Photos are of the following:
1) Rodolfo and Aunt Johna nervously enjoying parrots at a bird sanctuary near the Copan Indian Ruins in northern Honduras.
2) Isaac and his boys having lunch with us in a typical village outside of Tegucigalpa after site seeing.
3) Isaac sharing part of his testimony with extremely poor who live and/or work at the city dump gathering recyclable junk
4) Jennifer, cousin Laina, and Aunt Johna working with medical team for a day, mainly spending time in children's ministry
5) Another city dump photo serving lunch to about 100 adults and children who live/work at the dump collecting junk to resell
Our furlough Then we headed back to the States for furlough and really enjoyed the long-awaited time with family and friends. Ministry has been a challenge for us for a while and our last furlough had been 1½ years ago, so we really felt worn out and in need of family time and a cultural change. We got to go to Arkansas, Indiana, and California and loved every minute of it. We enjoyed time with supporters, got treated to Wild River Country in Little Rock, got spoiled at the William’s lake house, and much, much more. We even got some time with family members we haven’t seen since our wedding 8 years ago. The bummer about our furlough is that we only see most family and friends for a day or two each due to the time limitations with traveling to see them, so every moment was very valuable and enjoyable to us. We also got 2 weeks to work on our rental house in California that Robert bought years ago (Jennifer calls that our “missionary retirement plan”). It was an opportunity for us to teach Rodolfo some basic home repair skills as well as giving him an opportunity to earn some spending money for the summer. Then toward the end of our trip, family invited us to Disneyland to celebrate Robert’s 40th birthday. It was a ton of fun, too, and another “first” for Rodolfo. The time in the States was a real treat for us and revived us in the ways we needed in order to be geared up and ready to return to Honduras.
Photos are the following: 1) Us building a fence at rental in California 2) Rodolfo with cousins in Indiana
3) Rodolfo with cousins in California 4) Jennifer and mom at friend's baby shower 5, 6) with family in California
Political struggles Our return to Honduras has fortunately been uneventful as far as politics is concerned. Our airplane was only to 20% occupancy, which the airline stewardess said has been typical since the political instability over the past 2 months. Our Bridge House youth are all safe although at one point 2 of them accidentally found themselves way too close for comfort to the riots and violence. But God protected them both and gave them a way of escape into safety once again. We did see the Popeye’s Restaurant that got burned down in the next neighborhood, and all of the graffiti that litters the walls of each main road in the city announcing anti- and pro-political slurs. It is sad to see but a reminder just the same for the great need for prayer as political issues are still unstable. Even with its instability, the need for ministry is still great and, just as the graffiti, can also be seen everywhere. Please pray for our safety while we continue to serve in Honduras.
Blessings, Robert and Jennifer Butts
