Celebrating 14 years with my MAN

We have had a tradition for our entire marriage of taking turns planning our anniversary and we always go somewhere overnight.  I plan the odd years and Tim plans the even years of marriage.  Over the years, we have gone to the beach, the mountains, the city, warm springs, volcanoes, etc.  We look forward to it all year and it is always a time of sharing our hopes and dreams, relaxing, and playing.

This year has been our favorite yet!  Tim found a place that was affordable and met both of our desires:  someplace cool and rainy with a nice ambiance and plenty of hiking nearby.  With all the unforeseen medical and auto expenses this last year we were disappointed that it looked like we would have to give up our annual get-away.  BUT, God had other ideas.  Thanks to some kind and generous friends who love us :-) we were given a gift that covered a two night stay at Poas Lodge near Volcano Poas, all meals, and entrance to La Paz (Peace) Waterfall nature resort/park, both of which we highly recommend. 

We have taken a lot of pictures and have an album on facebook, but here are a few highlights:

Don't we look happy?

Love the exotic plants here!

Look of contentment

My new friend...for 10 seconds

Tiger Butterfly on Heliconia plant



We hiked to several beautiful waterfalls

Poison Dart frog

View from our room 
 

 

Panoramic view from Poas Lodge.  It overlooks the entire Central Valley!

Clínica El Buen Pastor, Santa María del Real, Olancho, Honduras

Last month, along with 13 volunteer architects and engineers from the U.S. and Canada, I traveled to Honduras to serve Clínica El Buen Pastor by designing a new facility.

El Buen Pastor serves the rural poor from the area surrounding Santa María del Real and Catacamas, about a 4-1/2 hour drive from the capital, Tegucigalpa.

Although Honduras has socialized medical care, the rural poor are often reluctant to enter the cities where it is provided and even at reasonable prices are unable to afford the care.  El Buen Pastor targets this group of people by providing a facility that intentionally appears less afluent and by charging half the going rate for service.

The existing clinic, located in the small town of Santa María del Real, has been plagued by increasing gang violence, even shootings on their doorstep.  As a result, the poor that they are called to serve are afraid to come to the clinic and the clinic staff themselves are at risk.

El Buen Pastor purchased a new site about two kilometers outside of town, in a rural area to build a replacement facility and asked Engineering Ministries International to help them with the design.

During our time in Honduras, the team gained and understanding of the program for the new clinic, researched what materials and methods are appropriate there, and presented a schematic design for the facility that was approved by the ministry.

Now that we´ve all returned home, the volunteers, the interns in this office and I are working together to complete the documents for construction of this new facility with the intent to provide them to the ministry in July of this year.

One of the volunteers put together a video of the project that shares a glimpse of what the project is like.  I hope you enjoy it.

http://youtu.be/wsTPT9kXlE0

Tim

Project to serve Muñoz Ministries in Honduras

It's taken me quite a while, but I'm finally posting my February trip to Honduras.  Things have been busy here getting the project completed and issued.  We were able to get it issued just about one month after the interns returned to the States.  They were indispensible in getting the project issued.  Here's a video that one of the interns made about the project and represents it well.

Engineering Ministries International Honduras 7096

Since this project was issued I've been helping clean up and issue a few open projects in the office.  I hope to have them into the hands of the ministries we're serving by the end of the year so I can prepare to serve my next project, Clinica El Buen Pastor in Honduras in February.

Thanks to each of you who pray for us, who contribute financially to this ministry to which the Lord has called us.  You make this work possible!

Tim

Four Years!

Four years ago today we settled into our home in Tuis, Costa Rica where we would spend the next seven months preparing to serve the Lord in Central America by learning Spanish.

2008

What a privilege to raise our family serving Him.  Thank you so much for your prayers and your support that makes it possible for us to serve our Lord as He has called us!

2011

"Why are you here?"

During our friend and supporter tour this past August, the Lord gave me this message to share with my church a couple weeks ago.  If you have 15 minutes you can see a video of the sermon at:  http://vimeo.com/channels/hncsermons#32115741

Here are the photos to go with the message:

8x13x23x4498=August 2011

August 2011 was the first month of our Home Leave from EMI.  We took this opportunity to visit friends and supporters all over the western United States.  We saw eight States, we slept in 13 beds over 23 days and traveled 4,498 miles.  What an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

Our deepest thanks to all who hosted us during our trip.  You are such a blessing to us.

Here are some pictures of our adventure.

Our route, August 2 through 25, 2011.  We really don't have anything against Nevada.

Visiting Cindy's Dad and her brother's family in Central Oregon.

(I borrowed this photo from the internet since the sign went by before we got our camera out)

We stopped at local parks along the way for lunch.  Thanks for your help Garmin GPS!

Our excuse for this trip was EMI's World Staff Conference at YMCA in Estes Park, Colorado.  Isn't our Latin team a handsome bunch?

Some days required nine hours of travel.  Our kids did great "living" in the car.

We saw beautiful sights and went places we'd never been before...

...like Four Corners, the intersection of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico...

...and for all of us except Cindy, it was our first visit to the Grand Canyon.

We even drove a short bit on Route 66!

Thank you for hosting us Claud and Michele.

Thanks for hosting our presentation Uncle James and Aunt Joyce!

Thanks for hosting us Mike and Cathy!

A generous supporter made our kids dream of a trip to Disneyland possible.  Thank you!

I love Tanner's expression!

It was great to go to the beach with Uncle Jason, Aunt Becky and Cousin Ian.

Thanks for hosting us Dorman Family!

Thanks for hosting us Sarah and Tony!

Beautiful Mt. Shasta.

Thanks for hosting us Jim and Jeanne!  Thanks for entertaining our kids Jonathan!

Thank you all for your prayers that kept us safe and gave us such a fantastic trip!

Tim

Homeschooling Adventures

So we took the plunge and enrolled the kids in a private school where they have 1-1 tutoring and tailored teaching.  The teacher loves them very much and seems to be having a lot of fun teaching them.  There is no commute, no uniforms to iron or lunches to pack, and their evenings and weekends are free as they are able to finish all of their school work during the day.  The cost is next to nothing and the results have been amazing!  The kids are learning a ton and growing in character.  Where did we find such a school?  Why, we opened one ourselves, right in our own home!  You may know the popular name of such a school: "Home School".  Makes sense since it is school at home!

What do we teach?  Well, Bible, manners, and Christ-like character are at the top.  Our academic subjects include math (Saxon Math), grammar (Shurley English), spelling and penmanship (Spell to Write and Read).  For writing we do copywork, letter writing, narration, and dictation. They also write sentences for spelling and penmanship and Laura is doing expository writng in grammar.   We are doing various unit studies for history and science. We do a bunch of other things in smaller amounts, but I'll write about that at another time.

I've been taking pictures along the way, but haven't had or taken the time to post them.  I hope for this to be one of many entries on our homeschooling adventure so that is why it has a #1 after the title. 

Bird watching on our rainforest field trip.

Tanner, crowned king of the "Sentence Kingdom".

Hard at work!

Playing Indian campout.  Will be much more fun once we have our teepee made!

Studying with their Spanish tutor.

Working on their model volcano. 

Nature study on our rainforest field trip.

Fun to study outside...

Or on a bed!