Our Little Friends

One of our greatest joys in Honduras has been watching our little monkey friends bounce and play at our kitchen window. We hope you enjoy them too. :) (had trouble getting our best video to upload. sorry)

Our curious but skiddish little white faced monkeys love to make faces at their reflections in the window and throw avocados down the tin roof.

Howler Monkeys generally sit in the palm trees in front of our house. They are pretty passive towards humans and enjoy eating leaves and "scolding" cars that drive by.

Cowboy Day

The kids in the 4th and 5th grade history class recently had a fun time learning how to use a lariat as a part of our study on cowboys and the Wild West. Our own resident cowboy from Montana, Josh Browning, impressed us with his lasso!

Pray for Bob Lillard!

Our friend and nextdoor neighbor, Bob Lillard, remains in a coma here at Hospital Loma de Luz following a sudden illness in early January. This picture of Bob and his precious wife, Zina, was taken at Christmas.

Friends from afar

The girls' good friend from Costa Rica, Katy, came to visit over Holy Week. They had a great time and it was hard to say goodbye again!

An Awesome Visit

We thoroughly enjoyed having our good friends, Jeanne, Katie, Corey and Lindy McCullough, come and visit for a little over 2 weeks in February. They enjoyed sightseeing, and just generally hanging out here with us and the monkeys!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CORI!!!

Cori had a birthday that went on and on this year! She got to celebrate early in Florida in December with Grandma and PawPaw Meyers, again on her actual b.day with her friends here in Honduras, and finally a third time with the McCullough family when they came to visit in early February!

Summer Photos 2007

Cori enjoyed spending time with her good friends, Lindy and Corey, while we were home.

Living History Day

Living History Day for the home school co-op was on Saturday, May 5th. The day was filled with typical early Amerian festivities, a tour of the 13 original colonies (conducted through the kids booths and displays), demonstrations of colonial arts and crafts (such as candle-dipping, braiding rugs, sewing samplers, block-printing, tinsmithing, handmade dolls, etc) and lots of authentic Colonial food (including gruel, cornbread, and Brunswick stew). All this was done in authentic colonial dress, with kids and adults participating. The evening culminated with a wonderful program in which the kids re-enacted important events leading up to and during the American Revolution and dramatically portrayed famous people, gave speeches, and recited poems. Shelby even played the snare drum...which added to the Revolutionary feel of the evening. It was quite a day!! What a wonderful grand finale to a great first year with the home school co-op here in Honduras!

Easter Outreach

Several missionaries got together the day before Easter to celebrate with games, crafts, snacks and skits, with the purpose of sharing about our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. 26 children showed up for the celebration and were blessed by the efforts of all involved.

Of all the celebrations throughout the year and around the world, only Easter gives us the true hope that we will someday be together with our risen Savior, the Good Shepherd Jesus Christ.

Our Little Neighbors

These are some of the little animals we see regularly close to our apartment. We see white-faced monkeys as well as howler monkeys, and lots of tropical birds.































Did you know that porcupines live in the jungle?























The prehensile-tailed variety do...and spend most of their time in the tops of the trees! This one came down and visited our front porch one evening!

OUR VIEW FROM HERE...

View of the hospital from our back porch...


How we get around...

Our temporary apartment...






















One of the Honduran children in our Sunday School class in the pueblo of Margarita.

BALANCING IT ALL...

Like any other time or place we've been in, the struggle is balancing it all... home schooling, work at the hospital, ministry opportunities, visiting with other people. Ministry opportunities that have presented themselves thus far include: teaching and training of local midwives (Margo), assisting with pastor training classes on weekends (Nelson), Sunday School at one of the local churches (Nelson and Margo), and the Dental Dog Hygiene program in local schools (Kristyn and Shelby). We greatly appreciate your prayers as we seek to focus and be intentional about the ministry God has for us here in Balfate. The needs are many, and we're praying for wisdom to know where to put our focus.

HASTA LUEGO, KRISTYN...

Goodbye for now...

As many of you have heard, Kristyn will be attending a discipleship training program through RAD (Radical Action Disciples) Ministries out of Gainesville, Georgia. She heard about the opportunity via another young woman who's been here in Balfate with her family for about 7 years. We all went to the airport to drop Kristyn off and say goodbye on October 3rd. She begins the program on October 15th. Another big chapter in all of our lives begins...

We're very excited for her and covet your prayers as she seeks the Lord's will for her life!

MOVE'N ON...

After the graduation ceremony on August 18th at the Spanish Language Institute in Costa Rica, we were ready to move on to our final destination... Balfate, Honduras. Needless to say, the goodbyes were difficult. Many of our fellow students, missionaries, and members of our church had become like family to us over the past year.

A good-sized step of faith for us (though maybe not for others who might be adventurous!) was taking a bus from San Jose, Costa Rica to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. There were several reasons why we decided to travel by bus instead of by air, but one of the main ones was due to the amount of luggage we had and the costs involved in air transport. We left Costa Rica on August 23rd and arrived here in Balfate, Honduras on August 25th. We saw God's hand throughout our trip as different people helped us with border crossings, transporting, and looking after our extra luggage, and with overnight accomodations. It was really an amazing opportunity to see much of Central America...ask us about it sometime!

We miss you...

As we continue to seek God’s direction and plans for our lives we covet your prayers at every step. In addition to the preparations for our move to our final destination in Honduras, the trip with our belongings by bus, and our transition to another culture once we arrive, we also ask for your prayers for Margo and her family as they suffer the loss of her grandmother, Phyllis Adler. Phyllis passed away August 13th at the age of 91. She will be missed not only by her family, but also by the staff and the friends she made at the assisted care living facility in Fort Wayne. Many were blessed the past few years by her sweet and tender spirit while she lived there.

Another loss we are working through right now with countless others is that of our friend, Ben Lindle, who passed away last week (July 6th) at the age of 24. Nelson still remembers having Ben in his 3rd to 5th grade Pioneer Club class. When we first went to Honduras in 2003 to look into the ministry opportunity at Hospital Loma de Luz, we were amazed that someone “passing through” and visiting the hospital after spending time at an orphanage in Guatemala had also heard of the infamous “Big Ben” ! The only thing bigger than Ben was his heart for others...

The picture above is of his inner city latino kids choir that came to perform at Community Church of Greenwood in a

double decker bus almost 2 years ago.

The picture to the right is of the Lindle family at our going away party last year. Ben is on the right.

"FAMILY REUNION" IN PANAMA...

We were able to take a road trip to Panama in June to visit with Nelson's family in Panama. It was good catching up with his brother (Erwin) and his family, his nephew (Stephen), his cousin (Gerta), his uncles (Ramon, Oscar) and his parents.