Been busy...

Sorry for the lack of updates.  We were getting pretty good there before Christmas and since we've been back life has been too busy to spend time together as a couple, much less write creative updates.  Obviously the biggest item on our list is building our own home.  We'll get some pictures of that out soon.  The ditches for every wall have to be a foot wide and two feet deep.  When there are only 3-4 of us at a time, it moves fairly slowly. 
We continue our work in the office, teaching English twice a week, the Caliche water project, and moving forward with creating a "Community Development" department with Pastor Fredy (which includes an office area and a manual/paperwork).  Not to mention just living life itself here takes time.  Stacey stayed home today from digging ditches to catch up on laundry, cleaning, and food prep. 
We have been blessed with a new Honduran Director for the ministry after two years of having an interim director who was also a full time business man and could only give a little time.  Pastor Walter is a great addition to our team down here.  We actually just spent the weekend at his home with his family, he lives about 2 hours away and comes to work in the office 3 days a week.  Someone in their neighborhood had a gift for us....

The most recent addition to our lives is a puppy.  He was given to us by a family whose dog had 9 puppies.  His mother is brown (forearms) and father is Dalmatian (spots on his chest/toes).  We had been asking around for a mut that needs a home so he can be our guard dog at our home in Las Lomitas.  Having a guard dog in your yard is very common and a necessity here.  So he's only about 7 or 8 weeks old, (the family didn't know exactly when they were born).  We just got him Sunday and he's been going through withdraw from his mother and 8 brothers/sisters.  He always wants to be pressed tight up against something.  We're super tired not only from building the house but from lack of sleep because of hearing him whine for his family all night long.  We've been up to calm him down, warm him up, get him water/food, go to the bathroom, let him run off energy, and finally fall back to sleep in our lap so we can drop him back in his box and sleep until the next awakening.  Not making us want children any time soon. 
We had a name for him, but later found out that the culture here does not use people names for animals.  It is offensive to anyone with that same name because it equates them with an animal.  So we're back to the drawing board and until the moment he still is without a name.  He's just a little 4 lb. thing now, but he'll grow into a great guard dog.