I think this one was about a pound or so.
And one last picture of a beautiful sunrise I saw a couple of days ago from out of my bedroom window!
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Catfish Season
Catfish season is just starting in Jordan Harbour, as the weather is finally starting to warm up. I went fishing for a bit today with Derek and Elliot (two neighbour guys from Trinity). I didn't catch any big ones (the two biggest are shown here), but Derek caught a five-pound one before I got there.
I think this one was about a pound or so.
And one last picture of a beautiful sunrise I saw a couple of days ago from out of my bedroom window!
I think this one was about a pound or so.
And one last picture of a beautiful sunrise I saw a couple of days ago from out of my bedroom window!
Friday, May 16, 2008
And Some Pics....
Mexico!!!
As some of you (whoever is reading this, which I doubt is many :) ) may know, I just got back from the ELM mission trip. A team of about 10 of us (3 from Ontario, 7 from Holland, MI) went down to Tepic, Mexico for the annual mission trip. We kept a blog of the trip on the ELM website (go to Team Blog 2008 on the site). It was an excellent trip! Highlights from the trip for me were:
1. The devotions. The theme was how we can, how we should be, and how we are already equipped to be doing missions right here in Canada. Of course, there is a difference between ordained mission work and our own 'mission' work. But the emphasis for us (which is challenging in our Dutch Reformed mindsets) is that we need to be to be actively looking, thinking, and praying about ways we can reach out to those around us who we know and who we don't know. Going on a mission trip is a great opportunity, but really, as individuals and as a church, we can be doing much the same things here!
2. The church there. It was a blessing to see how the church has been growing in Tepic. Not so much numerically (though that too), but spiritually, as God works in their lives slowly but surely.
3. Practicing my Spanish! This was a lot of fun.
There are a good number of pictures on the Team Blog, as well as on Richard & Angela's blog. I hope to put a couple up here too.
1. The devotions. The theme was how we can, how we should be, and how we are already equipped to be doing missions right here in Canada. Of course, there is a difference between ordained mission work and our own 'mission' work. But the emphasis for us (which is challenging in our Dutch Reformed mindsets) is that we need to be to be actively looking, thinking, and praying about ways we can reach out to those around us who we know and who we don't know. Going on a mission trip is a great opportunity, but really, as individuals and as a church, we can be doing much the same things here!
2. The church there. It was a blessing to see how the church has been growing in Tepic. Not so much numerically (though that too), but spiritually, as God works in their lives slowly but surely.
3. Practicing my Spanish! This was a lot of fun.
There are a good number of pictures on the Team Blog, as well as on Richard & Angela's blog. I hope to put a couple up here too.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Honduras Pictures!
Honduras is a beautiful country, filled with lots of foothills and ridges. This picture was taken soon before we landed in the capital of Honduras. We didn't go into regions quite this rugged, but it does give you a little bit of a sense of what the driving is like.
This was taken just outside of Comayagua (where the Langendoen's live). I think it had just rained not long before. At one time, Honduras was covered by jungle and forests. However, large parts have been deforested, due to fires and tree-cutting.
The two Langendoen girls, Davina (left) and Eva (right).
Here you can see the three of us (me, Jonathan, and Melanie). This was the first VBS program we had, at the church.
The following three pictures were taken in the South where we had two programs in two different communities (Nueva Reunion and Ojo de Agua). Both communities were very poor but had LOTS of kids. :)
Nueva Reunion church.
Ojo de Agua (Eye of Water) church.
We played a lot of soccer in the south. Here, however, we were teaching the kids a Canadian (British?) game... British Bulldog. It worked quite well and was a lot of fun to see all the kids running.
Cockroaches. Mrs. Langendoen brought us out one night to LISTEN to them in the back compost heap. You could hear them loudly munching and crunching away all over the pile!
And ants. This was actually a lot of fun. I killed about 7 big red ants and stuck them close to a ant hole. I took this picture about a minute later. I counted 144 ants!
The Langendoen's had a nice palm tree in their front yard. I wanted to climb it, but Jonathan Langendoen had almost got badly hurt before trying to climb it, so that was out. However, while studying one morning, I decided to try to rig something up. So I took two dust mops and strapped them together. Using this as a long pole, I lifted up a lasso knot while Eva twisted the rope to work it around the coconuts. It worked very well! It was a lot of fun, though my study break was a lot longer than it probably should have been. :)
Taken from the balcony at the Langendoen's house. The tree in the foreground actually lost all its leaves while we were there and grew completely new ones. I never thought we would be raking leaves in the Honduras in February, but we were!
Mom said this was a Bogenvillia (spelling?) plant. It grew on top of the wall around the Langendoen's house.
The tarantula. This was a medium size. We saw another one later that was quite a bit bigger.
