my most sincere apologies to those who've i have offended

To those that I offended with my previous blogs, I sincerely apologize, none of those blogs were written to offend anyone. I had a horrible day, and acted very irresponsible in venting. I’m not used to writing a blog for a lot of people. I love the work in Honduras no matter where it is. The work in mololoa is a great thing and the people who are working there or donating funds are some of the greatest people that I know, and I apologize to you for what I wrote. At the time that I was writing the blog, I had been misinformed throughout the day, by other emotional people, and at the time I was letting my emotions overcome my professionalism. I should have really put some thought into what I was thinking, and even more into what I was writing. I was a very poor Christian example, what I wrote was completely selfish, and all I was doing was having pity on myself because I was a little bit wet and tired. I didn’t think about all of those who had raised and donated money and all of the hard work they had put in to that. I didn’t think about how much time and effort the Kluges, the Palmetto congregation, and all those who have worked so hard to make Mololoa a better place with places such as the daycare, the feeding center, and the church. I know that most of you think that I have no appreciation for those who donate their time and hard-earned money to the work in Honduras, after what I wrote, but I want you all to know that Honduras is practically my home, and I love it there, there are very few places that I would rather be than Honduras. I hope that anyone who reads this can find it in their hearts to forgive me for my careless actions, and that you continue your hard work and dedication in Honduras. Once again I apologize to the Palmetto Church, the Kluges, to the donors, to the Reeves, to TORCH, to my family, and to God, and I ask you all for forgiveness and your prayers that I may be wiser in the future.

driving,driving,driving,driving,driving....

today started out w/ a lot of laughs. Anchorman was quoted a lot, and at 7:30 am it's even funnier that it is normally. after that we pulled a prank that has lasted 3 days now lol. tara and aliena shea had a bag that hadn't made it when they flew in. so ab and terry told them it was in caracas, venezuela. soooo then they told the shea's that it'd be at least 3 days before they got their bag. soooo this led to yesterday in which their bag came in (i must remind all of you that this bag only contained food, and give aways) but we let them believe that they couldn't even find it in the tracking system at the airport, that it was stuck in a warehouse in miami. she was so frustrated b/c the most expensive thing was the actual luggage the stuff was in lol. so we kept it in the truck until i went to bed i put it in our room. at 7:30 this morning, AB called erin on terry's phone, and pretended he was american airlines, but he was talking in spanish, so sara told tara that AA was at the end of the driveway, so she jumped out of bed and "speedwalked" to the end of the driveway. and as luck would have it, a car was pulling in the driveway, so she goes up to it and shows the driver her driver's license, and he just waves and keeps on going down the driveway. so she makes her way back down the driveway, meanwhile, rudy grabbed her bag from the room, sprinted out of the room and put it in the middle of the driveway, and sprinted back in, so we looked like the 3 stooges looking out the window laughing at her as she saw her bag and quickly grabbed it and sped back to her dorm. it was priceless. TO BE CONTINUED...

after all of that fun, we scurried around and got ready, ate breakfast and had devo at the rock. after devo, we got the vbs team ready and got them on the bus and out of here to the valley. then the Loco Gringos w/o their fearless leader jim (sick), headed back out to do concrete work at mololoa. and the rest of us stayed here to pack up a double load of food. around 11 terry, rudy, and i headed back to the water park to make our reservations for saturday. we had to go through 3 ppl before talking to the manager and he had no problem w/ us coming. we put 50% down and headed to didasko. once at didasko, we found rosa right away, then we sat down w/ Jorge and talked for about 45 mins-1 hr. during the talk jorge apologized for not being there on monday when we went there. we told rosa we were going to take the kids swimming, so jorge thought we were taking them to the pool in the valley, so terry told him that plans had changed and that if jorge approved that we wanted to take the kids to the waterpark...for 15 seconds jorge was speechless, and then he said "in my wildest dreams i never thought that they would ever get to go there. we always pass it and the kids just look at it with wide eyes of wonder, and its so heartbreaking that we will never be able to afford to take them there." and now that dream, is going to become a reality for jorge, rosa, their employees, and 35 children. jorge then told us about last year he went to a men's retreat in oregon with 400 men, and he was just a nobody, nobody was going to recognize him as anyone famous or anything, but the VP of the retreat, and some board members came and talked with him, and prayed with him. (and jorge said "idk if you believe in this stuff but") the men then prophesied that in the next year 4 men will come and provide and support him with everything he needs. and jorge doesn't exactly believe in prophecies, but he said that everything he needs is being provided for him by different mission groups. on top of taking the kids to the water park, tom is buying another load of food for them and taking it out there. it's just amazing how God works and jorge and rosa are so grateful for it, and i'm just amazed how He does things. after about an hr of an amazing talk and putting edwin to sleep on my lap, we left and headed to the airport to exchange some money w/ carlos (in which i felt like a drug dealer lol) then we headed up the mountain. once here, terry and i looked at stuff for costa rica, and AB prepared the best fake papers i've ever seen (referring back to the prank on tara now) he printed out a paper with all kinds of fees on from american airlines, and we found a stamp that said something about a deposit, and then he found a blank envelop and he used a typewriter to print the address here and return address from AA. then they put tape on the envelop and ripped it off, giving it the appearence that it had been opened. we then gave it to erin to give to tara. at supper then, tara came up to terry to pay him back the $40 he "paid" the AA guy. so she totally bought it and it's hilarious. we have yet to tell her that she has been PUNK'D!! hahaha...margaret, your type E blood is rubbing off on me a bit. lol. then we ate supper, SPAGHETTI!!, then ppl went to mas o menos, and then devo...so it was a relaxing evening....

