We're moving!

Ok, well, we're not moving back to the States (sorry, mom!) but we are moving blogs as we begin our new ministry. Check it out, go ahead and get a blog viewer thingy that lets you know when we update...

www.daveandbeckysharp.wordpress.com

We have pics from the demonstrations in Honduras to entice you there! :)

You can also check out the blog for our new ministry under Pastor Jeff and Julie Hines:

www.cthonduras.blogspot.com

See you soon!

What we've been up to...

We have been helping to host a team of missionaries from New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. To show what they/we've been doing, we have a blog that we update daily. Check it out - www.cthonduras.wordpress.com (ct as in Community Transformation)

When you go there, select the "New Life Missions Team - June" category. From there, you can click on the dates to read the full blogs for each day.

We're going to be creating a new blog on wordpress, and we'll let you know when it's up. Also, we're planning on heading to the States to raise some support, so we'll let you know what we're up to there. Catch you later guys!

with love,
Dave and Becky

Starting the new ministry!

Yesterday, we officially started our new ministry! We had a few days off as we transitioned from teaching into the new positions, but it was good to get back to work. We spent the day planning and organizing for the short term team that is coming down from Jeff and Julie's church this Thursday. I didn't take any pictures... BUT I do have some pictures of a few other things :) Here thet are, going from oldest to newest pictures and information...

A few weeks ago, we got to take Carla Patricia's mom to go see her! Carla has been staying in a home for extended care, close to a hospital. She is getting medical attention and plenty of food. She is doing much better! She was laughing and playing during her visit. Please continue to pray for her as the road to recovery from severe malnutrition is a long and dangerous one. It seems simple, right? Just give kids like that food! But it is actually a much more complicated process, as we are finding out.

Jeff and Carla Patricia

Julie and Becky play with one of the other girls at the home

Carla talks with her mom and brother

The Lighthouse Christian Bilingual School proudly graduated 11 seniors on Friday, June 5th. It was a memorable ceremony, followed by a party put on by several of the students. Congratulations to all of our seniors!

The school board

Francis, one of our seniors

Class of 2009!

Becky at the party after graduation

Zoila, one of the Honduran high school teachers, had a going-away celebration for us and Melissa! It featured sopa marinera (seafood soup) and lots of friends from school.

Becky and everyone enjoying the meal

Also, Ansia took us to Rancho San Louis last weekend. I think it is the closest thing Honduras has to a zoo. It is a functioning cattle ranch with a number of (mostly) native animals including macaws, oceleots, monkeys, iguanas, toucans, and a kinkajou

sleepy ocelot

Becky, Ansia, and Claudia pet the cattle

yeah I'm not sure what this bird is but it was cool

monkey!

¡Que capacidad! (What ability!)

Since living here, where we have to walk to the grocery store (sometimes in blinding heat) we’ve become really skilled at “foraging.” We can scan the contents in the fridge and come up with a creative way of combining them together. For example, last night we scanned the fridge to find: onion, cabbage, carrot, and some various sauces (sometimes, the fridge is emptier than others…). Hmm…. We thought… what shall we do? Immediately we decided on a cabbage stir-fry, similar to my mom’s. Dave cut up all the veggies and we had started stir-frying when Dave discovered that the soy sauce had molded. (Yes, when you live in Honduras, not only can you get sunburned when it’s raining, anything that doesn’t move can and will mold.) What to do now!?! So we looked though our other sauces and found an asian sesame dressing. Perfect! When it was all done, we had bowls of sesame-cabbage stir-fry, but it was incomplete. After a bite or two, I thought, this tastes like the inside of an egg roll! Then we came up with it – a deconstructed egg roll! We fried some flour tortillas in oil and ate our “filling” on them! Delicious and easy!

It’s too bad I don’t have a photo; sometimes we don’t realize our personal genius until it’s too late… :)

(haha, when I originally typed this, I misspelled “genius”… how fitting!)

