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. 

February - March

Blessings!

Since our last update… in January (sorry), there have been quite a few happenings going on with the Webb Family.

 

HFMM:

As many of you know and as was mentioned in our last update, Melodee has been taking on more and more with the Honduran Fellowship of Missionaries and Ministries (HFMM).  January and February were the busiest months for HFMM as they prepared for their annual missionary retreat.  One blessing this year was that Kyle was able to attend the event in full.  They actually planned it around him this year so that 1. Melodee could be free to do what she needed to do and not have to focus on the kids on top of loads of other things she was responsible for and 2. people would actually believe that she was not a single mother (since Kyle usually had some sort of AD/sport thing going on at the same time as past HFMM events). 

The retreat this year went extremely well with numerous positive responses given by the other missionaries being served.  One highlight for Juliana was Brad and Rebecca (worship leaders who came down from the US).  They left their child behind in the states with family and had a quick replacement for their child in the form of Juliana and Levi.  Juliana of course loved the extra love and attention she was given and was heartbroken when they had to go back to the states.  She even tried to convince us to let her skip school in order to see them off at the airport so she could give them one last hug. 

Another blessing the HFMM has received is a new full time assistant.  It had been months since the last assistant had left to follow a call to Africa to study and become a pastor.  This meant that all remaining HFMM staff pulled extra duties, dedicated extra time, and brought more work home to make sure the ship still sailed smoothly.  Lets just say the finding of this new assistant as well as the Semana Santa vacation break were both looked forward to with much anticipation.  

 
Soccer:
This year, Kyle’s soccer teams did very well with 4 out of the 5 teams qualifying for the national tournament.  Because of school regulations, only 3 teams were allowed to travel and participate in the tournament and all 3 of those qualified at least to the quarterfinals.  Unfortunately, Kyle’s heavily favored Juvenil (Varsity) Boys team suffered their first loss of their season in the quarterfinal play, ending their anticipated run at the championship.  They ended their season with a 9-1-2 record.  The Pre Juvenil (Jr. Varsity) Girls also had an impressive showing and ended up losing their first game of the tournament in semifinal play after dominating most of the game but ending in a tie after regulation play.  After losing that game in penalty shots they won the next one for 3^rd place (a first time happening in this category since Kyle has been at the school).  The Juvenil Girls team also did well and qualified for the semifinal match and ended their season winning 4^th over all (also a first time happening in this category since Kyle has been at the school.)  Next season looks to be pretty promising as there will be a lot of returning players for these teams with not a lot of turn over.   

As soccer ended, Kyle has started coaching volleyball again and has entered two of his basketball teams into the local “Diez Mejores” (Ten Best) tournament.  At the moment he is considering/praying if he should place a bid to host next year’s national Track and Field Event, Basketball Tournament, and/or Knowledge bowl. 

“Mr.” Sparkles:

Snowflake is officially gone and has been replaced by Sparkles (an answer to prayer).  You many be thinking to yourself…What?!?!  About five weeks ago Kyle had to go to San Pedro Sula (SPS) for a pre-national tournament soccer meeting.  He normally takes a four-hour bus ride that gets him to SPS one hour before the meeting but decided to catch the early bus (6:00am) so he could get to SPS earlier.  This gave him time to call around and look at cars since the prices of cars are slightly lower there in SPS than here in Tegucigalpa.  To make a long story short, he had found a minivan that he really liked that was “slightly” ($2000) out of our price range, but they were willing to come down some.  So on Monday he called the car dealership to offer our top price and after some deliberation, they agreed to bring the car to Tegucigalpa (a 5 hour drive) so our mechanic could look at, and if he cleared it, we would buy it for the price we had offered.  So that Tuesday, Mr. Sparkles (Juliana and Kyle have an on going debate on whether our cars are boys or girls) became part of the family. 

