The Prairies

Wow it has been quite awhile since I wrote. It has been non stop busy since returning to Canada. I'll try to do better.

Fall has pretty much arrived in Saskatchewan. The leaves are changing colour, the fields are golden brown and the air a little cooler. William and I had some fun taking pictures the other day of our beautiful prairies and pretty sunsets. With no trees or hills out this way, you can see the horizon forever and the colours in the sky are endless. The prairies are truly breath taking.

Also attached are some photos of friends and family.

Thanksgiving at Mom and Dad's. Left to right, Will, Sharon, Debbie, Brandon

Okay so this isn't a prairie or family photo, but William was proud of this picture. He's on the fire department here as a payed volunteer and he moved up in the ranks so he got some new gear. He was very excited!

Our anniversary

William and I were able to celebrate our 3rd anniversary in Honduras on Aug. 21. We wanted to make it memorable so we decided to go and take some pictures at the plant place we had visited when we first arrived in Honduras. I've also added a few more pictures of Dave and Esther and the Vissers family, these were the missionaries we were working with. Enjoy!

Dave and William

Esther and I

Anniversary Dinner at the Del Coral Steak Ranch. Was is ever tasty!

Visser family (Ken and his wife, Sue, are the directors at the camp we worked at. Ken is not in this photo as he was in Canada at the time.)

Sitting in the Miami airport on our way home

Back Home

We are back in Canada, beautiful Canada safe and sound. Unfortunately we don't have any of our luggage though. Long story, but hopefully we'll get it from Regina tomorrow. Also our flight to Regina from Minneapolis was cancelled this morning, but God provided another flight to Saskatoon instead, so we were able to see William's parents as they live up that way. God knew what he was doing :-)

We look forward to seeing all our friends and family at church on Sunday.

God bless
Melanie

Last few days here

Well our time to leave is nearing and we will be sad to leave Honduras and all the friends we have made here.

It has been a great two weeks with the Parkdale team. They will be leaving for Cananda tomorrow morning. Please pray for safety as we drive the team to San Pedro and as the 4 of us drive back to the camp.

The men have worked so hard on two cabins over the last two weeks and they have accomplished so much while here. The girls were at the school doing some teacher orientation and organizing the library. What a big job! We didn't finish in the library, but we were able to get a good start of entering just over 2000 books into the new data system. William and I brought an extra laptop that was donated by David Little, from our church back home, and it will be now used as the new library computer. The librarian is so excited! I was also able to help, Kathryn, a grade 1 teacher from England decorate her classroom. We had a lot of fun sprucing up the plain grey cement walls.

Also this week William and I were able to visit an orphanage close to the camp here. We were so excited to go and we had such a great time with the kids that we brought some of the team back again today to see the place and the kids. The orphanage is called Destino del Reino, Leaders in the Kingdom. It was started by a lady named Rhonda. She came to Honduras on a short term missions trip and felt God calling her back here. So she obediently sold all her belongings and moved 10 hours away from where the orphanage is right now. While living there, God laid it on her heart to start a children's home and to raise up leaders for HIS Kingdom. She didn't know how this was going to happen, but she believed that God would show her. In time, someone gave her a plot of land and from there she has hired Hondurans to build the children's home, a Kindergarten-Grade 4 school, and is in the midst of building a medical and dental facility. God has given her 16 precious children to take care of all under the age of 8 and two older boys in their teens. One little girl was given to her a year ago, she was found in a trash can. All have their own story and are precious children that God has brought to Destino del Reino. In time there will be a middle school and university on the property. The children that attend are from all over the area. The school is free and for the poorest kids in the surrounding area. She likes to have one English and Spanish person per classroom, so they can learn to be bilingual. The orphanage also has a church building where about 60 people from the area attend the church as well. What a blessing this home is for these kids. If you'd like more information on the home, the web URL is http://www.destinodelreino.org/

These next few days will be a time of reflection for us as we rest and think about what God has been teaching us. We know that God wants us to go back to Caronport for a bit to pay off some debt, but after that, well we are not sure, but we are excited to see where God will take us next.

Here are a few last pictures of the week. I don't know if we'll have a chance to blog again before we leave, so if not, a huge thank you from William and I to all who have been thinking and praying for us. As a last prayer request please pray for our safety as we travel home on Wednesday to arrive in Canada on Thursday.

We are looking forward to our return and to share our stories and pictures with friends and family. God bless.

Putting up the second wall

The cabin crew

Working on the roof

The Men hard at work

Caleb, Eric and Terry mixing cement

The school at the orphanage, this will be the cafeteria. It will be finished in three weeks

Grade One classroom

Entrance to the school Rhonda

Church

Kids and helpers

This little girl was the one left in the trash can a year ago. It is hard to get her to smile.

The boys room

Hawk, the Grade 1 teacher reading before bed time.

The Mian Ruins

Last Days of VBS

Friday was our last day of VBS. It was a great week despite the sickness our team was experiencing halfway through the week. The kids loved it and many of them were sad that it was over. Some of the kids were crying that it was over.

Saturday we were able to travel to Copan, 4 hours away, to relax and re coup. It was a great time to see another part of Honduras. We also went to see the Copan Ruins, which were built by the Mian tribes 200-900 A.D. There was a lot of information to retain and very interesting.

