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.