Cooking this week

So, I've tried this before - let's see how long this will last. I start my week looking frantically (?!) in my freezer and in my "pantry" to see what I will be cooking each day. So, instead, I am trying to shop efficiently - and if any of you have shopped in a third world country, you know that this is SO important. Typically I buy all my standard things, and am quite successful in making hearty, fulfilling meals. But, as all of you who are the cooks of the house know - this does tend to lead to the same ol' thing week after week. So, I'm making a menu...then I'm shopping efficiently! So - what's on the menu this week?

Today Mike is making coconut milk seafood soup - so I will be making the homemade sour dough bread - link to how to make a starter and a recipe for the bread (that is currently rising) to serve alongside.

Tomorrow we are having marinated ranch broiled chicken. This calls for pounding down the chicken, then marinating over night - so I've prepped it for tomorrow's cooking...



Wednesday comes Potato Soup, Thursday will bring up Dijon-Tarragon Cream Chicken (although without the Tarragon as there isn't any in the country of Honduras - so will substitute with fresh oregano from my garden); Friday we will be having choritzo alfredo sauce over egg noodles. Saturday we will have warm steak and potato salad - and on Sunday? That remains to be seen. As I can't find any butcher around here that sells lamb, will have to see how creative I can be.

On another note, I've been thinking about starting a cooking club out in Armenia Bonito to bring the women together once a week, a small bible study, and learning to cook something new. So I've started experimenting in my kitchen to see what would be easy to make, not expensive, and would be able to be replicated in the houses of the women in Armenia. My first thing I tried was candied peanuts (I've linked to the site for the candied peanuts). And let me tell you - we sure enjoyed the experiment! They came out GREAT! Let me know if you have any ideas! The kitchen is my joy - and I love coming up with new and fun stuff to make!

Cooking the peanut concoction...

Final product...


Buen Provecho!

Property

One of the properties we have purchased is out in our ministry area. We purchased property in Armenia Bonito where we have plans of building multiple things including a soccer field, a clinic, a chapel, a multi-purpose room, etc. You get the idea. We recently received sufficient funds to build the wall that will surround the area. We have hired local folks from Armenia to start the construction. When teams come this summer they will be working on the property as well. Currently we only have sufficient funds for the wall, but God has provided so far what we need, and we know He will continue to bless this ministry.

Folks digging the trench for the wall.

Kids Club - Juevos de Resurrecion (Resurrection Eggs)

Today at Kids Club we focused on the Resurrection story. Next week is Semana Santa (holy week) and as most people go out of town to visit family, we put on hold our ministries for the week. I told the story using a felt board which was a whole new concept for them - the kids LOVED it! I presented the full gospel presentation, and the prayer for salvation. Then we made a lapbook of Resurrection Eggs. Each egg represented a different part of the resurrection story, with a picture on the inside of each egg, with the corresponding bible verse. After each kid completed their craft, they received a cupcake and a plastic egg with goodies inside. All in all - a great day!

The Resurrection Egg lapbook


Me telling the story with the felt board


Mike and Madison leading songs

New School Desks For Kids In Armenia Bonito

In Armenia Bonito the schools are rundown and have insufficient supplies for the students and teachers. The kids sit in 30-year-old desks, share desks with other kids or sit in their desks in shifts. Thanks to the generous assistance of our friends and supporters we were able to purchase 80 new student desks for the kids in Armenia Bonito.

Take a look at this 2 minute and 40 second video to see the kids with their new desks:

St. Patrick's Dinner

Had a great St. Patrick's Dinner tonight! Corned beef (okay - so it was canned - the only corned beef I could find), cabbage with cloved onions, mashed potatoes, Irish Soda Bread, Guinness beer, and to top it off - Irish Whiskey Bread. We invited our friend Mateo over, who came with his friend and one of the young boys from the dump where they work. It was a GREAT time - food was enjoyed by all! So sad I didn't get a picture of the final meal - but by the time I thought about getting a good picture, we had devoured all of our food. Ah well - enjoy the few pics I did get. Happy St. Patrick's Day to all!

The onions with cloves in them - and the corned beef is on the bottom


The cabbage waiting to be added...

Irish Soda bread - YUM!!!

Last Trip

Mike comes home tomorrow. It has been a whirlwind since I returned from Haiti. Not long after I got back, a team arrived. They were great, fantastic, but I wasn't quite ready to be back to normal life. Then, the day the team left, Mike left with them. He went back to Georgia for some training classes he was teaching at, visiting churches, and support raising for our properties. He will return tomorrow with a young woman coming down for a vision trip. Looking ahead, it appears the last trip we have for awhile is in June. I will be going to General Assembly to man the MTW booth - promote MTW, promote Honduras, and be available to people who have questions about missions. Mike has been going to the States about every 3 months or so for missions conferences, teaching at seminars, promotion, support raising for our properties, etc. However, we think this may be the last event for awhile. It will be good to be together as a family! Well - at least we have frequent flyer miles!