p.s.- i guess it's that time on the trip where my stomach hates me. so please pray that it starts liking me again, and that it doesn't rain on saturday please!! thanks love and miss y'all

Why Being an Intern is Great!!

today started out as usual, wake up at 7, get showered, eat breakfast, devo, then we got everyone on the buses and got them out of here to mololoa & special needs/didasko. after they all headed out, rudy & i fell asleep outside the pulperia for about an hr. while terry was busy checking his email for an hr. after he finished we all hopped in the truck and headed to price mart (sam's club of honduras) and bought a ton of stuff for didasko: toilet paper, toothpaste, soap, and rice crispie treats. then we loaded that up and headed to Larach&Cia and bought plastic roofing for "terryworld" in didasko. we almost saw rudy beat up a guy there, b/c the guy was a punk. so we loaded up the plastic/supplies in the truck and headed to the airport, we ate at pizza while we were waiting for the flight to get in so we could try and pick up tara's bag...BUT, the flight didn't get in until 2:10 so we headed out to didasko and we decided to just pick the bag up later. we arrived at didasko around 2:30. we played for a few mins w/ the kids while terry talked w/ tom and rosa, after about a half hour, we unloaded everything from the truck and the 3 of us headed to the coolest place i've ever been in the tegucigalpa area. Agua Splash, the huge water-park on the way to didasko. while we were there we made reservations for saturday to take the kids from didasko there on saturday, we're hoping that jen's kids and group would come too. after that we headed back to the house, got ready for soccer. we got the ppl off the bus, got them a bite to eat. then rudy, AB and i headed down to victor's to make sure we had the court, we first played American Airlines, then everyone else showed up and we played winner stays from 6-8, my team: rudy, AB, Milton, Juan Carlos, & I didn't do too bad, but we didn't do great. when finished we then headed back up the mountain, had devo, then we relaxed for a while. i had to do PDA control...it's a pain, but it was kinda nice being the one to catch ppl, instead of being the one who gets caught lol...well we have another busy day tomorrow. so i'm hopefully off to bed soon. miss and love y'all

p.s- pray that it doesn't rain on saturday, so that the water park for the kids at didasko can become a reality, and be the most awesome thing that TORCH has ever done.

I Hate Rain!!!

well this blog is for yesterday b/c we didn't have internet the past couple of days.

Saturday was the SC's group, first day of REAL work. so we all load up on the buses, and head to Mololoa; now you would think i would learn after being out there several times that anytime that i go there that it's going to rain, to bring a raincoat or something to protect me from the elements...but no...(this is foreshadowing for those of you who didn't pick that up)...(i also hate being wet...another good piece of knowledge before i go on)...soooooo we all go out to the mololoa, first off the buses can't go to the soccer fields as usual to park b/c of the previous showers we had. so they have to block the roads and park there. we split up into 4 teams: 2 construction, 1 digging, and 1 kid playing team. i was on the construction "teams"...we get to the first site, o wait the only site w/ wood, and i ask randy where the site is...he just points "over there" he says, so louis and i head down past the sites that we built at last wk, and still can't find it, then some lady comes and points down over a 15 foot cliff to this little itty piece of flat land...i find it hard to believe that every site for us to build on is on less than desirable ground...but apparently that's all there is in mololoa. so we had both crews working on getting the wood down the hill and started digging the holes...which wasn't too bad, but getting the wood there was a little tricky. after about 45 mins - 1 hr later, the other site's wood finally drives by, so louis and i grabbed our crew and supplies and walked about 5 mins up the mountain to our site, which i guess wasn't as bad as the other one, but when the only way down to the "flat" ground, is straight down...it's not exactly easy. so not only did we have an interesting site, it was a drainage area in which we had to fill in 2 foot ravines just to build the house, not only that but we had to dig out a bunch of the ground in order to build the house, AND the site was to small so we built a 15x15 house...yeah, great start to a day lol. so we get all the posts in, start the walls, and floor. everything is going pretty smooth....BUT it's honduras, that can't happen. so at 3 pm, all but three of us left for a dedication of the daycare to the family who donated a lot of money for it. while they were gone the interns and i finished the house.

