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Today I hit "ENTER" again...just like I did way back on January 1st of this year. I bought 5 new tickets to Honduras. We will be returning to Honduras about a year after we left. We had hoped to return earlier but various events prevented that. We have been watching the airline prices and the timing seemed right to purchase!

We keep in touch with our friends in Honduras on a regular basis by email and telephone. We are VERY excited to be returning to see the kids in Talanga at Proyecto Manuelito. We will also be excited to see the adults we got to know there (Clara, Lorena, Damary, Elmore, etc!!)

* Our plan is to arrive in Tegucigalpa and probably spend a few days there. We hope to meet up with a U.S. pediatric cardiac surgeon who is supposed to be in Teguc doing some surgeries when we are. I would like to see their setup and introduce Alex to him.

* We will then go to Talanga for probably 3 days/night.

* We also plan to spend 3 or 4 nights on the island of Roatan (Honduras) before flying home again.

We will be flying in/out of Chicago because the airfare is so much cheaper than Indianapolis.

Anyway.....that's our news. Stay Posted!

Back Home Again

Well....we are safely back in Indiana! All of our luggage made it back and our travels were fairly uneventful. We went through Customs without a single bag being opened which made our layover in Houston nice.

It is always coming home after a mission trip and this time it seems even harder since we were at Proyecto Manuelito for an extended period of time. We come home to a nice home and plenty of food, etc....and we think about how we could live so much more simply and how blessed we are by God. Our thoughts throughout the day go back to the Project...wondering how the kids are doing, what they are doing, etc. It is great to be home but a piece of us remains in Talanga.

We think that the Project is going to get internet soon so perhaps we can email the kids on a regular basis. We have already talked about how/when we can go back and visit again.

We will update more later. Thank you VERY much for your prayers and support for our mission work in Honduras. It is all GREATLY appreciated. It was a huge success.

Crackdown

Our hotel just informed us that the US state department has suspended all travel between Honduras and the US for the next month. We are trying to make travel arrangements and may have to drive home. We are fine and not worried about our safety. Hope to see you soon.






APRIL FOOLS!

Looking forward to being in Greenwood thursday evening. Thanks for your continued prayers.

Love,
the Millers

Roatan Update

well its nate here...
just came for a bit to upload pictures of the last couple of weeks.

the family rented 2 mopeds and a 4 wheeler to tour the island yesterday (monday)

the sunset last night (monday)

the hotel/restaurant we are staying at on the island.

The night our family went to the streets of Teguc

the family at the copan ruins

well...

the whole family is alright.

and we head back to san pedro sula tomorrow.

and then fly home on thursday.

bye!

Roatan

Thanks for your prayers.....we have arrived safely on Roatan. We woke up at 430am and headed to the bus station for a 6pm bus from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba. Very nice bus ride. Once in La C eiba we quickly found a taxi and sped to the ferry terminal and wer able to catch the boat to Roatan. The boat ride took over an hour and most of us had upset stomachs from the choppy sea. But we are now here and are very pleased with how beautiful everything is. We have not gotten into our room yet but the place is just across the street from a nice little beach. There is a little grocery store nearby so we can buy some food. The water is pretty and we are looking forward to a few days where we can "decompress" and talk about our experiences over the past 6 weks. It sems strange to go from the streets of Teguc with kids living in the streets to the beauty of Roatan. This is exactly why we wanted a few days "off" before returning to Greenwood. We feel truly blessed by our experinces and we want to talk about all of them as a family before we return to the hectic pace of real life at home. Perhaps we can reevaluate our lives at home and get our priorities in order and not be so hectic.....we'll see.

More later hopefully. Thanks again for your prayers....we have ben blessed with safety and health!!

Copan Ruins

We arrived safely in San Pedro Sula last evening and Kent picked us up at the bus station. Had a great dinner at a nice Honduran restaurant and then drove around San Pedro Sula a bit to look around. It has a very different feel than Tegucigalpa--more orderly and more spacious streets for sure! Today we took a day trip (thanks to Kent) to the Copan Ruins--Mayan ruins about a 3 hour drive from San Pedro Sula. We got a guide and spent about 2 hours touring the ruins. Very interesting, especially for Nate and Chase who had never seen anything like that before. They were especially fascinated by the field where an annual game was played--and the captain of the winning team was then taken to a special rock and beheaded as a sacrifice.

We had a late lunch in the town of Copan--a very cute, very touristy little village, with a similar feel to Valley of the Angels for those of you who have been there. Returned to Kent and Judy's and are right now reorganizing (once again) to get ready to leave for the bus at 5:30 tomorrow morning! Our bus leaves at 6 and is scheduled to arrive in La Ceiba by 9.....we will try to grab the 9:30 ferry over to Roatan so we can relax on the beach ASAP!!!
We feel kind of caught between 2 worlds---the one we have left, and the one we will be returning to, spending time thinking about each. Have been singing lots of the songs that we learned all the words to in Talanga with the kids, and bought a couple of CDs so we can listen to some of the "new" artists (new to us but not to the people here) often when we get home.

