Not looking through rose colored stained glasses

I have had the cathartic urge to blog several times this week, but never got around to it. I apologize for that...mostly to those of you that I know use this forum to in many ways guide prayers for His work here.

I suppose I should start with the seemingly bad news and go from there. That started Monday when Valerie went back to the clinic after Holy Week to find that we suffered another break-in over the long weekend. Whomever did it was determined (and had time due to the holiday to do all the work necessary to do it) but only took a few things...like the TV, little stove, and of course made a mess. More than that it just further disrupted the peace of work, and as you can imagine just messed with everyone's heads. Things like that tend to add up in your mind...they fade with time and prayer, but for the time being can be quite rattling.

Valerie's continuing education trip continues to be planned, even with her leaving in less than a week. Registrations being paid, housing being arranged, vehicle....God is showing us yet again He is in control and that He has put in our figurative midst quite a few people willing to help in any way they can. In addition, I have been undergoing some remedial training from the good Dr. Colby as she is insisting that I assume such a role in her absence. Thus the lovely picture displayed here as I removed my first foreign body from the patient behind us, as well as some additional training for checking for glaucoma and just brushing up on skills I have not used in a while. It is odd to be out of such an environment for so long and how quickly it can return to you when given the opportunity. I know what goes on in the clinic on a regular basis, but being able to be there and experience it is a rare pleasure for me. If only I could make the time to do this at least once a week!

Things are hopping around here in other ways....but I think I better wrap up with some more pictures

Such as this beautiful shot of a bridge located at a hotel where we had a chance to relax for the Palm Sunday weekend on lake Yajoa thanks to some very generous folks that were here in country to visit there and with another mission up North. It was great weather, a great location and actually relaxing...just what we needed, too bad we could not stay for a few more days!







With Holy Week in full swing they were putting down the sawdust carpets downtown. We took a walk around...I could not resist snapping the picture of this apron being worn to identify which group was doing this particular section...if reading the Church of Jesus Christ of the latter day Saints was not clear enough...someone thought it a good idea to write "the mormons" below.









For the first time, we decorated eggs and had an actual egg hunt for resurrection Sunday. Dora's daughter Noli was visiting with us, so they all colored their own eggs (and got very creative!) and then got to look for them and of course for lunch eat them.












We were on our way to a baptismal service in a part of Honduras we had not before visited and saw some rather large sugar cane fields in the flat areas as we went up the mountain. This is sugar cane that has been harvested and is stacked up waiting for big equipment to come by and scoop it up for transport.

While we waited for the baptismal service, kids being kids found an old gatorade bottle which immediately became a soccer ball for an impromptu game...that went on for quite some time. So long the game endured because we kept waiting and waiting that Oscar and I did not even get to see the baptisms, we had to start heading back to Teguc. If I had my USA mentality hat on, I would have been upset, but for this rural village in El Bosque (the Churches from Talanga, San Juancito and Cantaranas were all there as well) it was life as it happens.

One of the reasons we had to get going was to inspect some property in San Juancito. The mission is contemplating buying it for coffee production, as well as providing water for this plantain farm that Oscar and Jonathan have started. It will be a year or more until they harvest and it will constantly need water. The property for sale is close to the road, and has plenty of water. It would mean spending all the profits from Hill Climber coffee this year and part of next year (anticipating we will keep doing this of course) but it could mean helping this project expand already to another Church. We have a meeting with the Church leaders in San Juancito to gauge their interest in maintaining such a farm, and we will go from there.

We have a long Sunday planned with our latest intern arriving today. We leave early for band practice for services, and then off to San Juancito for a first meeting with the local civilian government to talk turkey about the Church property and some issues there, then a meeting with Church leaders, and then back to Teguc before dark for Valerie and both interns to enjoy a "girl's fun night" that is already planned with some other missionaries bowling and other similarly fun activities. Our latest intern is the wife of a former intern...she is studying medicine and wants some experience in the clinic.

And finally...I love stained glass stuff in general, this lighting fixture up at the lake really caught my eye. I always think that if we ever own a house, I would love to include as much stained glass in different places as I could.

I would love to learn how to do this...but I hear it is an expensive "hobby" as it would be in my case.