At the Finca I got a bit of nostalgic for rainy season.  If you’re a normal person rainy season isn’t particularly fun.  You’re wet all the time, clothes never dry hanging on the line, mud and mold become a normal part of your life.  But as a Finca volunteer it’s also a time of relief from the hot sun, you get to make daring rescues of trucks stuck in mud, electicity goes out and prompts candle lit dinners, water systems break prompting bucket showers, rivers rise and you see t he true power of nature and feel it’s effects in ways that just aren’t possible for most of us city dwellers.  So while I didn’t like getting soaking wet walking back from getting a beer with the vols, I certainly appreciated the chance to remember those times at the Finca with fond memories.  

As I took the bus back to Tegucigalpa on Monday I began to see the picture with a broader lens.  As we continued on I noticed more and more fields flooded, more rivers raging and more landlides being cleared from the highway.  I picked up a newspaper and began to read of the effects of 10 d ays of rain across the country.  knew that when I got to the office on Tuesday that likely we would be responding to an emergency.

So what happened?  Essentially we had about two weeks straight of rain which caused widespread damage across the country.  It just got to the point where the ground was so saturated that there was nowhere for the water to go and mudslides and flash floods were the result.  About 75% of the roads were damaged to some extent with 72 bridges or river crossings destroyed and another 169 damaged.  34 people were killed mostly when rivers rose and destroyed their homes (2,200 homes destroyed and double that many damaged. Thousands fled their homes for shelters and 250,000 acres of crops were destroyed.

COPECO (the government agency responsible for emergencies) coordinated both the national and international response and at least from my point of few had a decent handle on the situation.  As I had suspected I was busy at work on CRS’s response to the emergency.  We work entirely through local partners and in emergencies the partner with whom we work the most are the local Catholic dioceses.  My role during  the emergency was to take all the information funneled to me and turn it into money.  The dioceses would communicate with us and give us an assessment of the situation an our team here in the office would evaluate where, what and how much we needed to get into the field.  Within the first 24 hours we got out a situation report to our headquarters and another 6 hours after that we were working on drafts of the emergency proposals.  In all I wrote three proposals for things like blankets, mattresses, water, cooking kits, hygeine kits and medicine.  We were able to get the proposals approved pretty quickly and get the materials needed into the hands of the dioceses so they could respond to those in need.  

So worry not, I certainly wasn’t slogging through rain choked streets (the photos here are from the newspaper).  And while I spent most of the time in the office writing it was certainly an interesting experience.  We’re just hoping for no more rain any time soon.

Peace,

Michael-John

Friends-

It’s 4am and my friends just left. What a remarkable statement.

In a few hours I will get one a plane with Erika, Michael and Jacob and fly home to the U.S., with our more son than we left with on July 30, 2004, but our family so much larger. On Saturday night began saying goodbye to that family one by one. Led by the volunteers who are staying on at the Farm we were blessed in a mass to celebrate our departure and treated to skits and songs to celebrate our time at the Farm. We said goodbye to the children, house parents, Franciscan sisters and other members of the Farm community and for the last time on Sunday morning loaded into the landcruisers for the trip to the bus stop.

We’ve spent the last few days in La Ceiba together as a departing volunteer class. Swapping old stories we talked about our worst moments, our most amazing times, the things none of our friends would believe really happened. Staying up in a national park at the home of a friend of the Farm (who lets us use it for free) we swam, hiked to a 300 foot waterfall, white-water kayaked, played cards, cooked together and most importantly took some time to honor and enjoy the relationships we have made over the last two years of living together.

And today, in the predawn darkness filled with snoring, roosters and a humming refrigerator. I can’t quite believe that my friends are gone.

We’ve done some pretty incredible things together. Though it’s sort of ridiculous to sum up 2 years in a bullet point list it makes a pretty good email and some here’s just a few things we’ve done or experienced as a departing volunteers class.

