Visa Trip - Belize

Every three months we have to leave Honduras to renew our visa. In December we took a trip just the two of us to Belize. It was an amazing time of relaxation and quality time together. We stayed at a nice little hotel on the beach front, and to our surprise (literally we got of the boat and said "habla espanol?" to the first person we met) we found out that everyone speaks English in Belize. It used to be an English colony, so English is one of the main languages. The overall atmosphere is laid back and relaxed. Which made the little beach town of Placencia a great spot to take a vacation.


The beach in front of our hotel was simply beautiful!

We rented bikes one day and biked up the peninsula to Maya Beach for lunch and some relaxing in the hammocks. It was a fabulous day and the fish there was delicious!


Biking up to Maya Beach.

This one is for my cousin, Maya ;)


The super awesome ocean cabana, built over the ocean!


Relaxing in the ocean cabana after filling our stomachs with delicious fish.

We spent another afternoon kayaking through a lagoon to the open ocean where we unknowingly caught a fish that literally jumped into Darrell's lap, that was quite unexpected and made for a good laugh.

It was so nice to be on vacation and have the ability to sleep in each morning without any plans for the day or anywhere we needed to be, to go on dates each night and eat delicious food - shrimp, fish, vegetables, cajan food, etc.

One day we took a tour to Laughing Bird Caye (pronounced key) to snorkel. The island they took us to was a national park and was the most beautiful turquoise ocean we had ever seen. It looked like the pictures you see on post cards and think they are edited in Photoshop, but they're not!

While snorkeling we saw squid, gigantic lobsters, many brightly colored fish, swam with schools of fish, and even saw a nurse shark! It was awesome.


The beautiful Laughing Bird Caye...

...where we snorkeled!

Our vacation was wonderful. We returned to Siguatepeque, Honduras to spend Christmas and New Years in our home here. Sadly, Karen was sick for the holidays.

Now we are back working at our school, and are very busy once again. We are glad to be here, and glad to be investing in our students lives. We know God is using us here to further His kingdom and are thankful. Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to teach and work here in Honduras.

Cooking Honduran Food

Over our past four months here, Karen has had the opportunity to learn how to cook various types of traditional Honduran food. Darrell has had the opportunity to eat them.

Check out some pictures of Karen making homemade tortillas, refried beans, and fried plantains to make baleadas with our neighbors, Dixie, Reina, Zeida, and Nancy.

homemade refried beans

Platano Fritos - Karen's Favorite!

Making Tortillas

The finished product - to make a baleada, you simply take a tortilla, spread some refried beans, mantequilla, and cheese inside with your favorite toppings, in our case avacado and plantanos!

Everyone enjoying their baleadas.


Check out some pictures of Karen and her coworkers learning how to make papusas with our friend Becky Vega and her family.

First you have to chop up all the ingredients for the filling, toppings and sauce.

Then you have to grind your fillings so they become soft (kind of like ground beef)

When all the prep is done, you put your fillings inside the papusa dough, roll it into a ball, flatten the ball so it looks like a tortilla, then cook it like a pancake.

Karen got to be in charge of the grill.

The finished product - Papusas! mmmm, so delicious!

Culture Day

We had a wonderful culture day. The students in grades 7-9 constructed these booths that they decorated for the various departments of Honduras they represented. We had the privilege of acting as judges for the booths which meant learning a lot about the different departments of Honduras and eating a lot of delicious traditional Honduran food!

We also danced a traditional Honduran dance with the grade 11 students. Everyone had a lot of fun watching our dance and we were pretty popular afterwards - we received a lot of comments on how Honduran we looked, or that they had never seen a Honduran gringo before, or that they thought we danced better than real Hondurans...needless to say, it was a lot of fun!

Here are some pictures from the day:


Here are the students and Darrell getting the booths ready.


Comayagua is the department of Honduras that contains their capitol, Comayagua. We actually got to got here one weekend and see the oldest clock in all of the Americas. It still works the same way it did when it was built. Pretty neat!


Valle is a department by the sea that has a lot of produce.


Cortes is well known for their ports and shipping.


Santa Barbara is known for their wicker-work, hats and baskets, etc.


'Gracias a Dios' is a farming department in Honduras, and yes the students brought in a real cow for the day.


Atlantida is another coastal department that gave us delicious pina smoothies!



The Bay Islands are the most famous tourist destinations in Honduras.



Copan is known for their famous Mayan ruins. Check out their awesome homemade statue!


Even though grade 10 did not make a booth, they sold delicious Honduran food. Here are some of the foods sold by all the grades:


A delicious potato like dish and an 'India'.

A catratcha which is also the slang word for a Honduran.

A baleada, simple beans and cheese tortilla snack, but oh soooo good!






And of course our traditional Honduran Dancing! We look like real Catratchas.