November Newsletter

And now for the weather on the north coast of Honduras….

Pretty much every newsletter we write starts with some sort of commentary on the weather, but we just can’t help it! It’s so weird to be wearing shorts and making plans for Thanksgiving, but I guess that’s life in the tropics! It has cooled off considerably in the last month, so now it’s just pleasantly warm instead of scorching hot.

Things at Hospital Loma de Luz (http://www.crstone.org/) continue to go well. People are being treated and ministered to every day, and that’s the ultimate purpose of the hospital. Nothing is static here. A constant stream of American and Honduran workers provide the technical skill and manpower needed to accomplish everything from digging ditches to specialized surgeries. Something God has been impressing on us recently is the reality of Romans 8:28, “that all things work together for the good of those who love God.” As we learn to truly believe these verses in the midst of heat, homesickness, and unsightly jungle rashes, God continues to amaze us with they way he brings people here to contribute in specific ways. We get to see just a snippet of God’s working things together for the good of reaching the lost and glorifying Himself.

Construction Stuff
Construction projects currenly underway include a doctor’s house (pictured below), a children’s center, and a remodel of a large, single-family house into three apartments. We are actually planning to move into one of these apartments when it gets done. This will allow us to be closer to the kids I am teaching and closer to the other missionaries. Living in San Luis has been good, but rather isolating, so we are looking forward to being a little closer to the action.

Josh is also working on a side car for the motorcycle, which he has been enjoying immensely. He scoured the motorcycle junk yard in La Ceiba for some of the parts and is making the rest. It should be done and ready for action in the next week or so.

Teaching
School continues to keep me busy a couple days a week. I have 6 students, most of whom I see for several subjects. They are a smart, self-motivated, entertaining group of kids, and they make my teaching days very enjoyable. Josh and I also helped Joel and Eidy, a couple high school kids from our neighborhood, with an idea for their science project last month. They got 3rd place with their distiller that could turn dirty ditch water into pure water. We were pretty proud of them!

Browning Briefs
We are anxiously awaiting our upcoming trip to the states. We leave November 27th (but won’t actually get to Montana until the night of the 29th) and will be in Montana until December 27th. We are looking forward to spending some quality time with family and friends and enjoying the holidays at home.

Guildy provides constant entertainment in our house. She has a few Spanish words to go along with her mushrooming English vocabulary. She is in love with her books and spends a great deal of time every day “reading.”

Prayer Requests
We are so thankful for the opportunity to serve and be a small part of God’s work here. Please be praying for us and the hospital ministry:
1. That the hospital would continue to find favor with the Honduran government.
2. That God would provide the Honduran and American staff needed, including doctors, nurses, teachers, and a computer tech person.
3. That God would bless us and the other people working here with the endurance and strength needed to carry out His work.
4. That God would make clear what He has in mind for us at the end of our year here.
5. For our Spanish and our communication with our neighbors.
6. For our health, safety, and protection.

In Closing
Thank you all so much for supporting us! We couldn’t be here without you! We hope to hear from you and we’re looking forward to seeing some of you soon!

In Christ’s Love,
Josh, Linzy, and Guildy

To Contact Us:
Email: yznil1@yahoo.com
Mailing Address:
Josh and Linzy Browning
c/o Mike and Peggy Yost
Apartado 139
La Ceiba, Honduras, CA

A Few Random Pictures

Guildy loves to read and play with books. She flips through the pages, talks to the pictures, stacks them up, knocks them down. We have a couple board books that have pictures of babies, and she loves to kiss them, as seen below.

She also loves to “help” cook. When she wants to help she trucks over to the table and starts dragging a chair, which weighs at least as much as she does. Mostly she just wants to eat stuff. She particularly enjoys helping with tortillas because she likes eating the dough, which is just corn flour and water (pretty nasty, I think). She usually eats at least one and sometimes two balls of dough before we get them all cooked. People have asked if she likes Play-Doh….I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure she’d down a container of Play-Doh like it was nothing, so we haven't introduced her to that wonderful stuff yet! (I had just come back from running in this picture, so that’s why I’m looking so sweaty and disheveled.)