today we had church in the valley, then shopped, and rudy, AB, terry and i had a great lunch full of amazing meat and beans!!, then we went to the children's home right outside of the valley for a few hrs, then we went back to the valley to catch the end of the brazil/argentina game, then went to santa lucia for another amazing meal, then to santa lucia for devo which is the oldest cathedral in the western hemisphere...then back to the house...we have a busy wk this wk so keep us all in your prayers...miss and love y'all...

Relaxation!!!

today was a good day. we got up at 6:30 which was bad b/c of the wonderful guys working on the new chapel w/ a jackhammer...so we relaxed for a while then we took katie to the airport for her flight, then headed to Baxter for a while, then out to the valley of angels. we went out there looking for carlos the preacher at the church there. BUT as usual it didn't go as planned b/c we couldn't find him, so we found a children's home instead and planned a visit there on sunday. we then proceded to santa lucia and arranged everything there for sunday also. then we headed to the mall for the rest of the day. some of us made phone calls (which some ppl don't like to answer, i won't mention any names...ERIN!!!) lol :) j/k. and some of us did some shopping for things we needed/wanted. then we all watched die hard 4 which was awesome i thought! after the movie i made some more phone calls, then grabbed a bite to eat, then we all headed back to the house. taking an internet course on a mission trip puts a bit of a damper on any social life lol. so as soon as i got back i ate my supper, and got to work on my h/w. we have a busy day tom so we all have to get our rest. buenos noches

p.s.- kim congrats on your acceptance!! i'm so glad you're getting out of there, plus it's prob a lil bit closer to me!! lol

love and miss y'all

I Apologize

hey y'all i apologize for not writing on here in a while. but i'm writing the TORCH blog too so if you wanna know anything that i'm doing read that one until i have time to catch up on this one please. thanks, love and miss y'all!

"Get Off My Case!!" lol...

well today started out as usual, my alarm goes off at 7 and i glare at it hoping that my death stare will change the time and that i was just having a nightmare. then i realize that i wasn't dreaming and that i had to get up. so i got up, ate breakfast, had devo, then we split up into 2 main groups. both went to the valley of angels. but in the valley one small group "super group" went and built a house for a lady who had one of the last TORCH houses w/o a floor in it. originally we were supposed to tear down her old one and rebuild a new one, but instead we just built her a brand new one right beside it that has a floor. we killed it today, we had a full bufftruck crew today and built the house in 4 hrs. it was quite amazing i must say. once again though the honduran food got to me which is really unusual but both tricky and i had to make use of mountain facilities lol...after the house was finished we headed back to the mission house on elroy. meanwhile the other group had done some shopping in the valley in the morning and then headed to the blind school (which erin mann just loves) you'll have to ask her about her experiences there lol. then we all got back for supper, then we had until 9 to pack for choluteca. which for me wasn't enough time apparently since i didn't know that i was going to have to pack my stuff up just to bring it right back. we had devo at 9 which was interesting...then we packed up the busses b/c we have to leave the mission house no later that 6 am...well this may be the last blog for a few days b/c of choluteca, i hope everyone is having a good time at home!

Happy 4th of July

Today is of course Independence Day, and i kinda got my own freedom b/c i wasn't working as hard today which was nice, my body appreciated it lol. i hope everyone at home and in the states somewhere enjoyed some very nice fireworks, we had some cheap firecrackers here, but the neighbors called the cops on us and spoiled all of our fun lol.

