Corrections

Much to my regret I gave out false information. The wedding between Reina and Alfredo is on March 28th as well as my brother's wedding. I was really tired when I wrote that blog. Sorry!

Getting Ready to Go

Things have been so crazy the past few days. I am getting ready to go back to the states for my brother Jason's wedding. I have been doing nothing but school the past few days. We are trying to get a week ahead so that if Jason doesn't get all of their work done, they won't be very far behind.

Today we had a great day in church. We had 89 people in the service. After the service we went to Ernesto and Nelly's house and celebrated their son's 17th birthday. We had carne asada, refried beans, rice, and chizmol (my favorite). It was so good that I don't think I will eat for a week. After the birthday, we took Reina and Alfredo home. Reina had a good laying with her hens in the past few days and gave me a bunch of fresh laid eggs. The kids were so excited because that means that we will have eggs for breakfast tomorrow.

Reina and Alfredo have lived together for 35 years, but since they have started coming to our church they want to get involved. They are finally getting married. They went to the mayor's office (where the legal ceremony is held) and got the date set. They will be married on the 28th of April. As you are not able to pick the date for yourselves they are going to be married while I am in the states. I was so disappointed about the timing, but I am excited about the fact that they want to serve God with their lives.

This week is Samana Santa (Holy Week) which means that most businesses are closed and we get spring break in school. I only have a few classes to give to get the kids ahead, but I am going to take it easy.

Pray with us as we are thinking on moving out of the city. We have wanted to move closer to Ojojona for some time now, but haven't found a place for rent that would be suitable for us. Our friends told us of a place that will be available soon. We will see how God moves. We would like to do this to help us save money so we can buy the property for the Bible College and our house. There are a lot of things to work out first, but please be praying with us over this matter.

Here again

Finally I have a few moments to be online and the blogger site is up and running. I tried a few other times these past few weeks and every time the site was undergoing routine maintenance.

These past few weeks have been hard and wonderful at the same time. On baptism Sunday three Sundays ago we had the privilege of seeing four people baptized. One, Daisy, was a personal blessing for me. She had been saved in another church, but stopped going and got into sin. She now has two little boys one of which is in my Sunday School class. A few months ago the Lord laid her on my heart to give one of Joey outgrown outfits to. This outfit was given to Joey last year and didn't fit him very long so it was in very good shape. Daisy came a few weeks after that to tell us that someone had taken her son and wouldn't give him back. We prayed with her and gave her our phone numbers in case she needed something. A few weeks later the courts returned the boy. Ever since that day she has been in church. We were not sure of her salvation so we talked to her and she gave us her testimony. She then asked if she could get baptized. We explained baptism to her and what it signifys, and were so happy to see her as one of the four to get baptized.

For the past week I had been feeling sick. I thought I was pregnant so I took a home pregnancy test and it came back negative. Since I would be really early pregnant, my doctor ordered a blood test for me. Instead of going to the hospital lab to get the work done, I went to a labratory down the street that looks nice and clean. I called for the results on Friday afternoon, and the lab tech told me that I was pregnant. Since it was Friday afternoon (the office was closed at 10:30 AM) and they were not open again until Monday, I had to wait until Monday to pick up the results. When I went early Monday morning to get the results she told me that she was sorry, but she had read me the wrong results and I was not pregnant. I was shocked and saddened. I called my doctor and she is going to order me some tests to find out why I am still feeling nauseous. I am feeling a little better today so we will see what happens.

Anne

We have a new member in our family. Her name is Anne and she is a 2 month old Mutt. Saturday as we were visiting one of the kids who regularly attends Sunday school we saw three puppies. Audrey took to one of them right away. The puppies tummies were huge (from parasites). The other three full grown dogs that also lived in this house were so skinny that I felt sorry for them. The mother of the Sunday school kids gave Audrey the puppy if it was ok with us. We took her to the vet yesterday and he said she was healthy except for the parasites. He gave her medicine that will take away the parasites. She is already very spoiled. It seems that she is constantly being held by someone. As I am typing this she is sleeping in my lap.

We had a great day this past Sunday. It was baptism Sunday. On Saturday, Monday, and today it has rained hard, but God allowed the sun to shine on Sunday and we had four people get baptized. Daysi, Mabeliy, Javier, and Marlon all got baptized. We had three men from the states with us and Bro. Gary Greenwood (a missionary kicked out of Venezuela) preached for us. Everyone loved it. We are so thankful for the beautiful day that God gave us. We had a few families missing, but we still had over 30 people at the river for the service.

Our truck brakes had to be replaced. We had noticed that things didn't sound right, but the brakes never squeaked or anything so we forgot about them. Yesterday, Jason took the guys to Orika, a town about 3 hours from Tegucigalpa to survey the area. When he got back he called the mechanic. The brakes are so bad that extensive work is required. We had to cancel the Ladies Meeting that was set for tonight, but Praise the Lord, the truck should be fixed in time for the La Espada Conference on Wednesday night.