This dog has adopted us. None of the neighbors know who he belongs to, but he comes every evening in time to get in on the goodies from the slop bucket and then sleeps in our yard. He gets all excited when we come out of the house, just like a real pet.

Guildy in the Pila

It seems like all we put up on the blog is naked pictures of Guildy. But everyone seems to like them, so here are a couple more. First, an explanation of a “pila.” Pilas are one of the best things Central American has to offer. They have a large, cement tank with a built-in washboard either next to or partially covering it. It serves as a reservoir for when the water is off, which occurs relatively often and at the most inconvenient times. If not properly maintained by cleaning with bleach and laundry detergent, they are great breeding grounds for mosquitoes and wonderful little ponds for tadpoles. We had a whole batch of little tree frog tadpoles a couple weeks ago. We thought they might be good pila pets and keep it clean, but they just ate each other. We fed them a few corn flakes, but that didn’t seem to be what they wanted. So, in the end, we just drained it and started with new water. Many Hondurans do all their laundry and bathe at their pilas. We use ours mostly for washing cloth diapers and Guildy, who thinks playing on the washboard part is the greatest of fun.

The Lucinda River

A few weeks ago, we made a Sunday afternoon trek to the Lucinda River, which is about 4 miles east of where we live. It is a typical jungle river with shallow, clear water and lots of foliage. We enjoyed a few hours of wading and splashing.

A view of the Lucinda River.

A rock wash stand used by women doing their laundry in the river.

Guildy….mostly naked.

October Newsletter

Greetings from the Brownings in San Luis, Honduras! We hope this finds you all doing well and enjoying fall wherever you are. As another missionary put it, “We live in the land of eternal July,” so it definitely doesn’t feel like fall here. It seems quite unnatural to us to be wearing shorts and scratching bug bites in October! But we hear that the rainy season will be upon us soon, and the 60 degree nights will feel frigid.

Hospital Loma de Luz (http://www.crstone.org/) and its associated ministries continue to move forward. In addition to treating around 50 patients a day, missionaries associated with the hospital are working in the surrounding communities preaching, leading Bible studies, giving guitar lessons, teaching pastor training courses, doing children’s ministries, and sharing Christ in any way they can. It’s been so awesome to see first hand the things God can accomplish when a group of people “stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” Phil. 1:27. In September, the hospital’s government operation license finally came, marking the end of a bureaucratic struggle that had lasted several years. This was a huge praise and a huge relief! The next challenge is ensuring that all of the American doctors are able to get through the Honduran medical licensing process and that Honduran and American doctors will be allowed to do their required 2 years of social service work at Loma de Luz.


Getting Ready for the Rainy Season
Josh and the guys loading sand into the “Commando,” the sporty little 2½ ton, 6-wheel drive truck which plays an integral role in all construction efforts. With the rainy season fast approaching, the construction guys have been hustling to get a couple of new missionaries’ houses dried in. Josh has found himself doing a lot of maintenance work, including working on the brakes on the backhoe, repairing the wiring in one of the staff housing apartments, and building some small furniture items. One exciting project that has recently gotten underway is construction of a children’s home/shelter that will be run by Iain and Liz McKenzie, a couple from Scotland. They have a background in social work and counseling, and they have a vision to provide those services, as well as housing and some educational opportunities, to families in crisis situations.

Teaching
With school getting into full swing, I have been pleasantly busy. I am teaching chemistry, Algebra I, two different classes of advanced math, and 6th grade science. All my classes are on Mondays and Thursdays. Rosemery, a Honduran girl who is living with one of the missionary families while she gets a series of surgeries on her hand, babysits Guildy while I teach. They both have a great time.

Browning Briefs
Guildy becomes more of a toddler and less of a baby every day. She has a functional little vocabulary that includes such important words as “up,” “apple,” “shoe,” “ouch,” “eat,” and “poop.” It’s amazing how much she can say with a few words and a lot of expressions. She loves reading books, and when upbeat music comes on the radio, she busts out with some great dance moves. Uncle Zech will be proud when he sees her!

