Internet again

We finally have Internet again and now that I am sitting down to write this blog, I don't know where to start.

We got safely moved in. It took us about a week of making trips with two intensive days of help to move the big stuff. We love this new house. It is just perfect for us. We have four bedrooms, a classroom, a big kitchen, and a living room/dining room combo. We also have a built in pool, but it is much to deep for the kids and we don't want to pay extra for it so the kids play in it with it being dry.

The negatives with this house is that there in no washer outlet and the electricity is not powerful enough to run the dryer (plus there is no hookup). With the washer we just fill it with a hose. It takes a while, but it gets done. I try to do one load of laundry a day. I do the lights on one day and the darks the next. On really sunny days I also wash the towels. I have limited clothes line so the towels must wait until it is really nice out. Not having a dryer means that I have to iron most everything. It has been a little bit of an adjustment, but if I do one to two loads a day and don't let it pile up on me I can get it done in about 45 minutes. Since my house is smaller it is easier to keep clean so the time I saved is now spent ironing.

Our friends, the Jacksons, rented this house a year ago and put the dryer in the kitchen. They used the same outlet that the stove was on (just unplugged the stove) and dried in there. They also burnt out their dryer from the fluctuating power so I decided the I would dry on the line as long as possible.

During the move we were able to get rid of a lot of things that we don't need anymore. We had several things that were just collecting dust as well as three trunks of baby girl clothes that I won't be needing. We decided to have a garage sale at the church and sell everything to make money for the Sunday school's Christmas Party. We have been wanting to buy all of the faithful kids a gift, but since we are also building a classroom there is no money available. I was praying that God would let us raise 2,000 Lempira (about $105.00). We didn't have much time to advertise it, but when we opened the doors of the church to start the sale there were probably 150 people there. We had a lot of theft (we were expecting it as we had to have the sale in the church and it is a high crime area), but we were still able to raise 4,700 Lempira. We have four bags of clothes left, but everything else sold. Praise the Lord we will now have enough to do what we were planning on doing.

The Monday after the sale we went to my normal doctor's appointment. I was 34 1/2 weeks along. I had been having a lot of contractions, but nothing regular so I wasn't worried. My doctor did my exam and decided to change my c-section date. It was going to be for the 20th, but because of the fact that the contractions were making progress and the baby's heart rate was on the low side, she decided that she was going to take the baby on the 4th of December. This is the day I hit 37 weeks. The baby is big and she is afraid if the baby even lets me get to 38 weeks that the heart rate will drop way down because of the size. I, however, am not worried about that. I am worried about the fact that I live further away from the hospital and if the baby decides to come we have a good drive ahead of us. Until I hit 36 weeks (Thanksgiving Day) I can take the medicine to stop labor (and have had to almost every day this week), but after that I cannot. We have another appointment tomorrow and we will see if she changes anything.

The good thing though is that the baby is measuring big and continues to grow. I, however, haven't gained a lb in a few weeks. My goal is to stay under 200 lbs (a feat I haven't achieved while pregnant yet) and so far I am right on track.

Lately I have not been going anywhere. I cannot drive because of the medicine and threat of having to take the medicine. I am so thankful that we got moved in when we did. Who knows what might have happened if we hadn't gotten in when we did.

We are also thankful that our old landlord kept begging us to get out of the house. By law we had to pay rent up to December 15th. She wouldn't leave us alone though and we found out that it was because she already had another client. We decided to move out quicker and give her back her keys and just not pay her last months rent. She didn't mind so we did this and because of that we were able to get out Internet running. YEAH!!!! Thank the Lord for his goodness.

I am hoping that I can find a little time to put some new pictures on here. Unfortunately there is a lot to do before the baby come and not a lot of time. :-)

Moving

We are moving!!!!! We got a call a week ago Saturday that a house we were interested in San Buenaventura was going to be available. We saw the house on Sunday and gave the deposit and started moving in yesterday. We have done a lot, but still have a long ways to go. It would be so much easier if we had U-haul here.

We will not have Internet for the next month or so. We must pay two rent payments this month or risk losing the house in San Buenaventura. Therefore the money needed to buy the satellite for the Internet will just not be there for another month or so. We will be relying on the free Internet in the restaurants here. Anytime we leave the house we will just have to make sure that we have the laptop with us. We should be able to check our email once a week. So if anyone has an urgent message for us it, sorry it won't be seen for a while.

