community outreach

you may remember me writing about a community literacy program we were doing on our mountain last year. well, we're doing the same thing this year, but a little different. this year it is pretty much completely student led with only supervison from adults. there are 4 or 5 of our high school students that are teaching it. anyway, today i had the opportunity to go and see what it was like this year. there were only 2 students from the community there...they were an elderly couple ...probably at least in their 60s, probably 70s. it was really cool to watch how God is using our students, one of them in particular who was teaching today, to reach these people in our community. she was teaching them very basic things such as the alphabet in spanish, and how to write their names, etc. she had to show one of them how to take the lid of his dry erase marker. it's cool to think about how much of an impact this can have in these people's lives and fun to see how appreciative they were of all the help.

please pray for this program and wisdom in making decisions about the long-term plans of it. Also please be praying for the kids club portion of the program that we started last year. our kids are responsible for planning all of it this year and there hasn't been much excitement or follow trhough with the ideas. also...not many kids are coming to the program. please be praying for wisdom in how/if we should proceed with this program as well.

here's another prayer request too :). please be praying for my students who have the chicken pox or "chicken pops" as some of them call it. i went to visit their house the other day and they look and seem pretty miserable. they're pretty much covered all over with the sores and said they have them in their mouth and eyes too. that can't be fun. i took cookies to them that we had made in home ec, and kevin said, "thanks miss hannah, but i don't know if i can eat this. the chicken pox are telling my stomach that i shouldn't eat anything."

chicken pox!

This morning I received a phone call saying that Julio and Kevin have chicken pox and wouldn't be in school today. When I got to school, I found out that Franklin, my 6th grader, along with Emma, one of the 5th graders also were out with chicken pox. So today, I just had Jennifer and Elli, two 5th graders for class today. Neither one of them have had chicken pox before, so I'm just waiting for them to get it too. So...needless to say, I had a pretty easy day. 3 of my class periods I had free b/c I was only supposed to have 4th graders. I had plenty to do, though b/c grades were due today. This will be an interesting week with no kids! Some of the other teachers are giving me a hard time about not having any classes.

Speaking of grades, it means we've been in school for 8 weeks! I can't believe it's gone by so fast!
It's getting to the time of year, again, where I need to decide whether or not i'm staying here with the ministry for another year. Please be praying with me as I make this decision. I need to tell the leadership here by November 15th.

November 15th is also an important date b/c that's the day my brother's coming to visit me! I'm excited that Robbie will get to see everything i've talked about the past year or so and I'll get to spend some time with him!

drums and a bee sting...

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I wrote a new update. Sorry about that. We just finished our 4th week of school and our progress report grades are due on Monday. The year's already flying by.



This school year has brought some new challenges, but I've really enjoyed it. I feel like i'm developing stronger friendships with the other teachers and am getting to know the new teachers better.



I'm enjoying teaching more of the kids and getting to know some of them that i've never taught before.



Yesterday was kind of eventful. Kevin, one of my 4th graders had the opportunity to play with the high school kids in teh worship band for chapel in the morning. Last year, he learned how to play the drums and was very excited to get to play with the older kids yesterday. He said it was his dream to play in his band and now he got to do it. It was funny watching him afterward with the other kids. They were all saying, "Kevin, come sit by me!" and telling him what a good job he did. It was fun to watch. Here's a picture of him right before he played:

















Also, yesterday afternoon, Julio, my other 4th grader, got stung by a bee on his lip. We had our windows open b/c it was hot in our room, so i guess it got in through the screen somehow. Julio was reaching down to get his language book from the shelf and then came running to me crying and holding his mouth. At first he told me that a spider bit him and then pointed to something black moving around on the floor. Kevin saw the whole thing happen and said he would go kill it for us. He ran back into the room with the fly swatter and killed the "spider" for us. He came back and told us it was a bee. When I went to see it after it was dead, it definitely was a bee...a big fuzzy yellow and black one. Anyways, it stung him on the lip, so his lip was really swollen and made him talk funny. He said it hurt, but he enjoyed all the attention it brought him. He kept going ot look at it in the mirror and laughing at himself. Then he would start talking and stop in the middle b/c he couldn't finish what he was saying b/c he was laughing so hard. I gave him some ice and he got some benadryl, so by the end of the day, the swelling had gone down and things were better. He was excited too, because i didn't make him take his spelling test or language test that afternoon....because all of this had happened right before and i knew he wouldn't be able to think straight. When his lip was all swollen he said..."so...do you think if i poked it, it would 'splode?" It was pretty funny.