• Discover a 7 foot snake in the boys bathroom of the vol house. 
• Opened a middle school (7-9 grade). 
• Gotten trapped for the night on the wrong side of a river with no food. 
• Proposed and built a Multi-Use Facility for use for the new middle school (ok, in all fairness after 15 months of construction delays it wasn’t quite done when we left but you can’t really blame that on us). 
• Welcomed Jacob into the world. 
• Designed a comprehensive training for the social work department. 
• Had a woman give birth in the back of the landcruiser on the way to the hospital. 
• Developed on a curriculum to help children prevent sexual abuse.
• Watched Michael learn Spanish and go to his first year of PreK (in Spanish)
• Discovered the biological sister of one of our children. He had never met his 10 year old sister and this winter he will get to.
• Got evacuated for a hurricane by the military.
• Survived a year and a half of teaching 5th and 6th grade. 
• Be with Matthew and Andrea as they got engaged and married and with Daniel and Vivian as they walked towards their own wedding day.
• Received a donation of 300 lobster tails.
• Invited Kristel and Beau to be godparents to Jacob and getting to enjoy being compadres with them in the sense of the spanish word which means co-parent.

We have done some amazing things in two and a half years. As we leave Honduras today I am filled with gratitude for the time we have had here in Honduras. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve in some small way. Erika and I have grown so much in our marriage in the last two years and our family has thrived in the warm embrace of the Farm community.

As we leave today we head off to new opportunities to continue our mission of service. I will start grad school at Tufts University in Boston to get my masters in international development. Erika will start job hunting for a social work job and we are excited that my sister Michele will be coming to live with us to take care of Jacob and Michael during the days and explore her options for getting a masters this fall. Here’s a quick rundown of our travel plans as we hit South Florida and Chicago on our way to landing in Boston before Christmas.

• December 6 – Arrive in Florida
• December 13 – Erika and the boys go to Chicago and Michael-John drives to Boston then flies to Chicago (I’ll be in Boston Dec 15-17)
• December 21 the whole family arrives in Medford, MA for our new home.

I will send out a big address update with phone numbers and all in a few weeks, but in the mean time you can jot this down for our address as of December 15th.

On Sunday at breakfast we were 15 Farm volunteers (or perhaps now former Farm volunteers) and by dinner tonight we will be in five different countries. Rachel, Erika, the boys and I will fly home to the states in a few hours to be with our families. Rafael will be in Venezuela, Daniel and Vivian are on their way to Belgium to get married, Becky will be back in Trujillo with her fiancé, Andrea and Matthew will stay here at their home in Ceiba where Matthew teaches at a bilingual school. And Naomi, Beau, Kristel, Nicholas, Lindsey, and Laura will be in Guatemala as they travel for 2 weeks by land up to Mexico City.

I am filled with joy as I think about the Farm mission statement that says, ‘In gratitude for the love of Jesus Christ, we decide to unite ourselves as a community to care for needy children.’ I will miss my friends, but am confident that the community we have built will continue and we will continue to achieve the mission of the Farm for many years to come.

In peace,

Michael-John, Erika, Michael and Jacob

P.S. As always pictures and updates can be found at www.myette.org I will be adding the last photos from Honduras (kayaking!) and starting to update the website in the next few weeks so stay tuned. We would be incredibly grateful for your continued prayers and support of the Farm of the Child and you can check out their newly redesigned website at www.farmofthechild.org

“I didn’t ask to be conceived, in a loveless embrace. Still we learn to be a warm sun, in a very cold galaxy.”
- Beth Orton “Conceived”

Pedro came to us in 2001 a sad, sick, malnourished little boy. Passed from parents to aunt, to community member and finally to adoptive parents who brought him to the farm out of desperate understanding that she could not help him fully recover from the damage done in the four short years of his life. A life until then filled with despicable conditions, violence and hardship began to be slowly healed by the love of the Farm. Brought to the farm by his loving adoptive parents and a parish priest he began the next leg of his journey which now finds him as a warm sun and a smile in the midst of our lives.

Five years later the social work team was reviewing his file and we realized that once he was brought to the farm we had little contact with his past life. His adoptive parents visited twice in the first few months but we hadn’t seen them since 2002 and no one had ever visited their home or tried to maintain contact. We even thought he had a sister somewhere but we didn’t even know her name.

I was helping the social work team traveling and get some corrections made on a birth certificate near where Pedro was originally from so I volunteered to see if I could track down his adoptive parents and hope against hope maybe even find his sister. So Jayasree (his social worker) and I set out for parts unknown with the barest of information about his past. A few first names, the name of a priest and the village where he was from were all we had to go on.