Today we started back to our work projects again. The guys worked on the cabins and painting of the house and the girls went to the school to 'level' the English books for the English classroom and library. What a BIG job! We had to first go through all the books and figure out which ones we wanted to keep, then clean them off as they all had a layer or two of dust on each book and then put a grad level on them. It will take us awhile to finish.

William was able to connect with Patrick, his field ed supervisor this morning, and we're hoping to make a trip to an orphanage on Wednesday together, as well as visit the Cam International training school. So we are very excited about these two opportunities.

Thank you for praying for the team as we had some health issues. We think a flu bug went around and the team was also trying to get used to the food. Most of the team are on the mend, Praise the Lord. Some stayed at the camp during VBS, so we all pulled together to fill in the holes. We are still waiting on the rest of the materials for the cabins. They were to arrive last Saturday, but we're praying they will come tomorrow.

VBS and Work Projects at the Camp

Heather Heidt, Melanie and a little girl in their craft room at VBS

Terry and Brad taking a breather from their hard work in preparing for the cabins

Bob Sharp and John Tedford installing a pole for the low ropes course at the camp.

Melanie, myself, Liam, Lynn, Ricky (translator) and Terry. I led the kids song time and we all did fun songs. There have been about 90 children between the ages of 2-8 years old.

Two of the girls in my classroom. I led the memory verse activity.

Teaching the kids their memory verse.

This was a great time to learn a bit of scripture in Spanish.

VBS

Sorry it has been a bit since we updated our blog. We have been very busy with the Parkdale team here now. We are having such a great time with them all. What an encouragement to see Esther and I's home church here.

The week, so far, has been jam packed with VBS in the mornings and work projects in the afternoons. We have about 51 kids attending VBS and they love to come. Some of them arrive even before we get to the school. William is leading the worship and also the memory verse session. I am helping Heather and Roger Heidt in the craft session. Our theme is metamorphasis and we are using a bug theme. So far we have talked about Bee Patient, Bee Truthful, Bee a Good Listener. The kids have excellent memories and we are seeing the lessons being instilled in them already. Today for instance, the missionaries son, Theo, who is 6 years old was helping me paint the house today. He finished one job and so did I and I was waiting for William to get done a wall. Theo asked what he could do next and I said we'll have to wait a bit till Will catches up. He said okay. His older sister than asked if he had a job to do and he replied. No I am waiting I have to BE PATIENT! I thought WOW, these kids are really listening to the lessons and applying them to their lives. It was cute and such an encouragement to hear him say that.

After VBS we return to the camp for lunch and an hour siesta, than we start work projects from 2-5:30. William, and us girls are working on painting the outside of Esther's house. We started yesterday and we'll be finished by tomorrow. It is going very well and we all get along very well. The guys are working on the one cabin. Monday they dug holes, Tuesday they layed out some metal bars for the floor and today they were pooring cement. It is hard work for them and they are pretty tired by the time supper rolls around, but they are making great progress.

Please continue to pray with us:
* We are still waiting for some supplies to be delivered to the camp for the cabins.
* Some of the team members are experiencing stomach cramps, due to the food, we think.
* One of our leaders, Heather Heidt, is having some inner ear problems. There is no pain, Praise the Lord, but she cannot hear out of one ear. Please pray the Lord would heal this in His time.
* For safety as the guys work on the cabins
* For strength and endurance every day

Some Praise items:
* The vehicles have all been fixed
* The unity of the team is awesome, we are one big family!
* The weather has been nice and cool to work
* VBS is going very smoothly and the kids are so excited to come and learn about God.

My turn (Will) to update the blog. :)

I took this pic while driving down

the mountain back to Siguatepeque

Pastor/Evangelist Victor preached at the festival
and 12 came forward to accept Jesus Christ.

Two very cute Honduran children

quitely eating their free hot dogs

Mel doing face painting-it was a huge

station with kids waiting in long lines

Some of the Oregon team leaders praying and worshipping

before heading out to do prayer walks and house-to-house visitations

The road we traveld to get up the mountain.

This was taken after crossing the river

My field-ed supervisor and his wife's vehicle. Ya never

know what kind of conditions the road will be in.

I took this just before crossing the river going up to the camp in the mountains.

At the end of the day it started teaming rain and because the river was rising so fast we almost had to back track and stay in the school where we held the festival.

The landscape is beautiful, a camera can only capture so much.

These mountains go on for miles and miles.

We had our own little pharmacy going on here. We're placing 35 aspirin pills into little

baggies for the gift bags we handed out to the surrounding

homes and Honduran families we invited to the festival the next day.

Melanie seen here helping to prepare the gift bags.

These gift bags contained Aspirin, toothbrushes, a Spanish New Testament, Toothpaste, Ricola cough drops, anti-parasite medication, etc.

Melanie loves this picture and it's definately one of my favorites too.

The boys name was Phillip. He is one of 10 kids in a traditional Mennanite family. I took the picture while on a tour of the farm.

The family runs their own oldfashioned farm right here in Honduras. We purchased a gallon of the unpasturized cow milk which was amazing.