Looking forward to sleeping late and relaxing on Roatan. Will try to update at least once more before we head for Indy in less than a week! Wow. Continued thanks for your notes and prayers. Will be in touch. EWM

New adventures

Good morning! A quick note before we head to the bus station. Alex and I just sat at the breakfast table here at the Guest House wondering how the morning went at Manuelito....whether anyone had a fit about getting dressed, whether everyone remembered to pray before they ate breakfast, who walked the kids to school....we know that they got along well before we arrived, and they will all be fine now that we are gone, but it feels funny not being there with all of our friends and kids. We are emotionally pooped out right now. More difficult good byes (difficult for us, not for Jeremy!!) today as we leave Teguc, but fun hellos as we join our friends Kent and Judy in San Pedro Sula for a couple of days, and then to Roatan to decompress, relax and visit with my sister Barb who will be vacationing there for the week as well.
We are thinking about all of our Center Grove pals as you all head into Spring Break--safe travels for everyone, and a wonderful, relaxing, rejuvenating time, we hope. A week from today we will be back in Greenwood. Nate is talking about the things he will eat when he gets home, Chase is anxious to take the new class mascot that he bought to school, Charles is thinking about what the stock market might have done while we have been gone.......Alex and I are thinking about when we can get back to Manuelito. The boys have had a wonderful experience as well, but Alex and I are not thinking ahead right now---we are pretty blue and still spending our day dreams in Talanga. One thing is for sure--we have been changed as individuals and as a family by this time together. God works in strange and wonderful ways sometimes!!
Thank you for your prayers for all of us. During our last week please pray for our safety and that we have a smooth readjustment to life, work and school back in suburbia. See you soon!! EWM

Back in Teguc

Charles here ----- We don't have a lot of time to update right now...but today we left Proyecto Manuelito in Talanga. As I mentioned before, this was a bittersweet experience. Last night the kids and staff put on a special show and had a special dinner for our last night. It was very fun and emotional. We have had a great 6 weeks and we were sad to leave. Here is a photo from last night....we made our own silk screen shirts while at the project and each kid had their t-shirt on!



Today on the way to Teguc we stopped in Valle de Angeles to do a little shopping. Tonight we went out for a nice dinner and then went into the streets to see where the street kids hang out, sniff glue, etc. As always....very interesting. I think our kids had a real eye-opening experience. We took food and drinks along to give to the street kids. they were all sniffing glue from bottles, bags, and baby food jars. The smell of glue was VERY strong. Sniffing glue takes away the hunger pains for the kids. We were in a very rough part of this very dangerous city so we had 3 heavily armed police with us...they carry shotguns and we felt very safe. We shook hands with the kids, gave hugs, and talked with 15 of them (or so) for about 20-30 minutes. They were all very "out of it." We definitely had faith while we wree in the streets.....faith that God would protect us, faith that these kids could be saved, faith that God is always present everywhere. Just think....we only saw a fraction of the kids living in the streets in the entire world! Will try to upload some more pictures soon!

Tomorrow (Thursday) we take a 4 hour bus ride to San Pedro Sula. Friday we drive to Copan Ruinas to see the Mayan ruins. Saturday we take a 3 hr bus ride to La Ceiba and then a 1+ hr ferry ride to Roatan where we will stay for 4 nights. Then back to San Pedro Sula by ferry and bus again.

Thank you for your continued prayers for safety. We definitely need them over the next few days as we travel by bus, car, and boat on some dangerous roads and areas of Honduras. Please keep us in your daily prayers.

3 days left in Talanga

Hello everyone. It has been awhile since we have written because we have been so busy having fun!

The week of vacation with the kids turned out to be a blast. About 7 of the kids were gone so the ratio of adults to children was much more reasonable and we got to relax and do a vareity of fun activities. One day we went to a very nice ¨state park¨ and had a picnic. There were about 35 of us and it was a beautiful day, and we all got to go swimming. It was a very nice pool area--clean and guarded by several guys with machine guns!! It is the first time we have been searched before going into a pool. Also no real rules at the pool so our time was spent picking each other up and throwing everyone into the pool. Actually, a very fun time for all. There was a baby pool too so all the little ones got to swim as well. On another day, we hiked up a nearby mountain, again with a picnic lunch. It was quite a long walk, but the views were spectacular. When you take time to step back and look at the surroundings here, it is really beautiful. On the way down the mountain, Charles and Nate took one route to get some pictures and the rest of us took a different, supposedly easier route. Ha!! Alex and I only each slid on our behinds only 2 or 3 times. We were filthy, tired--but it was quite a fun adventure. By the time we got back, Charles and Nate were showered and well rested! Another day we got to use the Project´s van and go to a nearby town to look around and explore a bit. We took 3 of the kids at the Project with us and it was a fun adventure.

Alex had a very fun Semana Santa too--but I will let her tell you those details.....

I forgot to tell that on the way home from the State Park, the accelerator on the bus was acting up. Turned out that the cables were fine, but the foot pedal was disconnected. So here we are in the mountains, attaching a rope to the accelerator cable. Jeremy then steered and did the brakes, and Charles sat on the floor next to him, pulling on the rope whenever we needed to accelerate!! The rest of us in the bus just prayed that we would get home safely--which we did.

One more event during the week that was really fun was Nate´s birthday party. The Youth Group from the church decided to have a surprise party for Nate on Saturday night. During the day they came out to the new dining hall at the project to clean and decorate. I made food and we got snacks in town. By about suppertime, Nate knew that something was up. We walked out there and there were about 40 kids from the Project and Youth Group (most of whom we had gotten to know pretty well) ready to play games and whck at the pinata. It was very fun. Especially when Nate was the first one to be blindfolded for the pinata. About 10 of us were ready with eggs and flour, and as soon as he couldn´t see, we began the Honduran custom of smashing eggs and throming flour on him. A few of the boys had prepared a big basket of water balloons as well so those got added to the mess as well. Nate was a good sport and we all had a wonderful time. Lots of good photos to share.

