Update... Late edition.

I’d like to start this post with my favorite opening sentence. “It’s been a while since we’ve posted…” While true, I know that none of you have been sitting on pins-and-needles, nervously awaiting the next post.

Since the last update, we’ve visited Guatemala for a visa run, Ma and Pa Eldridge have visited the house for 10 days, and the rotavirus has visited everyone’s guts for longer than desired; 2 out of 3 isn’t too bad. 

Happy family (Kaleb has his game face on.)

We had a great visit with mom and dad. The majority of the time, we just took it easy in Las Lomitas and passed day to day life with them. They were able to meet neighbors, cook (and eat) local foods, wash laundry by hand, go trudging through the woods, make roadside repairs to the car, walk through coffee plantations with “Juan Valdez,” and even swing a machete a little. We also took some time to check out Caliche, Canchias, Lake Yojoa, and the ocean at Tela with them too. This was our first visit from family down here, and it was much, much appreciated. We know it took a lot of time out of their life, but it was great. We hope it was as encouraging for them as it was for us.

 

However, just as they were leaving, Honduras gave them a precious parting gift, the rotavirus. Dad received it on Father’s Day, but, being the wonderful father he is, decided to share it with mom on plane ride home so that they could both enjoy it together. Stacey and I shortly found ourselves painting the porcelain throne, but are on the mends now. 

We also had to scoot out of the country again to renew our visas and found ourselves in the very, very pleasant colonial Guatemalan town of Antigua. The 11 hours on a bus is a bit long, but very much worth it. Antigua sits about a mile high in the Guatemalan mountains within the shadow of three very impressive volcanoes. The cobblestone streets of the city have about a dozen beautiful cathedrals, a huge selection of really nice, authentic accommodation, and awesome places to check out the local food. Sorry Belize, but Guatemala wins round one. 

From here, we’ll continue moving forward with the vegetable garden and living fence at the house, as well as integrating into the community. Stacey has also begun facilitating a "chat" time with the young women of the community focusing on a Biblical view of abstinence and other typical problems facing these ladies. Please be praying for that on Wednesdays at 3PM.

We already feel very accepted and a lot of momentum within the community to move forward, but, we’re still taking our time and being sure that whatever we do, we don’t rush. The last thing we want to do is be in the community for a few months and let that be sufficient. We want to know these people as much as possible, to be sure that we’re moving forward as they want to, not as we do. The longer we're here, the more potential we feel. Amazing things are already happening, and we can't wait to see what's to come.

Damos Gracias a Dios por: sanarnos de los infeciones feos del cuerpo. (We give thanks to God for healing us from the yucky infections in our bodies.)

Check.

As impossible as it seems, the house is officially done. Between all of the other craziness inside and outside of Las Lomitas, the 500 sq ft. concrete palace is finished (for now :).

As you can see, the car has also changed. We'll talk about that later.

The end product is a 25' x 20' house designed for good ventilation, decent light (without electricity), self-sustaining water (rainwater catchment), and 40 years of wastewater management. It has two bedrooms, a sala (kitchen/dining room/living room), a porch, a shed, and a bathroom. Running water is provided by a rainwater catchment cistern pumped (by hand) up to a plastic tank which is fed to the house by gravity. The floors and walls are concrete, with an aluminum roof.

Bathroom.

Mud room.

Guest Room.

Our room.

Sala.

On paper, 500 sq ft. sounds really small, and we were designing the house to be fairly small. However, in practice here, 500 sq ft are actually fairly big. It's not the biggest house in the community by any means, but it's very comfortable, and designed for hosting visitors and future family growth (nothing in the oven right now, settle down mom).

All-in-all, it's been an awesome learning process and has already seen so many things pass, late-night talks, learning masonry, toucans dying in the shed, bucket showers, amazing cooking, 8 kinds of bananas, butchered armadillo, butchered Spanish, and bloodied fingers (stupid machetes, nothing serious, again, settle down mom).

