Sidenote: Right now I’m listening to Lecrae – Don’t Waste Your Life. If you like rap at all, even a little, you should get his Rebel album. He’s really good, and he has more theology in one of his songs than a lot of pulpits.

Last August my dad came down with Amanda’s family and Mark Hayes and we built the boat playground, but I wasn’t able to get a slide here in time for us to put it on when we built it. We FINALLY got one. I bought a really nice tube slide that swirls for only $99. They usually cost $480 at Home Depot, but they we’re getting rid of the last one. The problem was getting to Honduras from Tennessee. I got some shipping quotes and they wanted $1200 to get it here. INSANE! Long story short, FedEx shipped it to Honduras for FREE!!! It arrived here in Honduras about a week and a half ago, but it’s still at the FedEx location in another city. They need some kind of number from us before they will deliver it… and I have no clue what they are needing. So, pray that I can find out what they want and how to obtain what they want. I know that it seems like it would be no big deal, but I’ve hardly experienced anything that was simple to do here. Everything is always overly complex to do.

Yesterday was pretty hot, about 110 degrees, and for some reason they shut the power off in the city all day. So, that meant that there was no school either. So we went the beach all day. We had a great time, we went to a beach that Amanda and I had never been to. It was really clean, which is never the case, the water was super clear, and we were the only people there. The girls love the water, they’re all getting really good at swimming since we got the pool last year. They live in it and you can tell, because they are so dark.

]]> http://www.thebranumlife.com/?feed=rss2&p=531 1 http://www.thebranumlife.com/?p=524 http://www.thebranumlife.com/?p=524#comments Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:30:08 +0000 kylebranum http://www.thebranumlife.com/?p=524 It’s a little long, but worth 30 minutes of your time. Mission – Jesus style.

It’s been raining a lot lately. The ground is supersaturated, so the water just puddles into vast lakes in the yard. The electricity, also, has been going off a lot lately… but only on our street. Our apartment is on the corner of the street, so everything directly across from us has power. A big bummer happened a few days ago. The weed eater/string trimmer/whatever you wanna call it was stolen a few days ago. I’ve only used it about 6 or 7 times, hadn’t even had to put more string on it yet. It was a really nice one, too. A Stihl. Oh well : \

Thanksgiving is this week, so Amanda and Allison went to the store today after they took Ashley to the airport, and bought a turkey and other food to make on Thursday. We’re going to take dinner over to a really poor family that Allison met this week. Mariela, one of the EFP girls, was asked by the janitor at her school if the home that she lived in had a place for a newborn baby. So, Allison went with Mariela to meet the family and see what the best thing to do would be. She said the family has 5 children and they seem to love them, but are just very poor and don’t think that they can provide for another child. The father isn’t able to find a job. The baby was sick and the mother was telling Allison that the doctor had written a prescription for medicine, but it was so expensive and they wouldn’t be able to buy it. It costs about 5 US dollars. So, I think that we are going to try to help them financially so that they can take care of all of their kids.

Everything is going great, we’ll be going home for Christmas. It’s bittersweet. We’re really happy to be able to celebrate Christmas with our families, but we’ll be missing out on celebrating with our family here. So everyone in TN, as if someone from another place reads this, see you soon.

Two of the pictures are from when Denia first came to EFP from the hospital in February 2008. She was severely malnourished. She had eaten dirt just to try and make the hunger pains go away. The middle picture I took a couple of weeks ago. It has been about a year and a half since she came here to Eternal Family Project. You can see a huge difference in her, she doesn’t even look like the same person anymore.

