one more week....

i can´t believe we only have a week left. 6-year-old gleicy asked me last night when i was going home, and when i told her she cried and asked me "why? i want you to stay here." i´m going to hate leaving these kids. they ask when we´ll come back, and it´s so hard not to be able to give an answer.

we finally got to sleep the night through last night! no more medicine for babies. :-) little maria is doing soo well and has stolen my heart, she smiles and laughs for me and has gained 5 lbs. since being here (one month).

i don´t think i told you all about iglesia (church) last sunday. we go to the assembly of God church here, and of course it´s in spanish so i had a little difficulty understanding everything (ok, a lot). i was holding tony (who used to be malnourished but you certainly can´t tell now hehehe), and it was definitely the hottest, stickiest, sweatiest church service i´ve ever been to. ;-) but i loved the worship; there´s quite a few american churches that could learn a thing or two from attending church here. they had a drummer, bass player, electric guitarist, singer/keyboardist, and two other singers...they were a good band, but the most awesome thing was how much they loved praising God and how much joy they had. they put their whole heart into it. the pastor is the keyboardist/worship leader, and he´s very compelling, even though i didn´t understand much. :-P one thing i loved was that some of the songs were american worship songs translated to spanish, so i could sing along in english--it´s so amazing to be worshiping God with people who can´t communicate with you otherwise...the language ceases to matter, just that we are all there for the same purpose.

tomorrow the group from texas is leaving, and so tonight we´re having a going-away/birthday party. a lot of these kids don´t know exactly when their birthday is, and also it´s too much to have a separate party for each, so every two months they have a party. the kids usually get some kind of small gift, and the house´s birthday tradition is to douse them with water. :-D

jose had an especially good class today...sometimes we start to wonder how much he´s really learning and understanding, and some days he just learns by leaps and bounds and amazes us. especially today, yoko and i both were tired and preoccupied--it just goes to show that it´s God who gives understanding, not us. he is really beginning to pick up on the right expressions and facial grammar, which is difficult to teach except just through example; watching us sign is paying off, because he´s picking up on the language more, not just vocabulary.

yesterday was eventful; first yoko went to the jail to interpret for 15 "japanese" people who were picked up by the coast guard and didn´t know any english/spanish. unfortunately people here mix up their asians, and the group was actually chinese. they communicated somewhat through writing, though, which was good. :-) people are always calling poor yoko "china" and "chinita."

we also took the afternoon off and went to a creek nearby (well, 7 miles...across a bumpy dirt road in the back of a truck...good thing there were lots of people so we were kind of smushed in). we actually saw pine trees!! i felt like i was back home. ;-) it was so nice...the water was clear and deep, and the kids loved it. we washed clothes there too, which was definitely more fun than using the washing machine at home (and we got clean, too).

one more story: there was another cockroach in my bed! the night before last i went to get in bed and a huge one flew up (i didn´t know they could fly-!) at me and started crawling around in my sheets. now i´m ok with most kinds of bugs (even most spiders), but somehow i just can´t handle cockroaches...so yoko and i run out squealing and kimberly and telma came to the rescue. neither of them has a problem with picking the nasty little things with their bare hands, and telma chased me around with it while roger laughed at us "california girls." at least we got a good laugh out of the whole thing, and kimberly did a thorough search of my bed for amigos de cucharacha. we have a running joke that "novio de kimberly es cucharacha, y novio de misha es sapo" kimberly´s boyfriend is a cockroach, and mine is a frog...long story, but basically we´re going to kiss both of them and they´ll turn into princes.

on that note, adios and buenos tardes!

babies and cockroaches

well, i think yoko and i are the baby nurses here for a while. :-) little tilo (we finally found out his name) is doing well and only needs medicine for a few more days--now we just need to fatten him up. we´re also helping out with two other babies: maria (her teenage mom left, with no sign of returning, and she had no name that we know of, so yoko and i named her), who has malaria and a bad skin infection, and gustavo, who has the beginnings of pneumonia. so we´re getting up at 1:30 am again, braving the cockroaches and other bugs that come out to keep us company....

speaking of cockroaches, i´ve been laughing at ryan´s stories of creatures crawling in bed with him and i finally got my just desserts. i got up to go to the bathroom the other night, and found a cockroach waiting for me on my bed--i practically sat down on it. and then the stupid thing refused to go away, even after i blinded him with my flashlight, so i woke up poor yoko and slept in her bed. i suppose it was only a matter of time, and at least it wasn´t a spider--they have huge wolf spiders and tarantulas here, but thankfully i have yet to see one.

