Our church people held another garage sale this weekend. All the funds went to our building fund. We are saving up money so we have something ready for when it's time to buy and build. Anyways, we had a lot of fun. Our people donated clothes, kitchen utensils and food. We made about $150 which doesn't some like much but it means a lot when it's the church people working and giving for the church. It seems like a lot more when you realize that, that amount of money is one man's monthly salary.

These are called pastelitos. They are sooo good. Don't ask me how to make them I just know they are stuffed with rice and ground beef with grated cheese on top. Some of the ladies sold these and Hannah sold pizza at the garage sale.

In the mix of donated clothes was a ladies outfit or pajamas or something that looked like a Santa Claus costume. So Don Raul tried it on and it fit perfectly. Joseph had to get his picture with Santa.

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Joseph's new fad is coloring. He is constantly taking my printer paper to draw on and always asking me to print out new coloring pages. Every piece of art gets hung up around the house especially in my office. Sometimes it feels like we live in an art gallery. haha. He tells me different times, "I'm an a good artist dad". He does pretty good for a four year old. Maybe he'll be the next Thomas Kincaid.

The other day I came home and opened the door to this scene. All the kitchen chairs turned around with his pictures taped to the backs of the chairs. Excuse his mismatching pajamas, I guess that's part of the art too. He was pretty proud of his little gallery.

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This is our version of David and Goliath. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it. read more

Thanks for all the congratulations and kind words. We are very excited about our new bundle of joy that is on the way. read more

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For the past three months we have had a lot of rain. Just about every day we have a good shower. Well about three weeks ago one of the bridges on the main road out of Tegucigalpa collapsed. This has caused a lot of chaos in the city. All that traffic has to find another way in and out of the city. It's been a mess. They don't expect to have the new bridge in place until about December. It's going to be a long wait!!

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Mike Barjum and his family have become good friends. God has transformed Mike's life in a miraculous way, from darkness to light, from the pit to the rock, He has an amazing story. His mother is from Bethlehem, she moved to Honduras as a teenage girl, but though she settled in a far away country she and her family have held on to much of her Palestinian culture including the food. We were treated to a delicious Palestinian meal with Mike and his family. It almost felt like we were back in Jordan with Hannah's family. It was so good. We had cussa leben (stuffed zuchini and yogurt), hummus, kibeh (cracked wheat stuffed with meat and pine nuts deep fried) tabolueh, marmaon, sufiha and lots more.

From Left to Right: Joseph and myself, Mike's mother Lilian, Mike's son Daniel, Mike and his wife Mimi. Mike has two other sons that live in the states.

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Joseph is an up and coming artist. He loves to color. Most of his free time is spent coloring and drawing and it seems that each day he is getting better. For a little four year old boy I think he does pretty good. Here is a page he colored for his homework. Not too bad huh?

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This past weekend we made a trip to San Pedro Sula. The church there was celebrating their 12th anniversary. We were invited to participate in the celebration. It was nice getting away and seeing some old friends. We also took some of our people with us, they had never been to the church there and had never been to San Pedro Sula, it was a unique experience for them. Thankfully we had a great weekend and we made it home safely.

Pastor Roger Ortiz baptized several young people on Saturday. Here he is getting ready for the baptism service.

President Grant gave a special challenge to the candidates.

Roger and the six young people who were baptized.

It was a beautiful moment to see these young people making a commitment to serve the Lord.

One of the nice surprises was meeting Sis. Reiff. She arrived with a medical team that was going to work in San Luis with Daniel Melton. We heard she was coming so we went to the airport to say hi.

There were good crowds every night. The Lord really helped Juan Cux to preach the word!

On the way home we stopped at one of our favorite places, Lake Yojoa. We enjoyed some delicious fried Tilapia.

A freezer full of Tilapia. You can pick the size you want.

Very tasty. I actually got up the nerve to eat the eye. It was quite interesting. The outer part was very mushy and the inside felt like a BB. Anyways, the fish was great!

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We have had the privilege this month to have one of our Bahamian friends with us. Francoya Scott came on August 3rd and will be leaving on the 30th to head back home. She spent the month with us fulfilling a college requirement. She is studying to be a Spanish teacher so she was required to visit a Spanish speaking country for a few weeks. I first got to know Francoya on a missions trip to Bahamas several years ago. It's been nice to see her again after all this time. I can't believe it's nearly been a month since she arrived. I sure hope she had a good time in Honduras.

Enjoying the view of the city from Picachu.

Joseph enjoyed having a "big sister" around for awhile.

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Thank you Beavertown Youth Group for coming and ministering in Honduras. You all did a great job and you reached many hearts with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our hope is that many of you will be called to be pastors and missionaries and that you will look back on this trip as a turning point in your life. We love you all very much and we appreciate your hard work and sacrifice. Please come back again soon!

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The group had to be up at 4:00 a.m. and at the airport by 5. It was a long day!

Unloading the many many suitcases.

Good-bye Jula!! We will miss you.

Good-bye Shalene, don't cry!

Off they go

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Tuesday was a day of cleaning, packing and traveling. The team had to be back to San Pedro Sula for their early Wednesday morning flight home. On our way back to San Pedro we stopped at a lake for a group shot.

This bridge is about 45 minutes outside of San Pedro Sula. It collapsed about a year ago during a storm.

Getting ready to eat more delicious baleadas!!

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Monday was our sight-seeing day. We decided to take a trip to Amapala. It is a volcanic island on the Pacific side of Honduras.

One of the ladies in our church is married to a colonel in the military. He was able to call and have some of the soldiers stationed at the island to haul us over to the island on their boats for free! 

Heading over to the island.

The soldiers took good care of us.

We enjoyed a relaxing afternoon at "Black Beach". It's black because of the volcanic ash.

There was a little restaurant on the beach where we ate fried fish. Some of the kids were brave enough to eat the fish eyes. It was a little out of their comfort zone but they did really well.

Shalene and Joseph became good buddies.

Some of the guys tossing football.

The island was so pretty.

On the way back we took a boat tour around the island.

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We had a good day on Sunday. In the morning we had a lot of visitors. Most of them were first-timers. That was exciting. We are praying that they will continue to come to our church. God helped pastor Matt preach on Lot and how he lost everything when he moved to Sodom. In the evening we had to have our campaign at church due to rain. Some of the people from Las Uvas came for the service and we had a church full. All in all it was a good day.

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Saturday morning we headed off to a little tourist village called Valle de Angeles. There are lots of souvenir shops and hand-made crafts. The kids had fun finding gifts for family and friends.

Getting ready to enjoy Honduras' famous baleada. They are made of flour tortillas filled with re-fried beans, sausage, and cheese. I love them!

At Valle de Angeles the taxis are tuk tuk's from India. Some of the kids had fun riding around in these little things.

Saturday afternoon was the last day of the vacation Bible school. Sis. Burch finished telling the story of Joseph.

We ended the Bible school with a pinata. The children looove pinatas.

We split the team into two groups to do two VBS's. One stayed at Tiloarque and the other group did a VBS in Las Uvas. Here is the group with the kids at Las Uvas. I don't think the children at Las Uvas had ever had a VBS, they really enjoyed it!

I was thankful for the Lord's help during the campaign. We had some difficulties with rain but Saturday night we held it under the roof on the bleachers because the rain was too hard. We had probably around thirty or so from the community come and hear the preaching. This neighborhood is very dangerous. Two days after this campaign 3 people were killed near this soccer field. Thanks to all who helped pray for these services! We had some come to our church on Sunday morning who heard about us at the campaign.

The group sang and gave testimonies. Despite the rain, God helped.

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