On the Friday afternoon after we got our minivan, Kyle got our other car (Snowflake) washed and vacuumed out, and then posted pictures of it on the HFMM facebook group late that night.  On Saturday, three people contacted us who were interested in it, two of them being people from our church.  On Sunday we brought it to church for one of them to test drive it and she ended up taking the car home with her so that her mechanic could look at it on Monday. Then on Tuesday she gave us a check for our asking price.  She didn’t even want to negotiate (blessing)!!! 

50^th anniversary and Family Fun Day:



Field Day during the 50th Anniverserary

The end of February and into March was a busy time as three weekends in a row were filled with school activities.   As mentioned earlier, the national soccer tournament was one of those.  Along with that included the school celebrating its 50th anniversary, and a few weeks later, Family Fun Day.  The anniversary celebration included an open house, reception, and a VERY long thanksgiving celebration/service (Levi went to the bathroom three times during the service).  A lot of alumni and former staff came back for the festivities and we got to have dinner with the Birky’s (former athletic director of the school and his wife who were both long time Pinares staff) one night. 

Getting nails done during Family Fun Day

During Family Fun Day, each of the different grades and classes of the school either create and run carnival-like booths or host a food booth.  Kyle has been in charge of his own booth as athletic director where he sells t-shirts and polo shirts as well as gets rid of old athletic department balls using a game he calls “Ball Box,”  a simple game where you have to shoot the ball…into a narrow box.  If you make one of your two shots, you win an old ball (soccer, basket, or volley).  If you make both shots, you win a polo shirt (only two people in the last 5 years has made both shots).

Fathers’ Day:

Fathers’ Day comes twice a year for North American fathers who live in Honduras.  That is because

All ready for the Father's Day program!

Honduras celebrates Fathers Day on March 19^th.  Being that Juliana is in Pre-Kinder, she and her classmates were involved with putting on a Father's Day Assembly in the gym and later invited their dads back to the classroom for breakfast.  A special blessing was when Kyle was presented a paper tie that was colored by Juliana and contained “interview” questions and answers.  Apparently Juliana thinks that her daddy is really good at volleyball and has no idea what he isn’t good at. 

Semana Santa:

Semana Santa finally came and went.  It was a much needed break for the Webb family which they spent cleaning the house, visiting with friends, going out to Comayagua to visit other friends and see the Alfombras (sawdust carpets), preparing for the Easter service, and a “special surprise” for Juliana because she was such a well behaved and helpful girl for most of the week.  The special surprise was that Melodee took her to see a special showing of the new Cinderella… in English!  Most children’s movies are only shown in Spanish, but one of our friends convinced one of the local theaters to have a special showing (what a blessing) for the Gringos in English today.        



Our yard had to be dug up to find a broken pipe / Juliana's class field trip

Poor sick boy

  
Thank you Lord for your many blessings!!!
 

A New Season!

                Free at last, free at last, praise the Lord, Kyle is done with his studies!!!  On December 12, Kyle turned in his last project.  By doing so, he has completed the final course of his master’s program.  With Melodee picking up a lot of slack and after many late nights of Kyle reading books and writing papers, Kyle has officially graduated with a Master’s of Science in Sport Administration.  We thank all of you who have supported us through the season with encouragement, prayers, and financial assistance.

                With the seemingly lighter season ahead for Kyle, Melodee has transitioned into a period of workload overabundance.  In addition to her usual daily tasks, Melodee’s work for the Honduran Fellowship of Missionaries and Missions (HFMM) has increased.  With the loss of an a office assistant and the annual missionary retreat coming up, all staff members for the HFMM are having to kick it up a notch by dedicating more hours.  Please pray for Melodee as she juggles both work and home life and for wisdom and grace for Kyle as he transitions back into roles where Melodee had previous held the rope within our family.    

Christmas Vacation and a New Year.

                “This is the worst Christmas ever,” was the exasperated statement of a helpless little girl that had spent the last few days with stomach pains, vomiting, and bathroom accidents.  Not long after Christmas vacation started, Juliana came down with the Flu…then she passed it on to Levi, then Daddy got it, and then finally Mommy.  With weeks that seemed like a month for the JKLM Webb household, slowly but surely, they recovered and were finally able to eat normal full meals. 

