Teams and more teams

This is me at the airport, where I spent a lot of my time so far this summer. 

The are our Little girls who are ready to dance

He wanted to sell his pigeon

We have had a ton of teams this summer! We have called it our Summer Marathon.  We have had back to back teams since April. We have had a lot of movement on the farm.  We have been so blessed to have some of the most dedicated  groups who have worked so hard to get here to minister to the children and people of Intibuca.  They have raised money to come see us through golf tournaments, chicken suppers, boston butt sales, fun runs, letter writing and a whole host of other activities. They have done what they needed to do to get where God had called them to go.  They are a wonderful witness to my girls and to our community about how God energizes His people to fulfill what He has called them to do.  Each team has a wonderful story about how they were able to get here to Honduras through so many obstacles that they were able to overcome to be here with us.   This month we have had teams from Macon Ga, Chambersburg PA, and my home church from Valdosta, GA.  They have hiked, painted houses, broken rocks, loaded and hauled the rocks, mixed cement, ministered to our girls, and to the community in which we live.  

For the most part, the girls keep our teams entertained with their antics.  They loved interacting with their new friends and many of the "old-timers", who have returned to visit our ministry. They play soccer, Capture the Flag, and basketball with the teams.  They have painted t-shirts, made jewelry, cards and letters, taken music lessons to play recorders, guitar and keyboard.  The girls have practiced many hours on dances that they perform for the team's "last night".  They have harvested their coffee and have cooked and sold all of their coffee that they picked this year!  Our girls are in perpetual movement with or without the teams, but they crank it up when we have visitors. It is exciting for them to get to know so many new people who love the Lord.  They have some of the best examples of Christians, who have put legs on their faith, walking through our farm every week.  

We have stayed on track with our girl's schooling this year.  They are doing so well right now scholastically speaking.  When you have so many teams come to visit you just can't call school off.  They go to school at eight in the morning and return at 12:00. The teams are usually ministering in the community in the morning.  We all have lunch together and that is when the fun begins.  Then after brutal games of soccer and killer basketball games the girls go back to school at two o'clock until 4:00.  The girls have an hour to play after school, or if they haven't performed well in school, they have to go to the kitchen for "after school" with Mr. Ben and Mr. Jerimiah.  Ben is our school director and Jerimiah is one of our teachers.  Sometimes members of the team have come to the school to teach the girls a new skill or to support the teachers that are working with our girls.  Between school and teams the girls stay really busy, which is good.  It has been my experience that if you have 32 children with time on their hands, it usually doesn't turn out well.  Mama used to say "A tired child is a good child".  

   

Miss Linda

Spidey 

Good Time Dancers

WE love having teams to help us with the huge work that God has placed in our hands.  But sometimes we have some visitors that we don't really want.  Anna Williams, one of our interns was talking to her mom the other night on the phone.  She was outside of her house and sitting and chatting away on the sidewalk that surrounds her house when she caught sight of some movement.  It was a large tarantula crawling up the side of the exterior wall of her house!  The team was called in to catch this little monster and was placed in our bird cage.  We found out so much about these critters and he was a huge conversation piece to have on your front porch.  However, he escaped.  Apparently they are resourceful little creatures but, I suspect had some help from our girls.   I had my grass cut immediately after his departure and hope he has good thoughts about the time he spent on our front porch with our PTC family.  

Then we went to have a barbeque.  Our team bought a huge amount of meat at the store and decided that they would cook it in our outside grill.  We unknown to us another visitor had made this little cement shelter his home.  There was about a six foot snake that was seeking shelter from the rains and he was living in our barbeque pit!  We didn't keep him on the front porch, but promptly killed him to send him on to snake heaven.  We generally don't see any of these creatures around here, but due to the volume of rain that has come our way we have had a few of our own episodes of Animal Planet at PTC.  

Please be praying for us.  We have the month of July filled with teams and we are looking forward to our groups who are coming.  But after they leave at the end of July, we have a grand exodus of our staff who have to leave for visa situations, itineration, school, and other areas that they have to get attended to in the US.  Anyway, that leaves us with a skeleton crew of Me and the Honduran staff.  I know God will help us while the Staff is away, but we do ask you for prayer that everything will run smoothly until they return.

We have really enjoyed our marathon season with our teams.  The time has gone by so quickly.  We all have been blessed.  But I want to say thank you to all the people who helped them get here and the ones of their families that stayed home with the stuff.  The Bible says that they receive the same blessing as the ones who went out to the battle, but I just wanted to say a special thank you to the ones who stayed home with the children, jobs, etc. to make it possible for others to "go".  

I want to say a special thanks to our Staff members and for all the hard work they have accomplished this summer! Thanks to Ben, Natalie, Jerimiah, Linda, Evan, Nathan, Elizabeth, Little Ben, Anna Courtney, Rosa, Alisia, Anastacia, and Cruz .  They have been amazing!  They have filled in where they were needed, and worked alongside the teams putting in very long hours, even when they were sick and not feeling up to it.  I have been so blessed to be surrounded by all these dedicated missionaries.  We have loved being together and working together.  I thank them for their testimony to the community and to our girls.  The Bible says that you will know them by the love they have one to another.  I know that anyone who has seen the teams, the girls, and the staff being together during our team marathon, knows that we are Christians and that we serve an Awesome God.  

Thanks to all of you who are co-laboring with us.  God's people are on the move.  

Blessings, the Marathon Honduran MOM