In other news, we’re planning to be in Montana for a few weeks in December. Josh’s Mom is blessing us with the plane tickets, which we appreciate a ton. We’re so excited to see as many of our family and friends as possible!

Prayer Requests
We are so thankful for the opportunity to serve and be a small part of God’s work here. Please be praying for us and the hospital ministry:
1. That the hospital would continue to find favor with the Honduran government.
2. That God would provide the Honduran and American staff needed, including doctors, nurses, teachers, and a computer tech person.
3. That we would be focused on the things God has called us to do here and not sidetracked.
4. That God would make clear what He has in mind for us at the end of our year commitment here.
5. For our Spanish and our communication with our neighbors.
6. For our health, safety, and protection.

In Closing
Thank you all so much for your support in all forms. Our prayer for you all echoes Paul when he said to the Philippians “…I pray that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” Phil. 1:9-11.

In Him,
Josh, Linzy, and Guildy

Support for the Brownings
may be sent to:
CornerStone International
PO Box 192
Wilmore KY 40390
1-800-859-4578
carla@cornerstoneinternational.org
www.cornerstoneinternational.org

A Quick Trip to Roatan

It would be a shame to be on the north coast of Honduras and not go see Roatan, the biggest of the Bay Islands. A ferry runs there and back several times daily, and tickets are pretty cheap, so last weekend, we went with two other couples and spent a couple days. Roatan has the second largest barrier reef in the world, so it’s a diver’s paradise. We don’t dive, but we did some snorkeling and enjoyed the scenery.

This lava rock wall jutted out into the water and was colonized by palm trees above the water line and by all sorts of coral under water.

Us next to the rock wall.

A couple of the guys we were with swam out to this rock and jumped off.
Roatan, like pretty much everywhere around here, was amazingly beautiful and very enjoyable!

Guildy the Fearless

Last weekend on Roatan, Josh and Guildy were out frolicking in the water, when Guildy pointed at the dock and said, "up." So Josh set her up on the dock, about 4 feet above the water. She sat there for a few seconds kicking her feet. Then she scooted forward, let out a squeal, and......

Jumped!

She and Josh spent several hours doing this, and it never seemed to lose its appeal. Needless to say, we have to watch her like a hawk, because she likes to jump off of chairs and other things too.

Chicken Buses

Did you ever wonder what happens to old school buses? Yeah, neither did I. But apparently retired buses are sent to Third World countries to live eternally as chicken buses (so named because they often transport small livestock). The buses get a little paint on the outside and a little bling on the inside, and off they go for another couple hundred thousand miles. We usually go to town with Mike and Peggy Yost, and a couple years ago they saw a school bus from their hometown in Ohio. They hadn’t seen it since, so they thought maybe it had croaked. But last week, when we just happened to have the camera, we saw it in downtown Ceiba and were able to get a picture. So I always keep my eyes peeled for a Circle Public Schools bus:o)


We rode the chicken bus from La Ceiba home last weekend, so we snapped a few pictures to share.

It's a little hard to see, but there's lots of bling plastered all over the front of the bus.

The bus makes a pit stop in Jutiapa, where the gravel road to Balfate branches off from the paved road. Whenever buses even slow down, someone is there to sell something. These kids were selling leches, a crazy fruit that grows on a vine.

A Trip to La Ceiba

About every week or 10 days, we make a trip into “town” to get groceries and pretty much everything else we need. “Town” is La Ceiba, a city of about 200,000 located 35 miles west of Balfate. About 20 of those miles are extremely rough gravel road. Since we don’t have a vehicle, we always go to town with someone else, so it’s somewhat of a social outing as well. I finally remembered to bring the camera when we went to town last week, so we can share some of the entertaining sights in Ceiba with you.

Power and phone service is a little sketchy at best. But after seeing the snarled bundles of power, cable, and phone lines running all over La Ceiba, it’s a wonder the system works at all!

