End of the year

Juliana & Levi 
The kids have been pretty busy the last couple months.  They were both sick a number of times (it seems like one of them is sick every other week!), but they've been fairly heathly since school got out. 

Juliana has finished Pre-K!  She's definitely excited to go on to Kinder, but I don't think she quite realizes that she'll have a different teacher and classmates.  One of the Kinder teachers is her very good friend Gerardito's mom, and she keeps hoping that she'll have her for a teacher (with Gerardito and all of her good friends in her class too).  There were a few special days at the end of the year such as sunglasses day and favorite character day (she went as Elsa from Frozen). 
 
 It is crazy how much she has learned in the past year--she can count to 100, has started to read, and speaks Spanish like crazy (not correctly, but her friends understand her :)

Levi has also started talking more, and will attempt to say just about anything that people want him to say.  His personality is also showing more, and he can be pretty silly.  Right now he calls everything cute, asks to pray at every meal, and loves to tell his knock-knock joke ("Knock, knock.  Who's there's? MOO!!!" And repeat for the next 5 minutes....)  He's learning his colors, although the other day everything was blue and today everything was pink. 

About a month ago our school hosted a 5K run/walk, which our whole family participated in with several hundred other students and families.  Juliana probably walked about a 3rd of it (and rode on front of the stroller the rest of the way) and Levi rode in the stroller.  The fun part for them was the medal that all participants received, the food and drinks passed out at the end, the bouncy house and face painting. 

HFMM

Not really a whole lot exciting happening at the Honduran Fellowship.  Melodee has been working on making some improvements to the website, and has helped work on a Welcome Packet to be sent to all new members.  While working on this a number of things such as the vision statement and goals had to be updated, which has made it a slow process.  HFMM currently has members who are missionaries from at least 14 different countries around the world and helps obtain residency for over 400 people.  Each week several new missionaries apply to join and its always interesting to learn about the different ministries working in Honduras. 

Volleyball

Volleyball season came and went in a flash and was probably the most challenging of the sport seasons to get the students to buy into the program’s focus of Soli Deo Gloria (to God alone be the Glory).  The reason being was that it is hard for the players to really seek to give Him the glory when their level of play and competitiveness was considerably lower than most of their competition.  It was a challenging uphill battle fought with the old recipe of blood, sweat, and tears, along with a whole lot of prayer.  In the end, Kyle is confident that the guys’ team he coached, ended the season with a good foundation laid of humility and unity.

10 Best Basketball Tournament

On the other side of the competitive spectrum, our school’s basketball program is hitting new heights.  For the last four or five years, Kyle has entered our boys’ and girls’ top players in a select basketball tournament to compete against other schools in the city.  Since coming to Pinares, Kyle has never recalled a time where our boys’ basketball team had ever beaten the perennial powerhouse, The American School.  That was until this year, in this tournament.  After being down by as much as 15 in the first half, the boys battled back and finally took the lead in the fourth quarter.  In the end, our boys came out victorious, 63-57, knocking The American School out of the tournament.  Also a first, Pinares placed 2^nd in the tournament in both the guys’ and girls’ divisions.  In the past the closest we had ever gotten in this tournament was 3^rd.

Youth Retreat

As a Youth Leader at our church, Kyle and the rest of the youth leaders try to schedule at least one retreat per year.  This year the group started studying The Truth Project and also drove out to Talanga, a city located about 2 hours away, to do some ministry.  While in Talanga, our plan was to help out with a ministry that focused on women and children affected by rape and/or incest.  The major prayer that Kyle had before the event was that the group would learn to pray being led by the Spirit rather than by our flesh and that our prayers would be real and full of faith.

One testimony from Kyle about the trip was that when his youth group was asked to pray for the family of the lady who ran the ministry (Gracie), after Kyle had finished praying, he had asked Gracie to pray for him.  He had been having a nagging headache throughout the day and had meant to take some ibuprofen for it but for “some reason” kept forgetting to ask for some.  Then after he finished praying during the youth prayer time, he was about to ask Gracie for the medicine but got convicted that if he really believed in prayer, why didn’t he just ask someone to pray for God to take the headache away and believe that He actually would…and God did.  Poof.  Just like that.  Nagging headache with pain one second, then no headache or pain the second Gracie starting praying for it to be taken away.

After Gracie finished praying for Kyle, she mentioned that he was the one that was supposed to be praying like that more than her.  Which Kyle tried out later on and there were a few more cool things that God did through prayer that if you are interested in hearing about, just ask him when you see him.

Good-Byes

So wedding are supposed to be happy, and Kyle is happy that John Garrison has met and married his mate Kirsten.  But that does not mean that he isn’t just a little bit sad that after 6 good years of friendship, he will no longer physically get to do life together (our church’s motto) with his good friend Johnny G. 

Good byes were a little harder than normal for Kyle this year as not only did he lose a

longtime coworker/coach/co-youth leader/close friend/brother with John Garrison leaving for the States next school year, he also lost his office-mate/coach good friend Steve Hunt.  They say that good friends are hard to come by and these two would definitely fall in to that category for Kyle.  May the Lord greatly bless these two men and their families as they have been a huge blessing to Kyle.