And finally, a fish picture. We went fishing in some (stocked) ponds just outside of Comayagua. This size was typical. (Sorry, I don't remember the name of the fish.)
This was taken just outside of Comayagua (where the Langendoen's live). I think it had just rained not long before. At one time, Honduras was covered by jungle and forests. However, large parts have been deforested, due to fires and tree-cutting.
The two Langendoen girls, Davina (left) and Eva (right).
Here you can see the three of us (me, Jonathan, and Melanie). This was the first VBS program we had, at the church.
The following three pictures were taken in the South where we had two programs in two different communities (Nueva Reunion and Ojo de Agua). Both communities were very poor but had LOTS of kids. :)
Nueva Reunion church.
Ojo de Agua (Eye of Water) church.
We played a lot of soccer in the south. Here, however, we were teaching the kids a Canadian (British?) game... British Bulldog. It worked quite well and was a lot of fun to see all the kids running.
Cockroaches. Mrs. Langendoen brought us out one night to LISTEN to them in the back compost heap. You could hear them loudly munching and crunching away all over the pile!
And ants. This was actually a lot of fun. I killed about 7 big red ants and stuck them close to a ant hole. I took this picture about a minute later. I counted 144 ants!
The Langendoen's had a nice palm tree in their front yard. I wanted to climb it, but Jonathan Langendoen had almost got badly hurt before trying to climb it, so that was out. However, while studying one morning, I decided to try to rig something up. So I took two dust mops and strapped them together. Using this as a long pole, I lifted up a lasso knot while Eva twisted the rope to work it around the coconuts. It worked very well! It was a lot of fun, though my study break was a lot longer than it probably should have been. :)
Taken from the balcony at the Langendoen's house. The tree in the foreground actually lost all its leaves while we were there and grew completely new ones. I never thought we would be raking leaves in the Honduras in February, but we were!
Mom said this was a Bogenvillia (spelling?) plant. It grew on top of the wall around the Langendoen's house.
The tarantula. This was a medium size. We saw another one later that was quite a bit bigger.
And finally, a fish picture. We went fishing in some (stocked) ponds just outside of Comayagua. This size was typical. (Sorry, I don't remember the name of the fish.)
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
En el Pais de las Honduras
En el pais de las Honduras
(I wrote this up yesterday (Tuesday), but didn't get a chance to post it.)
Hello to everyone at home! I hope you are all well! It has been two weeks already here in the Honduras. Sorry for not posting earlier, but we have been quite busy. Jonathan and Melanie left last Friday, so now I have a lot more time. I am using my spare time for my Greek and also am putting chords to the songs in the Langendoen's hymnbook. We three (Jonathan Reistma, Melanie Smit, and I) arrived here almost two weeks ago on a Wednesday after a LONG trip (8 hour stop-over in Washinton). We were quite tired when we got here, so we rested in the morning, then went through the neighbourhood around the church inviting kids to a two day vacation Bible school. That was held on Thursday and Friday morning, and went quite well. Mrs. Langendoen did most of the teaching, though I did help out a little in my stilted Spanish. One big mistake I kept on making was saying hombro (shoulder) instead of hombre (man). I'm sure the result was somewhat amusing at times (e.g. the Good Samaritan helped the poor 'shoulder' onto his donkey :) ), but hopefully people understood what I meant. We had twenty-eight kids in total. Saturday was a free day which we used to do a lot of shopping. (If anyone wants any vanilla, just ask me. I have two 500 mL bottles for Mom which cost just 15 lempiras (about 75 cents) each!) On Monday, we left for Choluteca in the South. Pastor Langendoen used to pastor there, so we went to visit his previous church there. It was very hot (30-35 degres). The people in the South are very poor. (I'll have to put some pictures up once I get back to Canada.) We had a small program at two different villages there on Tuesday. At Nuevo Reunion, we had 60 kids, and it went very well. At Ojo de Agua, we had over 80 kids. This was a little frenetic (proper word?) at times. The kids at the first place knew the story of the Good Samaritan already, but the kids at the second did not. On Wednesday, we travelled back to Comayagua. On Thursday, we had another free day in which we did a lot of shopping. Jonathan and Melanie bought 7 or 8 machetes between the two of them. (Would anyone like a machete? They are around $10 each.) On Friday, Melanie and Jonathan left. Saturday we cleaned up around the house. Peter (L.) and I were digging the back garden, and we saw EIGHT different tarantulas of varying sizes! Crazy, eh? On Sunday, we had church in the morning (1 sermon by Pastor Orlando, followed by a Catechism study by Pastor Langendoen). In the afternoon, the young people came over, which was a lot of fun. Yesterday (Monday), Pastor Langendoen, Pastor Orlando and I went to a bookstore in Siguetepeca and to visit there. It was the most beautiful stretch of road I've seen yet in the Honduras, but I forgot my camera!! Honduras is quite a beautiful country. There are many small razorbacks everywhere and not many flat sections. (Our airplane landing into Tegucigalpa was quite interesting. The runway there is very short, and to get to it we had to go through a curving valley!) This post is starting to resemble one of those long Jonathan epistles. :) I had better stop soon. I'll wrap up by saying that I am enjoying myself a lot, and am well and healthy. (Praise God that none of us got sick while we were here! It is not uncommon.) I do miss you all at home, and I am looking forward to seeing you in a week. Please continue to pray for me and the Langendoen's and for the work especially. Bye for now!
