Blessings

On the way into the city today, I was reminded of how blessed I am to be in this beautiful country. It's a blessing to have nice accomodations at the ranch. I'm blessed to be able to teach these kids. I'm blessed to be teaching with some awesome Christian people that are all here for the same reasons. I'm blessed to be developing some wonderful friendships with these teachers. It's a blessing to be in the middle of God's beautiful creation. I'm blessed to have family and friends at home who love me and pray for me.

I love being here and feel incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to be here and love these kids!

90+ Days!

So, this past Friday, October 12th was my 90th day in Honduras! I can't believe that I've already been here for so long! The only reason I know that it's been 90 days is because I had to go to immigration last Wednesday in order to get my visa renewed. I wasn't really looking forward to it because I'd heard some horror stories about it, but it really wasn't that bad. The lady at the window in the line we got in even spoke English which made things a lot easier!! The only bad thing that happened was at first we asked for 60 days, but when we got in the line to pay, they had the price for 30 days. Thankfully someone in our group noticed before we paid and we were able to go back and explain the problem. Anyways, now I can legally be in the country for another 60 days. It's also weird to think about that I'll be home on furlough in less than 60 days. It will be sad to leave here after spending everyday with the kids and teachers, but it will be a nice break and good to see friends and family! I'll be home from November 23-January 2nd in case you were wondering :). I'd love to see any of you that I can during that time and share a little about what's going on here and catch up with you on what's going on there.

These last few weeks have been busy, but fun. Honestly, they have all kind of run together, so I can't really think of what I need to tell you guys about. I had my first Spanish phone call today, and it was successful! I was able to understand pretty much everything that was said, and I'm pretty sure the person I was talking to was able to understand what I was trying to say. That was exciting! I just need more practice speaking Spanish. All but a few of the kids here are bilingual, so I don't get a lot of opportunities to practice. There are several of the teachers and houseparents, though, that know little to no English, so it's good to occasionally practice with them.

OK...I was debating on whether or not I should include this or not yet, but I've decided that some of you probably already know and it's exciting, so I should tell you :). I've committed to stay here for another year! So, I'll be here for the 2008-2009 school year as well. I'd been thinking and praying about it a lot and I feel like God isn't calling me elsewhere right now, so I feel like I should stay. It sounds like right now, a lot of the teachers are planning to stay, so that is exciting! It's kind of funny. No one is being really open about whether or not they are staying or where they are in the decision making process. It's good though, so we won't be staying just because someone else is, or for the wrong reasons.

I'm working on a September/October Newsletter that should be finished soon, so you'll here more details then. I apologize for that delay. I've been slowly getting some of my pictures organized so I can include some new ones on there.

Here are some prayer requests as usual:
1. Pray for the health and safety of everyone involved with the ministry. Several people have been sick recently and 2 of the girls have hurt their ankle/leg. Also, we've had a lot of rain lately, so the road that we take down the mountain is really really muddy and hard to drive on. There are tons of holes and it is very slick and easy to get stuck in. Today one of the teachers got stuck when driving to school from the city, so someone had to go help them out. You can be praying for a safe commute to and from the ranch.
2. Pray for wisdom and guidance as many people are trying to decide about whether or not to stay for another year. It's a hard decision to make, especially this early.
3. Please continue to pray for patience and energy as i teach. I love it, but some days are hard :).

Thanks, as always for the prayers and financial support! Love y'all!

A fun day!

I had a very blessed birthday today! The day was full of one fun thing after another. this morning as I was getting ready for school, I received a phone call from one of the Honduran house parents here telling me what a blessing I was here and how God has a special plan for me being here, etc. Once I got to school, the teachers all had a little party for me before classes started. At the beginning of the school year, we all drew birthdays of each other so that each of us would be responsible for the celebration of the birthday of someone else. One of the Honduran teachers drew my name, but i didn't know it until this morning. We're supposed to go to a meeting at 8:10 every morning where we pray for the day and discuss any important items of business that we may need to know about before classes start at 8:20. ANYWAYS, as I was headed toward the meeting, one of the other teachers called me aside to "talk to me about 2 of his students who i teach ESL to" as a little distraction while they finished getting everything ready. They gave him the signal that everything was ok so I entered to them singing "Happy Birthday" in Spanish..."Feliz Cumpleanos a ti," with a yummy cake with strawberries, some popcorn, soda, decorations, a banner, and a card. It was all very nice!

