update from mary

since we last wrote, our group has had many adventures. sunday morning, we had the opportunity to visit kike's (our honduran camp director) church. because there were so many foreigners in the service, one of the pastors offered to translate. it was pretty excellent to join hondurans singing worship songs in spanish. we recognized a couple, but we got to learn a few more too.

that afternoon, we did laundry (as much as we could in the morning before the rain - it rains nearly every afternoon here) and then took off for the beach in tela. the ride was about 3.5 hours and we made a quick pit stop at the megaplaza an hour outside of tela. this mall easily beats our dinky little west towne and east towne malls. it didn't fit any of the rest of what we've seen in honduras, so we were a little culture-shocked.

anyway, we made it in to tela that night, ran out to the beach to play in the sand a bit and headed to bed. our hotel was right on the ocean, so we fall asleep to the sounds of the ocean waves crashing on the shore that night. incredible.

the next morning, we experienced honduran time when out boat ride to punta sol was over an hour late (which stinks when you tell everyone to get up really early and then you all just sit around. oh well). the boat ride out was only a little bumpy, and our destination was worth it. we stopped at a national park and were guided through a rainforest area - we saw tons of big blue crabs and little crabs, big 'ol spiders, and a couple of snakes. we climbed to the top of a tall point and saw a whole family of monkeys swinging through the trees and calling out to us. zoos really have nothing on national rainforest parks.

after that, we swam through an open air tunnel under a rock off the shore, swam into a cave and learned about mayan myths, and then sped off in our boat for lunch on a little piece of land where the natives live in simple huts. the meal there was the best one yet. we spent the afternoon swimming until the boat guys called us back (if you leave too late from the shore, it can be a beast to get back). as it was, it was a much bumpier ride on the return, but most of us did just fine (except for jon & our friend dave who had to sit up front - i think they're still having a hard time sitting down). it was actually kind of like taking a roller coaster back. really fun. that night, we ate steaks and scallops and shrimp. delicious. we all went to bed pretty early that night because we got so worn during the day.

the next morning, we had breakfast, went swimming, had lunch, went swimming, yep, it was a pretty excellent way to relax before camp begins today.

thanks for praying for us and passing on all your comments! they're an encouragement to us :) we'll post pictures of our adventures this past weekend sometime tonight.