Browning's in Balfate: May 2011

NEWS FLASH!!!

***The new Hospital Loma de Luz web page is up and running!***
Check it out at http://www.crstone.org.

Finca Loma de Luz: The Farm
It’s been awhile since we’ve talked about Finca Loma de Luz, the agricultural component of the Hospital Loma de Luz ministry. The tract of land on which the hospital sits encompasses over 120 acres of varied terrain that is blessed with good soils and over 130 inches of rain per year. Farm manager Brad Ward and several Honduran guys are very creatively carrying out the multifaceted vision God has given for the farm. First, the farm’s harvests can provide significant financial resources for the operation of Hospital Loma de Luz and it’s associated ministries. Second, the farm serves as a resource to the wider community through the production of healthy foods, the opportunity for valued and respectable employment, and finally as a source of community pride. Third, the farm is a place of learning –a place where better agricultural practices can be demonstrated, leading to better food security and resource conservation for our entire region.


Below are broiler chickens in a "chicken tractor," which is a portable cage that allows the birds to graze new pasture every few days.
The farm’s diversified crops include:
*Over 40 acres of African Oil Palm trees-almost to production stage
*Pastured broiler chickens - currently slaughtering about 100 every 3 weeks
*Meat sheep and dairy goats - just getting started
*Greenhouse production of palm seedlings, decorative plants and vegetable crops
*On-farm composting
*Rice, bananas, and plantains


Crops still on the docket:
*Pastured eggs
*Agro-forestry – mahogany and exotic hardwoods
*Cocoa - a shade crop planted below the hardwoods
*Moringa leaf powder - an incredibly nutritious tree native to Africa

Josh’s Jobs: The List
With less spending money for big projects, we’ve had some time to whack away at “The List”, which is everyone’s maintenance and improvement list, household or otherwise. So you think your Honey-Do list is long? Keeping up with 14 households, an orphanage, staff housing, a farm, and a hospital has four of us running! Sometimes it feels like we will never get it done. And if your project is waiting on that list, it really can feel like it will never get done! Mike Yost (the head of maintenance, who as of late is sporting mutton chops) and I spend about half our time doing missionary auto repair. We would like God to call an auto mechanic down here. We have broken ground on a house in the east farm because we need the housing and to deter theft now that the palms are nearing production. In the near-ish future, we would like to build five more houses for incoming personnel with families. With all this dirt work recently, the backhoe is showing it’s age. It’s a 1978 Ford 550 with something like half a million hours on it. The last time I used it, we had to replace three hoses, and the last hose broke and soaked me from head to foot. So, if you think God is moving you to send down a backhoe, it would be much appreciated and go far to advance His kingdom work.


Check out the Loma de Luz Blue Collar Blog for a list of projects available for teams to tackle:
http://www.lomadeluzconstruction.blogspot.com/.


Summer Plans
We are leaving June 2nd for a 3-month stint in the States. We are planning to spend most of that time in California, where Josh will be working between visits to churches and individual supporters. Josh’s mom, Linda, is planning a fund raiser for the hospital in late August, so we will be helping prepare for that. We plan to do a trip to Montana during the first 3 weeks of August. We’re looking forward to seeing as many of you as we can!


Please Pray
*That our time in the States would be well-spent.
*Josh’s left knee has been bothering him.
*Our little Talby is very healthy and happy, but also quite scrawny. Please pray for weight gain!
*Staff needs at Loma de Luz: auto mechanic, surgeon, anesthesiologist, family doctors, nurses.
*Hospital finances.
*Safety and protection for the missionaries here and for us as we travel.


Thank You
Thanks so much for all the ways you support us and Hospital Loma de Luz!
Blessings,
Josh, Linzy, Guildy, Hadley, and Talby

Praise God!

Josh just came home this afternoon completely soaked in hydraulic oil from a blown hose on the backhoe. He had been digging a septic tank all morning, took a break for lunch, and had been digging for the past hour, so the oil should have been really hot (130-180 degrees), but for whatever reason, Praise God, it wasn't. He was wearing sunglasses and a dust mask, so that helped, too. We're so incredibly thankful he didn't get burned!!!

Belated VA Pics

On a replica ship at Jamestown Colony with some of my favorite Jensens.

Belated VA Photos

Christine Bell, Samuel & Joelle Jensen, and me.

A Good Story

http://abbyandrimas.blogspot.com/2011/05/patient-story.html

Here is a good story from Dr. Abby's blog about a little burn patient currently living at the Children's Centre.