Now we are thinking about what we need to do before we leave. Alex and I have each already had a good cry about leaving. It will be very difficult to say goodbye--especially becauase we are uncertain when we will be able to come back. It is very difficult for Honduran people to get passports and visas to visit the US, so visits to our friends will most likely be from us visiting them. It has been 6 weeks of 24-7 time together and we have gotten to feel very at home here. Very close friends and very wonderful times together. It will be hard to wave goodbye on Wednesday morning. The five of us have each been changed in a very positive way by this experience--God works in wonderful ways.

By Wednesday night we will be back at the Guest House in Tegucigalpa and we will have the opportunity to update again with pictures. Then off to San Pedro Sula, Copan and Roatan for our Spring Break and a chance to adjust before coming back to suburbia.

Hope everyone in Greenwood has a great Spring Break. And also hope that all of you had a blessed Easter. Miss you. EWM

Semana Santa

Hi everybody. We are in town for the second time today--so I decided to sto by and do a quick update myself. In Honduras, during Holy Week there is no school and by Wednesday, pretty much everything has closed down and they say things get pretty quiet in the city becuase alot of people head off for visits to family or to the beach. Unfortunately, although it is Holy Week, it is a big deal here because of lots of wild partying, not necessarily for a celebration of the resurrection. There are some Easter customs here that we will be learning about this week. They thought we were weird when we tried to explain about dyeing eggs different colors and hiding them around the house!! They also don´t use the term Easter--calling it Resurrection Sunday instead. No special service for Palm Sunday either. Instead, we had a big celebration at church for Dia del Padres (Father´s Day) which is March 19th here. Dances, skits, food etc. The kids and I were in skits with the other women and kids from church. It was very fun, and as you might imagine, the gringos stood out quite a bit in the dramas! The pics will be pretty funny. I wore a mop on my head for a wig because I was Sarah (of Abraham and Sarah).
Anyway. Things are different this week because of no school. Also, 7 of the kids are away with family members visiting so we are down to 11--but we also added 3 of the ¨big boys¨Alexander, Juan and David who are ¨home¨from school at El Sembrador. So we are a happy group of 14. Plus la familia (that is us). We will be doing some fun things including taking everyone into Teguc in the bus on Wednesday. Charlie says I have to go so will try to be on again soon. The power has been off the last couple times we have tried to get on!! Thanks for your notes and prayers. We are all well and happy here. Love, EWM

Forrest Gump/Nate/Poop/Lice/and MORE!!

Remember in the movie FORREST GUMP where Forrest and his friend Bubba open the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company? Bubba keeps talking abput all the various ways you can cook/serve Shrinp??? Well...that´s the way we feel about corn tortillas and beans!!

Nate didn´t really fall off that wall into the4 raging waterfall/river. He is fine and didnt get injured!

Alex has officially entered her quest for Honduran status by getting ..... Head Lice! It is all gone now thanks to that special shampoo and an electronic lice comb. She was pretty grossed out...but it is not unusual since almost all the girls at the project have it.

A work team from the US was here for a couple weeks building a brand new septic system. This was a HUGE undertaking with majoe earthmoving equipment, etc....since some of the trenches needed to be more than 12 feet deep leading to the eventual leach (?) field. Anyway...I was "helping" out by digging a trench with a pickaxe and accidentally smashed into the 4" PVC which was the active septic line for the old system. Immediately, poop and urine started flowing into the trench...lots of it! Of course I had to hurry and resolve the problem...which entailed standing and working in poop=mud for several hours. THAT was fun!! That same afternoon, some of the project kids were messing around and...to make a long story short...Chase ended up being pushed into the trench that had filled up with poop water! Needless to say it was gross and we didn´t get any pictures. He immediately went to take a LONG warm shower. He seems no worse for wear!

Lots of work around the Project. The church put on a very special event last night for Father´s Day. Various skits and a special dinner where onyl the men ate!! special dances by the girls of Manuelito in special costumes. We visited the "farmers market" on Sat and had a blast. Very typical indoor/outdoor market like we have seen in other parts of Honduras. Like something out of a movie. We bought some veggies and had a nice salad after washing everything in clorox water. Our health has been "Ok"....definitely some stomach issues...but we are okay.

We will be leaving the project next wednesday....a little over a week from now. I am sure it will be bitter sweet.

We hope you are all well. We think God is using us here in a good way to show these kids what a family is all about. It certainly has its frustration ... living with 18 kids who come from troubled pasts and have behavioral issues, etc. But in general it is still good. We are looking forward to a few days of relaxation before we reenter the US.

Thanks for your prayers. Will update again as soon as possible!

CEANC

Pictures - back in Teguc for the night

We had a very nice time at Lago Yajoa with Kent and Judy. We visited the old Mercies Unlimited site where a new mission organization is renovating the hospital and it seems like they are really going to make it work! We saw don Sheppe and Amalia too. We also went to the Pulhapanzak Falls which was fun (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Woh9NjygVf8&NR=1). It turned very cold and rainy but we still had fun. That part of the country is famous for fish and we had some fresh (and I mean fresh!!) talapia for dinner. Here, you pick the fish you want from the cooler and then it appears again, head, eyeballs, fins and all on your plate. The only one that it really grossed out was Alex--especially when Nate picked up his fish and made it talk.

