Here's our Fall Update! Enjoy!

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Hello friends and family,

We trust you are doing well! We are back in the swing of things, with the fall passing us by very quickly! We want to thank you again for your continued thoughts and prayers as we serve in Honduras. We appreciate it so much! It has been an eventful few weeks. We have spent the past 11 days babysitting Ken and Sue’s 3 kids. They have been great, but it has been a bit of a change from our regular lives! As well, Dave recently was in a car accident at the camp, while teaching Adalid, one of the Honduran camp staff, how to drive. We are so grateful that God spared both of their lives. Please pray for patience as we wait for our car to be fixed, and for God’s provision for this unexpected extra expense.

This summer, we will complete our 2 year commitment to our ministries here and we continue to pray and seek God’s direction for the future. While we have not made a decision about staying longer, we have decided to return to Canada next fall. We plan to be in the Belleville/Kingston area from approximately August-December 2008. We have not made any further decisions right now, but we are really looking forward to reconnecting with our family, friends and churches. Please pray for His provision, as we will be looking for a place to live in one of those cities, as well as a car.

We have recently had the privilege of getting to know one of the families in our community. Eda, the mother, comes each Wednesday to help around our house. More than anything, it has been a wonderful opportunity to get to know her and some of her 8 children! They live right in our community, but have no running water, and presently, no education for the kids. While public elementary education is free in Honduras, there are many associated costs, such as books, uniform, etc. With 5 school-age children, Eda was not able to cover these extra costs this year. Along with Ken and Sue, we are hoping to help Eda enrol her children in school in February (when the public school year begins). If you are interested in helping with some of these costs, please let us know. Eda’s children have also asked if I would start giving them English classes, so please pray for wisdom as these opportunities arise. We often find the number of people asking for help can be overwhelming, and it can be difficult to recognize our personal limitations.

Campamento Cerro de Luz

Camp life continues to be busy, even in this “slow” season. In the past month, we had a Gr. 6 camp, a work day, and the Union Biblica National Conference. One of the recent highlights was seeing the High and Low Ropes courses in full swing during the Gr. 6 camp. It was wonderful to watch them overcome their fears and learn to work together in teams.
The students are from public schools, and are involved with their school’s Union Biblica program.

We always love having visitors, and in October we had a surprise visit from Warren Temple, Esther’s cousin. Esther and Warren schemed for many weeks to keep the visit a surprise from Dave, and it actually worked! Dave, Warren and Ken participated in The Conference on Honduras 2007 in Copan, a forum for national and international development organizations working within Honduras, which they all found very useful. It was wonderful having Warren here, and giving him a glimpse of our lives in Honduras. We are looking forward to more visitors soon – including Dave’s parents at Christmas!

Siguatepeque Bilingual Christian School

It’s been a wonderful start to my second year of teaching. Even though I have more classes this year, I am finding the workload much more manageable, as I teaching 2 of the same classes again and have been able to reuse many of the materials I created last year. It has been great working with students that I have already had a chance to establish a rapport, as well as a new group of Gr. 9 students. After a bit of a rough start, things are going very well with them too. I continue to be grateful for opportunities to speak about my faith with my students. I am continually challenged to speak honestly about tough issues, as teenagers are not fooled by superficial answers. Please pray for wisdom as I share openly with my students, and encourage them to continue to seek a genuine faith relationship with Jesus Christ.

One project we are working on at school is to raise funds to purchase a video projector. Our students are very tech-savvy, and as teachers, it would be wonderful to encourage these skills. Currently, when I want to show a movie or a PowerPoint presentation to my class, they all have to try to gather around my laptop to watch. The projector would be shared amongst all of the teachers, and would also be used for assemblies, chapel, board meetings, etc. Please let us know if you would be interested in donating financially, or if you know of a used projector we could have.

It is hard to believe, but we are already looking for teachers to begin next August. I am hoping to recruit again in Canada this year. I am again helping to organize the joint volunteer program between the camp and school, directed at Queen’s B.Ed. students completing their Alternative Practicum. The program runs for 4 weeks in March and it is open to anyone interested, not just B.Ed. students. If you know of anyone who might be interested in either short or long-term opportunities at the school or camp, please have them contact me at recruitment@ceehonduras.com or visit our website http://www.ceehonduras.com/

Praise and Prayer
¨ Continued health and safety – praise God for protection of Dave and Adalid during recent car accident!
¨ Wisdom for our relationship with Eda’s family
¨ Growth in our spiritual lives, in our marriage, in our friendships
¨ Finances – substantial one-time needs (including fixing our car)
¨ Learning Spanish – enjoying new Spanish course!
¨ Balance between ministry, family, work
¨ Wisdom for future direction