Princess Guildy

Grandma Linda made some dress up clothes for Guildy for Christmas, and they have been a hit!!!

She also sent some new warm jammies.

And here is today's picture of Hadley.....enjoying a good book. She spent a good 45 minutes this morning contentedly perusing the ABCs.

One Week Old

Bright Eyed
I remember Guildy as a newborn being awake periodically throughout the day, but Hadley likes to get it all over with right away in the morning. She has been getting up about 6 and stays awake until 10 or 11. Then she's pretty much shot and has to sleep the rest of the day....and night except for waking up to eat. So far she has been a super happy, laid back baby. But who wouldn't be pleasant with 19-20 hours of sleep a day:o)

Guildy and Hadley

Here are a couple pictures of the two kiddos. I think I see fear on Hadley's face. You'd be scared too if you were a newborn in the hands of the Guildster!

Guildy and Hadley and Dad-ley

Watching The Wizard of Oz on Christmas morning while I slept in a little. Ho! Ho! Ho! Can you feel the holiday spirit:o)

Check out Charity's Blog

My beautiful friend/personal secretary/housekeeper/Guildy wrangler is doing a much better job of updating her blog than me. So for new pics, go www.charityj.blogspot.com.

2 Days Old

Hadley is now a whole two days old! Whoa, time flies when you're a newborn!

In the past couple days, she has pretty much mastered all the important newborn skills of eating, sleeping, and pooping. She has her days and nights completely mixed up. So last night, she was awake pretty much the whole night except for a nice little nap from 3 to 4. She finally cashed in her chips at about 6 this morning and slept like a champ till noon. This afternoon's challenge is to keep her awake so she'll be tired tonight. Here she is this morning catching up on her beauty sleep.

Yesterday, John, our midwife, stopped by to see how we were all doing. Hadley was showing off one of her favorite tricks, which is violently sucking her wrists. She was born with little blisters on the insides of her hands and wrists from so much sucking.

Hadley wearing the teeny tiny Nemo outfit that Guildy wore. And for a 2 day old comparison shot, here is Guildy at the same age.

Hadley Sue Browning

She's here! 

Hadley Sue was born at 4:40 am CST and weighs 7lbs. 8oz.

She's healthy, beautiful, and has already nursed like a champ. 

What's Guildy Been up to Lately?

Wearing Earrings

So our shower curtain had been torn, mildewy, and generally worn out for several months. I had been on the lookout in La Ceiba for a replacement, but hadn't found anything satisfactory until a couple weeks ago. The new curtain was quite the find and completely transformed the bathroom, but its accompanying neon green hooks weren't needed. Guildy has been making good use of them ever since, and particulary enjoys wearing them as earrings. She looks like such a child of the 80's with the big hoop earrings and the grown out toddler mullet:o)

Catching Up on Her Reading
Grandma Linda sent Guildy a pair of sunglasses in a care package a couple weeks ago. She thinks she needs them to see better for reading, so she often requests to put them on to peruse her books or the occasional newspaper.

Snorkeling

We about died laughing at naked Guildy "swimming" across the floor, her fat little legs and belly squeaking on the tile as she went.

So that's what Guildy has been up to lately. Never a dull moment at the Browning house!

Kindergarten Graduation

When we first moved to Honduras, we lived in a little town called San Luis next door to a great family. Chandi, Sandra, Ixel, and Maryuri definitely made our transition into Honduran life much more fun. Maryuri (pronounced like Marjori) is now 6, and her class graduated from kindergarten last week.

The Honduran school system has two years of kindergarten (kinder) for 4 and 5 year olds, followed by 1st-6th grades (escuela) and optional 7th-12th grades (colegio). Kindergarten graduation is quite an event, and it is customary for each graduate to have a madrina and padrino present, which are sort of like godparents, but with less responsibility than the American version. Anyway, Chandi and Sandra asked us to come to the graduation as Maryuri's madrina and padrino. We considered it quite an honor to be invited, and becuase we recieved no special instructions, we assumed we were just supposed to go and enjoy the festivities, similar to what would be expected at an American kindergarten graduation.

It turns out the madrina and padrino are expected to do a couple things we weren't aware of, the first being to bring a gift. Ooops. The second involved footwear. Hondurans love to dress up and take great pride in looking nice for everyday life and especially for events. Josh was wearing nice clothes, but had on flip flops, which are considered rather slovenly for men's footwear. So, right at 3 o'clock, when the graduation was slated to begin, Josh had to run back home, get some appropriate shoes, and find a gift. (Keep in mind our car was having some starter trouble such that it had to be stragetically parked on a hill for roll starting, which adds to any adventure.) He returned with better shoes and a Lake County diamond (naturally occuring diamond-like stones found where Josh is from in CA) and wasn't even late. Honduran events tend to begin when all the necessary people show up, which is usually at least an hour after the scheduled time.