We are now back in Teguc after another bus ride on VERY winding roads. We will spend the night at the guest house and head back to Talanga tomorrow morning. Departure time will be before 7am. It will be good to get back to the kids and get into our routine again. We have another 3 weeks there, one of which is Semana Santa (Holy Week) when the kids do not have any school. We are trying to plan things to do each day during that week so there is some routine and the kids stay busy. One day we will bring everyone into Tegucigalpa to a park and another day we will take a walk up a mountain that is near the project. We brought along a couple of craft projects and some games that we will bring out that week as well.

Picture of us at the Waterfalls:





Ooops.....Nate fell off the edge into the waterfall. We were able to rescue him with a special life raft down river a little bit. He only had minor scrapes and bruises.




Widow Maker Shower head I mentioned earlier:





Nate and Charles fixing broken water pipes:




Chase doing one of his chores...cleaning out the Pila. This is a large concrete basin where the kids wash their clothes, etc. It also turns into the cows watering hole at times!






We are headed back to Talanga.....so will not have as much access to internet. Talk to you soon!! Keep praying for our safety and health. God is doing great things down here!

Love,

C,E,A,N,C

From Chase

Hey everyone how are you doing. i miss you all and sorry mrs. bower this keyboard is in spanish so i cant type right. i have not had to shovel to much cow poop only when it is in front of the kitchen. it dosen't sound to odd of mr. lake or my classmates with that chat thing on his website. i do not do that much english here haha stinkes for you guys. GO TO BOOK CART. ZACH HOOTMAN COUNT THE MONEY OR ELSE. hey got to go see you in about 30 days bye. the alphabet here has 28 letters the extras are ll, rr,and a special n.

Update from E

It has been awhile since I have had time on the computer. Charlie and I walked to town--it is a very hot day here and windy too. Becasue the streets are all dirt, it makes for a dirty walk! We have enjoyed mostly bery nice weather--it is the dry season here so things aren´t very green, but we would rather it be dry than muddy everywhere.
The time seems to be flying by--last night Alex said something about us being almost halfway through our time--wanting things to slow down so we could be here longer. The kids are all having fun. Last night our kids and the Project kids were killing themsleves laughing with ¨My Big Fat Greek Wedding¨style things---like Nate had them (adults included) saying Ï am a fruitcake¨, and then Alex and Nate and Chase would laugh themselves silly. The the kids from here would have Nate and Chase say something in Spanish, and laugh themselves silly. Alex catches pretty much all of the Spanish, so the game doesn´t work on her.
Tomorrow morning we will leave the Project for a few days to meet our friend Kent and his wife Judy up at Lake Yahoa (sp?). We will be taking buses from here to Tegucigalpa and then another bus to Lake Yahoa. Should be an adventure riding the Honduran bus lines! It will be nice to have a little getaway. On Sunday night we will return to the Project, and then will pretty much be here for three weeks straight until it is time to leave.
We know we have been here for awhile because for the last 2 nights in a row, Nate--our sleep walker and talker--has been speaking in Spanish in his sleep. Last night he said very loudly something about viejo and gordo which means old and fat. Not sure what he was dreaming about (hopefully not me!!)
We are outside all day long and so are getting pretty tan. We only still need to be careful of our noses getting burned--and of course Charlie´s bald spot. Otherwise, we are pretty well used to the sun. Charlie and Nate and Chase have been hleping a group put in new sewer lines at the Project for the last few days. It is hard, hot work, but it will be so great for the Project to be able to depend on an incredibly improved system. We have been without water for only 2 days when we have been here and only without electricity twice for a couple of hours. It can go out for days at a time apparetnly--so I guess we have been lucky.
We continue to write in our journals everyday, take lots of pictures, spend alot of time learning, laughing and working. We have a short chapel service each day--all in Spanish of course--so while they are praying their prayers (which can go on for a very long time), we all pray our own prayers. We pray that you are all well and that things are going well at home. We got the news yesterday that Brett Favre retired--and Charles just informed me that the Stock Market is taking a beating. It all seems very far away--and we feel very detached from all of it. But we love getting all the fun posts from you, and are always excited when we get a chnace to get on the net.
Need to head out now. Our Spanish teacher arrives at the Project at 2 and doesn´t like to be kept waiting. So--hasta pronto and Dios de Bendiga. Love, EWM

March 5 Update

Hello again from Talanga. This will be short again due to time constraints. Nate and I are in town a few minutes before we have to pick up the kids from school. We are all still relatively healthy although the BIG D has hit (and I don´t mean Dallas.....rather Montezuma´s revenge). But we are all back to normal for the most part. Ellen doesn´t necessarily like my posts...but here are some random thoughts...

# our days are very busy...still getting the boys of the Project up at 5am. Ellen is now in charge of making sure the morning schedule is met. she makes sure all kids are at the table for breakfast at 6:20. We are setting new expectations for manners around here!

# Ellen has been doing tons of laundry...just catching things up at the project. she also teaches our kids school from 7 to 9 and then teaches the project kids English at various times throughout the day. We also take our own >Spanish classes for an hour or more in the afternoon.