                Unfortunately for Kyle, normal meals may not be as normal as they use to be as he also experienced his first kidney stone over the vacation.  The rumors are true, the pain is legit, and no matter what position you are in, it just don’t quit.  On December 30, at 6:15 am, Kyle awoke to some back and/or stomach pain.  At the beginning of Juliana’s stomach sickness, she also had some seemingly painful stomach issues, so Kyle thought that he might be experiencing the same thing.  Being that Juliana felt a lot better after vomiting and using the bathroom, Kyle tried to alleviate his pain by doing the same.  When that didn’t work and the pain did not subside but actually substantially increased, Kyle thought that maybe he had appendicitis or maybe had his appendix rupture.  He then politely (ha!) asked Melodee to take him to urgent care. 

                After arriving, the doctors quickly put Kyle on some pain medication.  This seemed to dull the pain for a little while, but after 15 minutes or so, the pain would return.  Doctors then fed more pain medication into Kyle’s body and for a few minutes again, the pain would lessen.  After blood and urine tests returned, and Kyle’s pain could not be alleviated by the medication at this urgent care, it was determined that Kyle needed to be ambulanced to a hospital that could give him stronger meds and run tests that could not be run at urgent care.  

                At the hospital, Morphine mixed with 5 or 6 other drugs, seemed to do the trick for managing the pain.  When the results from a ct scan with contrast came back, it was confirmed that Kyle had a kidney stone, that it was too big for him to pass on his own, and that surgery was required.  After a successful surgery and a night’s stay at the hospital, Kyle was sent home… only to return the next morning (January 1^st) with the same type of pain.  This time it was determined that the kidney stones were only “residual dust” and after doping him up with morphine and other drugs, he was again released from the hospital. 

                Unfortunately for Kyle, the lab test of the kidney stone came back and stated that it was made of calcium oxalate.  This means that Kyle’s days of eating a big bowl of cereal in the morning, coming home to snack on another bowl of cereal in the afternoon, and then occasionally drinking a tall glass of chocolate milk at dinner, are over.  More water, water, water, and dairy ONCE A WEEK, is what the Doctor ordered.

Juliana’s Birthday!

                What’s 4+1, 2+3, or 5+0 = ?  One happy 5 year old birthday Girl!!!  Juliana spent her birthday celebrating with her classmates, family, and friends with Mommy and Daddy throwing her a Little Mermaid themed party.  Juliana’s party started after school when about 10 of her classmates and their moms and dads showed up at our house.  The first item on the docket that day was a one-on-one photo shoot with Juliana.  We had a photographer (friend) take photos of Juliana and her friends in front of some red flower plants that we have out back.  As more of Juliana’s kid friends would show up, we would have them take a photo with Juliana. 

Next up was the Ocean Snacks.  In preparation of the party, Melodee whipped up some Blue Ocean Drink (lemonade w/ blue food coloring), Sea Snails (Pigs in a blanket), Gold Fish (Gold Fish cheese snacks) , and Octopus Legs in Humus (Veggie Sticks w/ Humus Dip).  Kyle regrets not thinking ahead and bringing back some dried ika (dried squid) for the event.

Following the food, Kyle set up a game where we used the ball pit balls that the kids got for Christmas (thanks Marcy!) and gym mats.  Following the theme of the day, the game was called pirate ship.  With this game, the kids were split into two teams and were to uses the balls (cannon balls) to try to sink the other ship.  In order to do so, they were to throw the balls into the other teams ship while one person from the other team who was inside of the ship, would try to throw the balls out.  After the music stopped, so did the game, and the number of balls found inside each team’s ship would be counted.  The team with the most cannon balls inside of the other teams ship was the winner of the round.

The next planned activity of the day was an artsy sea craft.  For this, each child was given a construction paper of their choice, stickers, crayons, glue, and a printed photo of them and Juliana (taken earlier in the party).  After we did this activity, we now have a better understanding on why pre kinder kids require the use of glue sticks rather than the normal white liquid Elmer’s Glue.  Either way, fun was had by all. 