When I got to my class, my students each brought me a little card they made me and little presents. They were all so sweet. One of my students wrote his card in English and Spanish since he knows I'm learning Spanish. One little boy gave me a little octopus he had made out of yarn in art class a few weeks ago. He also included a "necklace from that place....you know...Hawaii!" the necklace is one of those little plastic leis :). My other gifts included, a little beanie baby blue jay, one of those little flexible rubber mickey mouse toys, flowers picked from the yard, and a cd complete with 2 Michael Jackson songs. Jae's class also came in to sing happy birthday to me, and she had her crafts class make "graffiti signs" for me.

Tonight, Jae and I were invited over to dinner at one of the other teacher's house. We had a nice little dinner complete with a yummy carrot cake from Jae. After that, we went to a meeting where we were planning this next month's lessons for the community outreach kids' thing we've been doing on Wednesdays. In the middle of the meeting, someone wrote a note to the person leading the meeting to sing happy birthday to me. So...right in the middle of the meeting, they sang "Happy Birthday" to me in English, Spanish, and as a rap. It was quite entertaining.

I loved all the emails and little messages on facebook from everyone! I was also able to talk to my mom and leave Robbie a little birthday message too.

Thanks to everyone that made this day so special for me! I've enjoyed every bit of it! It was a real blessing!

The last 2 weeks...

Sorry I haven't updated in a couple of weeks. I've been kind of busy.

I'm not going to include a lot of details in this post because I'm going to try to send out a newsletter very soon with more details.

These past 2 weeks have been good. I've continued to enjoy hanging out with the kids here at the ranch, as well as the other teachers and missionaries. I have a funny story to share. The other night, several of the teachers were invited to a family's house for dinner. This is a missionary family here at the ranch with 5 kids. This story is about their son who is in 2nd grade. While we were eating dinner, the son, Nate, was talking with one of the teachers about playing soccer. Nate suggested that they start up a soccer team of all the kids 10 and under. Nate was going to be team captain and Jason, the teacher, was going to be referee/coach. In order to make things more fair, Jason suggested that they draw straws instead of Nate automatically becoming team captain. Nate thought about it for a second and then said, "No, I think we should play soccer." He thought they would draw straws instead of playing soccer. The story is probably funnier if you know Nate.

You may remember that we caught a mouse that was in our house and kept him as a pet. Well, we took him to school a week or so ago to have a class pet, but he only stayed a day b/c he stopped eating and was pretty much terrified. Well, after coming home from dinner the other night, we came home to find our door slightly open. I was like, "Oh...I wonder if Mickey (a cat that belongs one of the girls that lives in the house above us) came in." Mickey has been known to do that before. Anyway, Jae then said, "If she did, I hope our little mouse is ok." pretty much the same time she said that we saw this:

the mouse's cage had been knocked down off of the shelf where it was, the lid was open, and the little wood shavings were spilled everywhere. Then we found Mickey ready to pounce on something that was under Jae's dresser. That night and the next day we saw no sign of the mouse.

Last night, i came home from the city and saw something dark in the middle of the floor. I realized it was our mouse! But as I came closer to him, he didn't move at all. I was afraid he was dead. Then he slowly backed away, but didn't run like mice usually do. He was so still that I was able to put a box over him until Jae came home and was able to put him back in the cage.

So..now our mouse is back home, but probably a little traumatized from the experience with Mickey.

Yesterday I had another long, but fun day in the city. There was a meeting after church that was supposed to last about 30 minutes. It ended up lasting about 2 hours! 2 of the other teachers and I didn't go in, so we just waited outsided for it to be over. We were pretty bored and starving by the time it was time to go. Afterwards, we went to the mall where I was able to hang out with Kevin, a friend from TCU, who is also in Tegucigalpa doing some mission work. After that, a bunch of people from the ranch went to Ruby Tuesdays for a celebration of Jennifer (another teacher) and my birthday. It was a fun time...and a good deal...2 for 1 appetizers and desserts!

School and everything else is still going well! We've been doing the outreach thing in the community with the literacy program and kid's bible club every wednesday. It's been encouraging to see a lot of the same people come back as well as a few new people each week.

Please be praying for me as I need to decide by November 15th whether or not I'm going to stay for another year. Right now, i'm seriously considering it, and can't think of a reason why I shouldn't stay.

As always, thanks for all of your prayers and support!

Hannah :)