This is our house in Kennedy. It's one of the biggest houses in the colonia we live in. There are always kids over at the house!!!

These are our host "parents" Pompilio and Gollita. They are soooo funny. Gollita stuffs us full of food everyday and Pompilio loves to talk politics and he loves John McCain. It's histerical!!

This is our shower. Almost everyday we have hot running water!!! But, there were about 3 days when the pipes broke and so we had to take bucket baths. It was very entertaining and I'm glad it only lasted for 3 days!!!

This last picture needs a little longer of an explanation. Every year at Christmas in the US, my (Jenny) family goes to a restaurant called "The Cozy". They have a huge seafood buffet and everyone on my dad's side of the family attends. So, the night my family went to the Cozy and got seafood, salads and any dessert you could ever want, Shaun and I were eating fried eggs, beans, pupusas (the thing Shaun's eating in the picture) and fried plantains (what Jenny's eating in the picture). It wasn't a bad meal but it was no match to the Cozy!!!

Today I got to help make nacatamales which are a traditional Honduran Christmas food. You put a cornmeal mixture, some kind of sauce, rice, potatoes, olives, capers, raisins, and either pork or chicken in a banana leaf and wrap it up. Then you cook it for 6 hours in boiling water. We get to eat them tomorrow for Christmas!!!!

Also, the other day we went to a restaurant for lunch. Everything was going really well. We walked in and found seats and we didn't have any problems talking with the waitress. We got all of our food just as we had ordered. We were feeling quite proud of ourselves for our success in ordering in Spanish. After we had finished eating, we sat and waited for our bill...and we waited and waited and waited. We probably waited for about 15 - 20 mins and we at this point we thought for sure we must be doing something wrong and we were beginning to feel embarrased for not knowing what to do next. So, we finally asked one of the waitresses walking by how we could get our check. And much to our surprise she said our waitress was supposed to bring it out to us. Our waitress had been wiping off tables and talking with her friends and had simply forgotten about us! So, we finally got our bill...with the help of the other waitress and went on our way. Adventures in Honduras!!!!

This past week was great! Mainly because I got to play soccer...a lot! On Monday night I went to play soccer with about 10 other guys from the church. We started playing at about 10pm and we were planning on playing until about midnight. I knew had class at 8am the next morning but if it comes to soccer or sleeping, that's a no-brainer. About 30 mins. in, one of the guys was dribbling next to the wall and a guy from the opposing team ran at him to try and steal the ball. In the process he took the first guys feet out from under him. The guy flew up in the air and hit the wall. He hit the ground and started screaming...I have never heard a grown man scream so loud. Here he had completely dislocated his shoulder and broken his arm. It took about an hour for the ambulance to arrive and as they put the temporary cast on him and put the stretcher under him he would scream and scream. He is doing better now and obviously needed surgery to fix his arm.

Jenny also had a unique experience. We have a bird...a green parrot (Lolita), that lives right outside our room. The parrot likes to talk (only in Spanish). Any way, Jenny was using the restroom which is also located right outside our bedroom. As she opened the door to the restroom and walked out the parrot started to whistle at her!! It was whistling, like you would if you see a pretty girl walking down the street. It was hysterical. Not long after this Jenny wanted to take a nap and the parrot started talking really loud. So she walked out of our bedroom and began telling the parrot to keep quiet. And the parrot started to laugh at her. Needless to say, Jenny has found a new friend!

Well, we finally made it to Honduras!!!!! We left Harrisburg for the airport at 1am on Thursday morning and arrived in Tegucigalpa at about 4:30 (5:30 home time). It was a long day of traveling but we are pleased to inform you that we made it safely and with all of our luggage. We have been staying with the Horst's since we arrived and we'll be moving in with our host families tomorrow. We explored the neighborhood (colonia Kennedy) we'll be living in yesterday and today we went downtown Tegucigalpa (el centro). We had our first experience with the bus systems and even ordered ourselves some smoothies. Please ask us any questions so we know what you want to know.

Well the past couple of weeks have been really busy.

We spent this past weekend in the Bronx, NY. This was quite a unique adventure as it was Halloween weekend. In the Bronx, Halloween is considered the biggest holiday of the year. It tends to be the week that most gangs to their initiations. During the week leading up to Halloween there were 20 stabbings in the Bronx all directed at females. So, on Friday night (the day we arrived) we had to be in the house by 5pm and were not allowed out until the next morning. We heard that Halloween evening 4 more stabbings occured somewhat close to the place we were living.

We had the opportunity to help out in a few soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Our team (Shaun, Jenny, Gina, Leo) got to pray with an older gentleman in the streets that we met, named Freddie. He wanted us to pray for forgiveness in his life. He had AIDS and was living in an AIDS shelter.

On Saturday evening we had a cookout on the streets and invited anybody we could find to come and join us. We grilled hotdogs, had popcorn, cookies and lemonade and we handed them out to anyone who was willing to join us. I (Shaun) got to play soccer with a couple of young boys on the streets which was really cool. Jenny, did most of the grilling and showed a new side, by being very outgoing and aggressive in inviting many people to come and join us for the picnic.

On Sunday evening we went to Manhattan. We arrived at the Rockafeller Center and it was so beautiful there. We saw the skating rink and the buildings were decorated in red, white and blue for the elections. We walked down Broadway, visited a Toys-R-Us that had a ferris wheel inside and we visited a huge M&M store. We walked down to Time Square and then down to the Empire State building. Then we took the subway to the site of the World Trade Center. It was a great evening!