Damos gracias a Dios por: el bendicion de nuestra primera casa en nuestra propia tierra. (We give thanks to God for the blessing of our first house on our own land.)

Update we forgot to publish on Fri....

Things have been moving steadily along in and out of Las Lomitas. Our time is currently split between Caliche, community development initiatives, and our time in our community.

Our community development time is mostly internally-focused, helping the staff here recognize their involvement in the country's development and trying to move HtH's practices more towards sustainable processes that don't create dependency or disempower the people with whom they work. However, this time is starting to open more into other initiatives as potential projects begin to move forward.

Our Caliche time has seen a group of engineering students from Dayton come and go to work on the filters there above the community. They had a very successful week and were able to check out the entire system as well as install the majority of the filters. This involved moving the 10,000 Liter tanks up to treatment house and sifting tons and tons of sand. This week, we'll be headed out see how close to full of sand the filters are before water is moved from the source to the treatment house.

Within the community, we've had some very exciting moments as well. With our community's leaders, we were able to meet with a national senator about the potential electricity project in Las Lomitas, and the outcome was very positive. We'll keep you up to date on how that process continues. We really feel like we have some exceptional leaders in the community and are very glad to see them stepping up to see their community grow in the right direction.

In addition, our rainwater collection system is up and running and have flushed our toilet for the first time and taken our first shower there at home. Needless to say, it was very exciting to see the cistern full of 1500 gallons of water and then be able to use it for our basic needs. The next step is to help some local folks understand that it's a possibility for them too.

Looking out my backdoor.

After a week that saw us eating beef tongue and armadillo tamales, the banana republic has decided it's more fun to bring live animals to gringos. This week has seen three new friends at the Eldridge Ranch.

1. Mangero

So, I got a call last week from Steve DeLisle who was here working.

"Kaleb, are you at your house?"
"Yes."
"Okay. I'll be there in a few minutes. I have something for you."

I thought, "Alright, more cans of Skyline chili!" What I did not think was of a miniature green toucan on stick. But as surely as the sun rises, when Steve arrived, he arrived with Mangero, the mango-eating Emerald Toucanet. 

Although I felt awful for keeping him tied-up, he was pretty neat. The plan was to keep him around a week or two to see if he was going to do okay in captivity, and if no, let him go. Unfortunately, Mangero went all Patrick Henry on me and chose death instead of life without freedom. I found him lifeless on the floor of the shed on our second sunrise together. Give me liberty or give me death indeed. Sorry about that buddy.

2. Huge nameless snake.

A couple of teenage guys came walking into the yard with a big feedsack suspended from a pole they were carrying with big smiles on their faces. "This," I thought, "will be good." Sure enough, I was pleased with what was in the sack.

Caption Foreground: Big dumb happy white man, with big dumb unhappy snake.

 Caption Background: Big dumb, prideful turkey.

What was presently unceremoniously dumped from the sack was a 7-ft long common boa constrictor with a girth alarmingly similar to my leg. It was a beautiful, dumb, slow-moving creature. Our neighbors thought that it would make a charming pet, Stacey however, disagreed. I had also instantly come to the conclusion that I had no interest in giving it food.

The snake himself and the feathery reason that everyone here kills them. (These things eat chickens.)

As opposed to seeing the thing go the way of the toucan or the machete, we threw him back in the sack and drove him down to a nice deserted area and let him free. I assume he's now happily eating someone else's chickens down that way.

3. The rats.

In addition this week, we received some useful additions to the family known as guatusas. Apparently, they're actually Central American Agoutis. For rodents, they're fairly cute and unobtrusive, kind of a mix between a rabbit and a guinea pig.

The reason we say they're useful is that we received a breeding pair (male and female if you're wondering how that works), and they're edible. So, these animals here are the pets, the forthcoming children will be the breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Let's hope they're tasty.

