Saying Good-Bye

We are currently in our last week of exams, and can hardly believe that they year is almost over. It seems like it took so long at times, yet went by so quickly that we are now finishing the school year. As we are having our last classes with students, saying good-bye and preparing for our return to California in a few weeks, we have been spending a lot of time reminiscing over this past year. There have definitely been hard times and stressful weeks trying to get prepared for our classes, but over all, we are both glad to have had this year here in Honduras. As we look back over the year we are choosing to focus on the good, the reasons we are glad we came here.

Panacom Hike

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  The Beautiful Caribbean as seen in Belize 

Here are a few of our highlights from this school year:

Volcano in Guatemala

• Hiking Panacom, a beautiful natural reserve here in Honduras, with some of our coworkers
• Spending a week in Belize over our Christmas break
• Visiting Antigua, Guatemala and hiking a volcano with some of our coworkers

• Being in a Honduran parade with our students
• Learning how to cook Honduran food from our friends here

• Spending weekends at the beach or Panacom and taking in God's beautiful creation 
• Chaperoning the trip to the Island of Utila with some of our students and all of the adventures that ensued there... 
  

  

  Karen and grade 10

  

  Darrell and grade 11 on a hike

Water Park with coworkers Fany and Osiris

• Spending teacher appreciation day at a water park with all of our coworkers and going down water slides with our non-adventurous Spanish coworkers 

•  Dinners and game nights with our friends, Ben and Kaitlyn
• Having dinners at the homes of various Honduran families and experiencing their wonderful hospitality
• Teaching some of our coworkers and their husbands how to country line dance and couple dances
• Watching our students compete in mini-Olympics (below), and various soccer games 

  

• Performing High School Musical for our students (Karen was called Sharpea for weeks after) 
  

  

  Cultural Dancing
  

The High School Musical Crew

• Dancing a traditional Honduran dance with our students on Culture Day 
  
• Playing ultimate frisbee almost every weekend with our Bible study (below)

   

Zip-line in Nicaragua

 Some of Darrell's highlights:

• Grade 2 science fair presentations
• Goofing off with grade 11
  
• Soccer/basketball with the Samuel and Jairo
  
• Learning to play backgammon 
• Sports Day, 2 full days of competition between local churches playing soccer, basketball, and volleyball
• Zip-lining in Nicaragua 
• Coffee
• Being the Mister of Science
• Watching Olympia win the championship, twice
• Amazing lunches of fajitas, pupusas, tacos mexicanos, and baleadas from Dona Kati
  

Some of Karen's highlights: 

• Being attacked with hugs and high fives every time I enter the grade 7 classroom
• Assigning my students projects and presentations and being blown away by how some of my students perform above and beyond my expectations
• Getting random notes from students and coworkers about how they are glad for my service here
• Being invited to eat meals with my Spanish coworkers during recess

  

  Pupusas with Becky
  

• Watching my grade 10 students dress up professionally for their mock-interviews
• Teaching science to my grade 9 students, I just love that class
• Having random tangent conversations with my grade 8 science class about topics like WWII and the nuclear bomb, how traits are passed from parents to children, or the way things decay 
• Making a movie with my grade 11 class for one of their media projects 
• Grading science fair projects and seeing the adorable pictures of my students working on their projects and their creative ideas 



Science Fair

• Running every week with my good friend, Debra 

  

  Yeah for Debra!