# Nate and I repaired several broken water lines yesterday...lots of digging and searching and repairing. We also tore out barbed wire and fence posts to make way for a new road being built on the perimeter of the project. A group from the States is here and they know how to build roads and have some big machinery from a local provider. They are also updating the entire septic system...a huge task.

# Chase is REALLY enjoying herding the cows at 5pm everyday back into the pen. the cows could be anywhere on the 30 acres and he goes and finds them....these are BIG cows too. We saw a calf born a few days ago...very exciting!! There is also a new baby pig.

Lots of stories to tell of course. More later as time permits. Please keep praying we need it. But we are all amazingly happy. Our living area is approx 9 feet by about 15 feet with an attached shower. I will try to upload a pic of our shower head....called a widow maker...very common in Honduras. There are no hot water heaters.....the shower head is actually hard wired into the electricity. then when the water passes thru the shower head it is heated. very interesting to shower with electricity just above your head.

Pray for safe travels for us tooo.....we leave Fri to take a bus to Tegucigalpa then another bus to Lake Yahoa to rendezvous with our friend Kent Burdine and his wife Judy. We will return to Teguc Sun and maybe back to Proyecto Manuelity Sun or Mon. Bus travel here is questionable so pray for safety please.

More later.....we miss you all and can´t wait to see you again. Until then, may God bless you as he is blessing us!!!

P.S. Very hot here !!!!

El Sembrador

Hello from Catacamas where we are visiting the (residential) farm school at El Sembrador. This is another WGM ministry that has been around since 1954 and we wanted to check it out. We came here Wed-- it took about 3 hours and Nate and I rode in the back of a pickup truck the whole way. It is interesting for us to see a very well established and successful ministry like this where underprivileged young men can come for schooling (high school) and learn a trade. Pastor Jorge Pinto (who founded Proyecto Manuelito) was a student at El Sembrador. We have visited the various vocational areas (woodworking, welding, mechanics), toured the 2000 acres of farm...very mountainous and jungle-like. Lemons the size of softballs, termite nests in trees, monkeys in the wild, Ellen held a newborn pig. We also had a chance to visit with 3 boys who were formerly at Manuelito who are now students at El Sembrador (Juan, David, and Alexander).

We return to Manuelito this afternoon and will have supper back at Manuelito. It will be nice to get "home" and see the kids again. Although we have NOT missed the Manuelito roosters crowing at all hours of the night!! And day!!

Everyone remains healthy and we REALLY appreciate your prayers for continued good health and good interactions with the kids and local people we work with on a daily basis.

Our Spanish is getting better -- we have tutoring Mon-Fri for 1-2 hours provided by a local pastor (female) -- we may have already mentioned that...not sure.

the picture we took yesterday in the jungle.

P.S. Nate's hair is now very short ---- he got a Honduran haircut last night. It takes FOREVER to upload pictures so we will try later.

Update from Talanga

hi everyone this is Ellen. It is Sunday afternoon after lunch. We went to church this morning at a small church in a gentleman's back yard. 25 of us, yes 25 of us got in a mini van to go to church and back. No policia to stop us down here!! It was, of course, all in spanish, so it was a bit difficult to stay focused, but it is always great to worship with others no matter what the langauge is. Everyone is very welcoming to us at the Project and at the church. We are a bit of a novelty in town, so we don't go to town by ourselves. Right now, the 5 of us are all at the Internet Cafe and one of the older boys at the Project, Ricardo, walked to town with us. About a 15 minute walk.
Everything is going fine and we are all healthy. It is so difficult to even explain where we are living and what we do everyday. So far during the day I have done everything from sew little girl dresses to laundry to cooking to playing with kids to fixing the swingset. Our days begin VERY early and I have school with the 3 Miller kids from 7 to 9 on the porch of the dormitory. Most of the kids re at school in town during that time so we can sort of concentrate. Each day is different depending on what needs to be done and who needs help etc.
The kids are just as cute, fun, and naughty as I remember them being from previous trips. There are 18 at the Project in Talanga and they range from 5 to 18 years. Most are under 12 tho. OK I am going to hand off to someone else to write for awhile. They are all looking over my shoulder. One more thing before I go. Our 3 kids have been doing great. They are interacting well with the Manuelito kids, are learning Spanish quickly and generally being terrific sports about all of this. Charlie and I doubt that we would have done as well at their ages with all of this. Thanks for the prayers. We can feel them even way down here!!

Charles here...random thoughts

. cow poop
. chicken poop
. roosters and dogs from midnight to the morning
. bad smells.
. good food
. good health
. talanga..picture an old west movie with clint eastwood in old mexico...that is talanga today!
. today we will move from sharing a house and bathroom and with clarita and luiz and will have a room and bathroom to ourselves.


yo it's alex...
the spanish here is way different than at school, but still....I am doing alright as translator for my family... It's hot here...we are sunburnt...I turned off the light last night to go to sleep and ten seconds later I had a spider on my face...but hey. we are having fun! We all love the kids and they seem to like us pretty well too. Adios amigos!

hi its Chase now everything is good here... its really hot but fun. I macheted grass the other day it was hard. I miss you guys a lot but hey see you in a few weeks. Learning spanish is pretty hard but we all learn fast. The kids are really fun... sometimes misbehave but still are good. Some punishments down here are digging stumps and shoveling cow poop fun huh. i will write next
week


nate here.
well.
really warm here.
im roasted and sunburnt like no other.
have played alot of soccer so far in the trip.
walk moslty everywhere here.
well.
be on next week.