For those of you praying for Xiomara, thank you so much. She is doing better and will find out on Wednesday if she can go home or not. She needs to get home and out of her mother's care. Unfortunately her mother knows more than the doctor and does not allow Xiomara to take the necessary steps toward improvement. We are praying that she will be able to come home sometime this week.

We are all striving to get moved in before Audrey's slumber party this Friday. She turns 8 on Sunday and is having 5 girls over to celebrate. They are going to Princess Club to get their hair and nails done first.

Thank you for your prayers for us and please keep praying that all of this moving wouldn't put me into labor too early.

Hospital Escuela

Yesterday, Jason and I went to Hospital Escuela to visit Xiomara. She is the lady in our church who gave birth less than a month ago. She has problems during pregnancy with blood clotting in her legs. She managed to advert it this pregnancy, but Tuesday evening we got a call saying she was in the hospital. She has a good sized blood clot in her leg and several small floating clots (not sure of the technical name) in her brain.

I talked to her on Wednesday night and she was pretty discouraged because of her baby. She is in the worst hospital in Tegucigalpa. It is the public hospital and proof that socialized medicine doesn't work. The 6th Floor is where all the adults with non-life threatening illnesses go. It is made up of many wards with 4 beds each in them. Each ward is made up of plywood walls that go 3/4 of the way to the ceiling. The floor is tile that is so broken you would cut your foot on it if you were brave enough to be walking without shoes on. The beds are old and to lower or lift them you must go and ask for the special tool to operate it. The sheets that cover the bed may be washed (who knows), but have blood stains and holes in them. There are no pillows, air conditionings, fans, tvs, or anything to do. You just have to lay there. The doctor comes once a day in the morning. After that there is nothing to keep you occupied. I wanted to take pictures, but I was afraid I would get kicked out. There was even a sign on the window that said, "Please take care of our hospital, don't throw trash out the windows."

Anyway, when I talked to Xiomara she was pretty discouraged about not being able to have her baby with her. This is her second baby, but her first one to nurse. She told me how much she was enjoying this time with her baby. Since she had been in the hospital (over 24 hours) she hadn't been able to see her baby. I decided to bring her a pump and some bottles so she wouldn't lose her supply before she went home.

We got to the hospital on Thursday morning and tried to get in to see her. We got as far as the elevators and a guard came running in trying to get me to go to labor and delivery. I know I look much bigger than most pregnant Honduran women, but this guy refused to believe that I was not in labor. I told him that I still had 10 weeks to go and finally he left me alone. He then told us that we had to use the stairs as the elevators were just for patients. You must understand that while the floor Xiomara was on is numbered the 6th floor, Hondurans have a funny way of numbering floors. You must first go up the lobby and lower level stairs before you get to the 1st floor. The man at the stairs stopped us and told us that we would have to get a pass. In the many times Jason has been in the hospital this is the first time we have ever had to get a pass. He told us the pass was from 2:00 pm on, but he would let us in at 11:30. It was 10:30 and I still had school to teach, but I was just relieved that he was going to let us in . We asked where do we go to get a pass. He told us to ask the guards at Porton 1 (Gate 1) and they would issue it for us.

Another problem is that while they may know where Porton 1 is; we, who don't come to this hospital have no clue. We tried following his directions and ended up at labor and delivery (I think these people don't believe me). We asked a nurse there where to go and she told us outside. We went outside and asked the guard and he told us in the back of the hospital. Needless to say, by the time we actually found Porton 1, I was about to go into labor from all of the walking. We were able to get our permission easily and went over to Dunkin Doughnuts to wait the extra 15 minutes we had. Normally this would be great, but there is nothing worse than a woman that can't have sugar sitting for 15 minutes in a doughnut shop. I did get a egg sandwich so the torture wasn't too bad, but Jason helped me out of my dilemma and ate two doughnuts just so I wouldn't feel bad. Sometimes his kindness amazes me (for those of you who don't know me that was pure sarcasm).

At 11:30 we got back to the hospital and were actually let in and allowed to ride the elevator. I was so thankful for that. We got to visit Xiomara and I showed her how to use the pump and by the time we left she was feeling much better about the prospect of nursing her baby again when she left the hospital.