On a somewhat serious note, these were actually a big blessing. We were looking to identify a local animal that:

• Could be eaten in one meal. (Almost a necessity since refrigeration is not available.)
• Breeds easily. (They're rodents.)
• Is accepted locally as a food source.
• Adds valuable protein to the diet.
• Could be trialed at low cost.

Needless to say, these fit the prayers fairly precisely. We're looking forward to giving them a taste over the coming months and see how they do in captivity. They're apparently fairly common captive animals in the rural areas. They are hunted for food, but in captivity, they're viewed more as pets. So, the only introduction to the party would be the idea of seeing them as hairy chickens. Please pray for this process that the idea is accepted. If accepted, it could lower the hunting pressure on the surrounding population and lead to a new unique food source for local communities.

Other pets:
In addition to the three above (to clarify, of these three, only the rats live with us now), Echo is still with us and doing quite well. He's growing rapidly, and in no danger of being eaten.

We'll see what the next week might bring.

Damos gracias a Dio por: el monton de animales nuevos que viven aqui cerca a nosotros. (We give thanks to God for all the new animals that live here close to us.)

Weekly Update... Late edition

Living without internet has inevitably reduced our typing time, but we've resolved to do a better job of it over the coming weeks. Sorry for those of you that hang on our every word, waiting for the latest AMAZING update (all 2 of you, love you moms).

Since you last heard from us, we've been very busy, but happily so. We've been involved in a lot of community development meetings and planning within the ministry, and we're really looking forward to the future of this  ministry. So many changes are happening to move us toward self-sustainability and away from dependency. We feel very strongly that for too long, we as Christians have moved away from the Biblical principal of self-sustenance (check out Titus and 2 Thessolonians for more on that). As a result, we've disempowered many people around the world with a false gospel of dependency, resulting in many third world countries standing with hand outstretched, waiting for a handout. The processes and priorities we're putting in place currently as a ministry is moving us away from this model towards a process that's more empowering and Biblical.

 At the house, we're wrapping up the last construction project (the rainwater cistern), and can't wait to fill it up with the big spring rains. All said and done, we'll have about 5000 liters available of clean water. We're excited. We'll do a big post once we're all finished up with the house and the water situation.

We've also been heavily involved in Caliche over the past couple of weeks. We're nearing the final stages of the project and it's getting very exciting. This past week, a group of engineering students from the University of Dayton were here helping with the installation of the biosand filters and assessing the other structures along the line. The project is really incredible and we can't wait to see the finished project. Never in my life have I seen such dedication as I've seen from the folks in Caliche on this. Very motivated folks.

Sorry that it's such a quick update, but we're really doing well and will try to put together some more informative posts here over the coming week to explain a little better what's going on.

Thanks for checking in!

Damos gracias a Dios por: una clima increible donde podemos dormirnos bien. (We give thanks to God for an incredible climate where we can sleep well.)

Birthdays

Over the past week we’ve had 3 birthdays with our closest neighbors.  Pastor Erick turned 27 on April 21^st.  Stacey made him a cake and we celebrated with the family that lives cati-corner to us.  He is dating their daughter Karen (long distance – she’s working in San Pedro Sula) so they are the only “family” he has here since he’s from a city about 2 hrs. away.

Left to right: Marina, Suyapa, Llovani (in the back), Lidia (purple shirt), Marleni, Antonio, Erick, and in the front are Jose and Lencho.

Writing in cursive was a little bit of a mistake culturally, not many understood.

The twins next door and a few other kids enjoyed playing with the left over icing.

The next day the smallest boy in that family, Dani, (he’s not in the picture above because he had already fallen asleep for the night) turned 3.  His celebration included a piñata that all the neighborhood kids joined in on, balloons, and eating tamales.  He is the smaller one in this picture, he is standing with his brother Jose. 

