As soon as we finished pouring the final floor section of the Activity Center the crowds came to enjoy it.  Already we've hosted a field trip group from a different village, brought in our local elementary school for their "Day of the Child" celebration, and used it for our regular library activities. 

We so enjoyed being able to share our space with the community.  So, thanks to everyone who helped with the designing, the finances, or the manual labor that helped this building come into being -- the kids love it! 

As many of you know, it has been a long process to get permission to take in kids here in Honduras.  For a year and a half now we have waited for  Give Hope 2 Kids  to be recognized as a Honduran non-profit.  Our papers would slowly move from one desk to another, always waiting for the next signature.  For about a year our papers pretty much sat in one spot, due to the unstable political climate here in 2009.  Well after all that, we want to announce that we are finally a Honduran non-profit! 

So, where to next?  Now we will be working with the social services here to open our Children's Home.  We have to travel to the capital of Honduras and submit our full plan for the operation of the Children's Home.  They will review our plan, most likely ask for changes, and then they will review our facilities, and possibly ask for changes there too.  Depending on what they require, this process could go very quickly or take several months.  We certainly hope this final step will move along rapidly and smoothly, as we are very excited to take in the first kids.

The other crucial step at this time is finding the right houseparents to care for the kids.  Many people have advised us to go to a particular part of Honduras to find houseparents, which is an area where we have few connections.  So this search for houseparents will be an adventure in itself.  It is so important to find the right people from the start.  We want our kids to have consistent and good caretakers in their lives from the beginning, so they can grow up in an environment that closely models normal family life.

Please keep us in your prayers as we move closer and closer to opening  Give Hope 2 Kids'  Children's Home.

She is growing and getting more rambunctious all the time.  She loves swinging in the cocoa trees and chumming with the dogs. 

Several months ago when Jason's Father, Paul Furrow, came to visit, he spent time up at the elementary school while Jason was teaching English classes.  He got it in his heart to help put new roofs on two of the buildings there. 

We teach our English classes in the assembly hall of the school and the roof on that building was getting dangerous.  Many of the wood rafters had termite damage or were rotted and part of the roof actually had several inches of plant life growing on it.  It was time for it to be fixed. 

We just enjoyed having a group come from Life Church with Jason's Dad, Paul Furrow.  The big project for their trip was to get the new roofs up on two buildings at our elementary school.  In preparation, men from our village pulled off the old roof and took down a few trees.  Then our Honduran work crew built the rafters and prepared the buildings for the new roofs.  When the group arrived we were amazed that they got both roofs up in just over a day of work.  With another few days of work they put in all new wiring into the assembly hall and the kindergarten, both for lights and for a little computer lab (that we hope to put in as an upcoming project).

We are excited to have such a strong group of visionary leaders behind us and we appreciate the time they gave to come and walk our property with their own two feet.