We always get a kick out of the piñata place. They make all shapes and sizes and you can see them in all stages of completion, so sometimes it looks like dead piñatas strewn around. In reality, they are just out drying on the grass.

This advertisement for chicken is plastered all over La Ceiba. It depicts a white family barbequing with a clown. Several of the people are clutching leeks in their hands. And the caption says something to the effect of “this is the part I love, my family.” We’re not sure exactly who the target audience is, but the people on the billboard certainly don’t look like the Hondurans we know!

So those are a few of the things one can see in La Ceiba. A day in town is pretty exhausting, but never boring.

Gramma Linda

We were so blessed to have Gramma Linda (Josh’s Mom) here for about 10 days. She is such a sport to brave Central American air and auto travel to come see us. But, like she says, “I’ll track you down no matter where you are in the world.”

I was sick for about a week when Linda was here, so she got to spend lots of quality time with Guildy…..playing with the hose, drawing, going swimming at the beach and rivers, and taking pictures. She went back home to California last Saturday, and I think she’s going to need some time to recover from the heat and busy-ness of keeping up with a one-year-old!

Some Honduran friends had a pinata for their kids for "Dia del Ninos," which is sort of like Mother's Day for kids. Guildy was pretty cute whacking at it with a wooden spoon:o)

Honduran Sunrise

When Linda was here, she and Josh went out to the beach early one morning to get some pictures of the sunrise. It really is the most beautiful time of day. Unlike the long, drawn-out sunrises and sunsets we have in Montana, it only takes about 15 minutes to go from pitch black to broad daylight and vice versa.

A fisherman in a hand-hewn kayak heading out to work.

15th of September

Honduran Independence Day is the 15th of September. Each class in the schools prepares a presentation, such as a dance or a song or a display of some military exercise. They marched in a parade from San Luis (where we live) to the town park in Balfate (about a half mile) and then each group did their presentation. It was fun to watch.

Traditional Honduran attire. Keep in mind that it was about 95 degrees with 95% humidity. Every group of kids had their own water carrier.

Not sure exactly what the sign means, but Balfate, Colon is the town and state.

The kid front is Ariel. He was one of the students at the bilingual school I worked at two years ago.

A Picture of Me

Several people have commented that there are never pictures of me on the blog. That’s because I’m the one taking all the pictures. So here’s a picture of Guildy and I making dinner. Thank heaven for the backpack!

Belize Blog
The Honduran immigration laws say that we have to leave the country every 90 days in order to obtain new visas. Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala are in some sort of free trade agreement that makes it so you don’t need a passport to travel through those countries. Thus, it doesn’t count as “leaving the country” to go to those closer countries. So, last week, we traveled to Placencia, Belize and spent a few days. This trip involved four total days of travel and three days of relaxing in Belize, so it wasn’t they typical “tropical getaway.” Plus, we pretty much live in a tropical paradise, so it wasn’t too different from home. Anyway, we rode by car to La Ceiba, by bus to Puerto Cortez, Honduras, spent the night, and took a two hour boat ride to Belize. We had a little time in Puerto Cortez before the boat left, so we strolled around and took a few pictures. There was a huge statue of the woman breastfeeding. Honduras maybe decades behind the rest of the world on some things, but it’s definitely up on its breastfeeding!

The boat trips to and from Belize were actually pretty calm most of the way. But we wore our life jackets nonetheless.

While in Placencia, we stayed at Julia’s Guesthouse. We liked the colors (bright orange and yellow), and it was right on the beach. The water was crystal clear and nice and warm. Guildy did her usual wonderful job of charming complete strangers…..

Johannes and Magdelana, the German couple staying next door in the guesthouse. They were delightful to hang out with and they loved playing with Guildy.

Stephen and JJ, the Mayan boys who were selling native art – baskets and purses and such. They spoke five languages – Mayan, English, Garifuna, Creole, and Spanish.

Jordan, the guesthouse owner’s grandson.