Haircut

Well, the perm was horrible, but after my third day I went back and had them cut my hair (the stylist wouldn't cut it for three days to let the perm take). I figured that no matter how bad a job they did, it couldn't get any worse than the afro that I had. Much to my surprise, they did a really good job on the cut and now when I use my blowdryer and brush in the mornings my hair actually looks like it is supposed to look.

Today we picked up three missionaries from the airport and Jason left with them right away for a place called the Moskito Coast. It is named because of the Moskitia tribe of Indians not for the insect, thought I have heard that they grow them quite large there. These missionaries were serving in Venezuela with a remote mountain tribe of Indians and were recently kicked out by Chavez. One of them is with BIMI and so they asked if we could show them any areas where there are a lot of indigenous tribes of people. Where Jason is taking them is a decent size city. They have a few motels and one bank (the only one in the whole state of Gracias A Dios). There are no roads leading in and out of the Moskitia (Moskito Coast in English) so they have to fly in. The plane they will be flying on has only 12 seats and will land on a dirt runway. The motel they are staying in is the only one in all of this area that is made of brick. The advantage of this is that the rats don't find as easy an access into brick buildings. Some day it would be fun to visit there, but not until the kids are much older and can enjoy the rusticness of the adventure.

I am playing single mom until Friday, but thankfully the missionaries brought me a bag of Payday bars to help get me through. :-)

What was I thinking?

Why, when I have not had good luck with perms done in Honduras did I optimistically get another one done today. I had a picture of myself a few years back with a haircut that I really liked and I thought that I would see if I would have any luck duplicating it. It is a shorter cut (layered bob). Because my hair is so thin and fine I need a perm for this particular cut. I had been to this shop before with a friend and they did a great job. I thought I would try this salon as it was different from where I had it done the first time. I decided to make sure and mention to them that they don't wash my hair right after they perm it (that is what happened last time).

I had just had my hair washed and was settling in with my MP3 player and a game on my cell phone to start the perm. I wasn't paying close attention to what the beautician was doing. I had thought that there aren't to many ways to mess up putting in curlers. After a few minutes of intense hair pulling I looked up to see what she was doing. I was surprised to see her rolling my hair with straws and then tying the ends to keep them down. I thought it was weird, but as I know how Hondurans do things as times I just thought that maybe they didn't have any curlers. When they were about 10 straws from having my hair totally rolled the lady explained to her helper that she didn't use rollers becuase they didn't make the curls tight enough. Needless to say my heart stopped on that declaration.

The rest of the perm went smoothly. At the end, as they were unrolling all of the straws, all of the ladies that worked there kept exclaiming about how curly my hair was. When I saw myself in the mirror I almost cringed. I looked like I stuck my finger in a light socket. The underside of my hair is very curly with thin curls (not my best look). The hair on the top of my head, though, has always had a tendancy to frizz and boy did it ever. To say that I look like a poodle is an insult to the poodle. Thankfully, I plan to go in again in three days time to get it cut (they didn't do it today, they said that had to wait three days before they could comb it) and then I can start enjoying this perm. I don't even want to go out of the house. It is that bad.

Update on Fernanda

We had to go shopping today and ran into the Jacksons in the store. They are still hurting from all that has happened, but yesterday when they were talking to the nurse at the clinic, God gave them peace about the situation. Please continue to pray for them during this time of great sadness for them.

The situation with Fernanda at this time is, that as long as she is in the birth father's house there is nothing that can be done as she is in a "new home situation". If she goes back to the house where she was living before with her mom and grandmother she will be taken away by InHFA (like CPS). As the original report was filed solely because of the conditions of the grandmother and mother's house and its affect on the girls, it would have to be refiled. This means that there would have to be another complaint listed. As long as she is living in another area, getting her medicine, and does not get drastically sick again there is nothing that can be done.

Saturday, after the funeral, the birth father proposed marriage, and so Reina, the birth mother and Carmen, the grandmother moved into his house. After just one day the grandmother (who has mental problems) left and as she has a lot of influence over her daughter we are not sure how long she will stay with the father.

Please continue to pray for the Jacksons safety in this time. The father of the babies is a gang member and the night before the funeral got together 20 men and circled Bro. Alan and started asking questions very accusingly. The church members were defending the Jacksons and told the men how much the Jacksons do for anyone in their church. They were not trying to "steal" the babies, but were only trying to help them get better. Bro. Alan didn't get mad, but answered them in a soft voice and they finally left. The Jacksons are going to take baby Fernanda a gift tomorrow to help them see that they only want what is best for them and then they are going to leave them alone. They want the leave the situation on a happy note though.

The Jacksons did have something positive happen on Sunday. They had 60 first time visitors in their Sunday school program. There is an Episcopal Orphanage a few miles from where the church is and two ladies from the church in San Buenavenura work for the orphanage as cooks. For reasons known only to God the orphanage has decided to send all of the kids to the Sunday school at Iglesia Bautista Betel (Bethel Baptist Church).

The Jacksons have seen the Lord really grow their work in the past few months. The devil never likes to see people getting saved and he is fighting. We are so thankful that we have a God who knows the end of the matter and who will never leave us.