Setting out on the farm we hitched a ride in a pickup to Trujillo where we promptly discovered we had left half of our money at home. With a little more than $30 we thought we could make it if we spent wisely so we continued on. After two more buses and 5 hours of traveling down dirt roads we arrived in Limon a town of 5000 people where we began our search with the parish priest. He gave us good news that he had just seen Maria Crisanta, Pedro’ adopted mother, two months before and as far as he knew she still lived in a village named Plan de Flores. He gave us directions but warned us the last bus back toward Trujillo departed in 2 hours and if we went to Plan de Flores we would be moving in the wrong direction.

We decided to take the risk and got on the next bus. On the bus we met a woman who remembered Pedro and guided us to the house of Maria Cristanta. Sadly she also told us that Jose Trinidad, Maria’s husband and Pedro’ adopted father, had been shot and killed without provocation just the month before. Despite this sadness our arrival at Maria Cristanta’s house was joy filled as we shared pictures of Pedro who she hadn’t seen in 4 years. He had grown since then from a sick little boy into the energy filled 8 year old he is today. We shared with her Pedro’ story since she had last seen him and took pictures of the family to take back to Pedro.

She also told us about his sister. Ana. Not only did we now have a name but also really good directions and names of her adoptive parents (relatives of Maria Crisanta). The down side was that it was four more hours to find Ana and of course in the wrong direction. As we took our leave we thanked her for her hospitality and her promises to visit Pedro. We promised her we would be in touch and hopefully bring him to visit during his vacation over winter break. As we left this woman of humble means who was struggling with the emotional and financial loss of her husband pressed 40 lempiras into our hands and asked us to give it to Pedro.

Back on the road Jay and I had a choice to make. Take the last bus back to Trujillo and make it back in time for our myriad of responsibilities (teaching 5th grade, library, meetings) or keep going to find Ana. Jay hadn’t brought anything with her because she had her mind set on getting back that night, I had toothbrush and a clean shirt but my biggest concern was we were running out of money. It wasn’t even really a question and we knew what we had to do. So we set out again away from home and toward a nine year old girl who has never known her brother. We hopped in the back of another pick-up, this time perched on comfortable seats high atop big jugs filled with gasoline bound for villages with no gas station. Hanging on to the sides we breathed the fresh air and dodged the dust kicked up by vehicles heading the other direction. Beats sitting on a bus any day.

After a half hour ride we jumped out in a town called Icotea. We looked for the local delegate of the word, the community member who organizes the church services in a town where a priest only comes once every month or two. We were trying to score a free place to stay on a church floor, but struck out because he was out of town. We found a woman who rented rooms and got a room for the night ($3 for a bed and bathroom). It turns out she had been to the finca and was related to a priest we knew. We scoped out the town, ate some chicken while watching a soccer game, bought water and some cookies for the next day and settled in for the night. Our room had no electricity but we did Sudoku and read Brothers Karamazov by candle light.

The next morning we got up by five am. Got ready and set out on the long part of our journey. Guano is a 3 hour walk from Icotea. We had to get to Guano, meet Ana and get back before the last bus left at 1pm. We scored another short pick-up ride to help us get started and then spent the next two hours walking filled with excitement and hope. Jay and I were by now 24 hours into a conversation and hadn’t really stopped talking. This might seem natural except that just isn’t the type of person Jay is. I kept expecting her to just switch off and get tired of talking to me, but it just never happened.

Lots of conversation and 8 or 10 miles later we walked into Guano, followed Maria Crisanta’s directions, walked up to the house and met Julio Murillo, adopted father of Ana. We were a little nervous because we didn’t know if she knew she wasn’t their biological child or that she had a brother. Lots of things could go wrong.

But Julio reassured us that she knew everything. He called her and her mother Blanca over to meet us. We sat down and once again shared pictures of Pedro. Talked about him and his past. Learned more about Ana, the first few years of Pedro’ life, and found out what little they knew about other relatives that Pedro had. We got pictures to take back and after about an hour we said our goodbyes, filled with promises of meetings to come and a reunion between siblings.

As we walked out of Guano to begin our long trek home we marveled at the trip we had made. We were 5 hours from the nearest paved road after 3 pickups, 3 buses, and a 10 mile walk to find family.

The trip home was uneventful and just 8 hours after meeting Ana for the first time, I walked into my own home to see Michael, Jacob and Erika after a long two days apart. As my sons were crawling into my lap Jay went to house three to find Pedro. They walked to the office where for the first time he saw pictures of his sister.