I think it really relates to how we are, or should be, before and after we’ve been rescued from death and adopted into our new family, the family of God. We should be so changed and continually changing that people barely recognize us as who we used to be. Denia has been given a new chance with a new life. She was rescued from death and now lives a new life with people she can always call her family. She takes full advantage of everything that is offered to her, too. She always eats the food given to her, and then asks for more, vegetables and all. She’s super curious, constantly learning and growing, always complements everyone and loves her new family like they have always been there. That’s what God desires for us to be like. We should always be taking full advantage of what we’ve been given. We have the bread of life, and access to more knowledge than we will ever know in a lifetime of studying. Only as we feed ourselves with the food that has been given, God’s Word, just as Denia has to feed herself, will we ever grow and mature to be what God intended each of us to be. It would be crazy for Denia to refuse the food that is freely given to her, or to eat just a little once or twice a week, but often times that what many of us are doing. Many people have either completely rejected the free life that has been given and would rather try to save their own life by eating dirt or they, as Christians, think that once or twice a week can sustain them and nourish them enough to grow. We need to take full advantage of what we have been freely given, and God will surely change each of us so much that those around us will be in awe of the beautiful person that the Lord has changed us into.

Hey guys. The past week was a busy one. Allison went on a mini vacation with a friend from Canada to Utila, one of the Bay Islands of Honduras, to become a certified scuba diver. They were gone for a week and Amanda and I stayed with all the kids. It was a fun week. Jenci, the two-year-old, was sick most of the time, but other than that, things were smooth. There’s definitely not a lot of Amanda and Kyle time whenever there are so many to take care of, but God is good and has blessed us with this opportunity.

Denia lost her first tooth last week.

I brought my guitar back with me after our visit to Tennessee a while back and a few weeks ago we started a much needed Bible study for the gringos. There are usually about 6 or 7 of us. It is SO nice to be able to pray and worship the Lord together. It’s a lot different than just reading the Bible alone and listening to audio teachings by yourself or with one other person. It’s been a long time since we’ve been part of a group.

I recently read part of a book that I was going to start, the part that I read was a small pamphlet style book attached to the end of the book itself. Basically the guy was giving his reasons for not wanting to go church anymore. I read through it and decided that I wasn’t interested. I’m sure he has valid points in his book (politics, gossip, worldly focuses, man-made things that exist within churches which is totally what you should not be looking to), but I haven’t been in a church in a while and I could write a book on why I want to go to church. It’s a unique part of the Christian faith to be part of group of worshipers. It’s encouraging and refreshing, no matter the size. So anyway, we get together during the week to pray, sing and watch a service on iTunes. Britt Merrick, becoming one of my favorite teachers, posts his weekly service to be downloaded. So we have started a study of Hebrews and should finish in about 2012. Four weeks in and we are at Hebrews 1:2b, but it is so good and everyone loves it.

Two days ago we drove to San Pedro Sula to check out an orphanage ran by a friend and to introduce her to some other friends that lead mission teams through an organization called Mercy Ships. On the way, there was a big protest blocking the streets, so we decided to try and go around it. I wish I would have had my video camera with me. We shot down a small, extremely rough dirt road through a small town, weaving between houses and through people standing around and walking. Somehow we picked up a hitchhiking 8 yr old that rode in the back of the truck for a while, which turned hilarious when Gary, our friend, stepped out of the truck and told him to get out. The kid jumped faster than Gary could speak. He was on the ground in .0023 seconds. To further our dirt road, tiny town, protest avoiding escapades, we came to a river which had to be crossed. So without hesitation, we followed suit behind a few other vehicles and drove through the river. Obviously not really deep, but deep enough to add plenty of adventure to the already adventurous day. It was a river! The water was covering the bottom of the truck for sure. We made it.

Latest News
Last Friday the ex-president led a circus act at the Nicaragua – Honduras border, further proving his puppet master, Hugo Chavez’s, desire for Zelaya to be in power by force as he tried to enter into Honduras after being warned that he is not allowed to return right now, all of which received live uninterrupted CNN coverage. He obviously has no desire to serve the Honduran people, and couldn’t care less about the welfare of the people. His antics have stirred up anger and unrest as he encourages his small group of followers to revolt against the current peaceful government. This, in turn, is causing many injuries and a few deaths among many other problems. It’s a sad thing to see such helpless people caught in the middle of power struggle and illegal action, all of which will never hurt the wealthy politicians involved.