The people on our boat back to Honduras were fascinating. In addition to us, there were two women from the Netherlands who owned a hostel in Copan, Honduras; a lady from Italy; two English medical students; a scuba instructor who was born in Brazil, raised in Honduras, and currently lived in Belize; a Brazilian guy who worked for a German company making artificial flavors; and a large, somewhat obnoxious American named Richard. The owner of the boat was Creole and didn’t have shoes. It reminded me of the people on the pilgrimage in the Canterbury Tails. Those of you familiar with the Canterbury Tails will find it interesting to note that Richard had a gap tooth….as does Guildy.

Our trip progressed well until we boarded the bus from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba. It was a pretty high class bus, certainly not a chicken bus. We left about 4:30 p.m., well before dark, and Josh and I sat in the front to avoid motion sickness. As darkness (and rain) began to fall, it became apparent that the bus had no headlights. It actually had some light coming from the right headlight, but it was shining way off to the right. As a result the driver drove down the center of the road in order to catch a little headlight on the road. We kept thinking that the driver would pull over and try to fix something or at least mess with the switches, but he seemed completely unaffected by the fact that he was pretty much driving blind in the rain. We moved to the back of the bus thinking it was better to be there in the event of a wreck. We finally stopped at Tela, about half way between San Pedro and Ceiba, to let some people off. We decided we had had enough danger for one night and got a hotel. Before departing we made sure the others on the bus (mostly the same group that we had traveled with from Belize) knew that there were no headlights. Most of them said something like, “man, that’s bad.” I would have expected more of a response, but none of them opted to leave when we did, and we didn’t hear about a bus wreck, so they must have made it okay.

We caught a bus in Tela the next day and got home safe and sound without mishap. Well, not completely without mishap. I had to sit way in the back of this particular bus, which leads to greater motion sickness. A nice lady with a baby let me have her seat so I could throw up out the window. Another nice lady held Guildy for me. Before, during, and after my puking display, a well-dressed young man selling health food/home remedy books had been giving a speech about how to treat all sorts of maladies. The ladies sitting next to me thought maybe I needed some pineapple skin tea:o)

More Belize Pictures

The docks at Puerto Cortez. The guy on the right was cleaning fish and flipping the leftovers to the pelicans. They obviously had a long standing relationship.

Starfish from the ocean in front of our hotel in Belize.

Josh and Guildy in Tela overlooking the Caribbean.

August Newsletter

Greetings from the Brownings in sunny San Luis, Honduras!

We hope you are all doing well and enjoying the last few days of summer. We’re looking forward to the cooler weather that we hear comes along in September! The Hospital Loma de Luz ministry (www.lomadeluz.net) continues to move forward. The hospital is currently in the process of getting licensed under new government regulations. There was significant question as to whether the license would be granted, but in July, we were licensed, although the paperwork is not yet in our possession. This was a huge blessing and a huge relief, but there’s still a long way to go! All doctors licensed in Honduras must do 2 years of social service work, so the current challenge is getting the government to allow doctors to do their service work here. Otherwise, the American doctors will have to move to other Honduran cities for 2 years in order to be licensed and no Hondurans could come here for their service work. Working with government regulations and bureaucracy is challenging in any country, and even tougher here. But we know that God is bigger than any government and that his hand is clearly upon the work here! Aside from that, the hospital continues to flourish, serving and sharing the Lord with about 50 people daily.


Interesting Projects
The water pipe spanning a 30-foot deep quebrada.The hospital water system is a constant source of concern and work for the maintenance guys. The water is collected from a mountain stream and pumped about a mile to a 20,000 gallon storage tank, at which point the water is filtered and chlorinated. With that much pipe and wiring, there’s plenty of room for problems. This picture is of the pipe spanning a 30-foot quebrada, or ravine. On this particular day, the problem was broken pipe, and Salvino, one of the permanent Honduran employees, had to shimmy up a nearby tree, rope himself to the tree, and drill holes in the exterior pipe to drain out water that had leaked from the main pipe. Aside from being quite athletic, 50-year-old Salvino has a great love for sharing the Lord. Because there are so many boys and men looking for work, the hospital rotates the construction guys through on 5-week contracts. That means there is a constant supply of new workers, and Salvino faithfully shares the Gospel with virtually all of them. We appreciate his ministry so much and ask that you would pray for him!



