So today the kids started school...again this year. The send off they got on Thursday from their old school was quite impressive and touching...Cecilia's class even sent her to the third grade room to "help" while they all made her cards, all of which were great, and some quite creative. This new school seems like it will be a good change for them, and I was surprised to see that they are not the only Caucasians there. They both seem surprised a little that all the classes were in English, and I asked them if all their classmates spoke English. Soren remarked that some of his classmates did not....and lest they get a big head I reminded them that sometimes I was not sure how well they spoke English either. Their tendency to use Spanish in all instances has increased this past year...they never have to fill gaps in Spanish with English words, but often in conversations in English they plug holes in their vocabulary with Spanish words. I am sure that will continue, but hopefully at least this should improve with the actual classes being in English. Cecilia is very happy to be going to school with Annia (Oscar and Julia's daughter) and I am sure her parents are grateful for the missionary discount we are getting with the school. After this introductory week....their school hours will be more than what Valerie and I had growing up, which is encouraging (7:30 to 2:40) We are going to eventually have to pay extra for them to ride the school...van, since picking them up is going to be all but impossible for us.

After dropping the kids off, I went to get the milk project supplies for the week. I should have taken a picture of me at the grocery store to include here...as if I was not getting enough stares at 8:30 in the morning filling my cart with milk and cookies (fruit being purchased up by the clinic, and today a Brit down with another missionary is up there making PB&J.) I traded into the Ford (back fresh from its new pressure fuel pump and two new injectors which set us back a cool $2,000...it was not drivable really before the repair...now I am afraid to have the Blue Ford go under the same diagnostic, it is running rough) to head up and help with the clothing, since Jonathan's truck was in town...but in the shop getting new glow plugs (most of you probably do not know what glow plugs are, do you?)

While there loading clothes, I ran into Dora to check on the progress of the back yard garden, her problems with the father of her children and his girlfriend trying to cause legal problems for her, Nerys with the status of the milk project...I mentioned above I bought for the week, we are getting enough donations to expand now to three days a week, at least for the rest of the year! We have expanded her focus a bit to include more lessons on hygiene, Bible memorization and exposure to the Gospel...and encouraging them to attend a Church. We were not sure how many of them were going to Church...Nerys reports that other than a few that go to Cuerpo de Cristo...none of the others are attending a Church presently.

I went into Valerie's room to give her the cell phone charger (her old phone fell out of her scrub top last week and someone quickly made off with it) and ran into several women coming out of the room, a couple of them crying. Here you can see the daughter's exam sheet....no HIPA laws here (and on a side note...praise God!) for those that can read such forms. The daughter is a teenager, and has what I think can fairly be called "extremely high" astigmatism. Her eyesight without glasses is not good (20/70 in one eye, 20/200 the other)....and unfortunately because they waited until now to get her an eye exam...even with the prescription she is not going to really see any better (20/70 both eyes.) The crying I saw was related to that her problems are not going to just improve with glasses, to the relationship the mom and the daughter already had, and Valerie taking the time to go through all that and then pray for them. She spent an hour with them. Can you imagine being the mom hearing that she needed an eye exam years ago, and if she had, she could likely be seeing normally now? Can you imagine being the daughter hearing that about her vision and what it means for her future? While the situation here for improving her vision is not likely to be very positive (for reasons I will not get into in this blog because it would bore many of you on how the human eye works) there is always prayer in all things, and that is what Valerie was able to give them, besides some glasses that will help at least some.

Then I went back to the clothing, only to find that the recent container we unloaded, although not totally bad, has quite a few items that somehow missed the sorting "cut." I found a shirt on the ground that I thought belonged to one of the guys. I picked it up, and Jose Luis told me that it fell out of one of the ripped bags from the other ministries and that they could not use it. I wondered why not, only to find that this random piece of clothing was a 4XL. Ugh. Then I went to JL's store and just looked around...wow, many items that are 3XL, 4XL and whatever size this was. All jokes about fitting two Hondurans inside aside...it is no laughing matter (there is still some give in that shirt by the way...they could not stand further apart to give the full picture.) There are some things that can be done with them....if one is creative making curtains or something, but it is not needed here, and wasteful to include them. If it is frustrating for me to see for five minutes, I am sure it is frustrating to those running the stores, trying to make a living while using the prices as an outreach to those in their communities...to then have people go through the bags only to find so many items like this. It is kind of like a cruel joke.

I mentioned it last week, but last Friday we were able to get into the Embassy and get Soren's passport paperwork done, praise God. We were able to do it in one visit because I could check the requirements online what with him being a minor and all. Saving a visit to the embassy is saving hours of effort. As it was it took us two hours to get it done...and that was with no one in line in front of us. Now I just have to go back to get the new one in a few weeks. Fortunately we took pictures to prove his development since the last passport has his baby picture. I am sure there was tremendous doubt as to whether or not we were his parents. As it is...the pastor for the Church where the kids are going came up to me today (we have never met) and said "ah, if your son stands next to you, there would be quite a bit of doubt who his father is!" He thought that was quite funny. He made that comment after knowing both of us less than a minute.