Lately I have been working on putting together/designing a sponsorship packet, program thingy for EFP. We’re almost finished with it and ready to send off for printing. We hope to finish it up and have it all printed for when Allison visits her home church in Florida in a few weeks. She plans to give a ministry update and share about the new sponsorship program.  We’re hoping the sponsorship will generate more income to help cover the costs at the EFP home, and give us a platform to approach and invite new churches and people to be involved and excited about what the Lord is doing with the abandoned, abused and forgotten children.

Kyle

We’ve been pretty lazy on the blog side of life lately, so I’m sure anyone that was reading this, isn’t anymore. So I’m now writing for the 50 spam bot things that send me comments every week like, “I really enjoyed reading this, how can I learn more about this topic” and “d.f,/gjspao9 zXCKLawnsbierfersth akgjhrnvlaksdbcvskvbft.comehjbfnkehnbieltubnreybk ajgbtkghbsv,ars”.

The past few weeks have been pretty calm here, despite what the news reports about how many supporters Zelaya, the ex-president, has and their “large” protests. Honduras continues on with life as usual. There have been large protests over the past few weeks, but mostly in support of Micheletti and the new government, which is something you’ll never see in the U.S. state ran media. They haven’t even came close to reporting what has actually happen here, the legality of it and reasons for the removal of a law breaking president. It seems, as always, there are other motives existing to exploit the freedom and power of the poor and innocent in order for something else to advance. Honduras is extremely brave, upholding their democratic constitution in the face of the “defenders of freedom”  the United States, United Nations, Organization of American States and European Union goliaths that are sided with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez among other socialist leaders. They would rather live in freedom with sanctions cutting them off from the rest of the world, and probably drive them further into poverty, than allow a law breaking, future dictator finish his presidential term. Enough about that. Please pray for freedom in Honduras to continue and for the safety of us and the rest of the innocent of Honduras.

Here’s an article written in the Wall Street Journal that gives an unskewed view of what the government and people of Honduras have done.

Read the article

Hi everyone!!! Things are good here!! We are excited to have some people from home here!! For those of you that don’t know Stacy Knowles and Kara Hollingsworth are here. They got in Friday morning and will be staying until Saturday. Since they are here we decided to take a trip to the orphanage (Kyle and I were really excited to go because we haven’t been since we have arrived here, so we’ve been wanting to go!!) The orphanage is always are really sad place to go, but it was exciting to see some progress that has been made there when we went this time. There is a new director and she seems to be doing some good things. There was a large group there the day before we visited and they installed a large playground outside with fake grass underneath and everything. It looks so nice!!! The day that we were there there was another group painting and playing with the kids!! So it looks like things are starting to get a little better and that is really really exciting!! I was really surprised to see very few of the same kids, because the last 3 times I have been, there have always been the same kids which is really sad because the public orphanage is suppose to be temporary until another placement is possible at a private orphanage. There were so many new kids and a lot of new babies. Kyle fell in love with a little girl, she is maybe two years old. They are not sure of her age or her name but she is so beautiful. You can tell that she hasn’t been there for long because she is timid and keeps to herself, but she fell in love with Kyle and she was really really sad when he put her down to leave. I think Kyle was about as sad as she was though. It’s ALWAYS hard to leave the orphanage, but when you fall in love with one kid that you want to take with you and you want to save and protect more than anything..leaving is unbearable. Here are some of the pictures from our trip there.

Stacy and Kara left yesterday morning to go on a medical trip to Las Flores with Heart 2 Heart (a local church and orphanage) they will be entertaining the kids that come with their parents to get medical care. From what I have heard they will be without electricity and with limited water for showering, but there is a river :) They should be having a great time. We will try to let you know how there trip was.