December greetings to all!
Thanks to each of you that follow our family’s story, support us and pray for us. As you know by now 2018 brought an international move for us. Instead of a tiny, hot, rural homestead in Honduras, we are living in a little, frozen, urban apartment in Pittsburgh, PA. "Home" for the time being looks just a little different...
As you know from our last update, Kaleb was accepted and offered a substantial scholarship to earn his Master’s Degree in International Development at The University of Pittsburgh. This does not mean we are leaving our work/ministry - actually quite the opposite! We are using this opportunity to improve what we do(Christ Centered Holistic International Development) and become more effective in our work. We continue to work part-time with HTH… the view around the office is just a bit different.
As of Friday, December 14th, Kaleb wrapped up his first semester of classes. This semester has proven to be extremely worthwhile and the program is already having practical implications for the way we work in Honduras. How so? Here is an overview of this semester's classes.
Governance, Local Government, and Civil Society – Most of our work with HTH is in what political scientists call “civil society.” Civil society is basically the arena of voluntary associations that inhabit the space between families and government. Heart to Honduras as an NGO (non-governmental organization) is part of civil society (in this case, one that is focused on holistic development). What else qualifies? Churches, community councils, water boards, social action groups, and more – In our job in Honduras not a day goes by that we do not have deep interaction with one or more of these groups. So you can already see how it relates! In this class, Kaleb focused much of his personal research on how civil society in Latin America can better work with local government and local communities to create lasting change.
Development Policy and Administration – This core class focused on the implications of policy in international development. How does regional water management policy improve health in Latin America? How does agricultural price banding prevent (or exacerbate) famines in Africa? How does women’s empowerment policy in Bangladesh improve childhood malnutrition? Kaleb’s writing in this class focused on meaningful, deep involvement of local citizens in development programs in Latin America.
Microeconomics – This graduate level introduction to economics set up the basics of economics within firms, industries, and countries so that we will later be able to study world and regional macroeconomics and the economics of development.
Quantitative Methods – The first of two classes that Kaleb will take in statistics while at Pitt, this class was focused on how to substantiate changes as either statistically significant or insignificant as well as how to see through weak data and create strong and true data. It also brought in practical advice on how to not rely too heavily on statistical significance. Practically, this will help us with HTH understand which of our programs are making the greatest difference in our region so that we can continually improve and to serve those around us.
This coming semester (Spring 2019), Kaleb will be taking classes in Program Evaluation, Public Policy Analysis, Intermediate Quantitative Methods, and Political Sociology.
We are staying very connected with our Honduran neighbors, co-workers and friends as well as our organization, Heart to Honduras. Both Kaleb and Stacey work several hours a day to keep up with our continued part-time position. Much of our time is spent working alongside community born initiatives that we call Transformational Initiatives (see some of those initiatives here) as well the pilot program Communities of Holistic Impact (CoHI) that launched this past February. This new program just finished up its first year. You can read all about it in our comprehensive update….as you can see it takes a large portion of our time.
Many of you knew Micah Chizever was hired on with HtH in May to live in Honduras and help us fulfill many of our on the ground duties while we are away. Unfortunately, Micah was unable to continue in this role for a variety of reasons, and is no longer working with HTH. This has left our plate of responsibilities much fuller, especially here at the end of the year. We shared many of our ongoing responsibilities with the ministry in our summer update (link here) if you’d like to understand more of what specific things we are doing on a daily basis you can read at that link. In addition to these daily things we have also done a fair share of traveling for the ministry this fall. We have visited with numerous current and potential partner churches and individuals in PA, OH, and KS, including a presentation at Ohio State University about the type of work we are doing in Honduras.
Our little family business de Palo Products, continues to chug along. Although between school, family life and Heart to Honduras, it does not get much attention, we have had a few sales as we get close to Christmas. If you're still looking for an easy gift for coffee-lovers in your life, check out the ready-to wrap de Palo Christmas box kits!
Living in Pittsburgh has allowed us to enjoy many things that our years in Honduras did not like leaving home after dark, security, comfort, convenience, and access to things like smooth roads, quality healthcare close by, super market and fast food options, climate control, a sofa!, wifi!, parks to walk to, libraries to visit, family & friends within short driving distances, trusted babysitters(breaks from our kids!), exercise, healthy eating and so much more! One of the girl’s favorites has been the zoo, we go several times a month to visit the animals! Alida is now 4.5yrs. old and Eliana will turn 2 in January! Since 2011 when in the States for short visits we have always lived with someone or bounced house to house which is always exhausting. It has been a blessing to have a small first floor rented apartment to call our home for now.
We have loved being closer to family these past few months - especially near this time of Thanksgiving and Christmas.
We are also very much looking forward to seeing our Honduran family and friends at the end of this month. We will all be traveling to Honduras from December 29 until January 6 – just in time for Kaleb to get started again with classes on January 7! We will spend most of that time working and prepping for the next year of Holistic Impact as well as wrapping up some of the work from 2018. We appreciate your prayers for that time of travel and the semester that follows. After next semester, we will be traveling back to Honduras for the summer of 2019.
This semester has been quite the transition – from one very different life to another. It has left us feeling a bit like a foreign family, and reminds of us that original displaced person – Jesus – especially at this time of year. Leaving behind his native culture, his security, and his preferences he came to us. He came to know what it means to be human in all of our amazing strengths and tremendous weakness. He knew it would be more than a visit – he knew that he would leave His life behind. He knew the price of that visit to earth.
As we finish this year, let us be reminded of the precedent that he left us. Let us not hesitate to reach out to someone different, be them an odd neighbor, someone who doesn’t speak our language, or someone in need of a friend. Follow his example – cross that barrier. Make time and space in your life for true relationships.
Let us love like the Christ of Christmas.
Thanks once again to all of you that stand steadfastly alongside us in this endeavor. Thank you for your love, prayers, and financial support. Our story is not just our family's story, it is the story of all of us who seek to reach across the divide and love like we too have been loved. We are just small actors in this cosmic play, but we are so glad that our plot has mixed with yours.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.