Football, Food, and Fun

Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving with another missionary family and the Honduran family that stated the local ministry, Love Without Boundaries. It was a great day, we threw the football around and even played a few games. We also had a ton of food throughout the day and needed a few breaks to let everything digest properly. We also played some board games and sat and talked outside because it was a georgeous day. It was 70 and sunny all day which made for a lot of fun time outside. I found myself missing my family though because it was the first Thanksgiving where I didn't spend it with anyone from my family, but I know it will only be a few short weeks before I am back home to see everyone. The Schuberts also recieved some very exciting news a few days ago. They have been trying to adopt a Honduran girl for a while now and they have already gone in and done psychological tests and had interviews. The next step is a home visit and it seemed to be taking forever but a call came and the adoption agency will be coming out to the house on Tuesday so the next step is underway. Please pray for the Schuberts that this interview will go well and that they will have their Honduran daughter soon. It would also be a blessing to me for them to receive their daughter because I miss my nieces and nephews a ton and I would have a 1-3 yr old girl in the house. Today we are going to a place they call the Valley of Angels to shop and look around. I am looking forward to going but sad that we won't be able to go to the ministry this afternoon. They cancelled church tomorrow because it is a voting day so that means I won't be able to see a lot of the kids from the community for two weeks and that saddens me. Not much else has happened since Tuesday. The boys schooling is going very well and we just sent in their first quarter grades. On thursday I played socer with the men of the community and scored 3 goals(a new high for me). Unfortunately I scored one off of my mouth and my nose. It was pretty painful and I got a little cut on my lip but it was worth scoreing a goal. The gringo learned a valueable lesson on Thursday: don't try to head the ball in the goal when someone from the other team is abot to kick it as hard as he can in the other direction. Well we have to get going. God bless and thannk you for all the support, especially all the prayers. I hope you and your families enjoyed each others company over the holiday and God blessed the time you shared with one another.

Get on Facebook if You Can

So I used this awesome internet connection to upload pictures today but it was much faster to upload them in facebook so if you want to see them they are in facebook under my photo albums. I have more pictures but those were all i had on my computer at the moment. hopefully I be able to use this connection in the future to do more. yippee. God is good and gave me fast internet today. It has made my day and I am one happy camper right about now. O Praise Him.

So I am in the city today and blessed with an awesome internet connection so i decided to put up some photos. I dont remember the order I put them in but I think the first one is of some of the kids from Casa de Luz and I, the 2nd pic is Ed, Wes, AJ, and I working on the road, the 3rd pick I think is the large "indoor" soccer field at the local ministry in Zambrano. The 4th pic is a picture of the church on a Sunday morning in Zambrano and the last picture is just a few of the many beautiful children that show up to the local ministry on Saturdays and Sundays(usually between 50-100 show up each time). I hope you all enjoy the pics. God Bless.

Disabled by Duke

So the other day Duke(our guard dog who is also an idiot) decided to play football with Ed, AJ, Wesley, and I during our morning workout. Usually Duke is on AJ and my team(the robots) and he jumps up at Wesley when he is running. Well two days ago the idiot jumped ship and joined the other team. As I was chasing after Wesley after he took off on a QB sneak I felt like a sledgehammer had hit me in the back of the leg right on the calf muscle. I then saw a flash of borwn idot dog run by and realized I had been rammed by an idiot running full speed. I hobbled a bit and then decided to sit the rest of the game out. My calf since then has felt like it is always tight. i have iced it every day and tried to keep stretching it and it has swollen up a little larger than the other calf. This has somewhat disabled me in the paast couple of days; no leg workouts in the morning and no hard physical labor in the afternoons. The boys had a lot of large exams this week so I have kept busy grading and filling out progress reports that need to be sent in at the end of the 1st quarter(a few weeks from now). I have also done a lot of reading this week due to my injury. Nothing takes your mind off an ice pack on your leg like a good book. I still plan on going to the ministry today and tomorrow to be the human jungle gym for all the kids of the community so hopefully I still have a leg after the weekend. If I don't post again by Thanksgiving I want to wish all of you a Happy Turkey Day. I hope all of my supporters enjoy a great time with their families. I also will be missing my family this Thanksgiving as it is my favorite holiday becuase all we do is eat toogether, watch a little football, and we dont have to buy each other presents. I miss you all and I cant wait to see you in a few weeks. Stay out of trouble and stay warm. God bless. Adios muchachos y muchachas. Kenny out.