English Class
Lots of neighborhood kids ask me if I will teach them English. In reality, I don’t want to teach kids much English, as it just makes them more likely to leave Honduras. This country needs its youth to get educated and stay, rather than leaving for the States. So, rather than teaching a traditional English class, we spend most of our time doing things that are fun for the kids and hopefully have some lasting value. Honduran kids don’t have much opportunity to read, so we spend a lot of time reading books in both languages. We also learn Bible verse songs. I never know who’s going to show up on Thursdays, but it’s always fun!

Guildy Update
As many of you know, Guildy was sick for quite awhile in July and August. She had some sort of viral illness and then got a kidney infection. We are so thankful to report that she is doing much better and is pretty much back to her normal self. Thanks so much for praying for her! It’s so fun to watch her learn new words and skills. Since she’s been feeling better, she thinks it’s hilarious to try to hide from us. This means we have to be extra vigilant about keeping the screen doors locked!

Prayer Requests
We are so thankful for the opportunity to serve and be a small part of God’s work here. Please be praying for us and the hospital ministry:
1. Please pray for the daily operations of the hospital and for fruitful interactions between patients, staff, and doctors. Also pray for the hospital’s interactions with the Honduran government.
2. In any group of believers, unity is important. Please pray for the unity of our missionary community.
3. Please keep praying for our Spanish and our communication with our neighbors.
4. Please continue praying for our health, safety, and protection.

In Closing
Thank you all so much for your support in all forms. Please drop us a line. We want to know what God is doing in your lives and how we can pray for you!

In Christ’s Love,

Josh, Linzy, and Guildy

To Contact Us:
Email: yznil1@yahoo.com
Mailing Address:
Josh and Linzy Browning
c/o Mike and Peggy Yost
Apartado 139
La Ceiba, Honduras, CA

Better......For Real
Well, after being sick with a kidney infection and in the hospital for a few days, Guildy seems to be better for real this time. She still has a couple days of antibiotics, but she is pretty much back to her normal self. Here are a few new pictures of her.

Guildy helping Josh fix a plug in.....

Guildy's most recent obsession is sitting. She sits down on anything that's the right height. So we brought in the block of wood, and she loves it. To think we spend money on expensive toys!

Grandma Linda sent Guildy a new swimming suit. Every girl needs a bikini!

Some Honduran Pictures
I go walking on the road between San Luis and the hospital most mornings, and Sabel, her husband, her daughter Bacilla, and her sister-in-law Maria live in a two room house on stilts about a half mile out of town. Because they are out of town, they don’t have power or running water. They come out to the road or I go down to their house to visit a couple times a week. Sabel and Maria are both 18, and their Spanish is almost impossible for me to understand, but they don’t seem to get sick of me mangling their language and not understanding them. Bacilla is about 6 months old. This picture is of Sabel and Bacilla. Most poor Hondurans never have more than just a few pictures of their families, if any at all. Even people with more money don’t have many family pictures. Sabel doesn’t have any pictures of Bacilla, so at some point, I’m going to print some for her. We don’t have a printer, but we can borrow one I’m sure.



Here are Cinia and Marjori, the neighborhood 4-year-olds.Marjori and her family (Lisandro, Sandra, and Ixel) used to live in the house in the background, right next door to us, but they moved last week to another much nicer house in our neighborhood. We miss not having them right next door. Sandra works as a surgery tech at the hospital and Lisardro works on a power dam construction project a few miles from here. Sandra is a tremendous cook and was always sending over samples of her cooking….tres leche (3 milk) cake, crab soup, mango jam, and on and on. I always tried to reciprocate, but somehow the cookies and stuff I would send over never seemed as exciting as her cooking.

Adelyn Ann
Our dear friends Timbo and Carolyn have a beautiful new baby girl! She was born August 3rd, and last I heard everyone is doing great. Praise God!