We love you all!

Earthquake!

Well friends, we have officially survived our first real earthquake!!! It was pretty scary, the house was rocking and rolling quite a bit and it really did seem to last for a looong time (though it was probably about 30-40 seconds). We were a little scared, but God is good and not one thing fell and we never lost power! We were really surprised about that especially since it was CRAZY shaking! Also, we were surprised that it was all so quiet. In movies, you hear screaming and crashing, and creaking and cracking, etc. This was pretty strong shaking, but hardly any noise! Not even the neighborhood dogs were barking! And the rumbling noise wasn't very loud at all! All the next day there were aftershocks and even the next night I woke up at 11ish when the house shook again from a milder shock! According to the USGS website map-thing, what we felt here was around a 5.5ish quake! Anyway, it was exciting and scary and I thought I'd share it with you guys!

An end and a new beginning!

HELLO EVERYONE!


A lot has happened in the past couple months! We are almost at the end of the school year! We have only one more day of exams, and then a "celebration day" left with the students. Then we have a week or so of teacher work days and the senior graduation. We are excited about the close of this year and the things God is preparing for us to do this next year. Here is an exerpt from the support letter we are sending out with details on what we will be doing:

Two close missionary friends of ours, Pastor Jeff Hines and his wife, are starting a community transformation project in a community outside of La Ceiba called Las Delicias. The people there are living in what would make most people shudder. No water, no electricity, no floor, some even with no beds or outhouses. Rather than live, they work to survive. The first time we went with them, as the Lord was quickening our hearts to help with making a difference in these people’s lives, Julie told us that they had been praying we would do just that. Specifically they need a photographer and someone to help coordinate short-term missionary teams, two positions that could have been hand-crafted for us. As God continued to give confirmation after confirmation, we became fully convinced that He wanted us to set aside something good (teaching in Rio Viejo) in order to know something better!

The first project is the installation of a well that will pump purified water. After that, as a team we will be building community showers and sinks, outhouses for the homes that don’t have them, a community center, a playground, and a day-care center. God willing, there will also be a home (down the mountain in a neighboring community) where kids in the worst situations (either from more extreme poverty or abuse) can stay for one month intervals until their situation at home improves. Until we raise all of our support we will be house-parents there, then training the people who will take over after we get our funding.

The girl on the left is named Carla Patricia, and she is one of the sickest children we have seen up there. She has a number of conditions that went untreated for a very long time. She is currently getting medical attention, thanks to Jeff and Julie. Please be in prayer for her as she makes a long road towards recovery.








Here are a few of the things we have been up to:

We got to go to Copan! Ancient Mayan ruins are the main attraction in Copan, but we also had the opportunity to go horseback riding while we were there.

Science Fair! Science fair 2009 was a big improvement over the previous year. Dave was in charge of organizing the event and assisting all of the students in grades 8th-11th with their projects. Here are the first place winners from 10th-11th grade, Lorena, Carolina, and Amanda. They had a great project on which type of soil is best for construction.

We had an end of the year, school-wide chapel a couple weeks ago. Students from across all grades had an opportunity to use their talents to praise God. If you know Becky and I, you know we didn't sing or play any instruments, but it was a big blessing to share in it.



We have been getting to attend some baseball games here in La Ceiba. One of our students, Cristo, plays on a local team and we like to support him. Go Dragones!

The school celebrated "Dia Tipico" (Typical Day), a Honduran holiday, with games, costumes, and native foods.

Another missionary family in the city has set up special days for the kids of Armenia Bonito. The first, girls day, involved helping to "beautify" the girls of the community. First, most of them needed to be de-loused. Becky, since she is so awesome, was in charge of helping comb all of the lice out of the girls' hair. Afterwards, they got hair cuts and styles, "manicures", and accessories. Most of these girls don't have the opportunity to use shampoo, and they were so excited to have their hair cut by a professional!