Clinic

Today at clinic we arrived to see probably close to 80 people waiting for us. As there is only one medical provider (me), typically I can only see 35-40 people. Needless to say this can cause some unhappy disgruntled people. Our clinic is the only free of charge, free medication clinic in the area. Now, keep in mind, this is a very BASIC clinic. The only "labs" I can do is a finger stick to check for blood sugar, and a urine dipstick. Anyone who is sick that requires anything more extensive such as x-rays or other things simply has to go to the hospital. However, I do see many people that I can give patient education to, how to improve their health by lifestyle changes, and to check blood pressure and blood sugar - give pregnant mommies prenatal vitamins, and check them out as well. Some people come expecting much more than I can give. However, it is a service that has been well received and we NEVER see less people than we are prepared to see. We ALWAYS have more patients than I can see in a single day. Today we had so many patients and the beginning of the day started just crazy. We have always required folks to make a line (which almost never happens), and every person must receive a number to be seen. This is the only way to ensure I have sufficient time to see those folks. Today - people were angry, pushing, refused to listen to us as we required a line to be made, and it was just crazy. I actually had to tell them to make a line - they all knew who was here before them, and that I would return in a few minutes once the line was made. We re-opened the door, and not much had changed. It's times like this when it's a little discouraging. People are mad, angry, upset. I feel like we end up being the "bad guys" when we turn people away - but I know we can only do the best we can and don't want to give bad service, hence the reason why we limit the number of people. Anyway - good clinic - saw many people with "gripe" (think cold), two people I sent to the hospital, and one very sick young man with probably pneumonia. So, I feel that we did good today, just a bit discouraged over the people who were not very well behaved :-(

In the pursuit of lasagna

Once again, it's one of those things that I wouldn't be craving if I was in the States, but when it's not readily available, somehow you find you just HAVE to have it. So, the pursuit of lasagna started with a recipe I received in my in-box from one of my favorite on-line recipe web sites. I looked over the ingredients and knew that it would take some effort, but I could find all the ingredients I wanted even if it took me 4 stores to go to. And so it began. The store for initial ingredients. Another store for spices that weren't at the first. A third store for the cheese I needed, and finally to the butcher for the meat and sausage I wanted. Now that may not seem like much trecking around - but just envision yourself in your home town. What it would take to go to four different stores that are on opposite ends of your town. You then realize that it would take you a long time - in fact it took me about 3 hours to get everything I needed. I finally made it home, and then cooked for the next hour and a half to prepare the lasagna. It is currently sitting in my refrigerator to absorb all those lovely spices and will be cooked for dinner tomorrow. Can't wait! So, the next time you want to throw together a "quick" lasagna, just remember that in other parts of the world, it takes a heck of a lot longer :-)

Buen Provecho!

Mission Team to La Ceiba, Honduras - June 27 - March 6, 2010

June 27 - March 6, 2010 a team of 11 short-term missionaries worked with us here in La Ceiba, Honduras. The missionaries were from RUF at Johnson and Wales University in Charlotte, North Carolina. This team did some wonderful work and was very gracious.

To see a 3 minute 36 second video of the work they did watch this:

explosion

Have you seen the movie "Daddy Day Care"? Do you remember the scene where Eddie Murphy goes into the bathroom after a child uses the toilet and his mouth drops open in amazement that none of the urine made it into the pot? Then he looks on the wall and sees even more - then looks on the ceiling, and he gasps in disbelief as there is yet more urine on the ceiling? See the video from 1.35 - 1.57 in the video.


Okay - keep that in your mind as you read this post.

Exhibit #1




This morning, like every other morning, our day begins with the making of an iced latte. If you have seen our pleas for coffee syrup, that is why. So, we were going about our day using our stove-top espresso maker when we heard this loud POP.....PSSSSSSS......we turned around to look in the kitchen and much to our amazement felt like Eddie Murphy. The seal on the bottom of the espresso maker had ruptured - it had forced the coffee grounds up through the seal, into the pot on the top and promptly erupted out of the top of the pot. Now, when I say erupted - it looked like someone had murdered a coffee plant, and we were sent in to check the coffee ground/blood splatters in the house. The grounds extended from the kitchen sink on the right - across the room to the wall on the left - almost completely covered the ground, and even under the microwave! Again - see video for the looks on our face.

Exhibit #2




In the middle of cleaning up the mess, I thought - too late - for that picture that speaks a 1000 words. Ah well, will just have to put the visual in your mind.

On another note - this is the last full day for our team here. They have their day off and plan on heading to the beach, then to a souvenir shop, then to start packing for their early leave tomorrow. It has been a pleasure having them here!

Por Fin!! (FINALLY!!!)

So...after 20 months of working with our lawyer, several trips she made to Tegucigalpa (Honduras capitol), more papers than I can even remember (think buying a house), signing, re-signing - submitting - resubmitting papers - money, money, and more money - we finally got our residency papers today! So what does this mean? It means that we don't have to leave every 90 days to re-new our visas. We don't have to spend lots of money trying to figure out when/where to go. We don't have to work our schedules around when teams are here and when they aren't. It's a HUGE blessing! Now - we just flash our residency papers and we come and go into Honduras whenever we want to - not when we NEED to. This is huge for our ministry, and helps us feel a lot closer to our host country. Thank you God for the patience we had for finishing this process! You will notice Madison's is not pictured here. We went back to the office after she got out of school and the electronic signature machine wasn't working - so we couldn't get her paper - but her process is finalized. We will be going back later this week (prayerfully) to get her paper once the machine works again.