The actual graduation was cute. The kids sang several songs and recited the Honduran pledge. No Honduran event, even a kindergarten graduation, is complete with out some sort of dance to modern music, so Maryuri charmed the crowd with her moves. Each graduate had a table for his or her guests, and each family brought a cake. So after the graduation everyone ate cake and visited.

Below is Maryuri getting her diploma. Although the education system in rural Honduras leaves alot to be desired, the people highly value the educations their children receive. The kindergarten diplomas are always framed and displayed in the homes.

Maryuri and her very responsible older brother Ixel, age 10. Maryuri is a firecracker of a kid, and it takes both her parents, plus Ixel, to keep her safe and out of too much trouble.

Maryuri and Guildy before graduation.

The Browning's, Sandra, Chandi, and Maryuri.So that is the story of how we became aquainted with the customs associated with a Honduran kindergarten graduation.

November Newsletter

Loma de Luz News
Hello from Honduras! We hope this finds you all doing well and enjoying fall wherever you are!
Since we don’t do anything medical, we tend to be a little out of the loop on the day-to-day operations of Loma de Luz (www.crstone.org), but we are happy to report that the doctors’ social service licensure process is going well. Every doctor practicing in Honduras is required to perform two years of social service work at a hospital of the government’s choice. Since we don’t want our doctors shipped off to another hospital for two years, the process has been underway for several years to get make our hospital a possible social service location. The bureaucracy is even worse here than in the States, so this has been a long, arduous process. While not quite finished, the paperwork process is only lacking a few final steps, and the toughest parts are done. We are all thankful for God’s administration of the matter and the favor He continues to grant the hospital before Honduran government officials.

In completely unrelated news, this upcoming week will see nine local kids in San Pedro Sula (about an 8-hour bus ride from here) for heart surgery. A pediatric cardiology team from the States makes two trips a year to Honduras to perform these surgeries, which otherwise are unavailable or too costly for families of the kids who need them. Dr. Greene is our cardiologist and will be helping the team and taking care of the kids from our area when they return home. Please pray that the surgeries and recoveries would go well and that God would provide open doors for Dr. Greene and other Christian doctors and nurses to share Christ with the patients and their families.

Construction
Rain, rain, go away! That has been the sentiment of the construction guys the past few weeks as they have been trying to get the Children’s Center dried in. The building is about 30 feet tall with a steep pitched, rather complicated roof. So, even in the best of weather, it is a rather complicated project.

Things always seem to break down in waves, and lately, it has been the hospital water system. The rainy weather causes the intake to clog, so someone (usually Josh and Silvino) has to hike the mile and half through thick jungle to get to the intake box. Then, they have to swim down in the box and dig out whatever is obstructing the flow. Several days this past week were spent working on electrical problems between the storage tanks, which are up on a hill, and the pump that pushes the water up to the tanks.

In more uplifting construction news, in his spare time (which isn’t much!), Josh, pictured below, is putting a porch on the front of our apartment. It will be great to have some more dry space, and Josh is enjoying building it. He says it’s fun and easy, sort of like fort-building when he was a kid:o)

Browning Briefs
We’re doing good. Rainy season (as opposed to dusty season) is finally here, and we are enjoying the wonderfully cool weather. It’s been dipping down into the 60s at night, which feels downright chilly and makes for great sleeping! But, the rainy weather isn’t nearly so pleasant for those people living in houses with leaky palm leaf roofs and no place to get away from the wetness or hang clothes to dry.

Guildy is growing fast and continues to keep us busy. She is pretty excited about being a big sister and is practicing her bossy big sister skills by constantly informing my belly how certain things should be said or done. She told me yesterday that my belly is too big and the baby needs to come out. I agree! Just not for a few more weeks! Below, Guildy is making her contribution to the porch building effort.

Prayer Requests
A few specific things to be praying for:
1. Growth and discipleship among Honduran believers and within local churches.
2. All of the outreaches, from youth group activities to various Bible studies and discipleship groups, are seeking to share Christ’s life-changing, community-changing power. Please pray for effectiveness for those outreaches.
3. Several missionary families are planning to return to the states in the coming year, so please pray for God’s provision of people to continue the work here. This includes an IT person and several doctors.
4. Health, safety, and protection for us and the other missionaries here.

