Belated update

Amazing! Its nothing orginal or fancy, but its a blog...

I'll start by posting an email I (btw, its Kirsten posting) wrote on the 22nd, that because of techinal difficulties many of you never recieved:

Hi All!

Our first week in La Zona has come to a close, and I wanted to let you know how we’re

fairing.

Our travels were surprisingly smooth and uneventful - except for the fact that we “lost” a

suitcase somewhere in transit. The airline has said several times that it would be

arriving in Santa Barbara the next day, only to go there, and find nothing. This was our

bag of misc. items, quite a few of which we can live without. But the biggest problem (in

my mind) is, my journal is in that bag. I have been quite lost without it… I’m still hoping

that it will show up.

We have settled into “our” house, and are feeling right at home. The house is large and

in good condition for the houses around here. It’s two bedroom and two bath, and even

has electricity. As with all the houses here, there is no hot water, which means cold

showers. And I mean really cold! The water comes straight from the mountain behind

us. But we are thankful for running water even if it is freezing.

It became very clear the first night in “our” house, that we aren’t the only residents.

There are little red geckos that also call this home. They are really cute and don’t bother

us, but they do make quite a racket some nights; they kind of sound like tree frogs. Also,

the other night, when coming home from church, we found the ground outside our door

crawling with many large, red, ants. We soon discovered they bite worse then fire ants,

so all made a mad dash for inside, only to find quite a few of them entering the house.

We weren’t so pleased about sharing accommodations with them, but our neighbor

Caesar, told us not to worry; “they’re good to have inside,” he said, “they eat all the

other insects.” I don’t know what they did, but they are all gone now.

Its the rainy season here, which usually just means that it rains for a hour or two every

afternoon. But the last couple days have been overcast and rainy. Hopefully it will clear

up soon though. The weather is pretty perfect right now, (high 60’s low 70’s) but they

say it will be getting colder very soon. The houses here don’t have proper windows,

(only screens), and as I already said, there is no hot water. So we’re hoping it won’t be

too cold. We were wanting to skip winter…

It is a very tropical environment, and you’ll see fruit growing everywhere. Avocados,

pineapple, bananas, papayas, and citrus are in season right now, along with more

exotic things like Leache. (sp?) We have several fruit trees growing in our yard, and we

have been enjoying the treat of picking our own fruit for breakfast.

I don’t know everything my family has been doing this week, but I have been busy

learning bush dental skills. We have a class of eight students, including four Hondurans

(who speak little english,) three from the US, plus one Honduran lady who translates.

It’s quite an interesting mix, but we’re having lots of fun.

The first three days were made up of theory and practice on plaster teeth. Then part of

Thursday and all of Friday we were working in each others mouths. I filled my first two

cavities in Roger’s mouth. I have been thoroughly enjoying this new learning

opportunity, and look forward to gaining more experience in the coming weeks. There is

much need here, and we expect to be very busy this next week, treating the local

people.

We have been enjoying attending the local SDA church here, which is in sight of our

house. It is very active and has services Wed. and Fri. night, plus two on Sabbath. They

sing a LOT, and we are doing our level best to learn their spanish songs. Many of them

are to tunes we know, but with different words. Like today, (Sabbath) we sang a song to

the tune of “O Come all Ye Faithful,” and another to “Go Tell Aunt Rhody.”

This afternoon we drove up to a little village farther up the mountain, and visited several

families there. This is the same village we did VBS in, and it was special to see those

same kids three years later. They seemed to remember us, and sang us the song we

had taught them. The families in this village are living in a deplorable state. So many

precious poverty stricken souls, in need of a Saviour.

Please keep us in your prayers as we try to minister to the families here.