Because of the much rain we have been having there have been many mud slides and many retaining walls have fallen. I took a couple of pictures of one that had fallen into a pharmacy the night before. It is a blessing that the heaviest rainfall has happened during the night and no one was in the building. We are supposed to get at least 5 more days of rain before this front is over. Most of the rivers and towns are underwater. Many say that this flooding and rain is worse than when Hurricane Mitch came through Honduras. The only difference now is that things are happening a bit more slowly as the rain has been falling all day, every day for almost two weeks now.

After today I am so thankful for the Honduras Medical Center and for a home that is not on the side of a cliff.

Today

Many days are normal and occur without incident. Today, however was not one of them. We woke up this morning to 10 minutes of electricity. Normally my first half an hour is spent reading my Bible and praying. So in those few short minutes that we had, I didn't get my clothes ironed or my hair done. Normally I try to iron clothes the night before, but last night I was tired and had clothes to fold. After that I decided to be lazy and iron in the morning. That probably won't happen again.

For those of you who don't know me really well, my hair is very thin and fine. Being without a curling iron is a scary occurrence. I did have some pretty bobby pins that I used to secure my bangs back so I didn't look too scary.

The doctor thinks that I have gestational diabetes, but they don't test for it here. Because of this I cannot eat cereal or anything sweet. I don't feel well afterwards if I do. I usually have a bowl of rice, or toast and an egg for breakfast. Both of those meals require cooking so they were not an option today. Since there were no curling irons or electrical appliances to take up our time we were ready early for church. Jason took us to Burger King for breakfast. This is only a few blocks from our house and wouldn't take much time. We didn't realize though that all of Honduras didn't have electricity either and they were also at Burger King. We did get breakfast, but it took about 45 minutes. If I hadn't been pregnant we would not have waited, but I am so glad we did.

Thankfully this didn't make us late. We got to church on time and had a good attendance. We had 44 kids in attendance. This is good because there is a Medical Brigade going on in Ojojona today and that normally steals a lot of people from church. When we were picking up one girl on the way into church her mom and a visitor were with her. We were excited as her mom rarely comes to church. We had almost gotten to the church when her mom signaled for us to stop and she got out with her visitor. Her mom just used us for a ride so she could go the medical brigade. She tried to get her daughter to come with her to the brigade, but Alison told her mom that she would come after church got out. I have never been so proud of someone. Alison is only 12 years old, but she showed us how much she has grown in the Lord lately.

We have been having trouble with some of the kids we pick up for Sunday School. They have been coming faithful, but we can't keep them in the church for the adult service. Today all but one was quite and sat still the whole time. The one who was not so obedient only tried to run away once. I caught him by the shirt as he rushed past me to the door. It was during the preaching so I whispered in his ear "it is time to sit down now" and he went and sat down quietly for the rest of the service. It was a MIRACLE.

While today was full of incidents, we are so thankful for the miraculous ones that God brought our way.

Muddy Water

Ever since last Friday's rainstorm we have had muddy water throughout the house. We decided to clean our below ground cistern out. It filled with mud when our back rooms flooded. Since it needs to be done just about once a year and hasn't been done in a long time, we figured it was time. We turned the city water off on Saturday so we could empty the tank. We got it mostly empty on Thursday and Jason got inside. It is about 7 ft tall and 6 or 7 ft wide. He used a two buckets. One was put underneath the pump spout and the other he used to fill that bucket. We turned on all of the faucets in the house and started draining all of the gross muddy water. We had about 2 inches of mud in the bottom of the tank. Jason did a great job cleaning it out. Once he had it mostly clean he used the wet dry vac to get it really good.

Because of the amount of rain that has been falling lately we have been getting water every day (almost). We were hoping to get water that afternoon, but we didn't. We had to eat out for dinner. Normally this would not be a problem for me, but I was so tired I just wanted to stay home. I have to admit though, the pizza was really good.

Friday morning we still hadn't gotten any water. Thankfully we had the presence of mind to save several buckets of water aside for flushing toilets. We all bathed with baby wipes, but still didn't really feel clean. Around 1:30 pm we started to hear air flowing through our pipes and not long after water also started coming in. At 4:00 pm our tank had filled enough that we could turn on the pump. It was so wonderful to take a shower.

The only problem was that all of the muddy water that we had taken out of the cistern using the pump had been sitting in our pipes all day. We flushed our toilets more than 20 times before the water came out clean. All of the sinks were pumping out black water for a while.

Thankfully,the water has finally started coming out clean today. The little things we take for granted are sorely missed when we don't have them. We are very thankful for clean water.