this week a group of 15 people from a church in texas are here; they have supported the house of hope for a while and wanted to come and experience what really goes on here--so this week most of the staff is on vacation, and this group is taking their place. they came on saturday to learn the ropes, and this morning ryan left, so we´re really on our own. needless to say it´s been pretty hectic, but the kids love it and so far no major catastrophes. we´ve got to help a bit more with the cooking, and i learned how to make tortillas...which by the way are incomparably better than store-bought american ones. mmmmmm.....

jose is doing very well. we´re looking into sending him to a deaf camp that is held in la ceiba every july, which would be sooo good for him. he really needs someone fluent in sign to learn from and as a role model/example, and there just isn´t an opportunity for that here in puerto lempira. there is one deaf boy (the 4-year-old that we brought to house of hope for a class a couple weeks ago) that will probably be living here starting in february, so hopefully he´ll be able to learn sign language as well. there is such a huge need here and so little resources, but it´s in God´s hands and at least we are giving jose as much language as we can in this short time. he learns quickly and is getting more expressive, but there are definitely some concepts that we are struggling to teach him; the lack of any language for so long makes it difficult, and our creativity is definitely being stretched. the other workers often laugh at us when they see us acting out a word or concept (the other day it was "obstinado," or "stubborn," and i was doing a full-blown rendition of a stubborn, spoiled little kid...right as roger walked by[he´s one of the main leaders here]), but they are fascinated and love to watch and pick up words. we´ll often be signing away, suddenly to notice that one of the kids or even adult is quietly copying our movements.

prayer requests: continued progress with jose, and also that he would begin to understand God/Jesus/the gospel (i´ve been signing stories from the bible to him, and we´re teaching him what we can, but it´s definitely slow progress because there are some very abstract concepts). strength to take care of all these sick babies. :-) 12-year-old ricardito is very sick, and we find out today if it´s malaria (hopefully not).

kimberly is much better! back to her regular laughing self. :-)

tomorrow, weather permitting, we´re going to a nearby creek to swim--with all the kids, that´ll be an adventure. :-)

two weeks left

well, our little "hijo" is doing well! it´s actually kind of troublesome now that he has the strength to wiggle around, giving him medicine is a little trickier. :-)

summer in honduras is "missionary season," and we´re getting our share here at casa de esperanza too. last week we had liz and emily, and last night and today there were evangelizing groups that came to visit. last night a group of mostly teens from pennsylvania came; they performed a mime/skit to songs in english and spanish, the kids loved it--especially when they got do perform too. this morning a group from ywam did three skits as well, and one woman was from northridge...small world.

this morning i went with misilia and alba julia to take two of the babies to the hospital. they both had fevers, and we had to go to the emergency room (hospital strike). well, we waited...and waited...and waited....and you get the picture. :-) the hospital is bigger than i expected, although an american doctor would be horrified. the electricity didn´t come on until 9 (same as the whole town), which i imagine must cause a few problems. we found out that one of the babies has malaria, so please keep her in your prayers.

i think the rainy season has finally begun in earnest. last night it was so cool i actually (almost) wished we had a top sheet or blanket, and it´s been rainy/cloudy/rainy all day. hopefully we don´t get caught in it on the way home!

the other day we made a visit to a man named mou; he is a contact point for rescue task force here in puerto lempira, and there were some bible tracts in miskito that we picked up from him. we´ve given some to the kids that can read, and they are fascinated...i think the biggest draw is that it´s actually in their native language, since everything else they get is in spanish. hopefully it´s something that they can understand and really think about more clearly and thoroughly.

the kids are always making us laugh...9 year old leni told me the other night that he was going to buy me earrings--and a ring! (so if i come home married, don´t be surprised hehe) and today little akim named his teddy bear after me (baby micha, to be exact). it´s the running joke that christian absolutely adores yoko; he follows her around like a puppy. we´re going to hate leaving these kids...they´ve really made their way into our hearts.