After the craft, the kids’ attention was grabbed by an announcement from King Triton that it was now time for the Royal Treasure Hunt made in honor of his favorite daughter, Princess Juliana.  During the hunt, the kids were sent to find a singing Siren (Christa) who asked them to help her collect all the gold (5 and 10 Honduran Centavos – Thanks for the idea Adriana), then the kids were given a map to Santa’s vacation house.  When they found it, Santa (Harold), told them about the greatest treasure they could ever find (Jesus).  He also pointed the group to a pirate friend of his, Captain Cranky (Dan).  Captain Cranky told the group of how he came across a pirate treasure chest that he could not open.  He also told them that he heard a tale of how to open said chest with the help of a magic wooden stick and a birthday girl. 

After the piñata, the kids were ushered back to the house to sing happy birthday, and to eat cupcakes.  Before they left, each kid was also given a goody bag to take home with them.  We are definitely blessed to have such a wonderful community and friends, as without them, the party would not have been such a success.  There were some kids who actually though Harold was Santa, and it took Juliana quite some time to figure out that Dan was the Pirate Captain.  Thank you to all who helped us make Juliana’s birthday, such a memorable one.    

September Happenings

We haven't posted since the beginning of May...I think that might be a record!

We have been back in Honduras for 7 weeks, and the time has flown by!  My allergies hit the day we got back, and then I later got a cold, so I have spent a lot of time recovering, as well as we've all had to adjust back into a new routine. 

Kyle
Kyle is nearly done with his Master's Degree!  He only has 2 classes plus an internship (which is also his job) left, and then he will graduate in December.  It has been an easier semester so far, but I think we will all be very relieved to have him done.  He has gone back to work full time, and is again in charge of all sports and other events.  He usually stays at work a couple extra hours each day working on his classes so that most nights he doesn't have to study at home.  Tomorrow he will take a bus to San Pedro Sula for an Athletic Director's meeting, and then this coming Wednesday-Saturday he will return for the annual track & field meet.  He has had to take on a job this year with the local association of athletic directors, which will involve working on some Saturdays.

His youth group is doing well.  Kyle has started reading the book Clean with the boys and the girls are doing a different book study.  They are also hoping to have some fund raisers in the upcoming months in order to pay for their yearly service project and retreat.

Melodee
I have been working on making some changes/additions to the Honduran Fellowship website, to make it look a little more professional.  We're also working on creating a place where we can have password protected files that only our members will have access to.  We also have a number of events during the months of October & November that we are hosting or co-hosting: singles mini-retreat, Living in Your Strengths workshops, General Assembly, etc...  Outside of my work for the HFMM, I still attend my Tuesday morning ladies Bible Study (working our way through Judah & Israel's kings, currently just before the exile) and we are hosting our Thursday evening Bible Study at our house (it is better to be able to have Juliana in bed on time).  I have also been meeting with the 2 other stay-at-home moms at school once a week...one has a new baby and is homeschooling her two older boys, and the other is new to Honduras and has 4 kids, 2 not yet in school.  We get together to sit and encourage each other for an hour an a half each Wednesday morning while the kids get to play.

Juliana
Juliana has started Pre-Kinder!  She goes from 7:30-2:30, 5 days a week and it has been a VERY rough start.  Many days she wakes up a cries and has temper tantrums until she leaves for school (after sleeping almost 11 hours every night).  Yesterday it was so bad that we put her back to bed until 9 am and then took her to school.  Starting school for the first time is hard for anyone, but she is the only English speaker in her class.  All Pre-K classes are in both English & Spanish, except Bible with is only in Spanish.  She adores both her teacher and the assistant, and has made a few friends, but can't really communicate with any of the other kids and comes home completely exhausted.  I was able to talk to her teacher when I dropped her off yesterday, and hopefully we'll be able to work with the school counselor to help her adjust better. 