I am so blessed.

Michael-John

So as usual I sat down to write you an email finally last Friday. Got it almost done and then the power went out in Trujillo. So here’s take two.

As for things here:

The boys are great. Jacob has 4 teeth now. Two tops and two bottoms. Two more are on their way through. He looks really cute. Got some good pictures which I’ll try and attach and upload. I’ll try and upload today but I’ll be in Ceiba this coming weekend so if not now, then definitely this weekend. He’s standing up for a second or two on his own. Still weeks away from walking but it seems like any minute now.

Michael’s great. Hard to think if he has new tricks. He’s dribbling a basketball.

Work has pretty much slowed down to a crawl for me which makes for a leisurely lifestyle. I’m teaching Tuesdays and Thursday mornings 5th and 6th grade science. Tomorrow I’m going to start going to Trujillo 3 days a week to work with one of our teenagers on math. She’s moving to Ceiba next year and starting at a really hard school which this year of school in Trujillo has left her totally behind for. So I’ll get to do some algebra II stuff with her which should keep me busy. A good excuse to check email and eat baleadas too.

Our next big thing is of course the arrival of the new volunteers. A week from today the 7 newbies arrive. They left Guatemala this weekend to travel their way down here. Erika and the boys and I are going to Ceiba to meet them next weekend with Erin, Nicholas, Kristel and stay with Andrea and Matthew.

Erika is working hard and is gearing up for orientation of new social workers. She’s actually going to train them to be social workers. Something sorely needed and that hasn’t happened ever before for new vols (E was home in the states for training last year).

We’re pumped about our upcoming move. As it gets closer we’re actually thinking about it less and less. We’re sort of caught up in things here, but always in the back of our minds we’re very much looking forward to getting to Boston. I’ve been emailing with Michele and it looks like things are still going ahead for her to move up with us which we’re super excited about.

I think I sent you our flight info, but just FYI we might be making a change. We might stay in Honduras an extra day to spend time with Matthew and Andrea. We haven’t gotten to see them as much as we would like to this fall and since we likely won’t see them at all after we move back stateside we might spend the day with them after everyone else leaves to go traveling. I’ll let you know for sure once we decide. We’ll be home on either December 6 or December 7.

I don’t think I ever told you about my visit with Catholic Relief Services in Tegus. It went really well and the guy was super nice and very helpful. I left really excited about CRS and what they do. He had lots of good advice and was really positive about Tufts and the program there. Basically said I’ll have no problem getting a job. I left a little nervous about the length of time I might need to live overseas but have to keep in mind that he is on an overseas job track and still have to investigate stateside careers more.

Ok, it’s pretty late. I hope all is well for you guys and in just a few short weeks we can phone instead of email. Love to everyone and see you soon.

Michael-John

This, my friends, is the story of Lobster Day 2006.

Arriving at dinner on Friday night Erin apologized told us that due to an unexpected lobster donation that had to be attended to dinner would be late. It turns out someone had been caught over-fishing lobster in Trujillo Bay and their consequence was they had to donate the lobster to people who needed it the most. Us.

So Saturday morning Erin, Lindsey and I set out to discover just how much lobster there was. We knew it was a lot (it filled two of the 100 pound sacks our flower comes in) but it wasn’t until we started to sort it we understood we were talking about hundreds of lobster tails.  So we started sorting the bad lobster out (black undersides of tails – bad, pink or clear – good). In the end we counted up around 300 lobster tails.

We sorted it out to all the houses and every person on the farm got two lobster tails each. Then we started bagging it up for neighbors, priests and the nuns in town. So much lobster to go around. We sent kids out to find employees and deliver bags of lobster tails to their homes in the villages. Many of our employees had never seen a lobster let alone eaten one and the kids had no idea the luxury we were talking about. So armed with instructions on how to cook them the houses took their share with a few sceptical looks as we implored them not to waste them.

Then the cooking began. It was my turn to cook dinner so with Erin’s help we threw a full out romantic dinner with table cloth, candles, boiled lobster tails, melted butter and a lime/butter/herb pasta. So good.