Guildy is Doing Better
We're thankful that Guildy seems to have recovered from her nasty week-long bout with fever, puking, and diarrhea. In a recent email, my Mom said that my sick children will be the most worrisome thing in my whole life. I believe her! Anyway, Guildy is pretty much back to normal...eating good, playing hard. She just needs to gain a little weight. But that shouldn't take long. On days that I email, Guildy and I come to Mike and Peggy's house to use their internet. We always come after our lunch, but during their lunch time. Guildy always eats her normal lunch at home and then proceeds to eat at least as much or more with the Yost's. Does that sound like someone's Dad or what?

We Almost Went to Costa Rica
As legal aliens in an unorganized foreign country, we find ourselves at the mercy of ever-changing and often illogical immigration regulations. Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador are currently in the process of putting together some sort of free-trade agreement, which would allow their citizens and everyone else to pass through these countries without needing a passport. But like many regulatory actions here, nobody thought it through to consider things like how to collect tax money for crossing borders if no one is stamping passports and what taxes to charge. According to the Prensa (one of Honduras’ newspapers), they are thinking about maybe revoking the whole thing because it is causing so many problems. We hope that is the case.

Up until about a week ago, we could get a 90 day visa when we entered the country and then apply for a 30 day extension when that runs out. After 120 days we would have to leave the country for 3 days. This was pretty simple, as Guatemala and Nicaragua aren’t really that far away. However, with the four nearest countries not stamping passports, we would have to go to Costa Rica, Belize, Panama, Mexico, etc.

Last week, the immigration office in La Ceiba said they would absolutely not be granting any more 30 day extensions. Since our visas were due to expire on the 31st, and since we didn’t want to get nailed with a $50/passport/month fine, we decided to try to make a somewhat unexpected trip to Costa Rica. In retrospect, we now know that when regulations appear to suddenly change, it’s best not to get too excited.

Last Friday, we caught a ride from home into La Ceiba with the Larson’s, one of the other missionary families who are living in Ceiba going to language school. We were going to stay with them over night and ride with them to San Pedro Sula Saturday morning, as they had to go to the airport to help pick up a work team that was coming to the hospital for a couple weeks. Guildy had been acting a little fussy and fevered Thursday night and Friday, but we just thought it was teething, since her eye teeth looked like they were coming in. But Friday afternoon, her fever jumped really high and she had a febrile convulsion, which was absolutely terrifying for us. It only last just a minute, and after we got her cooled down, she was pretty much back to normal. Thankfully, Dr. Jeff (the head doc/surgeon at the hospital here) and his family were in town that day and he just happened to come on the radio calling someone else when she started to have her seizure. So Josh was able to talk to him right away. He came over to the house and checked her out. He called Dr. Romesh (a visiting pediatrician) on the radio, and they talked about it too. They both agreed that it was a simple febrile seizure and nothing to be overly concerned about, other than making sure her temp didn’t jump up again.

Saturday morning Guildy seemed to be doing pretty well. She had just a slight fever, and we figured she was probably getting over whatever she had, so we decided to ride along to San Pedro. We got our hotel for the night in San Pedro, planning to leave the next morning for the two day bus ride to Costa Rica, but her fever jumped up again in the late afternoon. Of course, we were quicker and more aggressive about getting her cooled off, so nothing bad happened that time. We had the name of some other missionaries who live in San Pedro Sula. They aren’t associated with Loma de Luz, but are friends with some of the missionaries here. Anyway, we called them to ask if they knew which hospital/doctors were best. They gave us the name of Dr. Zuniga, who goes to their church. He interrupted his self-proclaimed “exciting evening” of sorting through several duffel bags of donated expired medications. He met us at one of the hospitals and gave Guildy a thorough checking out. He though it was probably roseola, although she didn’t have the rash yet and that she could travel as soon as she was back to normal. (She came down with the rash about a day and a half later, so it turned out he was right.) He ordered a white blood count just to make sure it wasn’t a bacterial infection, and I was pretty nervous when the phlebotomist, this little old man with thick glasses, toddled in. But he did a great job….he was as steady as could be and got blood on the first try. Dr. Zuniga didn’t even want us to pay him, but we paid him his usual charge for an office visit of 500 lempira, about $25. The ER and lab charge was about $50. Anyway, we decided to stay in San Pedro another night thinking she might get better and be ready to go by Monday morning.