Levi
Levi is loving all of the attention he gets as the only child home on school days!  He can be a pretty crazy boy some days.  Our nanny has been trying to teach him some words in Spanish.  So far, he really hasn't had the desire to say any words other than Mama, Dada, and Nana...but he does express his desires very well nonetheless using sign language, pointing, and boy noises.  This week however, he started saying a few words...ba (for both ball and bus), da (dog) and I think there's been a few other words that I can't remember.  Then today, he started saying some of the words that Iris has been trying to teach him awa (agua), torrrrrta (tortilla), and zapato (although I never actually heard that one). 

We have rain!

Almost exactly a week after I blogged the last time it finally rained!  And it was a very big storm with lots of lightening and thunder.  I had thought it looked like it might rain, but took the kids to school and we barely made it into the gym when it started pouring!  It hasn't rained every day, and the plague of flying termites hasn't appeared yet, so I'm not sure if we're in the rainy season or not...but its enough that the smoke is gone from El Hatillo.

Also, after I posted the last time our church had a baptism and church picnic at a nearby lake some private property that belongs to the father of someone in our church.  Thirteen people ended up getting baptized...a huge number considering how small our church is.  Other than the flies that swarmed during lunch it was a great day.  Nice to get out of the city for a few hours.  Kyle was not able to go since he was gone for the volleyball tournament, but me and the kids had a lot of fun.  Here's a few pictures from that day.

Speaking of Kyle, he is currently working on his final week of classes for the semester!  He will then have the summer off and begin the last year of classes in August.  He has huge amounts of reading to do this week, then a 2 or 3 hour test to do over the reading.  He hasn't done well on the other big tests, so pray that this one will be better.

I have been very busy lately working on things for the Honduran Fellowship.  Last week we changed some of our job titles, and rearranged some of our tasks.  This week our "homework" was to write out procedures for how to do each of our duties.  I finished my 10 or so pages this afternoon while the kids napped.  This morning I also had to go and renew my driver's license.  Licenses here are only given for the amount of time that you have residency.  Since my residency is renewed on a yearly basis, I am also required to renew my driver's license every year around the same time.  Before you are able to renew the license you have to go into a little shack outside and pay for a medical and eye exam...which consists of reading 3 lines of letters and getting your blood pressure checked.  This year they also added a psychological exam...which you must also pay for :)  I walked into this little tiny room crammed with desks and was handed a packet with 50-60 questions in it all in Spanish.  The first 40 questions or so were basically an IQ test.  The next section was questions about how you would feel if you arrived late to an event, or how you would feel if someone arrived at a party badly dressed.  And the final section asked if you knew the day, date, year, season, what floor of the building you were on, etc...  Someone had told us yesterday that the test wouldn't be a problem.    But once I opened the packet and realized how long it was (and how bad the copies were---some questions were impossible to see the entire thing) I was a little worried I might fail the psych exam :)  Apparently I worried Kyle because I was in there so long...I had put my phone on vibrate and I could feel it vibrating in my purse over and over and over.  When I walked out of the test I had 5 missed calls and 2 texts from him asking where I was and if I was ok.  But most of the other people taking the test were in there for longer than I was, so I think it is normal to take awhile on it.

The kids are their normal crazy selves.  Levi likes to go outside and talk to the birds, and wants to be wherever his big sister is, doing whatever she is doing.  Juliana has been saying and doing some pretty funny things lately.  At dinner she told us, "I wish mommies could just take care of kids and let them do whatever they want to". After she dinner she asked "why do I call you mommy?"  And yesterday she asked for a pair of scissors so she could cut out a parable.  Apparently in Sunday School she learned that a parable is a "rectangle with a little topper".  I think they've been learning about Jesus' parables, but I'm not sure how that fit with the story of the Good Shepherd :)

Praying for rain...

