Tues., 20 Jan. - The Texas team ‘Manos de Dios’, who paid for the construction of this church, has just left after a farewell service where they gave gifts such as backpacks to the many scholarship students they support. A brick walkway to the stairs to the 2'nd floor was installed, a storage room built, plumbing improvements made, and seminars for women were held. A successful mission trip.

After they left and the vigilante (guard) was locking up, he discovered that someone had left the tap on in the downstairs kitchen, with the plug in the sink – ½ an inch of water on the floor which we had to mop up.

There are still problems with some of the plumbing. Cristos, the Texan plumber, was very unhappy with some of the parts used, but they are the best that could be found here. He plans to bring several parts from the US such as check valves and good flapper valves for the toilet tanks when he returns in the summer.

We are trying to stick with our Ontario time schedule which fits in well with Hondurans, to bed at 10 and up at 6, (Honduran time; 11 and 7 Ontario) although we are often awake at 5. It gets dark at about 5:45 and daylight starts about 6 with a short dusk and dawn.

Tomorrow the community water is scheduled to be turned on from 8:30 am to noon, (once a week only). I will have to be sure that the correct valves are turned on and turn on the pump to fill the tank from which we get our water pressure during the week. We only have cold water for showers. I don’t think there is enough pressure to operate an electric shower head to provide ‘hot?’ water.
Thurs., 22 Jan. -It didn’t happen. No water Wed. We went and asked Betti and she told us it isn’t until Sat. (every 5 days).

Things were a lot quieter Wed. with the team gone. The turnout as opposed to those registered for Eva’s classes was again poor and it looks as if she can accept other students. She had to turn away some as those registered filled the class times available. V. Rev Alejandro, Dean, was by in the afternoon and described some of his plans for the deanery. He told us there is a deanery meeting in Santa Maria Sat. morning and we are invited to attend. He also broached the subject of English classes for the 10 members of the deanery team on Sat. mornings following a deanery meeting. This will be looked at closer at this Sat. meeting.

WED. -Eva spent the morning working on the lesson plan for Friday evening’s advanced (?) class and I installed my video editing program on the old laptop. I had some trouble running it and will try again tomorrow. It could be the computer just isn’t up to the job.

This afternoon a bus arrived carrying the kitchen cupboards for the kitchen we are using. The ceramic counter tops were already in place. They look really nice, (base units only), but they made one bank of cupboards too long. They installed what they could and will to be back Sat. with that 3 door section remade. Looks like Sat. will be busy.


Installing the kitchen cupboards

Fri. 23 Jan. - About 10 am we took a bus into Danli. It was a van which in Canada would hold 8 passengers. By the time we got to El Centro, there had been up to 13 passengers plus the driver and conductor. Cost, 5 Limperas, (33 cents) each.

We bought some needed kitchen supplies, had Honduran tacos for lunch (about $2 each for 2). This favorite is quite different from Mexican tacos and are deep fried after filled with a chicken base mixture then served with a tomato sauce and shredded cabbage over them. We then did some grocery shopping and because of the groceries & parcels we took a taxi back, 30 L ($2.00).

Sun., 25 Jan. - Saturday produced no water. We used the last of the stored water Wed. and have had to rely on bottled water and water from the hand pump on the well on church property. Unfortunately the water from the well has fine sand in it which eventually settles and a fine dust which floats to the top and I have to skim off. A member of the church was by this morning to collect a 5 gallon pail of water from the pump, which she then carried home on her head. Also, the carpenters didn’t arrive to install the last of the cupboards.


The congregation Sunday at ´Manos de Dios`

Jeannie came by about 10:30 to pick up Dean Alejandro’s alb and asked us if we wanted a ride to Cristo Rey. The service was well attended with a lot of young people. The new church is roofed but the money isn’t available to complete the construction. In the afternoon we went to service here an Manos de Dios. The congregation is young but doesn’t seem to be large enough, hence the difficulties they are experiencing in maintaining this very large building.


Sunrise and sunset here are very fast and sometimes quite dramatic. This sunset was taken from the balcony just outside our kitchen

Mon., 26 Jan. -We go water. The water tank is filled and I was able to take a this afternoon shower. Boy it felt good. However the carpenter hasn't been back with the re-worked kitchen cabinet.