Taca Flight 390

Today was a sad day for us. As Audrey was washing dishes from breakfast we lost power. We had no clue what was going on until a friend of ours called us to tell us that a plane had just been involved in an accident. We live very near the airport so they were wondering how we were. We were without any form of finding out what was going on so we got in the car to listen to the radio and found out it was a big plane from TACA that had over shot the runway.

Honduran news has said that 5 died (three died inside the plane including the pilot, and two were trapped in their cars underneath the plane), but the articles that I have read have stated that two died. When we saw the news reports we were praising God for the small amount of causalities. It could have been so much worse. Also, several of those first on the scene came just to steal the baggage of the traumatized passengers.

While nothing "official" has been said, we know that for some reason the plane kept going right off of the end of the runway. Thankfully planes land away from our house so we were in no way harmed.

There is talk of closing the Toncontin airport (just remodeled and very nice) for a time and flying people into Comayagua (1 1/2 hours away). We are praying that this doesn't happen as it would be a huge headache for us. The city has been in the process of taking down a really big hill to extend the runway, but we don't know if that is going to halted at this time.

If you would like to see the news article you can click here. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,360842,00.html

Water, Rain, and Dogs

We have not had any water for three weeks. We have a tank that holds 1,500 gallons of water. We have had to buy a truck of water a week for the past three weeks just to use for showers, washing clothes, and washing dishes. Finally after a week of calling, Sanaa (water company) came out today to fix the problem and found out that someone turned our water off just to be mean. I, however, am not convinced that that is the problem. We are supposed to get water again tonight from the city so we will soon know if that is what was wrong or not.

We have had good rainfall this past week. It has made it so nice here. Once our water starts coming in I can spring clean. I am going to start by washing curtains. I have some beige lace curtains that are now dark brown from the dust. I hate to let them get so bad, but when you have no water there is not much you can do.

We had baptism Sunday scheduled for Sunday. A few days before one of our members called to tell us that a dead dog had been thrown into the water hole where we baptize and told us that we should cancel the service. We asked him to take the dog out. His wife called on Friday and told us that the dog was still there. We went out on Saturday and found out that God had cleaned it for us. It had rained so much that everything floated down the river. We had our baptism service and two from our church got baptized. One was Jordan and the other Cristian (8 years old). To have children get baptized is a huge step. Here there is a very common belief that children shouldn't get baptized until they are 12 (the age Jesus went to the temple). It is very hard to get parents to give permission. We were so excited for Cristian to finally get permission. We had a great service with Bro. Alan Jackson's church joining us. This was the first for them to baptize in the river and they loved it.

Hot days without water

It was hot when our church was here and I didn't thing that it would get much hotter, but it has. Over the past two weeks it has been in the 100's several days. It wouldn't be so bad if we had air conditioning, but we don't so it has been miserable. The past few days have cooled down (normally that doesn't happen until it rains) and only been in the high 80's to low 90's. Rainy season was supposed to start in the middle of May, but so far nothing where we live. Outside of the capital city they have had rain for a week and a half. We are anxiously awaiting the start of the rain.

For those of you who don't know, we live in a big house on a dirt road. At the end of our road is several mechanic shops. To say our area is a dust bowl is a mild exaggeration. When the rain starts I will be able to take down all of the curtains and wash them. Right now you can see the dust on them. I would wash them now, but we have not been getting much water.

We have an underground cistern that holds 1,500 gallons of water. That will last us quite a while if I am not doing lots of laundry. Yesterday we had to buy water again. We have not gotten any water from the city for a week and a half. Today we are going to try to go and report it to the water department. To report no water you must take your monthly bill that has been paid to the main office. Yesterday we tried, but there was a protest out front and we couldn't get in.

We also have to go to the phone company today. They shut off our phone for not paying our bill. We hadn't gotten the bill yet, but I guess that doesn't matter. We had to go to the main office and request our bill and then paid it, but they haven't turned the phone on yet.

On a happier note, we have Baptism Sunday this coming Sunday. We have two people at this time who want to be baptized. One of our men from church called us yesterday and told us that someone threw a dead dog into the pond where we normally baptize. We are not sure what to do. We are going to try and clean it up, but if that doesn't work, we will have to find another place to baptize. If they get a really good rain it will wash everything down stream. We are praying for that.

Life is never boring in Honduras.

Mother's Day gift for my mom

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Sunny Day

Today was a gorgeous day. It has been quite hot as we are coming to the end of the dry season. We have a lot of heat and humidity. For the past month or so we have had a huge amount of smoke that has settled over the city. It has been so bad that we could not see the other end of the runway and flights have been canceled off and on for the past two weeks. This morning though, when we woke up, I actually saw the blue sky. It was so beautiful.

Tonight the clouds started to roll in and the humidity has really picked up. We are praying for rain.

The kids and I are home tonight instead of going to church. They all have really bad allergic coughs and sniffles. Once it rains we should see a dramatic improvement in the air quality.

Even though rainy season means a drop in attendance, it also means that most of the allergy problems in the country clear up.

Our busy month

This month has been crazy for us. It started just before I left for the states to attend my brother's wedding and it is all starting to wind down now.

This month we had our church come and stay for two weeks. They helped in tract distribution, VBS (they brought everything with them, which was great!!), and programs in Public Schools. We had a great time. We were able to see over 100 kids accept Jesus into their hearts as their personal Saviour. We ran ourselves ragged, but it was a time that God really touched people's hearts. It was very special to see Bernadette (one of the group that worked with us) make such an attachement to Carmen (one of the ladies in our church). The Lord really bound their hearts together. Carmen even came to the airport to see them off. She found someone who lives near her that speaks English to write a letter to Bernadette to say goodbye. I was supposed to get a copy of all of the pictures taken, but something happened when Bro. Jeff tried to copy them to my disks and so they told me that they would mail the pictures to us.

The biggest blessing while the group from our church was here was, my mom came to take care of the kids and help with housework. The kids loved it and of course we did too. Three kids can only take so much time in the hot sun without getting cranky and making Mom cranky too. Mom was able to help do the laundry for the group and this saved them much time and money. It was a huge blessing to have her here.

We are now winding down school for this year. I am probably the most excited for summer vacation. We only have two weeks and two days left, but I am already anticipating the freedom.