In Honduras we don't have 4 seasons---we have 2--rainy season and dry season.  Rainy season is from the beginning of May to the end of January.  Dry season is the rest of the year--and is definitely my favorite time of year.  I love the warmth and sunshine, and because our school is so good to us we haven't had to worry as much about the water rationing that affects so many people.  And its also our anniversary, and Easter, and usually we get to go on a short trip to the beach for a couple of nights to rejuvenate before heading into the last month or 2 of school.  And for the first time, I have a real clothes line, with 2 poles and 3 lines strung nicely  in between.  In the past Kyle has tied up make-shift clothes lines between trees, and cement walls, and bars on windows...and they aren't always at a height that I can easily reach without standing on something.  So its been a huge blessing this year to be able to save a little money on electricity and hang out almost all the laundry to dry...especially since Levi has been wearing cloth diapers this year and its better for them to hang in the sun.

That said, the end of April  is my least favorite time of year.  Its when the fires take over.  Traditionally it doesn't rain from April till May 3rd...I'm not sure how scientific it is, but May 3rd is the day that the rains are "supposed" to start.  But by the end of April almost all the grass and leaves on the trees are dead.  So people start "controlled" fires to clean out fields because its the easiest way and it add nutrients to the ground.  And often these fires get out of control.  Other times, the forests burn for whatever reason.  Either way, during April the mountains and forests burn and the city below gets covered in a thick layer of smoke. 

And looks something like this...

For much of the month we aren't too affected by it because we live higher than the layer of smoke.  But once the fires start on our mountain the smoke takes over El Hatillo.  According to the newspaper, there have been 5 fires in the last 4 days (3 major) that have burned 1000 hectares (a hectare is equal to 2.47 acres).  Two of the major fires and 1 minor are burning in our area.  Our house is not in danger but there is ash falling everywhere, it burns your eyes and throat to spend much time outside, and the sun hasn't made it through the smoke in the last couple days.  I've tried to keep the windows closed as much as possible, but Levi has gotten a cough and runny nose that I'm pretty sure is from the smoke.

A friend who lives in the city took a picture of our mountain last night.
There's also a bigger fire that is further up the mountain than us.

So although I'm not quite ready for the end of the cloudless, sunshine filled days, I am ready for the rains to come soon to stop the fires and smoke.

Catch up...

So I've been telling myself that I should update the blog since probably Thanksgiving...and now it's the end of January.  Sigh.  Let's see...I've missed Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and Juliana's birthday, just to name a few of the big events.  If I catch you up on everything you'll probably be reading all night :)  So I'll try to make it brief...

Christmas & New Years
We celebrated the holidays here again and had a lot of nice, restful time with friends and as a family.  We attended a number of dinners, a birthday party among other things.  The weather was beautiful most of the time, and since the kids got a sandbox for Christmas, they spent a lot of time playing outside.  Most of the teachers left for Christmas, so it was very quiet around our house, which was a nice change.  Kyle also had a month off from his grad school classes, which was GREAT!  The last quarter was really rough and we were all pretty burned out from all the work he had to do.

For me the best part was planning a service project with Kyle's youth group at a low-cost daycare for kids of single working moms, run by a family in our church.  I had wanted to do something to teach our kids about giving in a way that they (at least Juliana for now) could understand, and was talking about it with a couple friends of mine.  We came up with an idea and Kyle wanted to get his youth group involved.  We bought gifts for 21 kids and 3 workers, went to the daycare on their last day before Christmas, and got to sing songs with them, play games, eat a snack, and hand out the gifts.  The youth took on leadership roles (all on their own!) and everyone had a great time.  Juliana got pretty shy, and had just started warming up not long before it was time to go, but I think the more she's involved in projects like this the easier it will be for her.



 
 Juliana's 4th Birthday
Juliana always has big parties.  And every year when planning her next party I try to get her to invite a few less people.  And every year she has more and more people that she wants to invite.  In fact, she has so many people from school and church that she wants to invite, that I'm afraid I'll just be leaving out 1 or 2 people accidently.  So this year I basically just opened it up to anybody and everybody who wanted to come, and made it a Grilled Cheese Potluck.  Good thing we have a bigger house this year, because I believe we had 61 people who came!  It was crazy, but she loved every minute of it.  Her cardboard kitchen that we had given her for her 2nd birthday was completely worn out, so I started looking for a used plastic kitchen in October or November and had it hiding in the closet.