In Closing
Thanks so much for supporting us! Let us know how you’re doing!

In Him,

The Brownings

Can 'O What?

Canned goods represent their very own style of adventure here in Honduras. Occasionally the label and the actual contents appear to have no relation. For example, the can below reads something to the effect of "With Total Trust...It's Herdez Green Chili." Now, anyone can see that the can contains a red, tomato based substance. Our trust in Herdez is shaky.

And our personal favorite is the Goya green peas. We're not sure where they scraped this pea-like substance from, but we have opened several cans of it over the past year and a half.

And now you have to ask yourself what kind of people think this is funny enough to take pictures and share it with the world:o)

The Journey to Florida

We were in Florida last week for our 90-day visa-renewal-leaving-the-country trip. Since Josh has lots of relatives there, and since the flight up is only about 2 hours and quite cheap, we decided to head up for a visit rather than travelling to Belize or Costa Rica.

Mike, Lisa, Sydney, and Cade came from CA for a few days, and we did all sorts of fun stuff. Guildy had her first bowling experience. She was pretty pumped about the shoes!

Here are Guildy, Josh's cousin Diona, and her daughter Katherine at the bowling alley.

Here is Diona's son Mikey taking his turn.

And best of all, here is Mike picking himself up after a gloriously graceful fall onto the oily lane:o)
We toured Lion Country Safari, which is a drive-through zoo. The animals, other than the lions, aren't in cages, so they can stroll right up to the car for a closer look.The rhinos were our favorite. They are so huge and appear so well-armoured that they are kind of scary.

We toured the Jupiter, FL Light House, a 105 foot brick structure with a great view and an interesting history.

As you can see, it was kind of windy at the top!
They don't let little kids go up in the light house, so Guildy had to stay behind while we went up. Hence the family photo minus the Guildster.

While we were there, Diona had a Halloween party for her kids, and Guildy got to wear her cousing Mikey's old dragon costume.

Although I don't have photographic documetation, we also got to visit Josh's Grandma Milli and a couple of his aunts. His Aunt Terri had an early Thanksgiving dinner one night, and we had a couple other fun get-togethers during the week. It was a great time of visiting and enjoying family. Aside from being lost the whole time we were there (south Florida has no visible hills or other landmarks from which to determine direction) and a little parched all the air conditioning, we had lots of fun!

Guildy and Linda

During the first couple weeks of October, there was a family here with a little girl Guildy's age named Linda. They had a great time together, and it was lots of fun for me to have another mom to visit with.

The girls spent a couple mornings chasing each other around the yard. Here they are squished into the kiddie car....

....And squished into a hammock!

A couple outings to the beach provided some good photo opportunities. Below are Linda, Guildy, and Cynthia.

October Newsletter

Loma de Luz News
Since we aren’t part of the medical work that goes on at the hospital, we sometimes joke that we are a little out of the loop. That’s kind of the case this month. As far as we know, things are going great at the hospital. Feel free to check out the most recent Loma de Luz newsletter at http://www.crstone.org/.

Construction

Fall is usually a busy time here, and this year has been no exception. The past few weeks have seen three construction work teams, one from Mississippi, and two from Kentucky, working on various projects around the hospital. One group finished a multipurpose room/office space adjacent to the hospital. This room is now painted and has ceiling fans, lights, and a kitchen area. Part of the same group worked on framing the roof on the Children’s Center building. A couple of the teams have included a mechanic, so some much needed automotive repairs on the backhoe and a couple personal vehicles have gotten done. And last week, a team replaced the trim and painted the exterior of our apartment building. It’s amazing the amount of things a well organized team can get done in a short time! To the right is Marilyn McCalister, part of the painting crew.


Teaching
School is in full swing, so I am busy with a wide variety of classes. Teaching in a home school setting is very different than public school teaching, and I really enjoy its advantages. The kids are all very good at learning independently, so my job is mostly to make sure they understand everything and keep them accountable for their assignments. I have a couple bigger classes (5 in general science and 4 in chemistry) and then one-on-one classes with most of the math kids. In all, I have 11 students in 4 math classes and 3 science classes. Below are the members of the general science class. L-R are Rosmery, Catie, Odessa, Big Guildy (as opposed to our Little Guildy), and Jenna.


