Time for Lots of Prayer

Things are not looking good for a peaceful solution to the problems in Honduras. Please pray, and pray hard. I'll check in when I can.

Honduras in the News

It's been interesting to us, as Americans, to see the recent events unfolding in Honduras. Living up here in the mountains, we don't see much of the action. Oh, but then apparently the folks living in the US aren't seeing much of it, either.

Usually, when Honduras has a big news event (almost invariably a natural disaster, such as a hurricane or earthquake) we can count on calls and emails from concerned family, friends, and the staff in our mission office, checking in to see if we are doing okay. We love getting these communications, by the way, because it lets us know that people are thinking of us down here, and praying for us.

We started to wonder, therefore, when we weren't receiving any communications from anyone in regard to the current crisis, which threatens to embroil all of Latin America in a diplomatic mess which may well erupt into violence between nations - does anyone remember us?

Yesterday, Allen had the opportunity to make a few phone calls to some friends in the US, and he naturally spoke with them about the crisis in Honduras. The response, in most cases, was that our friends knew nothing about it at all. A few had heard the word "coup," but since there had been little other information, they had assumed it was a minor event, easily settled. No one knew about the UN resolution to return former president Zelaya to power, no one knew about Honduras' refusal to agree to this in the face of threats (both of sanctions and of violence) from much larger and more powerful nations.

I felt suddenly very alone.

The fallout from the events of the past week has huge implications for Honduras. In my opinion, there are serious potential implications for democracy in Latin America. But I'm a momma. So I can't help mentioning that these events, and the events which seem likely to transpire in the next few days, threaten to have a devastating impact on my family.

If you are our friend, family, supporter, or just someone interested in my blog (for whatever reason), can I implore you to take a few moments to educate yourself on what has happened here, and how the international community is responding?

If you want the mother-of-all sites about Honduras, you'll want to visit La Gringa's Blog, which is written by an American woman living in La Ceiba. She's been prolific in her blogging about this situation, and has enough links to other articles to keep you busy reading for quite a long time!

Thanks so much for caring about us, and about Honduras! Please, keep us in your prayers.

So, How Has Your Week Been?

Mine's been . . . unusual.

Let's see. We had the backhoe getting stranded on the other side of a swollen river. It's back now, by the way, and the trenches are being dug as I type, to put in the water lines to our new home. On Saturday, while I sat around and chewed my nails while watching the unfolding political events in Honduras, Allen and Russell retrieved the machine. As we hadn't had any rain for a couple of days, the river was about as low as it was likely to get during rainy season. The men removed the air intake, and re-attached it upside down, to create a sort of snorkle. The driver had to also hold a t-shirt over the opening, to keep the water which was splashed into the air from falling into the engine and drowning it. The water in the river was higher than the large back tires of the machine.



Hmmm, what else? Oh, while the country was under the supposed military takeover on Sunday, my ds19 had to travel to Santa Rosa de Copan for a soccer game (only essential travel allowed - but everyone in Honduras knows that soccer IS essential). You might think this was too dangerous - and you really have no idea! He was driving past some road kill, and a vulture flew up and he hit it - or possibly it hit him? Russell swerved to try to miss, and so the impact was right in front of Russell! The windshield of this vehicle already had a large crack down the middle - which means we should really be relieved that the whole thing didn't fall apart.




More? How about this one - today we are having our garden tilled. With a plow. And oxen. I wish we had the camera out there, but the camera went with Allen today, as he is visiting the village with the earthquake damaged houses, and needs photo documentation of the reconstruction. I hear there might be protests on the road into Gracias later, so I hope he can make his way home. He's pretty resourceful, though, so I'm not really worried.

That's not enough? Then how about dinky, unimportant Honduras being the top news item all over the internet? That's been unique, for sure.

We are fine up here

For those who are checking in on us after seeing the news that the Honduras military has removed our president, I wanted to let you know that we are fine. Life is pretty much as normal up here in the mountains (although our power is out - for who-knows how long - but that's actually pretty normal, too).

From what we can tell, people are pleased and hopeful that the supreme court, congress, and military have taken action against the illegal process being pushed through by the president (former president?). I have not seen anything here that would suggest that the military is taking any inappropriate action, or that this is a "coup," in the sense that a illegitimate party has taken power. My read is that the president was working outside the boundaries of his authority, and the other parts of the government used their power appropriately to remove him, and I have heard that they have replaced him with his constitutionally appointed successor.

