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 :)
Monday, January 28, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
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!
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!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
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!
Bring the whole family and come learn more about our trip!
Friday, January 4, 2008
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!
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!
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
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.
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.
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