Jose and Dani

Then on April 30^th our next door neighbor, Nauh, turned 15.  He is the one who has been by our side volunteering work since the first ditch we dug for our house, so we made him a cake as well.  We can’t make cakes for everyone in the community but we thought it appropriate as a thank- you to the 2 people who have helped us every day – Erick and Nauh.  Cakes are not very common in Las Lomitas, so it was quite an event and many came to watch Stacey create.  There are a handful of girls who are interested in learning with the idea of a future business!  This is why we're here - how exciting to teach a skill to provide a living for a few people!  What skill can you bring to Las Lomitas to last a life time?  We'd love for you to come and share it!

Our biggest helper, Nauh.

Instead of writing in cursive like I usually do, I wrote in manuscript because many people could not read the cursive on Erick's cake the week before.  Cursive is not something taught in the rural schools.

We also went fishing for Nauh’s birthday, it was only his second time to go fishing in his whole life so he was very excited all day building up to the moment we left. We left around 4pm and got back around 9pm to take advantage of fishing at dusk.  We used fishing line with hooks on the end, fishing rods are not very common down here.  We only came home with 6 fish, but it was an exciting outing for all.

Headed down the path to the lake carrying plantains as a gift to the man who let us fish there, coke for a drink, line, hooks, and pails full of worms.

The fish we left with.

Weekly Update 2

Last week was filled with a meeting with the mayor, finishing the pila (holds water where you can wash dishes/clothing), laying the concrete slab over the septic hole (needed to be strong because we are also planning to put the car on this slab), attending a community meeting, having a great church service about using our talents, celebrating Pastor Erick’s birthday, and much more.

The next step to get the house where we’d like (especially for visitors – which starts in early June) is the cistern.  The hole is dug on the porch but the next part is to lay block inside it and seal it well to hold the water.  Then pour concrete for the lid/porch floor, after that we’ll hook up a hand pump to send the water up to the roof where a tank will be.  From the tank on the roof gravity will allow the water to fall into the tubes already built into the house (shower, toilet, sinks).

 

This week so far we have been in meetings for community development with Heart to Honduras and working on the Honduran Heart to Honduras website – which is very new.  A water project is starting in a community named Armenta.  As much as we don’t like being inside or in the car a lot it’s been a nice break away from mixing concrete by hand.  Kaleb mixed 12 bags by hand to lay the concrete slab, his body needed a break.

We also got the chance to get a little involved in community aspects. Stacey started a Sunday school with another local lady. Despite the boys smacking each other in the back of the head, it went really well. We also got to sit in on a community meeting and vote. On Sunday morning, Kaleb got up at 4:30 AM to go out with the men of the community to "maintain" the roadside. In the states, this would mean a tractor or weedeater of some sort, however, here it means chopping with a machete in semi-jungle for an hour. As enjoyable as it was, the best part was sharing the life with the men in this way, for them to see we don't believe we're any better than them and are interested in working alongside them, learning from them.

We’ve recently got the idea for a way for you to be involved in what God does here in Las Lomitas.  We would love if some of you would take a name of someone in the community and commit to pray for them.  We feel unable to cover each person in prayer the way we want to and believe that God could do great things if His people start praying for these people personally.  If you are interested in becoming a prayer warrior for one person from Las Lomitas please email us and we’ll give you a name and a brief description of them.  If you don’t already have our email, click on the “Contact Us” tab above, you’ll see our email there – just be sure to take our the X’s.  

  Thanks again for being involved and supporting us!

Neighbors: Fiercly-territorial and dim-witted male poultry

The faceoff.

Poultry is a constant presence in Honduras: in the street, in the yard, in the house, in the tree, on the roof, etc. Miraculously, everyone seems to have a pretty good handle on whose chicken is whose, despite the lack of containment.

However, a fight recently spilled over into our yard between two rivals. If it hadn't been for the referee (the duck), it could've gotten really ugly. However, it was a clean fight and we had our money on the victor. So, everyone went home happy.

The big game.

The victor.