Three weeks in!

   

     It has been a blessed 21 days so far in the mountains of Honduras with our family. There have been a lot of surprises so far, some great ones, and some not so good ones. We discovered that evidently scorpions really like Maddie, as she has been stung twice so far. Fortunately the scorpions here aren’t deadly, just carry a painful sting. Funny though is that after the first hysterical fit, and rightly so, the second bite happened and she walked into our room, woke us up and said I think I got stung again by a scorpion, will you come kill it. So we marched in at 3 in the morning, found the scorpion in the sheets next to Myra, and squashed it.

    We miss our friends and our families very much. We also miss a/c a lot :). I miss 5 guys burgers and fries, Panini Pete’s, and hash browns from waffle house. Our kids miss their friends, candy, and chik-fil-a. But saying all that, we are so grateful to God that the transition has gone amazingly well. All these things didn’t catch us by surprise. Of course our friends and family would be missed, it happened when we moved from Birmingham to Columbus, and from Columbus to Fairhope, but through each move, God always provided for us through enduring friendships and with new friendships. Friends are never replaced, but God adds new friends to the fold which we have always been grateful for. Of course, if you are friends with me on Facebook, you would know I love to eat good food and some of my favorites I definitely miss.  That is not to say food here isn’t delicious, it definitely has been and we are surrounded with some great Honduran cooks!

     As we have begun this journey, the biggest thing we have held onto is Gods promises. He doesn’t promise us that change is going to be easy, that everything will be successful and there will never be any hiccups along the road. –(James 1:2, 3 HCSB) Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials,  knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. —  Just ask John the Baptist how his life turned out after leading the way for Jesus. Or ask Peter, Paul, and Stephen and many others how following God worked out for them. But they continued to hold tight to His promises, and they knew that God would not turn from them, and He would carry them through everything. They knew that the glory of Jesus was worth everything!–(Isaiah 43:2 HCSB) I will be with you when you pass through the waters, and [when you pass] through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. You will not be scorched when you walk through the fire, and the flame will not burn you. –(Deuteronomy 31:6, 8 HCSB) Be strong and courageous; don’t be terrified or afraid of them. For it is the Lord your God who goes with you; He will not leave you or forsake you.”… The Lord is the One who will go before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.” –Now, we aren’t implying that what we are doing is anything compared to them, just using their example of trusting in Christ through hardships. We have felt God’s love through everything, through fun times and through the challenging times. We have felt His presence and have not doubted Gods plan for us.

     The kids have had fun seeing us more often than when we were back in the states. They have enjoyed the kids here at the orphanage and the local kids in the village.

There are two other volunteer families here that 3 young children ages 2,2,and 1 and they have loved playing with them. If you know my Maddieboo, you know that the first thing she wants to do is pick up every young child and carry them around, and she has gotten plenty of that.

     It’s been great being accepted by everyone here from the Americans to the Honduran families. The Honduran workers try their best to communicate with us, but usually it ends with everyone laughing at each other. They try their best to teach us the language, but we must try harder to learn their language, after all, we are here on their turf, it’s our duty to learn their language and culture as best as we can. They have already taught us so much, how to take care of their farm animals, (sheep, cows, pigs, chickens) how to use the cow milk to make yogurt and cheese, how to make peanut butter etc. we will try to do a self-sustainability blog in the future to show some of the things we at GiveHope2Kids orphanage are doing to try and not rely on money from the US and try to do everything we can here to produce food and materials here. Also learning how to do quickbooks and PayPal has gone well. As we have said before, our main goal is to be here for 2 years and help out wherever we can, show the love of Christ everyday, and learn everything we can about running an orphanage. Don’t know  how much help we have been, or if we have truly shown the love of Christ to those we meet everyday, but we have definitely learned a lot in these 3 quick weeks.

     The coolest thing of all though, is at several different times we have been able to stand back and just watch the kids interact with each other and with the volunteers and see the joy they have, a joy that probably wasn’t there 2 years ago before they came. They now they are loved, they are provided for with clothes, education, food, and fun things to do, but most importantly they have been taught about our Savior Jesus, the only true hope there is. 

     –(Romans 15:13 HCSB) Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  We are looking forward to having 5 more kids in the next week or two and we are excited to see how God works in there lives and produces an everlasting HOPE. 

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It’s finally time!

The Day is Finally here,

It’s been a couple of weeks since our last update, and boy has it been busy.  With nine months to plan the move, you would have thought the final days would have been a little easier.  Difficult and challenging as it has been, we have been overwhelmed with our friends, our families, and our Church, COTES.TV, supporting us, walking through everything with us.  The support we have received has been amazing, something we would have never thought we would have gotten, and definitely don’t deserve.

Through everything, it has been very easy to see God walking with us through it all, maybe even sometimes carrying us through it, but never leaving us alone.  We have sold just about everything, our cars, our toys, clothes, furniture, my beloved grills and smoker!  And through it all, it hasn’t been as challenging as we thought it would be, it has actually been quite freeing.  Now, I’m not here telling everyone they should sell all the fun stuff, heck, we would love to borrow it when we come back on our return trips.  But for us at this time, it was the right thing to do.  Hopefully in the next month or so, we will be selling our house also, God willing.

One of the most amazing things over the past 9 months has been seeing our kids hearts fall in love with Honduras and the kids at GiveHope2Kids.  At first, they both weren’t too excited about the move, and understandably so, but since they were able to go and experience and see the orphanage, they have been pumped about getting back.  As we were boarding the plane in Atlanta, my daughter found out Jason at the orphanage was going to go and get them 2 chicks, and a huge smile broke out over her beautiful face.

The most difficult thing over the past couple of weeks is the relationships.  So often we take for granted our friends and families, but its been incredibly hard saying goodbye, even though its not a goodbye forever.  Though we know they are with us, join us on the team as we follow God to Honduras, it is still hard knowing we cant just pop in and say hello, or go to hang out whenever.  Thankfully with technology, we will still be able to stay in touch.  Feel free to join us on skype at audent2001, or download viber app on your smart phone and we can still talk and text for free over wifi.

Another hard thing is not being able to join our local church family at COTES.TV.  we will miss serving alongside so many.  We will miss  the awesome worship through music, teaching, serving, etc we have experienced over the past 5 years.

However, through all that, we are all incredibly excited to begin this new adventure, following alongside God in His mission in a new place for us.  Overwhelmed that we would get to work alongside such an amazing Savior, filled with a powerful Holy Spirit and comforted by Our ABBA Father, we head out, knowing we are not alone!  We think we know what this next year may look like, however, God truthfully only knows how everything will play out.  Looking forward to learning, following, serving, ministering, giving and worshipping an amazing almighty God.  Join our team and we serve in Honduras!

Thanks for all the support.  We love ya’ll and God bless

The Bakers