Adventures

Two weekends ago, I went with three coworkers to Tela, a beach town, all expenses paid by Stephanie's mom, who was here visiting and accompanied us. It was great to have a mom in the house. The following Tuesday, I was finishing up a lesson at the end of the day, when Heather came to my classroom to let me know there was a new volunteer who wanted to meet my students before coming to help the next day. She walked out, then walked back in with my mom. It was surreal. I thought she would never come. Apparently I jumped when I saw her (which you can't see in the video), and my students clapped when we hugged.


She got to watch and help in my classes on Wednesday and Thursday, and I took her around downtown. I was so excited to share my life here with someone from home. We had Friday off from school, and my mom and I went to a place about an hour away called Pulhapanzak to go on a cave tour under a waterfall and a zipline over that waterfall.


Then we drove our rented car to a gorgeous spot in the middle of nature where we stayed in a cabin, and the next day took a quick hike to a smaller waterfall. On Sunday, I got to take her to my church, and on Monday, I saw her off. She kept raving about what a great experience it was, and though she had to force herself to come, now she's talking about coming back with my dad. You can see pictures of my past two weekends in my online photo album.

This past week was the beginning of the soccer tournament between the private schools in the area. The students from my school who were chosen to participate have been doing really well and winning most of their games. The whole school is ridiculously excited about the tournament. The students who play miss the first couple of classes of the day, and when the students who have stayed behind hear them arrive, they run outside to find out if they won, and when they hear the good news, they cheer at the top of their lungs for several minutes. The whole 5th and 6th grade went to the first day of games, and there are pictures of that in my album, as well.

I have some prayer requests for people at the school. Silvia is still in the hospital. Profe Gladys was doing well enough to come back to school, though you could tell just by looking at her that her face was partially paralized. Things got worse, however, and she's back at the hospital getting therapy. Profe Edith's husband is doing better than he was but still undergoing chemotherapy. Esther is in the process of hiring English teachers for next year, so pray for her to make the right decisions and for the right people to come. Yicel, the elementary school secretary who has been working here for 6-7 years and is wonderful, just quit her job because she's going to join her cousin in Spain. Elias, who was the day-time guard for 9 years, recently quit because he needed a change. So basically our school is losing a lot of key people. Keep us in prayer.

Good Friday

On Friday, we drove up to Comayagua, the former capital of Honduras, located about a half hour from Siguatepeque. Every good Friday, they have a display of sawdust carpets (works of art) representing different scenes relating to the crucifiction of Christ, and it's followed by a parade. Click here to see pictures.