Kenny tries but comes up short in Brazil

Kenny Godoy, our friend from Carmen's school for deaf children in Tegucigalpa, His Love in Action was at the Pan American Games in Brazil competing in Judo. The photo is from the newspaper. Kenny won the national championship in Honduras and also won the Central American championship this year. He was competing for a place in the olimpics in China next year and needed to come in 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Unfortunately his first match was against a Brazilian who is #3 in the world and and Kenny lost. Then Kenny was matched up against a guy from Cuba who is #1 in the world in their weight class and he lost again and finished 8th. So Kenny's hopes of going to the olimpics is over, but he gave a great effort in representing his country.

The last photo is him a couple weeks ago a little happier at the school.

Day of the Indian

Monday, July 23 was a holiday for the kids to celebrate the Day of the Indian. This day is in honor of chief Lempira who led the attack on the inhabiting Spanards and drove them out of Honduras and into the neighboring lands. The kids had the day off of school and in celebration they dressed up as indians.

New boy for my mission

This is a photo of Isaac. He is new to Casa Corazón and arrived very malnourished and extremely thin. It is hard to tell with the big shirt on, but he is really only bones. He is 7 or 8 years old and just started taking the meds for HIV so he was really ill before getting here and did not eat well. It has been difficult for him to eat here so far as his body is not used to getting normal food. He still throws up after just about every meal. I have taken him under my wing and am working on getting him to eat little bits between meals. When he only eats a little he does better. With time and prayer hopefully he will recover soon and grow stronger like the other kids.

Finally Photos!

Well, I am finally on my own at Casa Corazón. The group from Messiah left this morning and I got moved into my room at the casa. No more suitcase living for a while! It was great spending time with the group and having a month of transition time with friends from home but now it's just me. I was able to load a few photos from the past couple of weeks.
The first photo is Tom with some of the kids at Amor y Vida.

Joe with my Godson Angel Villanueva at Amor y Vida

Maynor y Carlos Galván, my two Godson's from NPH, during our visit last week.
Lazaro, the boy I have been sponsoring at His Love in Action school for deaf children in Tegucigalpa.
The group from Church of the Messiah on the bus to the beach with all the kids from Casa Corazón and some of the workers too.

Spending time with the Messiah team now

Tom, Joe and I took the bus to Tegucigalpa on Friday and met up with the Messiah team when they arrived at the airport. After getting settled at the mission house we went to NPH the next day. That was another great experience. My godson Maynor has really grown since I last saw him in November. I will post some photos in another week hopefully when I get back to San Pedro. Joe and I stayed at NPH until Monday. The food was too primitive for Tom's taste so he stayed with the team and got to go to El Patio for a steak. We got stuck eating some red looking banana thing one day that was very hard to choak down so Tom made a good decision.

We met up with a group from Seatle at NPH and did lots of activities with the kids, all 600 of them on Sunday! Joe and I ran the Bingo game until the kids took it over from us. They all really enjoyed that. We also spent the morning in Maynor's pre-school class. I now know why the Hondurans are so far behind in school, not graduating high school until they are in their 20's. Maynor is in his 2nd year of pre-school at age 7, almost 8. His brother Carlos is in his 2nd year of 1st grade at age 10. They were not held back, just on the slow schedule of progression. Two years per grade in the beginning really gets them off to a slow start.

It is good seeing familiar faces from home and staying at the Mission House. I got my Dad's replacement camera for mine that broke and hopefully my computer will be hooked up to the Honduran system when I get back to San Pedro so I can post some photos. Thanks for your thought and prayers. Mike