Quick Update

Hey there! This will be a very short update. I am sending this on a PC via cell phone at the Proyecto. We are all healthy and well fed. No accidents or anything bad! There are some issues (housing for instance) that we are dealing with. Weather has been great. I am up every day at 5am to get the boys of the Proyecto ready for breakfast and school. Now Ellen is up at 5:30am to get breakfast ready for the US work team because the cook is sick. LONG days! All in all we are having a great time. Hope you are all well too. More later as time permits. Continue to keep us in your prayers.

Adios and Gracias.

EWM saying hello

Thought I would write a quick note today too before we leave for Talanga. It seems like we have been gone for a long time already, but it has only been 2 days. Yesterday was Charlie's birthday. As part of the Chruch service where we worshipped, they always introduce guests. All 5 of us had to go up front--Charlie spoke in English and Pastor Jorge translated. Then each of the kids had to say their names and ages. Then Jorge kept Charles up front and had the whole congregation sing Happy Birthday. He was surprised to say the least!
All is well, and we feel assured that we are in the right place, doing just what we are supposed to be doing. One thing that is so cool for me this trip is that we are all together, experiencing the same things, meeting the same people. Always before, I have done these trips to Honduras by myself (not by myself, but not with my family). I can already tell that this will be such a neat bonding time for the 5 of us---with memories galore to share for lots of years to come.
Thanks for all you have done and are doing for us--we feel the love and prayers even this far away from home! By the way---the weather is beautiful---about 78 and sunny!! We will talk again when we can. EWM

Last Update for a while?

Charles here ---- Early Monday morning in Teguc. Everyone else is asleep and I am doing a quick load of laundry. Around 11:30am we head to the airport to pick up an arriving "work team" from the States. We will then all head directly out to Talanga. I am excited to get out there and get started. I imagine our kids are a little apprehensive not knowing what to expect. The work team will also be staying at Proyecto Manuelito all week.

Staying in the "guest house" these last few days has been a good transition period for our kids. They are slowly being introduced to the Honduran culture. The guest house is sort of like a way-station for various missionaries of World Gospel Mission who may be coming or going. I have attached a picture of the outside. All buildings are fortified like this with gates, razor wire, etc. There is the main house (pictured) which has a living room area, kitchen, office, several guest rooms and a small apartment for the couple that is the host...or runs the whole house. There is another large building in the back that is more like a dorm - this is where we are staying. There are different sleeping rooms and shared baths in the hallway. We all eat together as a large group.

Just as a note - being the "guest house host" is something that Ellen and I have talked about doing at some point once the kids are gone. We could conceivably come here for...say 3-6 months and provide that service. Anyway...

I laughed out loud yesterday in church (as we were trying to sing in spanish) because I looked at our kids trying to sing and thought to myself "these are pretty good kids to be such good sports about this whole thing!" I don't know what I would have thought if this had happened to me at that age. The whole process so far has been fairly "Americanized" because we have been hanging out w' american missionaries, eating american food, having internet access, etc. They have not really seen much poverty yet, etc. The real adventure begins today! Now we will really be living in the country-side as the real hondurans do. Although we will still be around American work teams, etc.

I will actually be driving a pickup truck out to Talanga while our missionary friend (Jeremy) drives a school bus with the work team on it. I have driven in Honduras before but not through the mountains! Should be fun. The boys have seen people cutting grass with Machetes and they are excited to try that out! We will try to keep all fingers and toes intact.

Please continue to pray for health and safety for all of us. That is one of our main concerns. We are all doing really well so far. Now we go live with a Honduran couple in a small house with a shared bathroom though....getting a little cozier now :) .

We were able to go to a "Sam's Club" (aka PriceSmart) yesterday and get some snacks for us for Talanga. We also got some skim milk - unrefigerated, in boxes. This way we can refrigerate a box or two as needed and not waste valuable refrig space.

Well...that about does it for now. Thanks for thinking of us...don't forget us...and keep praying. We will update as we can.

Buenos Dias

Sunday 2:15pm...

We went to church this morning (all in Spanish) and got introduced to the congregation. We also saw the "transition house" at Manuelito. There are kids there as young as 15 months...eventually these kids will go to Talanga with the older kids.

We had lunch and then went to a place like Sam's Club to load on on some snacks for our room(s) at Talanga. Not sure what we are doing the rest of the day.

Tomorrow (Monday) we meet a work team from the U.S. and we all head out to Talanga to being our adventure. That''s when the real fun begins! So far we have not been "roughing it" at all.....but tomorrow we start!

Not sure when I will update next....so keep us in your prayers as we travel tomorrow and meet the kids out there and begin our 6 weeks of service.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!

Safe Arrival

It is now 7:15 PM in Tegucigalpa and we have just finished supper. All of our travels today were uneventful and we arrived safely and on time. We think we will be at this guest house in Teguc until Monday afternoon when we will head out to Talanga.

Thanks again to all those who have helped us prepare for this trip. We are very excited to be here and to begin our mission work.

We hope to be able to update this over the next few days.

Adios for now

Well...we leave for the airport at 3:45am tonight/tomorrow morning. I thought you might enjoy this comic while we are travelling to Honduras! I think it is important to laugh out loud once in a while!!!

