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.