Josh Goes Looking for Diapers
Every misadventure has its humorous moments……

We had brought along plenty of diapers for several days of normal diaper use. However, on Saturday night, Guildy got the squirts, nothing severe, but definitely a strain on the dwindling diaper supply. By Sunday morning at about 6, we were down to the last diaper. Here at home, the pulperias open at 7, and if you really need something, you can go to the owner’s house even earlier and just ask. But the big city doesn’t work that way, especially on Sundays. Josh set out at about 7 and didn’t return until after 9. During that time, he experienced first hand a typical Honduran behavior: wanting to be polite, Hondurans will always give you directions, whether they have a clue where you want to go or not. So after walking in circles around downtown San Pedro with the slowly awakening homeless population, he finally got a taxi and got to a grocery store, which didn’t open until 8:30. They still didn’t have the lights on in the store, so he shopped for diapers in the dark. Now all along Josh had been thinking that the taxi drivers were probably ripping us off since we are obviously not locals. In Honduras, taxi prices are set at a base rate by the government. In San Pedro, it is 25 lempiras per person to go anywhere in town. The first taxi in the swarm of drivers outside the grocery store told Josh 40 lemps, and he asked why not 25. That guy growled at him, slammed the door, and drove away. A second taxi driver did the same thing. Josh broke down and paid the third guy 40 lemps. He returned to the hotel room in the nick of time. I was just about to sacrifice a Gran Hotel Sula towel for use as a diaper. Of course, I forgot to tell Josh we also needed wipes. That was a whole nother adventure for later in the day:o)

It turned out Guildy was still sick and had gotten all rashy by Sunday, so we caught the 6 a.m. bus back to La Ceiba on Monday morning. We had never taken the first class bus anywhere, and it was pretty fancy….enclosed driver’s cab, an attendant (sort of like a flight attendant), snacks, a movie, complimentary barf bags (the road is a little windy). We got back to Ceiba and spent the rest of the day at the Larson’s while we sent our passports with Iain (a missionary from Scotland who takes care of a lot of the business stuff for everyone) and Howard. Howard is sort of like the “inside guy” for the hospital. He is Honduran and speaks English very well. He knows where everything is in La Ceiba and how to get it. So we sent our passports off to the immigration office with them along with a letter signed by one of our docs saying we needed an extension because Guildy couldn’t travel and our receipt from the hospital in San Pedro. It turned out that the office which a week earlier was granting absolutely no more extensions, gave us and three other people (without medical excuses) extensions without any questions and promised to give a few more next week. So, like I said, we now know not to get too excited by sudden regulation changes until you know they really mean it.

So, we’re all legaled-up for another 30 days, at which point we really do have to leave the country. We’re hoping that by that time, they will have decided to start stamping passports in the neighboring countries so we can make a comparatively easy trip (it’s only a one day bus ride) to Guatemala.

So that is the story of how we almost went to Costa Rica. Guildy appears to be on the mend today. One of the doctors here thought she probably has some virus very similar to roseola, as her symptom weren't exactly classic roseola. She’s still suffering from some stomach and gut problems, but she's pretty happy and nursing and drinking plenty. She looks pretty thin after 5 or 6 days of not eating much. Please pray that she would heal up quickly.

Blog Worthy Pictures
Just a couple interesting pictures. Guildy is working on her drinking-out-of-a-glass skills. It’s messy business, but, as in all things Guildy-related, she sure is cute. We thought the smoothie mustache picture was blog worthy.

This big moth was out our little back door entry way. They are actually kind of creepy when they fly around….more like a bat than a bug. Nothing like a gigantic insect to make you feel a little uncomfortable!