We need to finish packing and picking up the house tonight. I am afraid it won't be as picked up as we would like for our house-sitter...but it will just have to do :)

We are obviously as ready as we are ever going to be. By this time tomorrow we should be in Tegucigalpa.

Talk to you soon.

It's almost funny...

You know, the issues we have been dealing with in the last week or so (mostly health) took another interesting turn last night. I don't tell you this to make you feel sorry for us or for you to worry....but....

Chase was a the Emergency Room last night from 1-3am! Can you even believe it?? He woke up at 1am crying with a horrible earache. Being the strong husband that I am I told Ellen I would stay home and protect the house while she took Chase to the E.R. :)

Turns out he had a bad earache and he has pills and ear drops!

Les than 48 hours to stay healthy and get on that plane! Yee-ha!

Oh yah.....Molly has some weird cough and is on antibiotics. I don't think she has been on any meds for more than 5 years....but now it happens THIS WEEK!!!!

Later.

Latest Update!

So, since we last chatted here is what has transpired:

* Alex got into a car accident and sustained whiplash injuries. She is feeling better. She is very quick to point out that the accident was NOT her fault. She was in the car by herself and got rear-ended and she then crashed into the car in front of her. The interesting part of the story is that the driver of the car that hit her was arrested on the spot and taken to jail for no license and a prior conviction. The car that Alex hit left the scene of the accident before police could arrive. Hmmmmm. Very interesting.
* Ellen and Nate got violently ill Monday night and were up ALL night getting sick. I got my exercise going from bathroom to bathroom consoling, them and doing other things with bodily fluids that are too gross to mention here. As of Wednesday they are on the mend but still feeling weak and yucky.
* Ellen has had a couple crowns done
* Alex had some unexplainable kidney pain that has subsided

We continue to prepare to leave...but we lost some time here due to sickness. We will get it all packed up and leave on time --- just pray that the rest of us don't catch the "bug" that Ellen and Nate got!!

Needless to say, we are very excited to get on the plane and get to Honduras!! Keep us in your prayers! We hope you are all doing well.

Adios.

Sunday - February 10th

Here is a great video about the Manuelito Project:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fwALlFyv3Y

This is Ellen--it is my turn to write something for a change! While we are gone, we will try to let each of the kids write periodically (uncensored) so you will get a chance to hear their perspectives about what is happening and how they are doing. Also--many of you have asked how you can send us messages. Probably the best way is to leave us comments right here on this blog. At the bottom of each note that we write is a place you can click to write a comment....so when we are able to get online, we will be able to hear from you.

A million things to do this week before the big departure for the airport at 4AM on Saturday morning. We have had some challenges during the last week too--challenging times at work for Charlie and me, a fender bender for Alex (she is fine except for a sore neck), abdominal pain that required a CT scan (Alex again--she is fine), a bad cough for Chase--I have heard others talk about how evil tries to create doubt when you are on a path to do the Lord's work. I believe that this may be the first time we have ever been the target!! So--I ask for your prayers--that our faith and resolve remain strong and that any doubt that tries to sneak in will be replaced with peace and certainty.

More soon!! EWM

More Prep

Okay...we leave in a little less than a week. By this time next Saturday we will be in Houston waiting for our next flight -- to Tegucigalpa!

We are feverishly preparing all the final details of this adventure. We start our malaria medicine today and some of us are still taking Typhoid pills! The dog has been to the vet, the newspapers are scheduled to be held until our return, we need to get Molly (the dog) over to visit the house where she will be staying, we need to get Krista over to our house to show her the ropes since she will be living at our house during our absence, we need to pack, we are waiting on a few more deliveries to arrive so we can take more stuff with us, etc, etc, etc.

Jeremy (who works with Project Manuelito as a full time volunteer in Honduras) was in town this past week so we had dinner with him so the kids could ask all their questions. It was a nice time and the kids enjoyed learningmore about where they would be staying and what a typical day is like in Talanga. Jeremy has now returned to Honduras and is scheduled to pick us up at the airport on 2/16.

Things seem hectic and crazy. We will be glad when we are on the plane and on our way. Hopefully then we can take a deep breath and focus on God's plan for us in Honduras. We know He is with us in all this prep work too....but boy is it wild right now!!

ALSO - thanks to your generous donations we are taking hardware to make the computer lab in Talanga a wireless network. Also we have the "learn english" software for the kids.

More later.

Getting Ready

Well, we are less than 3 weeks from departure date! In some ways that seems like a long time and in other ways it seems just around the corner!

Ellen is in Wisconsin again this week to be with her Mom and Dad. Her Mom (Joyce) is in the middle of chemotherapy for cancer. And this week her Dad (Bob) is having some eye surgery. Please keep them in your prayers.

The basement of our house really looks like a staging area. We have lots of school supplies to pack in addition to the P.E. supplies we have purchased. We have Soccer balls, kick balls, footballs and flag football belts, wiffle balls and bats, huge tug-of-war rope, parachute, etc. We also have started assembling our personal stuff --- like boots, bug repellent, permethrin to soak our clothes, bilingual bibles, flashlights, rain ponchos, batteries, blah blah blah. We plan to pack a bunch of this in "army duffels" and pack our personal stuff in our carry ons.