Sunday Services

Today we had a great day in Sunday school. Our attendance has been low, but the kids that are coming are excited. We had 5 teenagers in Sunday school today which is a record for us. They are all so excited to be there. For the past three weeks we have been missing most of our regulars. Hopefully I can go and visit them next Saturday. If they were there we wouldn't have enough places for everyone.

Two of the teenage girls that come are so white they are almost albinos. They both have white skin (like mine) and very blond hair, but beautiful blue eyes. They are the sweetest things. Today I gave them some foundation (makeup) as the Lord blessed me with lots while we were on furlough. They were so excited. It is not exactly easy to find our shade here in Honduras.

Their mother hasn't been able to come for the past two weeks since her sister came and dropped her mentally handicapped little brother (29 years old) on her door step. They woke up to find him sitting there with a note saying that it was their turn to take care of him. Cristina, the lady who comes to our church and has the blond girls, has been staying home as Oscar (her brother) has been violent. Jason encouraged her to come. She was afraid of what he would do to a kid, but Jason told her that there were many men around to help control him.

Cristina came today and brought Oscar. He sat so good during the lesson and even though he can't talk, he tried to sing with us during son time. It was so cute and we were impressed to see how good he was. We just hope that he will continue to be good. The mentally handicapped are often unpredictable so we won't be surprised if he has problems next week.

After Sunday school I had to meet with the Teachers. We discussed the plans for Christmas and the kids' Christmas program. It was encouraging to see them take the lead. Several times I told them that I would help if I could, but they assured me that they were not planning on it. What a difference from a year ago when I had to do everything and trying to get someone to help me was like pulling teeth. I am so thankful for the maturing that God has brought about in the ladies.

We have had several ladies express desire to help and at this time I am still letting them grow a bit. One lady wore a dress to church today. This is the first time I have ever seen her in a dress. It is exciting to see how God is moving in the hearts of the people here in Ojojona.

Life's Little Joys...or Frustrations

Last night Jason was in Campamento for his once monthly preaching trip. It was a warm night and so the newly falling rain felt so good. I was exhausted as is to be expected when you are 7 months pregnant and Daddy is gone. I put the kids to bed and as I laid listening to the rain my brain was thinking of all the thing I wanted to get done the next day. I fell asleep, but was awakened about an hour later to very hard rain. Now if you know anything about windows in Honduras you will know that all of ours are glass shutter style windows and leak if it rains really hard. I checked all of the kids' rooms and thankfully no rain inside the rooms. So I went back to bed and tried to sleep, but it was raining so hard that I couldn't doze off until after 3:00 am. I did get some good prayer time in so that was a blessing.

This morning the kids woke me up at 6:00 am. Normally on Saturdays they can sleep in until 8:00 if I am lucky. This morning after a wakeful night, I was not to be so lucky. Oh well, I had a lot to do so I wasn't too frustrated.

As is our custom I made a nice breakfast for the kids. This morning it was crepes. This is the first time I had made them and they were quite yummy I must admit. While Audrey was doing the dishes, I started on my projects for the day. I went into the kitchen to straighten up as she doesn't do a good job on that yet, and found my counters were full of water. I seems that Jordan "helped" her a bit and then "tried to clean it up". In the process of cleaning all of the water up I had to take all of my counter appliances out and clean behind them. I had been wanting to reorganize my kitchen to give me a little more accessibility, but today it was not in my plans. It sure looks and works a lot better for me now.

After cleaning the kitchen I asked Audrey to take the dirty rags to the laundry room. She did and started yelling for me to come quick. It seems that the hard rain filled my laundry and storage room with about 1/4 inch of mud. We have lived here for quite a few years and have never had this problem. My thinking that I had never seen it rain this hard here made perfect sense now. I hadn't and my laundry and storage rooms took the brunt of the damage.

Once again, cleaning out these two rooms had been on my To Do List ever since we took all of the baby things out, but I cannot lift anything heavy so Jason had to have the time available too and that just hadn't happened yet. Well, tonight we were forced to rectify that situation. We had to take everything out and then get rid of the mud. Thankfully it was a very liquidy mud and so the wet/dry vac took care of everything. The rooms look so much nicer now.

I love spring cleaning. Unfortunately today there were several things that needed to get done, but couldn't as a result of other factors helping me decide to spring clean.

We also found out today that when it rains it pours. After cleaning everything up, I tried to wash and dry a load of towels and after 5 seconds my dryer stopped working. We are praying that it will be a cheap, easy fix.