(I wrote this up yesterday (Tuesday), but didn't get a chance to post it.)
Hello to everyone at home! I hope you are all well! It has been two weeks already here in the Honduras. Sorry for not posting earlier, but we have been quite busy. Jonathan and Melanie left last Friday, so now I have a lot more time. I am using my spare time for my Greek and also am putting chords to the songs in the Langendoen's hymnbook. We three (Jonathan Reistma, Melanie Smit, and I) arrived here almost two weeks ago on a Wednesday after a LONG trip (8 hour stop-over in Washinton). We were quite tired when we got here, so we rested in the morning, then went through the neighbourhood around the church inviting kids to a two day vacation Bible school. That was held on Thursday and Friday morning, and went quite well. Mrs. Langendoen did most of the teaching, though I did help out a little in my stilted Spanish. One big mistake I kept on making was saying hombro (shoulder) instead of hombre (man). I'm sure the result was somewhat amusing at times (e.g. the Good Samaritan helped the poor 'shoulder' onto his donkey :) ), but hopefully people understood what I meant. We had twenty-eight kids in total. Saturday was a free day which we used to do a lot of shopping. (If anyone wants any vanilla, just ask me. I have two 500 mL bottles for Mom which cost just 15 lempiras (about 75 cents) each!) On Monday, we left for Choluteca in the South. Pastor Langendoen used to pastor there, so we went to visit his previous church there. It was very hot (30-35 degres). The people in the South are very poor. (I'll have to put some pictures up once I get back to Canada.) We had a small program at two different villages there on Tuesday. At Nuevo Reunion, we had 60 kids, and it went very well. At Ojo de Agua, we had over 80 kids. This was a little frenetic (proper word?) at times. The kids at the first place knew the story of the Good Samaritan already, but the kids at the second did not. On Wednesday, we travelled back to Comayagua. On Thursday, we had another free day in which we did a lot of shopping. Jonathan and Melanie bought 7 or 8 machetes between the two of them. (Would anyone like a machete? They are around $10 each.) On Friday, Melanie and Jonathan left. Saturday we cleaned up around the house. Peter (L.) and I were digging the back garden, and we saw EIGHT different tarantulas of varying sizes! Crazy, eh? On Sunday, we had church in the morning (1 sermon by Pastor Orlando, followed by a Catechism study by Pastor Langendoen). In the afternoon, the young people came over, which was a lot of fun. Yesterday (Monday), Pastor Langendoen, Pastor Orlando and I went to a bookstore in Siguetepeca and to visit there. It was the most beautiful stretch of road I've seen yet in the Honduras, but I forgot my camera!! Honduras is quite a beautiful country. There are many small razorbacks everywhere and not many flat sections. (Our airplane landing into Tegucigalpa was quite interesting. The runway there is very short, and to get to it we had to go through a curving valley!) This post is starting to resemble one of those long Jonathan epistles. :) I had better stop soon. I'll wrap up by saying that I am enjoying myself a lot, and am well and healthy. (Praise God that none of us got sick while we were here! It is not uncommon.) I do miss you all at home, and I am looking forward to seeing you in a week. Please continue to pray for me and the Langendoen's and for the work especially. Bye for now!
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Steve & Ruth's Birthday Party
This past Friday, we had a birthday party for Steve and Ruth at our house. I think we had over 20 people over, which made for a full downstairs and a great night of fellowship! Here are some pictures of the night.
The birthday man himself. (Ruth had a beautiful matching hat too.)
We played a very rousing game of 'Cat Loves Dog'. For those who have never had the fun of playing this game, it involves hitting people as hard as you want (or as hard as you can, in some cases, not to mention any names) with a newspaper bat. Quite invigorating!
And some more pictures...
The birthday man himself. (Ruth had a beautiful matching hat too.)
We played a very rousing game of 'Cat Loves Dog'. For those who have never had the fun of playing this game, it involves hitting people as hard as you want (or as hard as you can, in some cases, not to mention any names) with a newspaper bat. Quite invigorating!
And some more pictures...
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