Erin will be taking over as our fearless sub-director in a few weeks (second in command on the farm and highest ranking vol) and with our director and current sub-d out of town she was in charge. I remarked that this was a good way to start her leadership of the place and that there was a reason we would be calling her reign a benevolent dictatorship.

As if one lobster dinner wasn’t enough we still had 18 lobster tails in the fridge for the vols, so I conned the dinner chefs for Sunday night into letting me help/commandeer the kitchen to make lobster bisque. So good.

Sometimes things are hard at the finca and this weekend was no exception. We had our share of putting out crisis and struggling with kids who wouldn’t climb down from the tree they had gotten themselves into (literally and figuratively). But sometimes ridiculous things happen. Like someone donates $3000 in lobster tails and we eat lobster two nights in a row.

Buen provecho.

Michael-John

- Canticle of Zechariah, Luke 1: 76. Zechariah, father of John the Baptist

Friends–

It is with great joy that Erika, Michael and I write to you about the birth of our newest family member Jacob Zechariah. Mom and baby are happy and healthy and before I babble on here are the quick stats:

We delivered at West Suburban Hospital in Oak Park where they have a great alternative birthing center which is geared to natural childbirth and the midwife and hospital staff were wonderful.

Erika was 12 days post due and we were in Oak Park Tuesday morning for a prenatal checkup. We were still in the area when Erika went into labor just after noon so the midwife came over to the hospital and met up with us around 1pm. Michael and Erika’s parents met us at the hospital between 5 and 5:30pm. We had always said we hoped Michael could be part of the labor and birth but were going to play it by ear as to how much he would be there. In the end he was able to be there for the last hour or so of labor and I only sent him out with Erika’s dad for the 15 minutes or so when it got a little intense for a 3 year old. It was great to have him right out in the hall so that as soon as Jacob was born he came right back in probably 20 seconds after the birth.

Erika had a great labor and delivery due in large part to our wonderful midwife Julie and Erika’s choice to try a waterbirth. She labored in the tub for the last hour and delivered in the tub as well. She loved the pain relief, warmth and everything about laboring in the tub. Watching Jacob be born under water was interesting I must say, but he arrived very happy healthy little boy and Erika was in great shape after a totally drug free birth.

We were grateful to be able to share the experience with Erika’s parents who were great supports to us. Erika’s mom got to be present for the birth while Papa had Michael duty and brought him in just after the birth. And of course Michael is the consummate big brother. Before birth he was asking Erika if he could get in the tub and help push, during labor he rubbed Erika’s back and held her hand and after birth he sat on my lap and watched me cut the umbilical cord. We’re pretty lucky people.

Among many other nice things about the Alternative Birthing Center is that the rooms have a queen bed for the family to snuggle together after birth so after Jacob was born we had lots of family snuggling time and Michael got to hold his little brother and smother him with kisses. Michael spent the night with Erika’s parents while I stayed at the hospital and was grateful for the queen bed instead of a fold out hospital chair.

Wednesday morning our friend TJ who is a family practice doc came in a gave Jacob the full check out. Erika is having a great recovery and by the time her mom, dad and Michael arrived had already taken a shower by herself. We had lunch together and then since Erika was feeling so good we started thinking about checking out. We left the hospital around 4:30pm on Wednesday and were grateful to be home at Erika’s parents house to sleep in our beds and start getting adjusted to the new rhythm of our lives.

So here we are on Thursday afternoon, overjoyed with the wonderful experience that has brought Jacob into our lives. We’re looking forward to the arrival of my mom tomorrow night, Christmas time and the opportunity to see many family and friends over the next few weeks. I’m sure people are wondering but we haven’t decided yet when we will be coming to Florida and returning to Honduras, though almost certainly we will have to push our departure date back into January. We are taking a few days to relax and enjoy this time before firming up future plans.

I’ll send out another update once we have a better idea. And last but not least I, of course, have pictures to share with you. I’ve attached a few of my favorites but as always there are thousands more at http://www.myette.org/gallery

Best wishes,

Erika, Michael-John, Michael and Jacob

Wednesday afternoon news came that Wilma had grown into a monster category 5 storm and was wobbling uncomfortable close to us. The government had ordered the evacuation of Castilla which is out on the bay and was encouraging all coastal areas to evacuate. At 4:30pm we made the decision to evacuate the farm and by 5pm we were ready to get the kids out in the first wave of landcruisers. Dinner was left on the stove, clothes thrown into bags but in all it was a pretty impressive mobilization. Unfortunately the rivers didn’t cooperate and had already grown to be safely passable.

