Latest and long overdue update

I haven’t written this for so long and I just don’t know where on earth I can start. This has been a month of ups, downs, stresses and laughs!
So, in bare and basic chronological order...

On Saturday 17th October we had the long awaited united youth group event that I had been planning with the youth pastors of Sigua. On the Friday night before Fredi called me and asked me to have a last minute meeting with him to make a video presentation advertising the Talent Show (which I am also planning). The only time he could meet me was 9.30pm. Imagine! So, my Friday night and Sat was spent making this presentation. On the Saturday I had people calling me asking me to print letters off, go to the Supermarket etc. So by the time the evening came I was a complete total and utter stressy mess!! But the afternoon/evening went really well and I guess there were about 180 young people. The down side (apart from my complete stress) was I also got food poisoning – badly – and so was out of action for 4 days! My stress rubbed off onto my friends, which also caused problems – but all solved by now.

Since then I have taken on a number of new projects. Our church has decided that they want to make a calendar and directory. I am on a committee of 5 people in charge of making this happen! My job now is to take photos of every family/single person in the church and collect data – phone numbers etc. They want a photo of each family for every day in the calendar and people will pray for that family on that day etc. It’s a fab idea – but a lot of work. Once I have all the photos / data I will pass it onto the others in my committee – and hopefully I will have done my part.

I am still in charge of getting everyone organised for our talent show too.
For work I have to make a profile on every child – photos, data, stories etc because we want every child to be sponsored and so we need a page on the internet for each child – which I am doing. Now all this is happening at the same time...aaaggghhh!!!

I am incredibly tired – but still love living here. My business and stressiness has affected some friendships, which has been hard, but has also been resolved! Please pray for my friendships here and that I have time and energy to get everything done. Doing all this in another language seems to make everything subconsciously more tiring I think.

This weekend we raised funds for our youth group Mission Trip. In January youth group will be doing our yearly mission trip. This year we will be going to Santa Rosa and building a house and also working with 300 children. Our fundraiser was making soup – and oh joy...I am the treasurer and so was having to deal with costs, collecting money and all sorts. Was crazy. Now the soup was a very traditional Honduran favourite – Mondongo Soup. In English we would call this TRIPE. Yes cow stomach lining. And yes, they sent me to buy 10lbs of tripe! Mmmm. Along with the tripe were all sorts of veg – yuka, plantains, carrots etc. Oh..and patas.....the hooves and bottom part of the cows legs....scooping out the jelly stuff. Mmmm yet again. We sold about 200 bowls of soup though and raised a lot of money. It actually tasted ok, I didn’t eat much mind you!!

So Sunday night – 2 days ago-, we were sat in Joel’s house – all 16 of us – making sure everyone had given me the money and discussing what we would do next, when we had a phone call. I had been at church in the evening taking more photos of families; I had left about 7.10pm. Lots of people stayed to practise for the Christmas Choir, including lots of kids. As we were sat in our meeting 5 mins from church, Enoc got a phone call. A man had gone into church with a gun. He held his gun against the head of Lucy – a 9 year old girl – and threatened to shoot her, asking for money, phones etc. He then got another girl by the neck and put a gun to her head too. Neither were harmed. A couple of men got pushed around a bit by him, but no one was injured. Somehow he escaped and ran off into the darkness. Some of the guys went off to help search for him, the police were called etc. Thank the Lord no one was injured. In the same area there is a gang of Marijuana smoking men (I don’t know what you would call it in English, but you know what I mean). This gang is going around causing trouble and so Youth Group on a Saturday night is earlier so no one is out late. Thankfully I have my car so can get around – and can help others too. Where I live I am safe enough!

I don’t know if you’ve seen on the news but there was a huge land slide in El Salvador on Sunday. Now, all the news coverage shows ... Lorena’s cousins house!! It was completely destroyed by the landslide. Friends of ours – Becky Vega and her fam (who are also Lorena’s cousins here) had gone to a family wedding in El Salvador and were staying in this house. They are thankfully safe and unharmed. Their photos and stories are horrific. How they rescued people in the village, digging up dead people from under the mud etc. It killed many ,many people and many are left homeless. Lorena’s family have lost their house, clothes etc. Is horrific, but they have their lives still. Fun times.

We are coming up to Elections soon – 29th November... pray for peace!! I have no idea where ex-president Mel Zelaya is – he may well still be in the Brazilian Embassy as everyone seems to have forgotten about him. Micheletti has said that if Congress wants it Mel can come back to power - in the name of peace etc! Goodness knows what will happen, but I have too much on my plate to worry about it!

I am coming back to England for Christmas this year, arriving in UK on Dec 10th and leaving Jan 9th. It will be good to have some time out to relax a bit. I’m already putting together a list of things I will need to bring back to Hondy...I will put it on here next time so you can start looking out for bargains for me!

I’m sure there have been many other things happen too – but I can’t think of them right now!! Please keep in touch, I know I haven’t had internet and am rushed off my feet, but I will try and reply. I’ll get photos on here at some point. Despite all the problems going on here I do love it!! And am grateful Hurrican Ida missed us - though we are expecting a cold front, which is not nice in cement block houses!! But I love it here, it's just tiring - but proves I am fully involved in my community, which is a good thing.

Pray for peace and security in Siguatepeque, that I can get everything done and for continuing relationships with friends.