I am trying to fugure out how to pay our March bills while we are gone. I need to contact the various utilities and see how to do that. We will have someone staying at the house so I don't think I have to worry about frozen pipes or sump pumps, etc.

A special thanks again to all the people that have donated time and funds to help us in various parts of this trip!

Keep reading....I am sure the next 2+ weeks will get very exciting!! (and maybe a little stressful!) Sometimes I still can't believe we are doing this :)

THANK YOU !

A great BIG thank you to all the people who came out last night to have Spaghetti with us at the church. Ellen and the kids and I think it went well and we hope you agree.

We certainly learned alot about feeding that many people at one time. Kudos to anyone in the catering business!! That is hard work to put warm food on so many tables at the same time! One of our tasks in Honduras might be feeding visiting work teams and the Manuelito kids -- so hopefully our experience last night will be a good lesson for us.

Thank you for your friendship, your prayers, your setup/teardown help, your help cooking, and your donations. We hope you learned a little more about our trip, our motivation, and our needs. Your generosity is beyond compare!!

(The only let down of the evening is that neither the Colts nor the Packers will be playing in the Super Bowl!)

We are getting excited/nervous ------ Feb 16th will be here before we know it!

We are definitely excited to serve as your representatives to Honduras as we interact with the kids and adults in Talanga and elsewhere in Honduras. We are excited to share God's good news through our words and actions. Thanks!

FREE Dinner!

We are having a FREE Spaghetti Dinner at our church on Sunday January 20th at 6pm.

Bring the whole family and come learn more about our trip!

Questions

Interestingly enough we are getting many questions from people about our trip. They include:

1) How are you managing to get away for this long? Well, Ellen has a sabbatical from the University of Indianapolis and my employer has been very gracious in letting me take an unpaid leave-of-absence. We have friends and neighbors who are supporting us by taking our dog, living in our house, watching our house, etc.

2) How are the kids getting out of school for that long? Ellen is working with the schools to make arrangements (each of our kids is in a different school!) It is a tricky situation to say the least and takes some creative planning for our kids and the teachers. So far it seems like most people at the schools are fairly open to the concept. But there are definitely some hoops to jump through.

3) Why are you going? Good question. See Matthew 25:37-40. Ellen and I have been to Honduras multiple times and have seen poverty, suffering, hunger, like we have not seen elsewhere. Yes, there are other places in the world, in the US, in Indiana where people suffer. But we feel led to serve in Honduras at this point in time. We have also served in Greenwood, Indianapolis, in the US and in Mexico. We learned from our church that we should serve Locally, Nationally, and Internationally. This is our time to serve Internationally. The Honduran people are great and we think we can work with kids and spread the Word -- it's hard to hear the Word while you are starving or high on glue, or in need of medical attention...so we work on the basics first.

See also Matthew 28:19-20. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Some people are Mission "Senders" and some people are "Goers". Ellen and I have done both -- and both tasks are important. "Senders" support missionaries through prayer, communication, helping at home, donating money/supplies, etc. A "Goer" goes and interacts with the people who are being served.

4) Is this a vacation? No. I wish all of you could experience what we have experienced in the past in Honduras. I wish you could be a fly-on-the-wall while we are there. That said, we hope to show the kids some of the different areas of Honduras that we have seen. It is a beautiful country. Perhaps on a few weekends we can take an excursion or two nearby. There is a pretty waterfall called Pulaphanzak. There is Lake Yojoa. There is Valley of the Angels, etc. Would love to go to Copan Ruinas - but this is very far away from where we will be living. We hope to travel to see our missionary friend Kent Burdine up in San Pedro Sula. But during the week we will be working full days with work teams visiting from the US, working on the kid's homework, etc! At the end of our mission work we will probably take a few days off in Honduras to relax and re-acclimate before heading home.

I hope that answers a few questions. Our excitement is building!

I hit "ENTER"

Okay, this morning (1/1/08) I did it......I hit "ENTER". It is always a little scary to buy 5 airplane tickets over the internet and get to the point where you have to hit ENTER. Not because we have any misgivings about confirming our trip......it's just that that's a lot of money and I triple-checked everything to make sure the dates/times/cities were correct!

So........we now have confirmed plane reservations for our trip to Honduras. We will fly out of Indy on Sat Feb 16 and arrive in Tegucigalpa that same day at 3:47pm. We will return on Thursday April 3 departing from San Pedro Sula at 11:49am and arriving in Indy at 10:02pm. Flights both ways connect in Houston with plenty of layover time for customs, bag transfers, etc.

Hard to imagine that in less than 7 weeks we will be in Honduras. As I sit here on New Year's Day it is snowing outside! Today's high temp in Tegucigalpa is 74 degrees!

So far it still looks like we will be spending much of our time in Talanga with the kids at Proyecto Manuelito....so that's good to know! We are really looking forward to it.

Specific prayer requests :

1) That Ellen will have great success working with the public schools (Alex, Nate) to get their assignments in advance so they don't lose any ground during our trip. The kids will spend time each day on school work.
2) That our finances/fundraising will all work out okay.
3) That as we work through the logistics in the next 6 weeks we can avoid too much stress and keep the real reason for this trip in the forefront - glorifying God.
4) That everything will be okay at work while we are gone.
5) That our kids will continue to have positive attitudes about this trip (they are doing great so far!)
6) That through our preparations we will show God's light to others who might be moved to get in to mission work locally, nationally, or internationally.