My silly 4 year old

and her huge crazy party!

The kitchen (as well as the rest of her new gifts) is getting a lot
of love from both kids as well as several of Nana's friends.
 

Juliana is getting to be such a big girl (not really in size, more in how much she's learning)!  She can be really helpful and a very loving sister.  She has a sight words video and placemat that she watches on occasion (maybe once every 3-4 months) and the other day when she was using her placemat at dinner she started "reading" about half the words!  Both Kyle and I were shocked!  She's also figured out how to ride her bicycle by herself...although she has trouble steering and falls off the sidewalk sometimes. :)  AND she has finally stopped wetting the bed at night!  It would only happen occasionally before and only when we would forget and let her drink too much in the evenings.  Now, she calls me during the night to have me take her to the bathroom!  The downside is that she calls me almost every night, but at least she goes right back to sleep and no more washing all of her bedding :)

Hardly anyone was around at Christmas so I let her go ride
her bike in her jammies :)

Levi
My big boy can walk!  Actually he still prefers to crawl and climb, and if you try to get him to walk he'll more than likely give you a big grin and a laugh and sit down.  But at least he's able to walk.  And it was at Bible Study with about 15 people cheering for him, so it was memorable and perfect.  And when he thinks no one is watching he'll stand up on his own and balance and bob up and down on his own.  He's got 9 teeth and a 4th molar is trying to push it's way through.  He has gotten very jealous of his favorite people, especially mommy...and he doesn't like it when anyone gets too close (especially in the evenings when Nana wants to cuddle).  He wishes he was a bigger boy than he actually is, and gets pretty upset when Nana gets to play with friends and he can't go.  He likes to babble a lot, but I'm pretty sure the only word he says in correct context is "Hola".  At least he likes to pick up my phone, put it to his ear, and almost always says something that sounds an awful lot like hola :)  But I'm sure he understands a lot more...whenever he wants something and I'm trying to guess what he wants, he claps his hands if I say the right thing.  He can FINALLY drink out of a bottle!  Only a bunch of months too late, when he should be drinking from a sippy cup instead of a bottle...but he loves loves it, and he loves to drink warm milk from it, so for now we'll allow it.  AND he will still only nap in his swing.  I've started trying to transition  him to the crib (he sleeps there at night, you'd think it wouldn't be a problem!) but he sleeps so much better and longer in the swing...and having a whole hour after lunch when he's sleeping and Juliana's in bed looking at books is just a REALLY nice luxury.

Kyle
Kyle started his next semester of grad school about 10 days ago.  His 2 classes this quarter are Ethics in Sport and something about sports and law.  Yuck!  So far there's been a LOT of reading.  He's already had a few nights that he's been up till 1 am or much later trying to finish his work.  He even asked me to buy some coffee to keep in the house (we've never owned coffee or a coffee maker since we've been married). 

Melodee
I've been spending a lot of time working for the Honduran Fellowship.  The Mattica's found an office to rent the end of October and moved into it in November.  Around the same time, a guy who used to go to our church (still goes to the church, just one of the Spanish services) emailed John and asked if he knew of any ministries needing a Honduran volunteer.  John had been praying for a couple years probably for an assistant, and JuanJo was PERFECT for the job.  He spends a lot of time at immigration and running errands for John.  So this past Friday we had our first staff meeting, in the office, with all 5 of us! (We also have a Director of Member Care)  I believe we will be having regular meetings for the next couple of months as we are working on planning our yearly retreat.  It's a free 3 1/2 day retreat for missionaries within the Honduran Fellowship, and we can fit about 150 people.  We opened registration almost 2 weeks ago and already have 143 people registered.  I'm also working on changing a bunch of things on the website, and the company who designed it originally is adding our new logo to it and making it more modern looking.  We often have 2-3 missionaries a day apply to be members, so its growing VERY quickly.  This week we realized that almost all of our members have only been members  since 2009 or later so we're definitely attracting a lot of new missionaries.

Time to go make dinner--we have bible study right after supper!  Hope this wasn't too long :)