A Bevy of Bone Chips

Not to be mistaken for bacon bits, below are the bone chips I had removed from my elbow last week. Dr. Jeff (Hospital Loma de Luz's surgeon and founder) and a visiting orthopedic surgeon from Lander, WY did the surgery and removed the 20-odd chips and fragments that formerly had been about 40% of the radial head of my right elbow. No wonder that elbow popped and ground and hurt so much. Now, a week after the surgery, it is becoming less sore, and there is already a little better range of motion than before. However, it is going to take a long time of faithfully doing my exercises to get it back to something close to normal.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to get it done and hopeful that it will be worth all the pain!

Five Months

Talby is now about 5 1/2 months old and can boast quite a list of accomplishments.

Weight: 13 lbs. 3 oz. (that's actually pretty scrawny)
Length: about 27" (that's really lo-o-o-o-ng)
Sleeping: She's awesome! She shares a room with her big sisters and sleeps about 11 hours straight most nights, the same as Guildy and Hadley.
Motation: She rolls all over and sometimes sort of crawls, but only with her legs, resulting in a snow plow-like advance.
Teeth: 2...and boy are we all glad they finally came through!
Cuteness: Pretty much over the top:o)Baby in oversized sunglasses....classic.

Swimming

The beautiful beach about 1/4 mile north of our house.A couple Saturdays ago, we went to the Lis Lis River with the family that was our next door neighbors in San Luis when we lived there in 2006. The 3 girls below and their older sister were great babysitters for Guildy. Below are Guildy and Hadley with Ilsa, Claritza, and Areli.

Guildy and Hadley floating down river to the car. The water was only about a foot deep, perfect for little floaters.

In Which We Get Goats...and Sheep

By "we" getting goats and sheep, I mean the greater Loma de Luz farm operation, not so much the Brownings in particular. The new livestock does, however, live in our yard out behind the Children's Centre, so it's almost like having our own.

The first sheep actually arrived a couple weeks ago in the form of Reggie, a pot bellied little bum. He's having a hard time adjusting to life with actual sheep and goats.

The rest of the 15 or so arrived last week. Brad Ward, the farm manager, got them from somewhere near San Pedro Sula in the western part of the Honduras. Brad, Josh, and Iain got the distinct honor of hauling them off the truck to their pen while all the kids from the Children's Centre looked on.I particularly enjoyed Iain's cloven poo hoof print.For the moment, the goats and sheep are still in their permanent pen, but soon they will begin grazing between the oil palms, which you can seen in the background. Portable electric fence will be moved every few days to move them to new pasture. Then, after the goats graze, portable chicken cages will follow behind. Brad is planning to butcher about 100 head of chickens every 3 weeks, so that is alot of growing birds to pick bugs and graze after the goats. All the profit from the farm goes to support the hospital.

Alijah and Talby

Fellow missionary kid Alijah is about a month older than Talby, so they will always have someone their own age to play with. For now, they mostly enjoy checking each other out...Grabbing each other.....

Licking each other....

Easter

On Easter morning, we did a little Easter egg hunt with the Tumlison girls. First, Cinthya did the Resurrection Eggs with the girls. Each egg has something in it that helps tell the Easter story. Then, the girls went egg hunting in the yard....they were so cute:o) Guildy and Hadley with eggs we dyed and later hid.

Growing Girls

We recently inherited a Bumbo seat, and frankly, I'm not sure how billions of people managed to raise babies prior to its invention...

To PA, VA, and CA

Back in April, we were due for a visa trip, and it worked out that Talby and I went for a little East Coast adventure while Josh and Guildy and Hadley went to California to visit the extended Browning clan. I don't have any pictures of their trip, but they had a good time by all reports.

We travelled together to Miami, and for unknown reasons, the girls and I were assigned seats in First Class. It was an early morning flight, so the girls were well rested and happy and thoroughly enjoyed all the attention. I took pictures since I was pretty sure I might never have such royal treatment aboard an airplane again.Guildy with her big breakfast. She sat all by herself across the aisle and was a very confident little first class traveler. Upon arriving in Baltimore, Talby and I went to Pennsylvania to spend a few days with Jolene and her family. We had a good visit, enjoyed a quick trip to the Social Security Office to get Tably her very own number, and toured the Gettysburg battlefield, which was interesting and sad and kind of overwhelming. The whole area is dotted with monuments....below we are in front of the impressive Virginia monument. Talby didn't care to be in that photo.

The view from Little Roundtop. The stacked rocks were hastily put in place by soldiers for added protection. A barn with a cannon ball hole.

After a few days in PA, I caught a ride down to VA to go to Samuel and Joelle's wedding. Ironically, I didn't get any pictures of that event. But I did get some of the replica Jamestown Colony. Here are Charity, Chris, Talby and me in an Indian lodge.

And on one of the replica boats....And in front of an authentic East Coast cherry tree in bloom.We toured Agecroft Manor, a 500-year old Tudor style house that was disasssembled in England back in the 1920s and shipped over and reassembled. Pretty amazing.A sunken English style garden.Amazing woodwork and stained glass.