Luckily we had been in contact with the mayor and he arranged for an army troop transport to come and evacuate us. So while we waited for the army to arrive we took the time to gather other supplies and important documents from each department. By 6pm the army arrived and we sent the first trip out with all the kids, parents and a few vols. The rest of us busied ourselves battening down the hatches, cutting power and water to the farm to avoid damage etc. About an hour later the truck returned for a second trip and we got all of our neighbors (who live in mud and tin roof houses) out to Trujillo as well. The truck returned for a final trip with the last of the vols and all our supplies.

I stayed behind with Nicholas, Kevin Downs, Kristel, Pat, Becky and Sor Lucy to ride out the storm and keep an eye on the farm help out in the initial cleanup afterwards. It was a weird moment as the last truck pulled away at 9pm and the 7 of us were left in the dark, rain and wind. We made dinner and started to cleanup the mess that was left behind in the frenzy of evacuation. Considering the decision was made to evacuate at 4:30pm we did a pretty good job of getting out by 9pm with the last folks leaving the farm.

Throughout the night Wednesday night one of us stayed awake. We had Eucharistic adoration all night in the chapel of the convent, each of us taking an hour to pray be attentive to the radio and just be awake in case of an emergency. Throughout the night the wind and rain actually began to die down and by morning the rain had moved passed us. We woke to down trees but not much other damage.

Meanwhile in Trujillo the Farm and our neighbors had evacuated to the Franciscan sisters convent where 140 people (farm and neighbors) took shelter for the night. From all reports things were well organized, calm and generally good considering the circumstances. Of course Thursday morning school was in session with our teachers improvising lesson plans in side rooms, the kitchen or wherever space could be found. The day had a full roster of activities and structure to keep our kids occupied and engaged. The farm returned home on Thursday afternoon after the all clear had come that the storm had passed.

We dodged a big storm and are thankful for the few downed trees that are reminders of what could have been much worse. And hey, how many people can say they´ve been evacuated by the Honduran military across swollen rivers?

My thoughts now turn to Florida as Wilma bears down on my family there. In other news things are great for us here on the Finca. The school year is rapidly approaching its end and I´m looking forward to returning the Chicago in just over two weeks (Nov 9th). I talked to Erika today for the first time in several weeks and she´s healthy and growing and doing wonderful. Michael tells me he´s doing great also.

As always I try and keep the photo journal up and running and there are a few photos of the evacuation up already with more to come. Also updated are pictures of the new volunteers who arrived on October 1 and are awesome people and up too are photos of Erika in Chicago.

 http://www.myette.org/gallery

Love to all of you and thanks for your prayers this last week.

In peace,

Michael-John

Michael’s new vocabulary – Thursday night Michael and I walked home after dinner and I let Michael in while I was collecting some stuff from the porch. I came in and was confused why Michael was staring at the back door. Looking up, a very loud “Holy crap!” escaped my lips as a tarantula the size of an orange was on the back wall. It definitely qualifies as the biggest tarantula I’ve seen (and I’ve seen many) and scooting Michael outside I quickly dispatched him with the machete I keep up on the shelf in the kitchen. So of course you all know the end of the story, when last night Michael was sitting next to me he jabbed my leg and yells “Holy crap, Daddy, look at that spider!” He could learn worse phrases I guess, and at least he’s using them in the appropriate context.

More creepy crawlies — Erika had a baby scorpion (1/2″) crawl on her forehead as she was falling asleep. There’s really nothing else to say, so I just sit here and giggle.

Mariposas – So we’re caught in a butterfly migration. Yesterday going to morning prayer at 5:45am I walked into a swarm of literally thousands of butterflies migrating. Not sure where from or where to but it’s been going on for a week now and it’s totally beautiful.

Fat lady – Erika’s pregnancy is progressing nicely. Baby is active, healthy, growing and all that good stuff. Erika says her lack of ice cream is a challenge but she wants you all to know she’s surviving. The week of no power and no fans at 90 degrees was not the greatest but baby managed to sweat it out. We had an ultrasound done in Ceiba a few weeks ago and everything looks great. We have appointments with midwives in Chicago the day after we get home so we’re on our way. For the record, in utero we’re calling the kid “Pollito” (pronounced poy-ee-to) which means “little chicken.” As for real names – we’re still duking it out.