Fiesta Loca

So the big celebration was yesterday and it was insane. I would say there were somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 people there. The last few days have been long and I have been exhausted at the end of everyday. This last week we did a lot of work at the property to get everything ready for the celebration. I have done so much manual labor the last week that my hands are all calloused and blistered but it was worth it. Saturday morning was by far the coolest experience I have had yet in Honduras. The party didn't start until 3 but at 9 in the morning many of the Hondurans and Ed and I went up to the ministry to help out. It was awesome to see all the Hondurans working together and right along side us gringos to set up for the big event. We had to move a lot of bricks and the Hondurans formed an assembly line with people of all ages passing bricks to clear the yard. There was a great sense of community among everyone there and it felt good to be a part of that. Oh yeah and big bad Kenny killed a snake with a brick. Im so manly. Back to the fiesta. My specific job during the celebration was to check in and out bicycles of the Hondurans and we gave tickets with numbers to people that matched the numbers on their bikes so that no one would steal someone elses bike. I think I did a good job because no one got their bike stolen. The party itself was crazy and the speakers spoke too long and there were so many kids there that it was rediculous to expect them to sit still for that long. The kids got restless and then disrespectful towards those in charge of keeping them in order so that was a bit saddening. many of the kids didnt come with parents so it is always hard to control all of them. Other than that the party went well and the building was dedicated and I am glad the whole event is over with. The other awesome thing that has happened in the past week is my connecting with a young boy named Christian from the community. I call him my shadow becuase whenever I am around hes right next to me or climbling all over me. His mother asked Val the other day if I was part of her family and after Val explained my role in her family Christian's mother asked her to thank me and explained that Christian's father is very distant and sometimes mean to him so he doesnt have a good male role model. She told Val to thank me for my love for him and my willingness to always hold him and play with him. I cant help it really, the little guy melts my heart. He even tried to follow me home today after church to play longer and I had to tell him we couldnt go to my house (the landlord doesnt want Hondurans in the house becuase she doesnt want the house to get robbed) so instead I walked him to his house with his family. He invited me to lunch but I had to decline becuase I knew the family did not have much to eat becuase they have atleast 5 kids that I know of. He argued with me and his family laughed as I said no and he said si about 20 times. He talked to me the whole way to his house(which was probably a mile and a half from church) and I didnt understand a lot of it but I just listened and responded when I knew what he was talking about. I walked back through town by myself and prayed for the family I had just walked home and by the time I got home I was exhausted so I ate and passed out. All the work from this last week finally caught up with me. Oh yeah I also encouraged a 25 year old american from Alabama who is down here on a work team to come to Honduras for more missions work. He is thinking about coming and working with the local ministry for atleast a year so that was pretty exciting as well. Well its about dinner time. God bless all of you and thank you for your prayers for the crazy party yesterday. Adios

Mountain 1 Kenny 0

So a few days ago for our workout I decided to take the boys and Ed to a trail that goes up a mountain for our morning workout. The plan was to run up the incline and walk back down. Me and Wes ran up it once and walked down. The mountain was too much of an incline for AJ so he walked it with Ed. I decided that we could run up it twice for our workout and then jog back to our property. Boy did I underestimate that mountain. The 2nd time up Wes began to jog but slowed to a walk. Being the personal trainer of the family I said to myself that I had to set the example and keep running. Well about half-way up that mountain I began to gag and continued to throw up stomach acid since we hadnt eaten breakfast yet. This is not that big of a deal, I have always had a weak stomach. I sat there hunched over and watch Ed and the boys steadily pass me by and beat me up to the top. The big bad trainer finishing last, never a good thing. Through the whole ordeal I was remined how with faith we are told by the Bible that we can move a mountain but I realized how much one must depend on God to get to a point of such rock solid faith. I couldnt even run up the mountain on my own and I'm sure I couldn't move a large rock let alone a whole mountain on my own. God humbled me that day and revealed to me how insignificant physical human strentgh is compared to the awesome power of our God. So that was an interesting lesson that God revealed to me only moments after I was yaking on the side of a mountain trail. God was probably giggling a bit when He put these thoughts in my head but I treasured it as a lesson from God, even though it took a while to get that taste of stomach acid out of my mouth. So other than physical excercise in the morning a lot has been going on lately. The local ministry is having a large party on Saturday for the dedication of the colluseum( a large covering and walls over a cement court used for soccer. We all have to help with the event and they are expecting between 2000 and 3000 people so it should be pretty wild. This week the boys school went well and most in the afternoons we worked on our road more(a never ending project), helped out a the ministry moving bricks before the even on sunday, and today we cleaned the house and squeezed juice becuase Val returned today and we wanted her to return to a clean house. I even prepared orange milkshakes for Ed and Val for when they returned. We are all happy to have Val back because we will no longer have to depend on the microwave for our meals. I jokingly told Val that while she was gone I made the boys hug the microwave every night before bed. I feel like I bonded better with the boys while Val was gone so I was happy for the time we all had together. I have been saddened by some family issues at home that I wish I could be around for and it saddens me because I naturally want to fix things when they are wrong. It will be especially hard at Thanksgiving time when I wont be able to be there but I know that this is where God my Father wants me. If you as my supporters could pray for my family I would greatly appreciate it. You could also pray for the big even on Saturday and that every thing goes well and stays orderly. I have lately been getting into more of a routine throughout the week. This Tuesday and Thursday I played soccer with some young men of the community and I really enjoyed my time with them. Saturdays and Sundays at the ministry are some of my favorite times becuase I am surrounded by young kids, many starving for attention. I finally feel like I am getting more involved and I feel like I am really starting to connect with some kids. I just hope and pray that God continues to give me opportunities to do this and I'm sure He will. Well I must get going but know that I truely appreciate all those who support me whether through prayer or money or simply just loving me. I am thankful for all those God has choosen to come along side me during this year and I pray for you all daily. God bless Honduras and the States(and lets hope those gas prices keep dropping). Adios

