El Salvador International Sailing Race

Sailboat Lessons for the boys (and girls!!)

Chris has been taking the boys from the center to Honduyate Marina for sailing lessons on Saturdays.
The boys love it!!
They have had 3 lessons so far and some are doing pretty good.
This last Saturday, our entire family went along. We had a picnic lunch complete with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bananas for some much needed protein--sailing is hard work!!
With the exception of Hannah and myself, everyone was sailing! (Hannah and I chose to visit the pool and watch from the tower!)

I never had any idea how coordinated and disciplined you have to be to sail!!
It always looks like a breeze when you see them sailing by on the lake!!
And so it seems to be, once you have mastered the art of it. I am hoping to post photos very soon - thanks to Will and his camera! ;)
I realize it has been way too long between my updates on the blog and hope to now keep in touch better!!

Pray

Please keep praying for our community here in El Eden.
I just wanted to give you an update.
Last night, two pick-up trucks full of masked men in soldiers uniforms and ski masks busted into Yimmy's house
(the boy that has been working here with Chico n Ricardo that always smiles)
and demanded to know where another fellow is
(that lives next door-they evidently got the wrong house)
who is a gang member and has been known to be heavily armed.
They grabbed Yimmy's mom, roughed her up, put a big knot on her head, left some bruises on her arms, and then left.
This is especially hard for Yimmy n his family.
This is the way they killed Yimmy's dad
(when Yimmy was a boy).
They broke into their house early one morning and shot him.
This is also the same way they killed Marco's dad, who heard the whole ordeal from next door. The people here are living in fear.
Oscar, the young man who was shot in the back over 5$ worth of fruit, says that he has peace and that he's ready to die.
But his family, is so fearful, they can't sleep, and all the other family members have left except for Sandra
(his sister, if I remember correctly).
It is common for this time of year, just before Christmas, for many criminals to be killed.
It's especiialy hard this year since Nahum, one of the 18 that escaped from prison, is on the loose.
He is supposedly a high-up in the MS-18 gang and is behind a lot of the "bad crimes": Please pray that there fearfulness will be turned into a fear of The Lord, and that they would seek Him.
We love y'all n know that y'all will be standing with us.

In Christ, chris n family

Mi Hogar...No hay sitio bajo el cielo mas dulce que mi hogar!!!

~our front door~

~the old front door and the gate to the "garage" (???garage???)~

~Chris's fish pond, in the courtyard~

~the 5 hotel rooms~

~the courtyard, where construction is underway~

Javier

Javier was a young man of 25. He was dying of alcohol poisoning. Chris took him to the local clinic here and the referred him to a hospital in Tegucigalpa where he received treatment for a week. They basically told him that there was nothing they could do for him. His stomach was infected and ulcerated to the point that he was constantly vomiting and passing large amounts of blood. His stomach was exaggeratedly inflated, as you can see from the pictures.
We have been meaning to post pictures of him for two days now........and so here they are.

This is Javier's mother.

She is a drunkard, most often seen lying either in a ditch

or in the streets of El Eden.
She was rather "sauced" at the time this picture was taken.

Note the ciggarettes in the hat.^^^ Amanda asked him to smile for the picture ^^^

Chris had a long talk with Javier.
But Javier never did more than listen.

Javier died yesterday.
Today was the funeral.

God Provides...

God sent us three of His servants today, to bring us food. We are low on groceries and we have no gas in the gas stove and the electric stove is temporarily out of service. Lo and behold, these women came to the door, with two large croker sacks of vegetables.

They emptied them out onto the floor and said they were for Mrs. Rose. They requested that we share them with another family down the road, and after a quick glass of water, were gone again.

God is sooo GOOD.

To Belize, yet again!

As we entered Guatemala, several of these carts passed us.

And truckloads of oil palm fruit.

This picture was taken at our hotel in Guatemala.

Time to go to Belize! And by boat this time!

Picture of a barge, taken from our motorboat.

Everyone enjoyed the ride across the border-waters.

~Paul~

Especially Matthew, who was allowed to drive for a while.

Pictures of crabs. Taken: by Paul

~Charlene~

~Hannah~

~April~

Morning devotions before our long walk from the hotel, to the immigration office.

This man pulled up in his truck, climbed out and waded out into the ocean to swim for a few moments to cool off--clothes, shoes and all!--before going on his way again.

Children playing on the beach outside our hotel room.

What Matthew refferd to as, "weed beds".

As he dog-paddled his way along, he would invariably get stuck in the long grass and would cry out to Hannah, "Quick, I'm stuck! Come save me! Quick! I'm stuck in a weed-bed!!!"

Hannah is most photogenic, including when in the water!

One night, the kids fooled around taking pictures,

with Amanda's camera,

on a slow shutter speed.

Paul would stand still for about 3 seconds

before moving or ducking,

leaving behind a transparent copy of himself.

They got a great kick out of this.

~Hannah~

Our hotel room was very, VERY nice.

It had real wooden furniture!

A bed-stead, a real recliner! a hanging mirror on the wall and a lamp!

The children quickly made new friends. :)

This is the town's "light-post". That's right, it's their version of a light-house.

Where we waited on Chris while he loked for a cheap hotel.

We were looking forward to going here, but alas, it was closed when we arrvied,

not to be open again till the next week.

Pictures of the sunsent.

Poor Matthew was soo tired, after waiitng to leave Belize, that he fell asleep.

And then it was once again for home :)

Upon the arrival of which, Hannah announced that our house had,

in our absence,

become a "frog-house" !

because of all the toad droppings we found everywhere.

The toads and frogs come in through this gap between the door and the wall

---leaving a trail behind them.

Amanda kindly photographed it so we could post it here for y'all to see. :)