Browning Briefs
Every newletter needs a picture of Guildy! To the right are Guildy and Josue. His mom babysits Guildy one day a week, and he comes over after school. They are great buddies! Guildy is growing and talking more every day. Every morning, she toodles into our room and expectantly asks, “What are doin’ today?” (That’s toddler for “What are we doing today?) So we have to have plenty of activities planned to keep our little adventurer busy. She loves going to the beach, reading, playing tea party, watching her ABC’s video, and cooking pretend food for anyone who will eat it. Aside from the occasional two-year-old meltdown, she is pretty fun to hang out with!

We have a couple trips coming up in the next few weeks. This weekend, we are going to a conference in central Honduras for all the English speaking missionaries in the country. We hear the conference speaker is awesome, and we also hear that part of Honduras is way cooler than here. So we’re looking forward to it! Then in a couple weeks, we have to leave the country to renew our visas. It ended up being cheaper to go to Florida rather than someplace in Central America, so we will be there visiting some of Josh’s relatives for a few days. It’s always fun to see new places, and it should make for some good blogs!

Prayer Requests
A few specific things to be praying for:
1. Growth and discipleship among Honduran believers and within local churches.
2. Permission from the Honduran government for American and Honduran doctors to do their two years of required social service work at Loma de Luz. Otherwise, our doctors could be required to go to other Honduran hospitals for two years in order to obtain their Honduran medical licenses.
3. Several missionary families are planning to return to the states in the coming year, so please pray for God’s provision of people to continue the work here. This includes an IT person and several doctors.
4. Health, safety, and protection for us and the other missionaries here.

In Closing
Thanks so much for supporting us! Let us know how you’re doing!
In Him,

Josh, Linzy, Guildy, and The Babe

Support for the Brownings
may be sent to:
CornerStone International
PO Box 192
Wilmore KY 40390
http://www.cornerstoneinternational.org/

Scenes From Our Week

Life is always interesting here. So here are a few of the random scenes from our past week.

Chaos on the Road

On Monday afternoon, I was at home and began to hear quite the uproar outside. So I strolled to the edge of the yard and looked down at the road about 25 feet below and had a most amusing time watching the action. Right across the road from us, a gigantic Canadian-backed resort is being built. They are busily filling in acres and acres of swamp one truck load at a time, the process of which pulverizes the road and creates massive dust clouds that envelop our house for about 10 hours a day. Needless to say, we are less than impressed with the project. Anway, Monday afternoon's uproar occured right at quitting time when an empty delivery truck headed back to La Ceiba happened to stop to let a few of the construction workers on to give them a ride back to Balfate (about 3 miles away). But then, not wanting to leave anyone out, every person and their bike who could possible be jammed onto the truck were loaded. As some were loading up, others were sprinting down the road in fear of missing the ride home, and everyone was cheering and jeering the process along. From my vantage point, it looked like ants converging on and preparing to haul away a piece of food or something dead (also a common Central American occurence).

Pastelito Night

On Wednesday night, we went out for pastelitos with our friends Mario and Marcia. Paselitos are tortillas filled with meat and rice, folded in half, and fried. They are salty and wonderful. Anyway, we rode our respective family motos and had a swelll time. Below are Fabian, Manuel, Mario, and Marcia.

Rio Viejo

On Saturday, we took a road trip to the town of Rio Viejo, which is about 20 miles south of La Ceiba. A friend of ours who is currently visiting and working at the hospital for a couple weeks spent a year there 6 or 7 years ago working at a Christian high school. So we got to tour the school, Instituto del Rey, and visit the people who run it. We had actually met them at the grocery store in Ceiba quite awhile back....we run into alot of other gringo missionaries at the grocery store. Aside from getting to see a really great school, we were impressed by the enormous flea population in Rio Viejo. It is several thousand feet up in elevation and much cooler than where we live. Apparently fleas thrive in the cooler climates! Anyway, it was raining too hard to take pictures of the school (or the fleas), but the photos below are from the drive up. The view was amazing!

Well, I think that's it for this week's random vignettes. Who knows what next week may have in store??!!

Fun with Mom

Our neighbor Liz found a little tea set in La Ceiba the other day. Guildy has been enjoying it immensely. She is getting more and more imaginative, so she is constantly cooking and feeding us some sort or pretend food or beverage. As you can see, pants are optional attire when Guildy is the hostess:o)

After about 3 1/2 years of owning the same digital camera, I finally figured out how the automatic timer works. (Incidentally, I also figured out which setting was changed that had caused our flash to not work for the past four months or so.) Anyway, Guildy and I posed for some pictures this after this morning's round of Tea Party. Enjoy!