Thanksgiving in Iowa

This Thanksgiving, Katie and I visited her brother's family...in Iowa. Since he is a pastor out in the boonies, he can't leave his church during all the significant holidays, when I have time off school, so this was the first chance we had to meet. It was fantastic. We ate, sat around, watched football, and shopped from 12 midnight to 1:30 am on "Friday morning" (late Thursday night). But the most fun was playing with Evelyn (older) and Anna (younger), Katie's nieces. Hilarious pictures ensue:

The costumes were a "Christmas present" from Aunt Gretchen (Katie's sister). Katie shot 178 photos while they yelled "cheese", occasionally got fussy, and pulled on their antennae. It was chaos...but it paid off.


Anna taking a walk in my shoes:

Evelyn and Katie reading a book:

Danny (Katie's brother) and I wanted to try out the costumes. For the sake of sensitive stomachs, I am omitting the picture of Danny in the full get-up*. The costume didn't survive...


Thanksgiving was a great chance to be normal for a second; to be a way from the feeling that I really should be studying instead of _______. Now that I'm back, I realize the difference between school-time and break-time. I can get through the next four weeks, but I really can't wait for Christmas!

*For the record, that photo doesn't physically exist. Yet the image haunts you still! mwahahaha!

Fun at Language School!

Horseback Riding!













Holding Parrots!














Culturally sensitive, sustainable micro-enterprise!












Getting sacrificed!

A history book made of stairs!

















The temple I was sacrificed on!
















Katie can make rocks smile!

Dancing Jaguars! (its really a carving of a dancing jaguar)

The Kids

The easiest people to connect to are naturally the kids. We liked photographing, they liked posing then checking the camera to see how it turned out. For those who are confused, yes 98% of the Honduran population is mestizo. We did a service project on the North Coast though, and met alot of African descent Hondurans (Garifuna). It happened to be my favorite place, so there are more photos from there.

The People We Worked With

There once was a group of American students who wanted to see what being a missionary was like (see left). Katie and Callie were the leaders (black and yellow shirts next to each other).









There once was another group of Latin American students who were learning how to be pastors and missionaries (see left). The Latin American and American groups got sent out to very interesting and unusual places together. They had to learn alot about their teammates' very different cultures.

This is Matt, my friend from the American group.
















This is part of the family we stayed with when we were in language school. Katie, Callie, Matt and i went to language school together.












Katie, Callie, and one of the missionaries' daughters. She was adorable, and liked building dams in the river with me.

Honduras Pictures: Pretty Pics

First, these are some pictures for setting.



Canchias: the compound where we stayed most of the time











Mountains near Canchias

Copan Ruinas: tourist town where we went to language school

Copan: see the little moto-taxi? They're about 4ft tall. I had to constantly fight the temptation to just push one over
















The North Coast: for one reason or another we ended up on the coast a few times. This time it was for fun on the beach!