It is a bit worrisome to see how the major news organizations (outside of Honduras) are explaining this story - as if the military has taken over the country. This is not what we are experiencing here. I have a number of contacts all over the country, and have not heard anything remotely like that.

It's my first coup

In case you haven't caught this in the news, Honduras is having a scary political showdown right now, in which both sides are claiming that the other side is trying to stage a coup. The president is on one side, the congress and the courts are on the other side.

I'm not going to take the time to write out all of the details of this very complicated situation, because La Gringa, up in La Ceiba, has already tackled that task, and has certainly done a more thorough job than I would be able to do. Here is her blog, with an overview.

As of tonight, the situation remains very much up in the air. We are waiting and watching, not panicking but remaining cautious and trying to be prepared for whatever happens. We are glad to be up in the mountains, and not down in one of the big cities where these events are transpiring.

We really need your prayers right now, for the country of Honduras. Please pray that the upheaval will be resolved peacefully, and that the outcome will be the right one for the continuance of democracy in Honduras.

Everyday life - but it's so weird here!

Today we finally sold our Toyota pickup truck. We've not used it since Russell's second accident with it, in January of 2008! It was in the shop approximately forever, and when we finally got it back, although it runs okay, it was full of squeaks and rattles. Since we've been able to purchase a second Land Cruiser, we don't really need the pickup anymore, so we've had it sitting in front of our house, with a "for sale" sign on it, for several months.

Finally, this morning, we sold the thing! We're all glad to no longer be in the car selling business, but I have to admit that I was hoping a different buyer would come through to purchase the truck. This past week, Allen was negotiating a deal with a neighbor, who wanted to trade us 14 cows for the truck. I thought this was such a cool thing - and would make fun reading for the blog. Sadly, it was not to be, and we just got money for the truck, from a different purchaser. How ordinary!

But, there is something else unusual going on right now. We own a backhoe, which we allow the municipal government to use for many projects. We need to use our backhoe to dig trenches so that we can install our personal water lines for our new home. Since we hope to move onto our property around August or so, there isn't a lot of extra time to get this work done.

However, the last time the government used the backhoe, they left it parked in the town where they last used it, as it needed some repairs which needed to be completed before the job could be finished and the machine returned to Gracias. That wouldn't have been such a big problem, except that the town, Quelacasque, where the backhoe is sitting, is on the other side of a large river, with only a ford across. You see where this is going, right? The river is currently swollen, because it is the rainy season, and the water is too high for the backhoe to be driven across.

Now, I really think this kind of thing is strange, and interesting. I don't ever recall anyone offering to trade us livestock for a vehicle, when we lived in the US, and I'm sure we never lost access to any of our construction equipment for long periods of time because we couldn't cross a river.

At least it's never boring here!

Homeschooling in the Wilds

Occasionally the younger kids and I decide to pack up the school books and a picnic lunch and spend the day homeschooling out in the woods, on the property where we are building our new house and other buildings. Friday was one of these days.

We've had cool, rainy days where we sat most of the day doing school in the back of the Land Cruiser, only spending a bit of time out of doors (although we did build a fire and roast hot dogs and marshmallows that time), and we've had days which were too hot, and we kept having to move to stay in the shade. On those too-hot days, we're kind of glad to get back home again!

Friday was just about perfect, however. It was mostly cloudy, and not too hot or cool. We took along one of our tents (an easy-to-set-up tent, since my work crew consisted of only Boo and David), and we were glad to have it, as the gnats were bad, and we were able to find some relief from them in the tent.

We wanted to set up the tent in a large level clearing where we will be doing our vegetable gardening in the future - only we couldn't find the clearing! Our property is very large and rough - it's easy to get lost in the woods. Eventually we gave up, and just found a small open spot in the forest. The tent was 8' x 10', and the clearing was just about the same size. Here is the view we enjoyed, as we sat and did schoolwork in the tent:

Here are the hard working students:



After getting through our reading, math, and history, we enjoyed some nature studies:



The goal was collecting and comparing leaf structures, and the pattern of leaves as they grow on the plants. A happy and unexpected event was the inclusion of several bugs on the leaves that were brought into the tent:





Other interesting finds of the day:

Large unknown plant - we had Russell pose with it for scale.

Old twig nest

These bushes with berries are everywhere - but we don't know what they are.

Is this a wild orchid?

Have I mentioned lately that we can't wait to get to live up there?