Homeward bound – We’ve got our travel schedule for the next few months. Here’s the brief rundown.

We would love to see as many of you as possible. It looks like our parents will be setting an open house in each city so I’ll pass on that info as soon as things are firmed up.

Spread the word – One of our hopes while we’re home is to have the opportunity to share our experience with schools, groups and churches whenever we have the chance. If you know of a parish or a group who might like to hear a brief presentation about our time in Honduras please drop me an email and we can hopefully work out a date.

New kid update – In the last email I told you about Oscar, our newest addition to the farm. Just before Oscar we also ingressed a family of 5 kids ranging from 7 months to 12 years old. I’m proud to report that all are doing great and flourishing in their new environment. The word ‘fat’ has been thrown around for the littlest ones (Oscar included) but that’s probably better interpreted as well-nourished. Pretty amazing stuff.

Newbies – Since we left for language school a year ago it means it’s now that time of year when a new crop of Finca volunteers sets out on their journey to the Farm. We have 11 new volunteers starting language school right around now and scheduled to arrive on the Farm October 1st. We are especially excited that among the new group is another family. Matt and Kim were friends of friends in Chicago and we managed to talk them into joining us down here along with their son Jeremiah (3) and daughter Bella (2). They’re pretty awesome people and we’re also excited to have another volunteer family. We are converting the other half of our house (formerly storage space) into a second house for them so we’ll share a porch amongst other things. Please keep them and all the new vols in your prayers as they set out.

New school, new building, new cars – Since the June meeting of our board of directors we have a very busy next few months on our hands. We got approval to permanently open a middle school (7-9th grade) which has been operating this year on a pilot basis. The story of our new middle school is fascinating, frustrating and amazing but I must leave it for another time. With the new school we needed new space since our primary school is busting at the seams, so we will be starting construction any day now on a multi-use facility for our middle school. Throw in new cars to replace some dying landcruisers, replacing roofs on two houses and three classrooms buildings and we have a very full construction schedule (not to mention fundraising schedule!). The race is on to finish everything before rainy season hits in November!

New job – The above school stuff is particularly interesting to me because I’m starting to transition into my new job as the head of the education department here on the finca. What does that mean? Roughly I’m the new principal of a PreK – 9th grade school.

Anniversary – Erika and I were proud to celebrate yesterday our fifth wedding anniversary. I got lucky on Thursday and was scheduled to preach at a communion service so I had a great opportunity to reflect on the readings from our wedding. It was a really great time for me to think back over the past five years. People laughed and some almost cried, then a bat fell from the ceiling and died. I tell you, I really bring down the house. I’ll leave you with the first reading from our wedding which pretty much says it all. At my wedding I remember jumping around shouting “This is what we’re going to do!” The past few days I’ve been jumping around telling anyone who would listen, “This is what we’re trying to do! And it’s working!” Enjoy.

In peace,

Michael-John

I wept because on Wednesday when he arrived at the finca at 14 months old he could cry no tears of his own because of his dehydration. Wracked by diarrhea and vomiting, malnourished, dehydrated, and despondent by Thursday we had to admit him to the hospital in Trujillo. Holding him yesterday in the hospital with Erika and Michael I could not stop thinking about Michael at his age.

And then Oscar smiled, he tucked his head in my neck and snuggled. Michael’s voice rang again as he shook Oscar’s hand or played peek a boo with a washcloth. And so I smiled.

In writing this I don’t know what more to say. I want to share with you the horror of holding a neglected, malnourished, dehydrated little boy who wants nothing more than to be loved and cared for. When he arrived he could not cry and did not respond to either pain or comfort, but now he has begun his journey to be made whole again. We pulled out all the big guns, antibiotics, IV re-hydration, food and most of all the love of Christ manifested in the love of his house parents, the other finca kids, volunteers and nuns. This is the hope that I want to share with you. Oscar’s road will be long and difficult because the legacy of neglect and malnutrition is deep and long-lasting. But it remains a road filled with laughter and joy and many days of Michael giggling, “Oscaaaar,” as we pour out every ounce of our being to love him.

And so in writing this I leave you as I began, stuck in that moment between tears and laughter.

In love,

Michael-John