Anyways, all that was the end to a pretty long and somewhat stressful week, so needless to say, I'm glad that today is Saturday!



You can be praying for:

1. The health of the teachers...several of us have been getting sick and having various health issues.

2. The continued adjustment for the new teachers.

3. Continued patience, strength, joy, and wisdom as I teach every day.

4. The leadership of the ministry as they make tough decisions everyday regarding the lives of our kids.

5. The country of Honduras. There have been some changes and treaties, etc going on with the government.


Thanks for all the prayers and encouragement!

Here are a couple of links to albums of pictures I have on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111784&l=0174a&id=18304898

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2109782&l=f5bd5&id=18304898

Enjoy!

Back to School!

I just finished my first week of school! We had a lot of fun. This year, I'm teaching 4th and 5th grade science, 4th-6th grade math, 4th grade language arts, 4th-6th grade home ec/agriculture/penmanship/industrial arts, and 10th grade biology. i'm enjoying teaching kids that are a little older this year. They are a fun group to have. I'm teaching the same students I did last year, along with a few others.
I'm including the names of my students so you can be praying for them with me.

4th grade:
Julio and Kevin (both are honduran children under the care of our ministry)

5th grade:
Elli, Emma, and Jennifer (all 3 are daughters of missionaries working here)

6th grade:
Franklin (he's Kevin's brother, also under the care of our ministry)

10th grade:
Audrey and Caleb (missionary kids)
Jhoselyn, Diasira, and Eleni (kids in our ministry)

Please pray that the students would learn a lot this year, academically and spiritually. Please also pray that we as teachers would recognize their needs and know how to meet them appropriately. Pray for the new teachers as they are slowly transitioning into this new life.

Thanks for all the prayer and support!

some progress...

So, I've made some progress unpacking things and getting my new room all set up, but it's not ready enough to take pictures yet :).

This week has been really busy getting stuff ready for school. We've started every morning together as teachers with a time of prayer, praise and worship followed by a meeting, and ending with time to work in our rooms.

I've enjoyed being back, getting to see the kids again, hanging out with the teachers, and talking with some of the families here on the ranch. It's exciting to be getting ready for school to start up on Monday and thinking about all that this school year will bring. Please continue to be praying for a smooth transition for the new teachers we have this year, as well as a good start to the school year.

Here are a couple of pictures from the other night when we had some of the other teachers over for dinner. We have a gas oven/stove that is apparently lit by electricity. We blew one of the fuse things by using the electric mixer and didn't know that we had to push the reset button on the little GFI outlet thing in order for it to turn on again. We finally got our dinner cooked even though it was delayed a little :). The pictures are some of the girls trying to figure out where the pilot light is (like on our old oven) and some of the activities of the night. Enjoy.

I'm back in Honduras!

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to write a quick little note to let y'all know that I made it back to Honduras safely yesterday. Thank you to those of you who were praying for a safe trip!

For the next few days, I'll be keeping myself busy unpacking from my time in the states as well as unpacking and rearranging all of my stuff in my new house! it's nice to be here in teh new house...just kind of weird since i'm not used to it yet. I'll post pictures on here as soon as i get it looking presentable :). I also got to spend a little time with my new roommates! I'm going to be living with Jae, but now am living with Kelly and Amanda also. They are 2 of the new teachers. i'm excited about getting to know them better and working with them for this year!

Teacher In-service meetings and things start on Monday and then the kids come back to school on the next Monday, August 4th. The closer I get to school starting, the more excited I'm getting, but also the more I realize that I need to do before then!

Several people have told me that i need to be better about updating my blog :). I realize this is true. Sorry I didn't update it as much as I should have during the last school year! I'll try to do better. If you notice that it's been a while, email me and tell me to update!

Oh...speaking of updates. You may be wondering about Julio the caterpillar, our class pet/science project that I mentioned several months ago ( http://hannahhonduras.blogspot.com/2008/04/class-pet-and-science-project.html). Sadly, Julio didn't make it. I came to school one day and saw 2 or 3 big fly/bee looking things in the jar with him. His cocoon had a hole in the bottom of it, and he never came out. I used it as an opportunity to tell my kids that sometimes things like this happen, and it's all part of how God created things to survive, etc.

Ok. I need to get busy unpacking and moving stuff around. I'll post pictures soon!

Home Sweet Home...finally

You might be wondering what "home" i'm referring to. The longer I live in Honduras, the more it feels like home, but for the purpose of this blog, i'm referring to my home with my parents in Richardson because I'll always consider it home, too.

My trip home was a little stressful, a little fun, and a little adventurous.