fragile life

two days ago everyone at the hospital went on strike. so needless to say we´ve been pretty busy, since babies who can´t get care at the hospital come here. one mother brought her one month old baby, who has pneumonia and is severely malnourished. he weighed only 3 1/2 lbs. his body is about as big as his head, and his arms are as thick as my finger. i kept checking to see if he was breathing...he looked like he was dead.

so yoko and i have been helping care for him, giving him his medicine and using a nebulizer so he can breathe (there´s this mask that´s supposed to fit over your nose and mouth, and it covers his whole face). we´ve also been giving him special formula to help him gain weight. he already looks so much better--he cries, stretches, has more color, and makes the funniest faces when we give him medicine--must not taste very good. we weighed him again today and he gained 7 ounces! Ricardo loves it and calls me and yoko "la mamá y la tía." but he´s not recovered yet, and your prayers are still definitely needed; the mom almost left because she thought we were giving him too much medicine, and we had to have child protection people come. there´s been babies who went home healthy and had to come back because they were malnourished again, so hopefully that doesn´t happen to this little guy.

on a lighter note, we had pizza today for lunch, and it was surprisingly similar to american pizza. they call it "pigsa," or at least that´s what it sounds like to me. the kids came running to tell me and i thought they were talking about some strange native food or something.... we´re definitely gaining a few pounds here (or at least i know i am), they give us the diet and portions of malnourished kids and unfortunately running around after kids all day doesn´t seem to burn the calories you might expect. :-)

last night the kids were all drawing pictures, and one boy named ricardito (ricardo´s son hehe) gave me one with my name written at the top: "micha" (which is how most of them pronounce my name...a couple kids call me mita) I said, no it´s spelled "misha," and he wrote that, then told me, "see, micha is your name in español, and misha is your name in inglese." i thought that was funny. a couple of the kids are determined to teach me miskito, and apparently they think the best method is to speak only miskito. they´ve been at it for a day or so now, and i think they just enjoy seeing the confusion on my face. i´ve actually picked up a little though, and they keep a tally of how many words yoko and i know. ;-)

well we have to get back to the house. keep us in your prayers and God bless you!

la barra

this is a few days late due to computer problems, but here ya go....

this weekend we went out in a boat with roger, liz and emily (liz is a missionary here and emily was visiting with her), and vicki and brigida (roger and katrina´s two girls). we went across the lagoon (puerto lempira is on the ocean...or a lagoon actually, and roger and katrina´s house is right on the water. unfortunately house of hope isn´t quite as close hehe), and went to a beach there. the water is sooooooo warm! in some places i felt like i was taking a bath or something, nothing like frigid lake tahoe.

it is so beautiful here. on our boatride we saw mangrove trees, with their roots reaching out of the water, and the banks of the lagoon are lush and green. there are these fishing huts built on the water (the lagoon is no more than 7 or 10 feet at the deepest parts), so you can sit in the shade and fish. and bouys mark where a ship sank a while back--supposedly on a clear day you can actually see it, but no such luck for us. brigida and i collected about a pound of shells...we saw a flock of pelicans, and caught these little minnows that swim around you if you stand still enough in the water. there´s also these beautiful flowers like yellow morning glories that grow on vines across the sand.

so we had our little vacation time in the midst of all our work. :-) now we´re back at it, and we´re going to start having a separate class with a few of the boys who are good friends with jose and really interested in learning to sign. the great thing is that kids pick things up so fast--even little sharon is learning. she came here severely malnourished, and now she is a chubby dimpled four-year-old with the cutest smile you´ll ever see; and she knows agua, mamá, papá, te amo, and her name sign. when a visitor asked some of the kids their names, they responded not with their actual names, but with their name signs... :-)

yesterday kimberly, a sweet 15-year-old who´s always smiling (which amazes me considering all she´s gone through), came down sick with a very high fever. at first we thought malaria, but the doctor said she has a throat infection so they can´t test for malaria until that´s treated first. please keep her in your prayers.