Today started out REAL good lemme tell ya lol, i led singing this morning, or at least attempted to. lesson learned, don't try to sing new songs to an older group....i bombed big time and ended up just letting ben do it. ryan gave his first devo and it was really good. then we split up into 2 groups, one to Nueva Oriental & Mololoa, the other to special needs & didasko. i didn't go on either of those. i went w/ terry, ben, tricky, & taft to the hospital to pick matt up finally and to check on our other victim in the hospital. after that we all hopped in the trucks and headed to the store, then the bank, and finally to didasko. on the way there i thought i had seen my last sight of life...as we're going down a hill terry decides to pass an 18 wheeler just before a turn, we were about half way when another 18 wheeler was coming up, so we were part of a 3 car sandwich between 2 18 wheelers on a 2 lane road...what a rush!! we finally got to didasko and the bus had beat us there. ben, tricky, and i made some minor repairs on "Terryworld" and played w/ the kids. i love that place!! we gave them food and toys, and some girls even gave their only shoes away. we got back around 6, ate supper, played a lil ball, then had devo. tricky gave a really good devo tonight i was very proud of him. then we had cake, pop, and chips for everyone for the 4th of july. then i spent the rest of the evening doing computer work...what fun!!...lol...tom is going to be a busy day and i can't wait. pray for our safety and that we may guide others in the right direction! i love and miss you all.

Construction Sickness...

well today was Day 2...once again i was a leader of a construction crew...before i go any further, anyone who knows me is probably laughing while reading that, and yes i agree it is a bit amusing, but thats just the way the cookie crumbles...so today i got up a little later than usual, i suppose thats what happens when you stay up until 2 talking to a beautiful girl :) lol. so we ate breakfast, had devo, and tricky and i packed up as much stuff as we could find b/c the atlanta group took most of it...figures...and we headed out to mauna loa. we also had a crew of about 7 who worked at the feeding center there also. tricky and i split up our groups and i got the luck of the draw...or at least i thought so. i got most of the veterans, of course i couldn't have a perfect day so we got to our site, and first off, the wood was put in the wrong place, so randy gave my group a new site right beside tricky's group. so we have 2 different groups trying to haul lumber down one little bitty path...o it was interesting at times. and you know those hondurans, they loved to step in and help, the only thing is they have one gear...and it's fast. so while us gringos are trying not to kill ourselves, they're saying "beep beep" and flying by us...and yes they literally said "beep beep" lol. when we got to our site, the land wasn't even ready yet so they were still digging for about an hr after we got there to get it dug out enough so that we could build. the nice thing was there was no rocks...the trade off was the soil was so soft especially w/ the wonderful rain today that you had no traction, that's always nice on the side of a mountain. so we got our poles put in and everything was going as good as a honduran house can, then once again i start feeling woozy, but this time it's got a twist w/ it, not only do i feel like i'm going to pass out, my stomach hated me for some reason and was trying to destroy me from the inside out. so i had to take a break for a while, yeah i know..."what a leader?..." so i took my little break and i lost the wooziness but my stomach still hated me, i was pretty much worthless, i could barely hammer, i couldn't do much at all. so i handed wood and supplies to everyone who needed them. at this time it's about 3 or just after and my stomach was killing me, and we're not even half way done yet. meanwhile tricky's group is nearly done w/ their house. so as soon as they finished theirs ben, brett, tricky, and louis came and helped and we got our house finished. in all of the hustle and bustle of all the new helpers, i couldn't take it any more, the demon inside of me had to be destroyed. So Louis translated for me so I could use the facilities on the mountain, which consisted of a concrete hole in the ground surrounded by tin. I felt like Jesus casting demons out of men though…I was a new man after that so I went back, put the finishing touches on the house, and by that time there was only 7 of us left b/c we had sent the rest to the bus. The 7 of us then headed to Los Pinos to help the Atlanta group finish their house b/c they were having problems w/ theirs. So we got their even w/ louis’ horrible directions. Once there the 7 of us helped finish the roof, door, window, and 1.5 walls in less than 40 mins. On the way back down it was pitch black and elroy got stuck b/c a bus in front of it broke down, blocking the road, so both the bus and our truck had to turn around and head back another way, just another interesting part of the day. We finally got off the mountain and stopped at wendy’s for dinner, and got a bunch of free food b/c the lady messed up my order. Then we got back to the mission house, got a presentation by janet hines about Mi Esperanza, then had devo by jq, then chilled for a while, then did TORCH’s blog w/ my fellow intern erin, then I finally got cleaned up and ready for the next day…

P.S.- wearing a hat backwards in the Honduran sun all day = ridiculous looking sun burn line lol…

Airport Craziness & Construction

well i know today is monday but i didn't have time to write yesterday.

Sunday- today we got to sleep in, had devotional on the rock, then headed to the airport w/ 14 ppl in terry's truck once again...i think it's a record. so we picked up the FL/TN group BUT the FL group lost about 9 bags of luggage so we were at the airport until almost 3 pm. so after we all ate, we took the group to get groceries while terry and i filled up the busses w/ fuel, picked the group up, and sent them up the mountain for orientation. meanwhile terry and i headed back to the airport to get the PA group. we were there until almost 6 waiting for them. we finally got them, headed up the mountain, dropped off the bags, headed back to town, ate at tony roma's. i'm to the point where i'm sick of nice resturant food lol. then we picked up sara massana from el salvador at the marriott, and headed back up the mountain for the night.