Sunday:

It all started last Sunday morning with a knock at my door. When I answered my door, I was greeted by a friend asking if he could take my suitcase to the car. Unfortunately, and fortunately, the knocking had woken me up at 8:45am. There were 4 of us that were supposed to have left at 8:30 to go to church. I was then going to go get dropped off at the bus station after church, so i had to have all my stuff ready to go. I had set my alarm for 6 am, but apparently the power had flashed off for a few minutes, turning off my alarm clock. I hurried to get finished packing (just a few last minute things) and get ready for church. We were driving away at a little after 9am...not too bad.

The airport in Tegucigalpa had been closed for several weeks because of a plane crash, so we had to go to San Pedro Sula (a 4-5 hour drive) to go to the airport. After church, Jae, Abby, and I were taken to the bus station to start our journey. We were going to take the 4 o'clock bus to the airport, get a shuttle from the airport to a hotel, and then leave the hotel in the morning to go to the airport when we were leaving. We ended up able to get on an earlier bus which allowed us to get to San Pedro earlier. It was a nice bus trip...comfortable seats, etc (like a charter bus you would get here in the states for big group trips or something). The only thing is, the bus went to a different terminal and not the airport like we thought. AFter walking around for a little while and trying to figure out if we were actually at the airport or not, we decided we should just take a taxi to the hotel. A girl taking a taxi by herself in Honduras isn't the best idea, but there were 3 of us, plus an older lady who was going somewhere else, so we weren't too worried. Well...I was worried b/c i'd never been in a taxi before and since we hadn't ever been to San Pedro before, we werent' exactly sure if he was taking us to the right place or not. Thankfully after not too long and lots of praying, we ended up at Gran Hotel Sula. It was a nice hotel and fun to spend the night with Abby and Jae.

This was the view from our room:

Monday:

This was the start to my very long day. We got to the airport at around 11am. Jae's mom was coming to visit, so we waited in the arrival part for her to come. When she got there, I was able to help them by bus tickets back to Tegucigalpa. It was cool b/c I got to be a translator for this lady in line in front of us. She didn't know any spanish at all. The lady at the bus counter knew that I knew a little Spanish b/c we had gone to talk to them earlier to ask about tickets. When the lady behind the counter saw me, she motioned for me to come back there and help her communicate to this lady what she needed to do. Now, my spanish isn't that great, but i was proud of myself, that I was able to help this lady in my limited spanish. Anyways, my flight was supposed to leave at 3:45pm, but on my boarding pass it said that boarding time was 2:30. I thought that was a little wierd, but decided to go back there anyways, just in case. It turns out my flight ended up being an hour and a half late, so I wasn't even on the plane until about 5pm. This wouldn't have been too bad, but i knew that Abby was on the other side of security waiting until 1am for her flight to leave. We could have at least been waiting together, but oh well. While I was waiting for my plane, I started looking at my ticket and thinking about my connecting flight to Dallas from Houston and counting the hours, etc. My plane was supposed to leave houston for dallas at 9pm. As it turns out, we didn't land in Houston until 9pm, still having to go through customs, etc. There was no way I was going to make my flight. Thankfully, Continental was very nice and helpful. When i had got my bag from the baggage claim, I along with about 1/2 the flight, was directed to a customer service desk where they gave us new boarding passes and information about a hotel where we'd be staying. They told me just to go out the exit and there'd be a shuttle waiting for me. Well, I waited and waited and a shuttle finally came. The only problem was that there were about 50 of us adn the shuttle could only take 10 people at at time. The hotel had only 2 shuttles and it was about 15 minutes away. When the shuttle would pull up at the terminal again, people would rush to get on, sometimes pushing others out of the way to be sure that they would get a spot on the bus. i wasn't too worried about it b/c I knew that i'd get there eventually, so i basically sat back and watched all the craziness until the last 2 shuttles came. I finally got to my room at about 11:45pm. I was kind of frustrated that I was supposed to be home by 10pm, but was instead stuck at a hotel in Houston, but was very thankful for the helpfulness of Continental and hotel employees. (the shuttle driver said that there were about the same number of people at 2 different terminals waiting for rides too). It was nice to have a night to myself in a nice hotel room...even if it was for a few hours.

Tuesday:

I woke up early so that I would be sure to get a spot on the airport shuttle this time. They were supposed to start leaving at 4:30am and leave every 30 minutes after that. My flight was at 7am. The first shuttle I tried getting on (the 5am) was too full, but thankfully another one came at 5:20. i was able to get on that one and made it in plenty of time. i finally made it to dallas at about 8:30am and was home by about 9:30am.

I was glad to be home!