Pray

I dont have much to post this time because not much has happened in the past couple of days. Val left yesterday for the States for a fundraiser for one of the ministries we work with down here. The boys, Ed, and I have been doing alright without her primarily becuase she made a bunch of meals for us before she left. The microwave has been our best friend. The reason I am titling this post pray becuase we have heard from a few people around town that an American man was killed in Zambrano during a robbery one of the nights that the power went out. We arent sure if it is true or not but prayer would be nice, not just for us but for other Americans in Zambrano who are likely to be targeted for robberies becuase of the color of our skin. The prayer would definitly be appreciated. We are pretty secure and behind two fences away from most of the people. We do not worry becuase it wont do any good and we often pray for God's protection. On a less serious note, I feel like God is begeinning to direct me towards His will for my life and that has been very exciting. I have been focusing more on my prayer life which I felt wasnt as strong as it could be. Other than that not too much is going on. The boys schooling is going well and the power has stayed on for the most part this week even though it just went out in the middle of this post. We have also done a decent amount of work on the road in the past couple of days so we are staying in shape. Of course we are still working out at 6 am every morning. Well I'm outta here before my labtop dies. Be effective in using the gifts God gives you for His glory rather than your own. Kenny out. God bless.

What a day!

What a day, what a day! Today was a great day but rather long. I woke up and while I was eating and getting ready for church I got to see some hilarious things from Val due to the pain medication. I went to church by myself while the family stayed home. Before church even began I had to break up a fight between two young kids. Now this is a pretty frequent occurence but I was fed up so I grabbed both of the kids by the neck and asked them what their problems were in my borken spanglish. One almost cried and the other one gave me his word that he wouldnt fight as i was kicking him out. Needless to say there were no morre fights at the church and all the kids were amazed to see the "gringo" angry. Val couldnt translate like she normally does so Carolina, the daughter of the leader of the ministry translated. the only problem with that is she normally teaches the kids and I help her. So I was on my own with about 50 kids. Since I didnt have any lesson planned I just let them color and gave them cookies and then they played. I played with a young boy named christian who loves to pretend fight me and then a bunch of young girls played with my hair and made me look ladylike. After church I went home at lunch and then after a few hours returned to the ministry to play soccer with the young men of the community. I got there at 3 and the Hondurans didnt get there intil 3:30 because Honduran time is 30 minutes off. I talked to Carolina for the thirty minutes and she told me how the ministry started as Her Dad playing with local kids in their front yard,telling them about Jesus, and giving them cookies. Soon a few kids turned to 20 then 40 then 100. It was pretty cool to hear that from her. So eventually the game got started and it was going great. I scored a gaol and everything(score one for the gringo) but the mood of fun and fellowship was ruined by two of the boys getting into a fight. these boys were much bigger than the little ones I broke up early in the day and it was harder to get between them but I managed to and the game continued but with a different mood to the game. It seems rediculous that the Hondurans cant even play a soccer game without fighting. At first I was a little bit angered with them but I ended up feeling sorry for them an praying for them on the way home becuase Im sure all the young men have a lot of things to be angry about. They come from poverty-stricken, broken homes and have probably dealt with a lot of pain throughout their lives. Many of the kids dont even go home after the ministry and many can be seen wandering the streets afterwards. So I guess I will just continue to break up fights and try to be the peacemaker(although I dont think I will have to because I scarred the crap out of the younger kids today before church)and continue to pray for the young men of the community. After that I came home and played some good ole American football with Ed and the boys and then had dinner. Now we are sitting around watching movies and I can finally post blogs from home rather than from the city. Oh and the electricity hads stayed on for the most part the last to days. Praise God for that. I found myself in such a good mood today rather than the few fights I had to break. I have been reading "The Call" lately and it has taught me to try and let all my thought be thanks to God and today I did a lot of that and it brought me nothing but joy. God is good abd all things good in life come from him. Well Im gonna get back to quality Schubert family time. God bless you all.