And its one more day in Managua....

Hello all,

Well we have started to become more helpful to our partner Aso Fenix. Over the past several weeks we have been putting in a lot of office time (it is not as bad as it sounds). We have be helping Aso Fenix get more organized and be able to present itself better. Until recently, Aso Fenix, has just been really one person, Jamie, managing and working on a bunch of projects. Well the number of projects has been increasing and so has funding to do more projects, so it is time to grow. Unfortunately, most donors only provide funding for projects and not for helping the organization grow to meet these new demands. However, Aso Fenix has received a sizable donation from a group in the Netherlands to help it grow. So we have been working on many things. We have designed a webpage, made brochures for different programs, and other types of media to promote Aso Fenix. It has been fun and also given us something to invest ourselves into. We also are working with engineering inters that come down from 2 months to a year to help with projects. We are trying to organize the program by contacting them before they come down to answer questions, giving them an orientation, and trying not to be their mom and dad... So, what all this means, is that we have not be out in Bramadero for more than a month. But we do plan to get back there soon and have started thinking about projects to do. We do miss the country life, but it is the kids we miss most. But we have learned long ago to be flexible and open for what God has for you in His time.

Well Rested and Ready to Work

We got back a couple days ago from El Salvador and Honduras. We were in Suchitoto, El Salvador for a conference about Food Security and Sovereignty. Food Security means access to food (it may be food given to you that you have never eaten), whereas Food Sovereignty means the ability to grow what you want and do whatever you want with the food (consume or sell). We spent time in lectures, workshops and visiting local farmers. Some of the things we learned about were making compost using worms (vermiculture), how to make candy's from fruits in order to sell them and how to extract vitamins and minerals from certain vegetable leaves in order to supplement peoples diets. Also, we were able to met up with and old friend, Jenny Mason, who is working in Guatemala with Food for the Hungry, at the conference. It was nice to see her and hear about her experience in Guatemala. We had a little time to explore and found the country to be beautiful and the people extremely friendly and helpful.

Once the conference was over we decided to take a vacation and explore some of Honduras. We spent time on one of the Bay Islands, Roatan, where we snorkeled and swam in the clear turqoise water. In our snorkeling adventures we saw 6 hawksbill sea turtles, lobsters, star fish, various colorful fish and coral. After being on the island we spent time in one of Honduras's most well known national parks, Pico Bonito (Pretty Peak). It was a beautiful mountainous tropical rain forest. We hiked to a waterfall in the park where we also were able to cool off in the crystal clear river Zacate. We stayed in a small town that was trying to build up its tourism, El Pino. They had developed a nice eco-tourist center with a pool, restaurant, huts (mud walls, thatch roof, no electricity, but running water) and was very well landscaped with a view of Pico Bonito. It was nice to be able to support the local people and we would recommend this place to anyway. After enjoying Pico Bonito we went to a Tela, a town a little further north on the coast. We visited the world's second largest botanical garden (Lancetilla). It was started as a research center for united fruit company, but is now run by a Honduran university, whom continues doing research, but has opened the grounds for others to enjoy. Now keep in mind this is not the typical botanical garden we would think of in the states (lots and lots of flowers). Lancetilla is more about different tropical tree species. It was a beautiful place and Seth especially enjoyed all the fruit trees (because he was able to try many of the fruits). We enjoyed ourselves extremely and found Honduras to be an extremely beautiful mountainous country.