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.