This past week we had, "World Awareness Week" here at the center. We were without running water, electricity and we ate foods from all across the globe. At one point we ate 6 straight meals of rice! We were so excited for this morning as we were able to take nice hot showers.

Well I guess that's all for now. We'll try to keep you updated as we go.

Well, we're 2 months through training and we only have one left. It's going really great. We've met a lot of great people and have had some awesome speakers come and teach us. We just got back on Monday from 4 days hiking the Appalachian Trail. We hiked 28 miles in 4 days. It was hard and I did not particularly enjoy it although Shaun did. Needless to say that will not be one of our favorite things to do together. We'll be going to New York next weekend for a mini-outreach which we no nothing about. They're keeping the details from us.

This weekend we got to spend at home. It was great. We didn't have anything to do and so we could just relax and enjoy being with our family. We're heading back to HDC tonight to get back into everything.

Please ask us questions about anything. Sometimes it's hard to know what you want to know about and so it would help us out if you left comments or questions. We'll try to do a better job of keeping this thing updated. Thanks for all of your continued prayers!!

Judit, Me, Erica, Jacki
Chad attacking Shaun during Ultimate Frisbee
HDC olympics -- Shaun won Gold in this race!!
Round robin ping-pong -- I won the Silver!!
We won team Gold!!! GO TEAM HONDURAS!

Well, a lot has happened since we last updated. We met our team members, competed in the HDC olympics, participated in the Amazing Race, Harrisburg Edition, Walked around downtown looking like freaks trying to hide from our team members. All in all it's been a great week. I'll try to post some pics but our computers here are really slow and so I'm not sure how many I'll actually post!

We're learning so much about leadership and cultural sensitivity. We're also getting to know our teammates which has been pretty fun so far. There are 4 of us. Shaun, me, Leo, and Gina. Gina is from Mechanicsburg and Leo is from the Bronx. We're all pretty exhausted because they keep us really busy here. Feel free to comment and ask questions on the blog so I know what you all want to hear about.

Well, we have finally arrived in Harrisburg and we are beginning to learn our way around the city. We have a "room" that includes a small living area, a VERY small bathroom, and a bedroom; but it is starting to feel like home! At this point there are only about 15 of us at the training center, about 6 staff members and the rest of us are team leaders for missions trips going all over the world. The rest of our team members arrive this Sunday (September 14th).

Most of our sessions thus far have centered around team leadership training and exploring characteristics of a good leader. They have been very informative for both of us. Most of our time is spent in or at the training facility, which is fenced in and locked up at night. However, we have not had any "disturbances" thus far and we are starting to feel comfortable in this new setting. On Wednesday, a few of us took a run around the city. We ran down to the Susquehanna River and then to the Capitol building. The streets of Harrisburg are a little different than the streets of Mont Alto!

Yesterday, seven of us jumped in a minivan and ventured out to find Wal-Mart. It was nice to leave the facility for a while. We got some snackfood, laundry detergent and flower pots to make our room feel a little more "homey". Needless to say we are having a blast and we'll keep you posted on future adventures as they come!

Tomorrow

Well, we leave tomorrow for Harrisburg. I just wanted to post some of the pics from TN.

Getting ready

Well, we're packing up all of our things for Harrisburg where we'll be living for the next 3 months starting this Sun. It's crazy to think that its here already. We can remember last year when we were still talking about doing this and trying to figure out how we were going to raise all of our support money. Well, now it's all raised, we're moved out of our house and we're all packed and ready to start our trip.

We had a great time in TN visiting with Hylton, Kara, Hayden, Nick and Elana. Hopefully later today I'll have a chance to upload some photos from the trip.

Last night was our last night in our house. We're moving out all the big stuff today (including our bed) and tomorrow will be spent clearing out all the small stuff and cleaning for the next person renting. We're kinda sad to be leaving but since we were renting, it never really felt like our house. We'll be staying at the Kipe's until the 7th when we go to Harrisburg. We are going to visit Hylton and Kara in TN on Thurs. and we'll be there til Tues. That should be a lot of fun. We always have fun with them and we haven't seen them for a while!!

Well, here are a few pictures of our house and us on our last night in it!

Yesterday at Shaun's work they had a cookout and also brought him a "going away" cake. It's soo cute! I'm only sad that I didn't get to taste any because chocolate cake with peanut butter icing is not only Shaun's favorite cake but my favorite too. The cake was so cute that I thought I should put it here so everyone could see it too.!!!

Packing Maddness

So right now we're packing up our house/apartment and getting ready for our training to begin in Harrisburg. We have accumulated so much stuff for only being married a little over a year. I've already packed up 3, 35 gallon size plastic tubs with kitchen stuff alone. And there is so much more to do! We need to be out 0f our house by next Thursday and so you can imagine what our house looks like right now! It's hard to decide what to take along with us and what to pack and what to throw out. After we move out of this house, we're moving in with Shaun's parents for a week before we go to Harrisburg.

For those of you who don't know, the training we're doing is for the STEP team. It's a group of (hopefully) 6 that will go to Honduras for 5 months and do whatever needs doing there. We might teach, we might build things, we might help out at children's/nursing homes.......whatever they need. The entire program is from Sept. 7th 2008- May 23 2009 so it's a big commitment. We're so excited to get started!!!

Our lovely kitchen and living room...
Another shot of the living room...

Hallway into the bedroom...