Hello everyone, I’m still here! At least for now… so get comfortable in your chairs and barstools because I have so much to share, but will try to keep it short & sweet :o)
I’m at the internet café and will be there when I can till we figure out if it is possible to have internet in our place, but hopefully we will have internet in our place soon. We found a source for internet through friends that is very affordable, which is a God-thing because everything that we’ve found has been way too expensive. We are pretty much in the middle of no-where Honduras. Well, not exactly no-where… because we are where God wants us to be and we want to stay in touch with you all!
We’ve been in our new home for over two weeks now and it has been a hard adventure, yet good for all of us. God has been teaching me to be content with what we have right now… such as cold showers, outhouse for a bathroom, ticks that we daily pick off of our bodies, ants everywhere, the small drafty house that 6 of us are sharing and a small kitchen that is hard to work in. Yeah, it hasn’t been easy, but God is faithfully reminding me daily why we are here in the midst of all those things. He has also been showing me that I need to get back into fully trust in Him and let Him be in control… let Him be the God He IS! I’ve been so busy trying to fix things and cure things and control things… basically trying to do His job. I know most of you understand because we’ve all been there and done that. He’s the one who will take care of the things I can’t fix, cure or control if I would just let Him.
Wow. He makes it so easy, but I make it so difficult.
Like I said… in the midst of everything God has been so good to show me His awesome faithfulness by providing for our daily needs such as fresh milk, cheese & eggs from a Christian family in town, fresh tortillas just across the road, a sweet gal who has chickens she can sell us when we are ready, neighbors who are helpful and a beautiful place to call home sweet home. We are blessed to be here and part of that blessing is painful to receive because it requires us to sacrifice our comforts and lives to Him daily.
Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to get settled, unpack and repack (yeah, it is a very small house) adjust to living in Honduras. The adjustment is going well, but it has been hard at times because Honduras is a very poor country and very much a third world country… its almost like I am back in Africa. Honduras is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere & Costa Rica is the richest and most advanced Central American country. See the difference? Even though they are both third world countries, from a worldly perspective, Costa Rica has a lot to offer while Honduras struggles to get by. For example, just over 5 months ago… there was no electricity in our area and most of our neighbors still live without it. They’ve lived for years without electricity and don’t see the need for it… that’s great for them, but I can’t imagine trying to wash all Tabi’s diapers & our clothes by hand or cook all our food by fire. I don’t think I’ll get rid of my washing machine any time soon (LOL!), but I do want to learn to use the traditional Honduran wood-burning stove to make tortillas and papusas.
Even though I haven’t been here long, I have not found a farmer’s market and miss my Fridays at the Feria in San Ramon. I am starting to get discouraged. Please pray that I will find one close by! It’s the dry season right now and there is not much around. That has been one of the hardest adjustments for me because I love fresh fruits for our smoothies and fresh veggies to make my ferments & salads. I do not like buying them from the supermarket because they always taste like cleaning products (seriously!). I know many of you understand how important it is to find sources of fresh fruits and veggies locally. I am not looking for certified organic produces… just fresh, chemical-free goodness directly from a farmer! I am planning to start a small, raised-bed garden at the end of May… that is the time when everybody plants their corn and beans for the raining season. We’ll see how that goes.
So, continue to keep us in your prayers! We need them and appreciate them so much. There are two specific things:
First, please pray for my baby, Tabitha… we took her to the doctor to get a diagnosis of an itching, dry & scaly rash that developed since Costa Rica… thankfully she has been very happy and goofy despite her discomfort. The doctor believes she has Atopic Dermatitis and recommends the usual steroids that are commonly given. We’ve chosen not to go that route and are giving her homeopathy, oatmeal baths with cocoa butter and rubbing her down with lots of shea butter, coconut oil and aloe vera. But most important of all we´ve been praying for healing over her. Her skin has improve a lot since we visited the doctor on Friday, praise God! We’ve been trying to get her to take her fermented cod liver oil and high vitamin butter oil, but she refuses them… I know they will help her skin so much! I’ve tried to sneak them into her with Aquacate del Chocolate, smoothies and bananas with lots of honey. We have a cinnamon flavor and garlic flavor… she loved the latter one with mashed potatoes the other day. Any more ideas how I can “sneak” them into her? The cinnamon is pretty overpowering and she doesn’t like it much.
Second, please pray for our tick situation. Honestly, I’ve never seen so many ticks before in my life. The ticks here come in all sizes… the smallest I’ve ever seen is as small as a black dot!! You know they are there when you start to itch and see redness surrounding them. They are truly little demons. Thankfully, it hasn’t been too bad the last several days… we are hoping they are starting to die off because we’ve been keeping the cows off the property. We’ve been taking garlic tabs and rubbing ourselves with essential oils… that seems to help hold them off a bit. But we need to figure out how to get rid of them completely and keep them away for good… any ideas?? We don’t want to use chemicals, but that seems to be the only “good” option right now. Please join us as we pray in faith that God will simply sweep the little demons away so we wouldn’t have to do that.
Before I close… I want to let you all know that this month marks the 1-year anniversary of Just Making Noise! Wow! I really can’t believe how much has happened this past year and how much the blog has grown since the first post. I have several great giveaways that I have been planning for several months now, but that was before Honduras happened. I originally planned to do a whole month of giveaways to celebrate, but that’s not exactly happening. So, I will do my best to do them when I can over the next few weeks. Like I said before… I have several great giveaways, but there are some awesome ones that I will most likely save for last, so make sure you come by regularly to check them out, enter and let your friends know about it too!!
Thank you for your support, prayers, encouraging emails and comments! I am sorry that I can’t respond to all of your comments and emails, but please know that I do read every single one of them and they do mean a lot to me. I will keep you all updated as much as possible and will keep posting recipes when I can. Looking forward to celebrating with you all and keep checking back for the giveaways!
Hugs,
Mare
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