Señas de Amor

We had the amazing opportunity the last couple of days to spend time with a group called Señas de Amor. they are a group of mostly deaf hondurans who travel around (mostly in the northern part of honduras, but once a year they come to puerto lempira--that´s how amazing it was that we were here at the same time...definitely the hand of God) to find rural deaf people and teach them sign language. since they came out of that background of being hidden away and neglected, unable to communicate, they really have a heart for the deaf people in honduras who have no language and are not cared for. they are a christian group and they really love these people so much.

we were able to drive around town with them (precariously perched on the back of a pick-up truck, bumping over all the dirt roads) to find two deaf children they knew of. since there are no addresses or street names here, it can be difficult...it´s really a matter of asking around, which can be hard when so many deaf children are practically hidden away. we were able to find two children, though, and we brought them back to the house of hope, where señas de amor held a class/workshop with them and the other children here. it was really neat to see them working with the kids, and they did a drama at the end of basically the whole story of the bible...creation, sin, redemption. it was beautiful.

one of the greatest things about them being here is that we were really able to see LESHO first-hand. this is honduran sign language, and although it´s very similar to ASL, it is evolving as its own language and in some ways is very different. so we really got a very intensive "crash course" in lesho. they were very eager and willing and patient to teach us and give us all the information they could in such a short time. we learned so much! we feel so much more able to work with jose.

he is definitely making progress. he´s coming out of his shell much more, and comprehending much more. it´s slow going because he is so low language, but he´s a quick learner once he understands, and it´s awesome to see him communicating with the other kids. we have class with him in the morning, and then a little later we have class with all the kids, which they love. then later we have class with katrina and jose. it´s so amazing to see how everyone at the house really is interested in learning, and even ricardo, an older man who works here and whose hands are stiff so signing is difficult, is so happy and eager to learn at least simple things--and he does a great job of communicating by gestures and expressions. really all the kids do, and since kids are so expressive, they pick up signing really well.

well we´d better get back, but there you have a little taste of what we´ve been up to. there is soo much more we are doing and experiencing--so many new things. God is blessing us and please continue to keep us in your prayers.

here are a couple pictures. we visited an orphanage down the road, and while we were there we taught the kids some signs. enjoy!

Casa de Esperanza

We arrived at the House of Hope yesterday...and already we feel like we´ve been here for days. As soon as we walked through door--even before--we were surrounded by the children. they are absolutely precious, and they´re loving on us so much; it seems like there´s never a moment when there isn´t a child hugging you or kissing you or holding your hand or saying your name (they call me "Mitcha" and Yoko is "Joko"). Most of them are Moskito (indian), and there is an incredible mixture of languages here, spanish and moskito and english and some sign language. we started working with jose, who is deaf, today. he is very smart but it´s hard to know how much he really comprehends with the vocabulary he has already learned. he´s already learned a lot, and the other kids are learning too. there are two boys, selvin and leni, who are good friends with jose, and they pick signs up almost faster than he does--it´s so neat so see how much they want to learn and communicate with him. :-)
katrina and roger are amazing--they really have an amazing ministry here, and their kids are amazing too. they´ve informally adopted two honduran children and their other three children speak english, spanish, and miskito very well.
well we have to get back to teach another sign class--there is sooooo much more we could tell and describe, but i guess it will have to wait till we get back.
prayer requests: that jose would comprehend and be able to progress in his vocabulary and communication. that our spanish would improve! (and miskito also)

Tegucigalpa

Well, we are finally here! After a long plane ride and under 4 hours of sleep, we are here in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Everything has mostly gone smoothly, we managed to get through customs, change money, and get a taxi and hotel room successfully even with our terrible Spanish.

Honduras is beautiful...but at the same time there is such incredible poverty. Today we walked down to an open-air market to buy clothes and shoes for the children at House of Hope. The streets are so narrow, and drivers are reckless. :-) We had fun exploring, though, and were able to buy a lot for the kids.

When we first arrived it was a beautiful day, not too hot, but later on it started to rain--and I mean RAIN. hehe There was quite a downpour, and the loudest thunder I´ve heard. Apparently in Puerto Lempira it will rain like that every day, all day...so I guess it´s a good thing we brought rain coats. ;-)

We have an early flight to Puerto Lempira tomorrow, and we´ll be leaving the hotel at 6:30. Hopefully the plane won´t be too small; we´re just glad we have a direct flight, otherwise we´d be in a little propeller plane. We´re getting so excited to finally arrive in Puerto Lempira and House of Hope; it´s been very good to relax a little and sight-see before we get to work. Keep us in your prayers as we fly out, and as we get settled in PLP.

We´ll try to update as often as possible, but we´re not sure how accessible the internet will be. Keep checking back every so often, and hopefully we´ll be able to keep you guys posted! Muchos gracias for all your prayers and support! Hasta luego!

--Yoko and Misha