Boys of Summer

Summer has arrived. School is out and my sons are loving it. We bought some new books at Books-A-Million yesterday, and we are all enjoying them. Today Jono got the pogo stick out of the garage and jumped around in the sprinklers in the back yard. He had on cut offs and no shirt. If that's not summer, I don't know what is.

I wish the quality of this photo was better, but i took it with my phone in low light, so I guess I should be glad it came out at all.

Be The Burger

Central Texas never seemed so cool in June before. I was out today in my car without air conditioning, and it was in the lower 90's, and I thought it was nuthin'. Bring it on. My last two weeks in May were spent in Honduras. It seemed hotter than normal this year, which could be because I usually go in the June-August time frame, after the rains have started. This year it only rained one day during the two weeks we were there. This made the roads easier, but the heat was way up.

In fact, it reminded me of my trips to Venus. OK, not really. When I put on sunscreen, it smoked. OK, not really. But in truth, I lost 13 pounds in 14 days, and I think I sweat it off. You know how hamburgers on the grill get smaller after the fat melts off? That was me. Well done.

In the picture below you can see that my shirt was soaked and sticking to me like I had been in the rain or something. I think I drank over 4 liters of water that day.


The day I took this picture I was walking around the village, Pueblo Nuevo, with a map we created. The map showed where all the power lines are supposed to go, but the map didn't have all the roads and foot paths shown on it. So I was walking around sketching the roads and foot paths when these two boys, Darwin and Jami (pronounced Hi-me) joined me. They started chatting to me in Spanish, seemingly unaware of my inability to speak much of it. Surprisingly, I could understand much of what they said.

Perhaps it is because their vocabulary is simpler than the adults', or perhaps they speak slower and clearer, but I could follow these boys pretty well. We had deep, meaningful discussions about how old they were and how many brothers and sisters they had. I would ask them who lives in that house, or which path do we take to get to that house. They were so glad to help me - I think it made them feel important.

Isn't this just like all of us? God is doing the work, but we get to follow him around and take part. It makes us feel important, but it's really him doing the work. Except I don't know if God sweats.

More Quakes in Honduras

I got a text from Ryan that he and Sergio are in Pueblo Nuevo spending the night. There have been more earthquakes today, so I went to the USGS website and started investigating. They are very close to the villages; the closest one is less than 11 miles away from Danta Uno. It was a 5.0 that occurred this Tuesday. There was a 4.3 and a 4.8 today, also nearby! More news as it shakes out...

Sergio said his family did not feel it in La Ceiba.

Whitewater on the Rio Cangrejal (Crab River)

Our friends at the Jungle River Lodge did not disappoint this year. They began their rafting experience with a 30 foot jump off a rock into the river! Nine of our team had a fine time on a world-famous whitewater rafting river. They said the experience created significant team bonding, which made me wish I had done it with them.

Left to right is Eduardo, Matt, Brian Diana, Juan, Liz, Lisa, David, and Aimie. Ryan, Teresa and I opted out and ran errands. A little boring by comparison, but they needed to be done.

Here is the view from 13 miles up. My errands, obviously, were at high altitude.
The squiggly line in the middle is the Rio Cangrejal!

A Man Named Melvin

Melvin is deaf and lives in a world where it is extra hard to have such a disability. However, he seems genuinely happy, as evidenced by his wide and enthusiastic smile and frequent laughter.

He lives with his wife and four daughters in Danta Uno, Honduras. We visited them during the day where the mother shared with us her concerns that Melvin has a difficult time getting work because of his deafness. Ironically, Melvin was working for us at the time and was amazing the students with his strength and endurance. He was outlasting the meat-eating college students who were, themselves, working very hard. (They moved about 20,000 pounds of rocks in two weeks.)

Melvin worked intelligently too, and contributed several good ideas to the construction of the water intake system of the pico hydroelectric generator. For those that did not speak Spanish, Melvin was actually easier to communicate with than the other village men, because he was used to communicating with hand signals. He was soon everybody's favorite.

Blaine brought a few little toys to give away to the youngest children. Melvin's youngest daughter was cautious in her approach to this gringo grande, perhaps a bit scary because he is taller than anyone else in the village, but the lure of plasticy shiny things overcame her fears. In that way we are all alike, I suppose.

Do you see the edge of her smile?! I caught it just as she put on her little bracelet. Please feel free to lavishly praise my skills as a photographer.

Later in the week, we revisited Melvin's family (and several visiting friends) under the light of our electricity. It was deeply rewarding to be in his home at night when the lights were on. Only a year ago this room would have been illuminated by kerosene-burning "candils" that belch soot and give only a fraction of the light for a similar costs to our electricity.

Times like these enable me to "not grow weary in doing good", despite the days of unbelievable heat and humidity, despite 20,000 pounds of rocks, or days of frustration when nothing works right, or having six flat tires on two vehicles in two weeks. This gringo grande feels satisfied. I, like Melvin, am happy.