Monday- we got up at 6:30, got ready, ate breakfast, had devo, and split up for the day. today i was leading up a construction team out by Santa Anna. Tricky Pat lead up the other one, in which they had no tools for the first 2 hrs lol...Welcome to Honduras...as we would say. on our way to our site, our bus broke down, luckily it was right by our site so it was easy to walk to. well i suppose easy is a relative term when talking about this site. the saying "over the river and through the woods, to grandmother's house we go..." was put into reality today lol. our site was at least half a mile away from the road on a trail that my dog would barely fit on. so we eventually got there around 11 or so and the site wasn't too bad, not a whole lot of rocks. 3 of marc's interns were helping and they were awesome, the best interns i've ever worked w/ in 7 yrs. so we got all of the posts squared which took a long time but it was accurate and that's what matters, we had 14 ppl so we had ppl doing a lot of different things. we worked very well as a team today i was thrilled. i learned that it's very important to keep hydrated, especially when working on a roof, i blacked out on the roof and had to jump off and get rehydrated, it was a lil scary. i was worried for a lil while that we were gonna be rushed on time but God provided help and we got done at 5:30 and came back and ate supper, cleaned up, and headed to the jesus statue for devo. mark from OK spoke tonight and it was a pretty good devo, then we came back to the house and chilled for the night.

i'm so happy for 2 reasons today; 1 b/c my mom finaly got her bday gift i sent her, 2 b/c i got to talk to erin...yes it's been a very good day!! :)

Leaving Home

well it's that time of year again, yes, it's Honduras time! today is saturday June 30, and it's my mom's birthday so first off i want to wish her a most happy birthday. and i would like to apologize to her b/c her birthday present didn't get there when it was supposed to, but hopefully she will get it on monday.
it was very nice spending some time at home over the summer, it's something that i'm not quite used to. i would like everyone to pray for my friend jake, he's being shipped to Iraq for a year so he'll need all of our prayers.

ok now to my blog:
my last week at home was very hectic i taught and preached on sunday, worked monday and tuesday, painted on wednesday, and left the house at 3 on thursday morning. in leaving at 3 i decided not even to go to bed that night so i could pack and enjoy one last night at home...bad choice lol. mom and i left the house and i passed out in the car on the way to the airport. we got to the airport around 5. mom dropped me off w/o even crying i was so proud of her. it was the first time she's ever dropped me off somewhere for a long time that she didn't cry. everything went smooth until i flew to JFK, my flight was delayed 5 times and my gate switched 3 times...needless to say i don't like JFK airport. i finally arrived in nashville at around 1 or so and relaxed for a while before erin arrived back from Europe. that made my day. so i got to spend 5 wonderful hours w/ her and her family but then it was time to get to work. so her and her family drove me to terry's and i had to say goodbye to her once again. at terry's we did some last minute things to get ready then got a lil shut eye and headed out around 5 for our flight. it went smooth, we got to miami and met up w/ ryan and then we all flew out to tegucigalpa and had the smoothest landing i've ever had. after landing we had to make our way through customs, then we met up w/ mark tindall and janet hines and grabbed a bite to eat at BK. we then all headed to the new warehouse and were supposed to unload the trailer, BUT welcome to Honduras !!! lol...we waited 3 hrs for the customs guy to come and unlock the truck. by that time, Ken Ellis' group was there and we unloaded a 40' trailer in less than an hr...i'd say thats pretty good. after that we came back to the mission house, cleaned up a little bit then headed to pizza hut for supper. then back the mission house, and i finally got to get a shower for the first time in almost 2 days...i was pretty gross.

Today was an easy day. we got up around 9 or so, had a quick briefing then terry dropped jenny, lester, margaret, tricky and i off at the bodega and him, rudy, and ryan went to the airport to get ryan's bags and pick up ppl. meanwhile, my group met w/ mark and his gang to clean the bodega and transport all of it to the new warehouse, we cleaned in 2 hrs. then went to wendy's for a break, then back to the warehouse, where my gang completely organized everything. it looks nice, then terry came back, took most of the group up, trick and i stayed behind then terry came back and we went to the airport to find brett and judy. well we got there 2 hrs after they landed and they had called jen wright and was with her and so we went and picked up the group, and we all went out to eat at el coral! brett and judy ended up meeting up with us there. so it was a good day!!...p.s- if you know of any good pranks please let me know...lester deserves it.