Update

While I type unrelated stuff and updates below, I thought I would treat you to just a few of the plants blooming around the property where we live. I do not often take time to appreciate just how much flora and fauna there is around us (especially because all that stuff also attracts bees, mosquitoes, ants, and the occasional cockroach) but I was somehow inspired as I walked down the driveway yesterday. Keep in mind...you could probably take another fifty pictures or more with the other plants around here, this is just a small sample. Enjoy as you read....or when you are done reading or before...I doubt you can read and enjoy the pictures at the same time.
I talked to Oscar this morning. Even without a driver's license, he is returning to Honduras tomorrow...I should say, beginning his trip back to Honduras tomorrow. Border crossings will no doubt be more interesting with a new passport, no residency card, and only some flimsy piece of paper saying he used to have a driver's license here. Usually it takes two days to get here...it could be three or more depending on how long he is kept at the borders (he said getting back from Panama to Costa Rica took half a day.)
Valerie is leaving this afternoon for La Tigra, a national park that is in the mountains surrounding Tegucigalpa (up from the Christ statue for those of you that know a little but not a lot about Tegucigalpa and its surroundings. She is going as part of the women's Bible study she attends, it is a retreat they are doing up there. Pray for her to have time to relax and enjoy it....she will need it, as we have a group arriving Sunday (I will pick them up...she will get back a bit after they get here) and since it is an eye brigade group, that means tons of extra work (that she loves of course) for her. The mere thought of her having to drive completely deflated her (That is when she marvels a bit at how Oscar and I do it time after time...after time) so I think we are going to try doing it in just one vehicle, but still overseeing all that plus the kids, who will be in exams at school next week...perfect timing, we are still figuring out how to get them home with both of us gone four days next week...and of course still keeping track of the clinic in her absence Whew.
The septic tank at the clinic is nearing its full point...but cleaning it out has been quoted to me twice....once for $476 which I scoffed at....and then through the public water company at...$508. So, with Oscar's imminent return, we will wait and see if he can find something cheaper, as well as get with the Church on where we have permission to dig the second tank which will hopefully filter. If only we had known from the get go....what we really dug was apparently a fairly weather proof pool and did not even know it.

I could not resist to take these pictures of the kids ID cards for school. I do not recall ever having need for such a thing, much less so official that they had to be laminated, which we had to do of course...Valerie is becoming an expert at using contact paper with all the stuff they need "laminated" for school. Cecilia's look does not surprise me too much, and neither does Soren's, but it is just one more sign of how different their personalities are. By the way...it may not look it, but Soren was likely asked to smile, and in his mind...he is.


Now I am still praying for my back, which has kept me from doing pretty much anything physical for almost three weeks. The worst part is not being able to run...I can almost feel my energy being sapped and missing the release and spiritual time through the sermons I listen to while I run. Hopefully I can get back out on the road in another week or two.

While talking about prayer....continue to pray for Honduras. I trust in God, not man. However, the situation here is either troubling at the least, or if you believe many people here, it is downright disturbing. Our president continues to push for a constitutional reform or a new one altogether, and now they are pushing for a fifteenth month of salaries for all workers. Some of you know that there are already two months of the year where employers are required to pay double (a 13th and 14th month) and now comes 15th, which seemingly overnight is now apparently a done deal. Conflicts on how to implement this (congress wanting to use government funds to help do this, in a seemingly foolhardy way to shoot the government squarely in the foot, the President only supporting it if the employers pay it...and many different prognosticators all saying the result would be to drive away even more jobs and cause even further economic havoc in an already bad situation. Many still believe that the president is using this constitutional reform to stay in power, a la Hugo Chavez. Some even say the whole thing is being financed and supported by ol' Hugo. I was personally told yesterday by someone I trust, someone who is more in the know than I am by a far cry, who still might be just a bit of an alarmist, to be aware that cracking down on Churches, clinics, missions, etc. was coming down the pike. It is said often today, "these are uncertain times in which we live." It is true...but I believe that could be said any day, of any year, of any century for those not in Christ. What events will happen, yes are uncertain...but my future is certain. So I pray for this country...for this world, but I do not fret or worry (like it would do any good...Luke 12:25-26) because I know the One in charge of it all, no matter how frantic and chaotic it might look around us.