A few weeks later, they also did a boy's day. With shorter hair, lice wasn't a big problem so we organized a soccer tournament, spent time with them at the beach, and fed them a good meal at a local restaraunt.

The seniors did an insect collection as one of the big projects for fourth quarter. Here, Francis shows off her impressive collection. Honduras has some cool insects as well as hard-working students!

Finally, the school held their econd annual Fun Day, which was oganized by Becky! Students competed all morning to see which team was the best- congratulations to the brown
team. At the end of the day, the students went back to school and got hosed down by firefighters from the local fire department.

Let us know what you think of our post- we love your comments!

Yesterday we had the awesome opportunity to go with Jeff and Julie Hines to Las Delicias (the delights) which they have targeted for a community transformation mission. The community is in a remote area just outside the city. They don't have any electricity or running water. In fact, because the community is on a very steep hill, the nearest water is in the river down below and so they would have to walk about 2 km uphill to carry the water back. What water they do bring back isn't clean either, so many of the kids have worms and other parasites; diarrhea being quite commonplace.

The project would include digging a well with a purification system to provide clean water, building a community center that would serve several purposing including public health education and preventative medical treatments, and possibly even a child care center that would allow single parents to go into town to earn money to support their families.

Below are some pictures to give you an idea of the lifestyles of the people who live there, a picture says a thousand words!


This is one of the families that Jeff and Julie are working with. The little girl in the pink dress (right) has severe malnutrition and will be taken to the doctor this week. In the meantime, bottles of medicine will hopefully help her gain some weight and fight off her infections.
This is the view of two of the houses that we visited.

This little boy was so thrilled to get his photo taken, he wanted to show off his toys and have their photos taken too!

Here, Julie is cleaning and bandaging some wounds. Some are old mosquito bites, scratched with dirty finger nails and never treated. Among his other wounds are a cut from a machete and some blisters on his feet (probably since he doesn't have shoes). The skin around the blisters is black and dead.

Notice also the boy in the white shirt. His belly is swollen with worms and malnutrition. He is fascinated with watching Julie, aside from her visits, he has never seen this type of medical treatment.

This is the inside of one of the homes. There is no running water or electricity, the microwave is broken and used for storage! Three people live here in this one little room.

This is the house next to the one above and here there are nine people living (a mother, father, and their 7 kids).

This shows how steep the hill is! Imagine hauling water up this! It's no wonder that they don't drink much water or have enough to bathe.

This adorable little boy is 5 years old. Having been very malnourished as a baby, his growth was severly stunted to the point that he looks like a 2-year old. He hated having the bath, and cried the whole time, but as soon as it was over, was very happy to be clean and dry! Notice the swelling on his belly too. His parents were given worm medicine, so hopefully he should be getting better soon!

Look how time flies!

Wow, over a month has gone by since our last post! It really doesn't seem like that long.

Here are some of the things we have been up to:

I designed an earthquake lab for the 9th grade, where they built buildings and tested their strengths with "earthquakes."

El Faro is planting a new church up the mountain in Rio Viejo, here are some pictures from a few Sundays ago.

Hermano Ray is sharing God's Word with the new congragation.

Carolina, one of our 11th graders, is taking care of one of the kids.

Castillo de Rey (Castle of the King) led the children's church that day. (Honduras has A LOT of children!)

Here are Becky and Melissa showing off Becky's Valentine's Day cake.

Dave and Megan set up a praise and worship concert for their youth group ministry, Flame. A bunch of our students attend weekly.

Emilio and Jen after the concert

During the concert!

Dave preaching during intermission

More during the concert

A team from Master's Commission in South Carolina came to the church for a week and led a camp for the middle and high school.

Some of the is team performing a skit.

Our students found the skit pretty funny.

Some of our 9th grade girls posing at camp

A soccer game at the camp

I got the chance to teach the second graders about insects, and I brought in my collection to show them some real example of insects found here in Honduras.


Well, that is it for now, we will post more soon!