Progress of the year and it's only February!

One of the goals in our ministry is to combine the mentoring that we are doing with the youth, with the construction & 'life things' that goes on - such as teaching them how to cook, working out at the construction site with them etc. What we have seen is that great conversations come up and you sure get to know someone a whole lot better when you're working together. I was realizing this week how new this is for Tristan and I. We've worked in youth ministry a long time (considering that we're really not that old) and most of the time it's been seeing lots of kids a little with only a few exceptions to that. Well now we're involved in 7 kids lives a lot - seeing most of them every day - having them around when we're relaxed or stressed, happy or sad etc. They are a part of our every day life. This last week we took 4 youth with us - Sigel, Santos, Marisol, & Heidy out to the El Ayudante project for 4 days of tiling the men's bathroom. What a week. Although there was some bickering and a few conflicts, the 4 of them really got along well and we all worked well together. The heaters been cranked on in that part of the country and it was in the mid 90's the entire week + humidity - which made it really hot to work in. We worked in teams of 2 in each bathroom stall with Tristan as our foreman - cutting the end pieces, putting in guideboards so we'd be level, making the mastic (glue) and the work went up so fast! This last summer we tiled the girl's bathroom and it was a nightmare - took forever, the pieces were sliding all over the place etc. But we learned a lot from that (tiling is SO different here in Honduras). So we had been hoping to finish maybe 3 bathroom stalls this week - instead we did 4 stalls plus most of the main room of the bathroom, all the faces AND started to grout some places as well! We used up all the tile we brought out - 720 tiles! Tristan and I kept stopping and staring at the work - amazed at what happened in just 4 days. All of the youth were experts at tiling and grouting at the end of the week! They also did so well to put up with Tristan and my motivation to get it all done - working until 7 or 8 at night because Tristan and I just didn't want to stop. So we all came home EXHAUSTED Friday night - happy with the work but so tired from 4 days of hard work. I'm so proud of our kids.

In other news at El Ayudante: thanks to the huge support of many people in the states, we have 1/2 of the walls of the medical clinic completed! We found a great blocklayer that we really like & trust and he & his crew completely finished - with support beams and everything - 1/2 of the clinic walls. We figure that we need another $2,000 to finish the other half. It's so great to see the progress. Thank you so much to everyone that donated blocks for the medical clinic - every penny you gave went to that and it made a huge difference!

A quick update on the youth group - the kids continue to be coming! It's so much fun to see the crowd of teens hungry to learn more about Jesus. A week ago we rented a mini-bus that holds 33 people and offered everyone a ride to CCI - our partnering church - as they were having a special youth service. It's a good thing God can work above our faith because we were once again blown away when we had 19 of us on that bus! The service was great and everyone had a really good time. Our hope is to provide transportation once a month to go down for the youth service at CCI. We've purchased a portable sound system and a projector and hopefully some chairs are coming soon.

Life things: I'm in my 6th month of pregnancy! Time sure flies! I've finally turned to my maternity clothes for more comfort and even strangers can now tell that I'm pregnanct. I feel mostly good although the acid reflux and the insomnia has been pretty annoying - but other than that I'm feeling well.

Sigel has now had 3 weeks of counseling/art therapy and it's a blessing. I wish that it were a quick fix - all these things he's dealing with - but unfortunately the process is a bit longer. His English amazes us - he's just now starting to talk to us in English without prompting - well it's Spanglish but it's a start! One of his teachers has started at the University (GO Skarleth!) which is great for her but I am now also teaching Sigel 1/2 time.

Jorge is enrolled in school and will be starting either this week or next (apparently the school has yet to decide when they are starting). Yesterday we got him all the new clothes he needed for school - uniform shirt with certain color jeans and certain shoes.

Tristan continues to hold us all together. With working with our block layer Tristan has learned a whole lot more about construction in Honduras. He's also working with a guy to fix the well at El Ayudante and working on bids and buying materials for the roof for El Ayudante etc. He has befriended Wilson - the husband of my friend Cynthia and he been a great influence on him. Tristan's patience with Jorge and Santos (teaching them welding etc) is amazing.