...has it really been a month?

So...just realizing that it's been a month since I posted to my blog. Lots of things have been happening to keep me busy.
Sydney left about 2 weeks ago now after a wonderful 7 weeks in the lab with us and living at the house with me. It was a blessing to have her. She helped cover 2 employee vacations.
Osiris, remember the little girl I asked for prayer for, well, she came back to visit with her mom. They came from Tegucigalpa for 5 days and came to visit us at the hospital about 2 weeks ago. Heather made her a cake and we celebrated her. She is doing well, weak at times, but taking the Chemo treatment well. Doctors seem to think she is responding well, according to mom, Erlinda. We took up another donation for them and were able to send them off again with just under $100...amazing. We have very generous employees. We also brought Osiris' two younger siblings to the Children's center here where they can be better cared for during their time in Tegucigalpa...they are very sweet kids.

Heather and Osiris enjoying the butterfly shapped cake Heather made for her.

Osiris and I the day she came to visit

Last week I was honored to be the madrina (godmother) for one of my employees daughter at her kindergarten graduation. They were the second class of kindergartners to graduate from the El Camino Bilingual School (the school that part of the hospital ministry). It was a wonderful celebration with lots of great food! Can't celebrate anything in Honduras without food. :)

2nd Graduating class of El Camino

Rosa and I after she received her diploma.

Rosa with her mom, Sandy

For the next month, I will be translating at church every Sunday. A missionary's mom who is visiting is teaching our adult Sunday school class for 5 weeks. We started today, and I think it went pretty well. We had one lady come to Christ. I am so amazed at the work of the Holy Spirit that works through language barriers and poor translators to bring people to Christ. It's amazing. God is so good! I asked Lucy to come and pray with her and pray for her. Her name is Luicila. You can be praying for her and her growth in the Lord. Her husband, Rogelio came to Christ last Sunday. God is doing an amazing work despite difficulties we have had at the church lately.

Cindy teaching with me translating.

Luicila-a new daughter of the King!!! :)

Please pray for the message to be clear that Cindy is preaching out of Ephesians about our identity in Christ. Please pray for wisdom in translating and that the Holy Spirit would work despite my short-comings.