Old new house

Hi folks!  I bet you thought I could never top my Honduran fire fighter story and had stopped writing.  Well, not exactly.  Between dropping my computer and breaking it (when it was only a month old!) and moving to the city, I have been busy.  Plus, I managed to mess up the computer I use at the church, so for a while I was completely off the grid - computerwise.

Two weeks ago I started painting my new place in the city and last week I moved in.  Thank God for my neighbor Fany.  I have known her since I first moved to Honduras because I lived in the sane house in the city when I first moved here.  She lives in the front and we share an awesome yard with a garden.  I have a little house in the back.

Fany and I painted the house beige and olive on the inside.  It looks great, especially now that I have all of my stuff moved in.  This week I took Jetty to the vet and got her updated on everything so she can go outdoors now!  Sometimes she lounges around or sniffs things.  Other times she races from one corner of the yard to the other in a huge loping gait.  I love watching her do that.  She seems really happy.

Jetty the outdoors cat!

We both sleep really well here.  In fact I sleep too well.  The girl who used to wake up with the sun at 4:30 is now sleeping until 8:50 a.m. if I am not careful!

Lots of stuff has been going on.  Almost all of it is good.

My friend who is sick with Lupus is doing well.

The class T Buen Provecho with the teens is excellent.  They trust me more and more and have started to share on a deeper. more personal level in the class, which I appreciate.  They took a test (actually I called it a "contest" because they all freaked out when I mentioned a test) to name 50 body parts in English.  All of them did really well.  Four got perfect scores and won a candy bar.  One who had never been to the class before got a perfect score with no misspellings, which was better than any of the students in the class.  Turned out she cheated, which I figured out quickly when she couldn't name any of the body parts when I asked her orally a few minutes later.  But...  The good thing is that she admitted that she cheated so I thanked her for her honesty in the end.  Moral of the story - some kids will do anything for a candy bar.

One of our boys was raped.  I really can't talk about it.  It hurts too much.  It is a boy I am close to and have written about here.  First the community went after the offender with machetes and pistols.  The cops came 2 hours later and returned to the offender's house in the middle of the night trying to catch him at home.  Last week they actually caught him.  We were all shocked to hear that.  It is very common for rapists of children to be killed in prison if they get that far.  I have not seen my buddy since all of this happened.  His older brother comes to Buen Provecho, but he has not been to the church since the day before all of this occurred.  His report to the police was that it had happened numerous times  The news reported there were eight other victims ages 8 and up.  I really want to see my little guy and even more, I want to hug him.  I hope he is getting some support at home.  He lives only with siblings.  There is no real parent in the home.  I am worried about how this could change him if he does not get help soon.

Last week I spent Friday afternoon and evening, then Saturday from 8-12 at the pool teaching swimming lessons.  It was fun.  It is harder work when I don't know the kids.  Two hours is a long time to fill when the kids are just beginners and can't do much yet.  But one of the trainers told me I can show up at the pool any day of the week and he will help me become a better teacher.  So I plan to spend more time at the pool, now that my move is done.

It has been really interesting to move back into the same house I lived in when I first came to Honduras.  I am such a different person now in so many ways.  I am not as timid or worried about pleasing people.  My Spanish is better, which means I can have deeper friendships.  I am a lot more independent.  I think I know who I am more now.  And I like who I am.  I am really happy here.  This little house is more simple than where I lived in the mountains.  No hot water, no flushing toilet paper and no clothes dryer.  But I am happy.  I feel very peaceful and content.  At the end of each day my heart feels like it is brimming over with love.  It's nice.

Also, I was reading over the previous entry about the fire.  When I got to the part about having taken the towels (which I thought I brought to breathe through) I realized how God had equipped me to fight the fire.  He equips us for everything.  We just have to step out in faith.