Bodas

I had the chance in July to be in another wedding, this time here in Honduras. I am now a semi-professional bridesmaid internationally!

Melisa is the sweet friend that asked me to be a bridesmaid, who is the daughter of our bus driver and CREO's cook, Angel and Rosa. If you've ever visited, odds are you know them. She married Josh Shields, who is obviously a gringo and also a friend. Listening to Jeremias announce everyones' names (especially Josh's) might have been the most entertaining part of the wedding.

The wedding was really beautiful, and it was fun to see the Honduran/US cultures mix. They announce the names of the wedding party as everyone walks down the isle. Then we stopped and stood in two lines in the isle and blew bubbles as she walked through us. They do the civil ceremony where they sign the license before the ceremony begins, so the wedding party gets to sit. Also, because the reception is always in the same place as the ceremony they don't walk out after the wedding. Josh wanted to do that, so we did, but there was much confusion. Dinner and cake were provided by the hotel, and it was all delish.

Laura was a bridesmaid as well, which I believe is her 4th, not including her brother's next summer.. Which means that as a 16 year old she is well on her way to ACTUALLY being the girl from "27 Dresses."

(They're obviously very serious about the corsets. It was a great cultural experience.)

August Update

It's the end of August, which means we are a month out of having groups here every week and are pretty much back into a normal routine. Here are some things I've been up to since the last post about our vacay.

Organization. My office is completely cleaned up and reorganized. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but since my office is the pharmacy and overall place for "I don't know what that is, just stick it in there," it actually required a lot of work. I'm happy to once again know where to find everything in here!

Meetings. Debriefing from the summer, reviewing suggestions and changes to make for the next brigade season, staff meetings with the whole MUR staff, etc. They always take twice as long as we think they will, but generally they leave me thinking about how blessed I am to have this work family. I don't know, but I doubt it's normal to enjoy meetings so much.

Etc. I have done research on things that we learned of over the summer, and programs to possibly have us participate in. I've found and made more materials to use for education in villages. I've of course seen patients that have arisen this month, and tried to fix some broken items from the summer (unsuccessfully). Probably most importantly, I have spent time with the girls doing things that they needed to get done and to try to make up for being gone so much during the summer. Obviously, I've done a lot more than I can write and you care to hear about, but those are the highlights.

It's been a great month getting back to "normal", catching up on sleep (as much as I can with Stacy forcing me to wake up with the sun to exercise:), and pretending to parent as always! Looking forward to the coming months of case managing, education, and village work.

Roatan!

As a mission organization, we at MUR have a typical summer schedule, which means every week for a couple of months or so we have short-term groups here.

I love having these groups come and go. I meet many good hearted, hard-working folks, and I am blessed by getting to know them, even if just for a week.

I think it's safe to say that those of us that live here use every ounce of energy that we have during the summer. Between doing the work with and for groups and our normal tasks, we all stay very content but very busy! That's why it was such a blessing for the gringos of MUR to be able to go to Roatan for a week after the last group left.

Phil and Donna have some friends that have a condo in Roatan, and they are nice enough to lend it to them for free from time to time. The Waldron family invited the Stacys and myself to go with them to wrap up the summer months. We had a blast relaxing, debriefing the summer, bonding even more with each other, and renewing our spirits at my happy place: the beach.

It was a great chance to relax before jumping back into work. Now I'm ready to start fresh and see what God has in store for the rest of the year!

<<Water taxi ride to another beach.

<<Jon's friend, the spider monkey. It proceeded to steal his sunglasses and                eat them.

Jon may or may not be happy about this picture of his nap, but I had to share his resourceful use of his children's pool supplies.

<<Dinner. Laura may not love this one either...

Water taxi Ride!

Free Medical School and Grace's Visit

            We finished the summer stream of short-term groups a couple of weeks ago with a group from VCOM (the medical school I’ve blogged about), and what a week it was! I must say it was my favorite week of the summer, but I’m biased because Grace was here!

            I love VCOM brigades for a different list of reasons than the others. They bring a coordinator that takes care of all of the details that I do when I’m "in charge", so I get to spend the week translating. They see less patients so that the attending physicians can take time to teach the baby docs, as I like to call them… (also known as first year med students.) It’s basically free medical school without having taken biochem or mammalian or physics. Yahtzee. (Don't be too jealous; does not come with credentials).

            This group had some obstacles to deal with, and dealt with them with grace. Long story short, their flights were messed up which resulted in them arriving so late that they missed their first briade day. That meant Tuesday they had to split up and go to the two separate villages and see twice as many patients as normal. They were all exhausted, but worked hard. If they complained I didn’t hear it.

            Thankfully, Grace was able to stay for a few days after the group left. After a busy summer, some good sister time was just what my soul needed! It was the first time one of my best friends has been here during an actual brigade, so I really loved getting to share in the experience of mission-work-from-the-other-side with her. Also, her constant astonishment at my ability to speak Spanish was probably good for my self-esteem.